PART TWO
The Old Church:
Christianity's Partial Truths
…a lie which is all a lie may be
met and fought with outright,
but a lie which is part a truth
is a harder matter to fight..
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
For the past decade I have had a firsthand experience
in creating a new kind of church, attempting to be as true as I can to the simple
spirit of the "where two or more are gathered" form described by Jesus.
Through a process of trial and error I believe I have discovered how and why
traditional Christianity has not served that spirit fully. In service to my
passion for the possibilities for what a church can be, I offer the following
analysis of the traditional Christian Church, not so much as a complete, academic
critique on this huge subject, nor as any kind of final word, but more as a
personal, intuitive observation of the devolution of Christianity and the emergence
of the need for a new kind of church for the twenty-first century.
In Part Two, I present my perspective on how traditional
Christianity came to be what it is. I describe what I think was a misinterpretation
of Jesus' impulse to found a spiritual church, and how the resulting religion
operates from a very different intent than what initially inspired it. I identify
the major elements I believe compose the structure or "box" that Christianity
has constructed for itself and suggest the ways in which these elements tend
to advance religious rather than spiritual agendas, and what the difference
is. I will show that the history of Christianity is so enmeshed with the development
of the Western world, it has been and continues to be more a servant of culture
than Spirit, and, for those who get stuck in it, a place to regress rather than
self-realize.
In the rest of this book, I use the term Old Church as
a shorthand for Christian religious structures as they have developed in the
West and, more recently, in America. The term could just as easily be used to
refer to many non-Christian religious expressions, for all religions eventually
get in their own way by being religiously, rather than spiritually, oriented;
parallel dysfunctions occur in Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and other religions.
But for the purposes of this book, since it is the predominant religion of the
part of the world I live in, I'll stick to Christianity as my main subject.
The analysis in Part Two is not intended to be an exhaustive
study of any particular Christian denomination. Rather, it is intended as an
overview of some of the more obvious aspects of the religion. As such, I apologize
in advance for the many generalizations about Christianity as a whole that may
simply not be the case in specific churches.
For example, not all Roman Catholic churches toe the
Vatican's line. On a flight home from London a couple of years ago, I met an
elderly Irish priest whose description of his small Catholic parish in rural
Texas made me want to pack up and move out there. With sparkling good humor
he told me he thought the Pope's outmoded stance on the ordination of women
and birth control was the greatest obstacle facing Catholicism today. His assessment
of the Roman Church: "Too rich, too powerful!" In his parish, the
community literally built their church on weekends, laying the bricks with their
own hands. This priest's counsel to the mostly Latino members of his church
regarding church dogma: "Follow your heart." About church ritual:
"I've heard better confessions drinking coffee in a truck stop than in
the confessional." This man radiated so much sanity and goodwill, he inspired
me with hope about the state of certain individual churches.
While I am glad there are exceptions to the general points
I make here, I nevertheless feel the overview is necessary to show the tendency
of organized religion to eventually confine rather than liberate spiritual experience.
My intent is to stimulate awareness of the unconscious, unintended consequences
of religious organization, and not to condemn individual churches or denominations.
The term Old Church is used to indicate an archetype of organized religion as
it has developed in the Christian religion over the past two thousand years,
and not any specific denomination or church. When I cite individual churches
by name because they exhibit some of the tendencies of the Old Church, I do
so with a sincere acknowledgment of the good that any organization consciously
intends wherever two or more are gathered for a spiritual purpose. I also respect
the power of the unconscious to thwart that intention. I, too, have made such
attempts and failed.
Some of my criticisms of church obviously stem from the
personal abuse I received within it, but I believe these have been tempered
by my own botched attempts to do things differently. Although organized religion
must take responsibility for the inquisitions, holy wars and other evils it
has brought about, church is not an inherently bad thing. The traditional church
simply operates out of the distortions caused by a preoccupation with its own
survival. Yet, so we do not repeat the past we must not forget or dismiss too
quickly the mistakes the church has made. It is important to understand fully
how the form of church has in various ways dominated the content, in effect
smothering the spiritual potential which exists within it. As the church is
willing to expose the beliefs which underlie these distortions to a more developed
understanding, it can be forgiven for its shortcomings and encouraged to grow
beyond them. It is my hope that the church, founded, not by Jesus, but by well-meaning
disciples who were spiritual seekers in their own right, is ready to take a
hard look in the mirror, to gain the self-knowledge which will allow it to grow
to its fullest godlike expression.
I believe every soul longs for the fulfillment that only
comes of spiritual experience and expression. When we see the both the inner
and outer "saboteurs" that hinder that spirituality, it becomes possible
to transcend them and bring them into alignment with the thrust of our growth
and development. I offer my perspectives on the Old Church in this spirit, that
we might understand its place in the evolution of consciousness. Guided by the
light of this understanding, we need not discard its valuable elements nor be
limited by its partial truths. And when we are ready to move beyond the walls
of the Old Church and get out of the box containing traditional Christianity,
we will find there are other forms available for pursuing an authentic spiritual
experience. I call these forms the New Church. In Part Three of this book, I
will offer a description of this emergent New Church that provides direct access
to essential spirituality.