328 - Other-Worldly Christianity: Some Positive Consideration

Other-Worldly Christianity:
Some Positive Consideration
By Jay G Williams

"It is true that our political and social problems are monumental and need solution, but it may very well be that at their root is a deep spiritual crisis which makes any cleaning-up operations frustrating illusions. The truth is that we have lost touch with the depth of being and hence have become alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from our environment as a whole. The man who is divorced from his own unconscious can hardly be reconciled with his brother. Our society, like Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together by all the King's horses and men, no matter how well financed they be. In fact, they may only make matters worse."

WHILE most contempory theologians begin with either the critical world situation or with the biblical revelation of God and attempt to correlate one with the other, the phenomenologist of religion begins with neither. Instead he looks to man himself, particularly as he has expressed himself in the language, symbol, and rite of religion. Mircea Eliade, for instance, gathers together an immense amount of descriptive material from the manifold expressions of religion past and present and tries to determine if there are any significant patterns to be found there. That is, he specifically looks for those features which religions have in common.

His conclusions are, in many respects, spectacular. Whether one studies the ancient Sumerians or medieval Christianity or some tribe from central Africa, one discovers, he argues, strikingly similar

Jay G. Williams is Chairman of the Department of Religion at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. He holds degrees from Hamilton College, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Columbia University, and is the author of Ten Words of Freedom: An Introduction to the Faith of Israel (1971).

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symbols, myths, and practices. For instance, the idea of the Cosmic Tree with its roots in hell and its branches reaching into the seven heavens is to be found, in one form or another, all over the earth. So too is the worship of the Great Mother, the myth of the Deluge, certain mystical practices, etc., etc. But all this is commonplace to anyone who has read a book or two by Eliade. Over and over again, he reveals through an impressive accumulation of details just how similar man's religions have been. The names of God change and many elements vary, but there are also numerous central patterns which remain the same.

Such an approach is rejected a priori by many Christian theologians. Christianity, they proclaim, is unique; it is the special revelation of God to a chosen people. Other religions may share much in common, but Christianity stands apart as the one witness to the moment God truly revealed himself in history. Eliade, in a sense, would not disagree, for he is clearly aware of Christianity's distinctiveness, but he is also equally cognizant of the fact that as a religion Christianity shares much in common with other religions all over the world. His point is not that all religions are basically identical but that the various differences among them should not blind us to what they share in common. The fact is that no matter how far we go back in time or to what land we venture we find men living according to certain myths and using certain symbols which appear virtually universal.

Furthermore, if the researches of Carl Jung show anything, they reveal that these same fundamental patterns still manifest themselves in the dreams and visions of secular men today. The theologian may demythologize theological discourse, but the myths remain in the depths of man's psyche. For instance, Bultmann attacks the notion of a three-storied universe as woefully outmoded, and from a scientific point of view he is obviously correct. Nevertheless, the same man who consciously rejects the idea that heaven is "up there" may still dream of climbing or flying up to heaven or of descending into the firey depths of hell. Modern man's consciousness bears the impress of a scientific world-view, but his unconscious moves in a different dimension. In dreams, heaven is still up and hell is still down; demons and angels confront man; strange metamorphoses take place. Moreover, in dreams man may encounter symbols unknown to him in his conscious life which

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were, nevertheless, in ages past in common use. For instance, Jung discovered that some of his patients had dreams which revealed al-chemical symbols which are now quite unknown to all but the most erudite. He records instances of dreams by children which are strikingly similar to ancient myths with which the young dreamer could never consciously have been acquainted. All of this leads him to postulate the existence of archetypal ideas and patterns which live in the unconscious and which emerge in dreams.

