Sunday, December 5, 2010

Beyond Theism

FAITH TODAY - Published May 15th 2010

I wish everyone would go out and read the book God at 2000.

This nifty little book by Morehouse Publishing is a series of lectures given at the University of Oregon by some of the best of today’s religious thinkers from our three sister religions; Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It is an easy read, because the question was one that we can all relate to. “Who is God for you? What does that mean to you?”

So there is very little academic double speak, or contemplation of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; instead, we find Marcos Borg, or Karen Armstrong, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, or Desmond Tutu all talking about their own personal faith in ways that we can get.

Since this is a work about modern Christian thought; the challenging thing for us to hear is that none of them see God as anything like how we saw “him” while we were growing up in Sunday School.

It is strange, isn’t it? How the way we see life, the universe and everything changes all the time, but the way we see religion, or our faith, or God, sometimes seems like it is stuck in Molasses.

So who is God to you?

The closest thing I think I have ever come to a personal definition is the concept of The Force from Star Wars (the old Star Wars, before there were microscopic God like aliens altering the fabric of the Force). This is not as wacky as it sounds; I don’t know if George Lucas was channelling God when he came up with this or what, but the force is a concept of divinity that actually makes sense to the modern post enlightenment, scientific, cynical, questioning people we have become.

I am not alone, I am connected to all things, and all things are connected to me. There is an invisible bond that has power, that inspires, that empowers, and that changes the fabric of the universe and my interaction with it. Consider that this force is neutral but can become either light or dark, and one chooses how they are going to interact with it becoming either Jedi or Sith.

Traditionally we call this Force the Logos; the Greek word for the creative Word of God. Which was in the beginning and all things came into being through it. Jesus became so capable of channelling the force that he was the living example of it, the Word Incarnate...

Think it is strange to use a Science Fiction movie to define God? Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, one of the greatest living scholars of Judaism, defines life as a video game:

It is a game that is played in a virtual environment we call “Earth” and has five rules:

1. You never know when the game is going to start.

2. You cannot ever stop playing the game once you start.

3. Just to keep you on your toes each player is awarded random and undeserved gifts and handicaps as they play.

4. Points are awarded whenever you discern that life is about more than you as a player, or whenever you catch glimpses of the divine.

5. Everything is connected to everything else.

Which brings us full circle to the force; and the modern concept of God that is actually not really mine, although I have applied it to Star Wars; but rather, the way a lot of people are seeing God and our relationship with God these days.

There has been a lot made about all these famous Atheists writing about how God doesn’t exist. The problem is, they suffer from the same thing that is stopping a lot of people from coming in our doors, and they are trapped in a thousand year old way of seeing God that just doesn’t make sense anymore.

I encourage you to read the book, to think about your faith, and to accept that God is beyond any way we can possibly explain it.