I

Unfortunately, it is precisely these myths and symbols which have been attacked by the secularizing and rationalizing theologians of the twentieth century. For the demythologizer, heaven becomes an existential state which can be circumscribed by the language of consciousness; hell is anxiety and guilt, not a firey region populated by personal demons. Although such reduction of myth to jargon is satisfying to the conscious intellect, it has, if Jung is correct, succeeded in alienating the conscious and unconscious sides of man's self. While the shaman of Central Asia can move without difficulty from the bleak landscape of Mongolia to that other world dominated by the Cosmic Tree, modern western man is so enmeshed in his conscious world of perception that he finds his world of dreams an embarrassment which must be explained away. What earlier men knew as an accurate description of the real world is now, at best, normally allegorized or at least suppressed. "Other-worldly" religion is especially scorned as irrelevant and superstitious. What we need, we are told, is religion which addresses itself to the problems of the modern, secular world. Down with dreams and visions; up with justice and the social order! May all coins have only one side!

But the human coin has two sides and mankind neglects or represses the unconscious to its own peril. Indeed, by failing to take seriously the landscape of the unconscious we endanger the health and well-being of the conscious world as well. The anguished cry of the existentialist is the cry of the man who has become acutely aware of his alienation from life. What the existentialist often does not recognize is that his alienation is basically an alienation from his own unconscious, the perennial source of transcendent meaning for mankind. The next logical step beyond existentialism is either revolution-the search for Paradise (and Hell) on this earth-or

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drugs-a means of breaking down the barriers which separate us from the unconscious. The revolutionary and the freak-out are twin brothers born from the same womb, the womb of alienation. Both are dangerous, though perhaps inevitable.

Traditionally, religion has been the primary means by which man has bridged the chasm, for it has provided the rites and rituals whereby men could enter into the landscape of the unconscious and apprehend once more the meaning-filled vistas of that other world. In less secular cultures, the sanctuary is hardly just another meeting hall. It is the center of the earth, the apex of the Holy Mountain where the Tree of Life grows. To enter the sanctuary is to enter the world of the Center where primordial acts are revealed. Worship, in this sense, is a kind of wakeful sleeping in which the individual is reconciled both with his own unconscious and with the underlying unity of all men. It is an act of healing, a moment of shalom.

II

Today, particularly among Protestants, this attitude toward worship has been largely discarded. The emphasis is upon relevance and secularity, not upon other-worldliness. justification given for such emphases is usually pragmatic. Modern man, we are told, can no longer believe in outworn myths and is put off by ritual mumbo-jumbo. Furthermore, the church cannot afford to be irrelevant; it must address itself to the crucial problems of the day if it wishes to attract people. I wonder, however, just how accurate this assessment of the situation is. I certainly do not see hordes of people flocking to those churches which are attempting to be relevant. In fact, all of the pronouncements by the National Council of Churches, the various social programs developed by different congregations, and the many fine sermons about social justice have only seemed to prove that the church is not, after all, a very effective instrument for social change. If one wishes to argue pragmatically, one ought to be honest enough to note that the fastest growing churches in America are those which have retained their function as a bearer of symbols, myths, and saving truth.

The argumentation then, of course, shifts. The justification for secularizing the church is to be found not in pragmatic effects but in the gospel which tells us to go into the world. Certainly increased interest in social problems will drive some members out of the

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church, but that is because those members were not really Christian anyway. If we are to remain true to the biblical heritage, we must follow Amos, not Amaziah.

When the argument is put in that way, I too must side with Amos. Surely the church must be concerned about the world. But the question is not that easily resolved, for Amos stood against corrupt priests, not against the symbols of religion. Indeed, Amos, like all the prophets, walked upon the landscape of the unconscious and saw visions of God. What he objected to was Israel's obvious alienation from the underlying source of meaning and righteousness, not to the cult per se. The prophets were not just political commentators who drew their inspiration from the ancient equivalent of The New York Times but visionaries who, in their flights of ecstasy, beheld a world not visible to the physical eye.

Today, however, many churchmen seem to want to engage in prophetic criticism without the benefit of the motivating ecstasy. And, because the churches have become this-worldly, more and more young people are turning to Yoga, Indian rain dances, divination, and drugs as a means of bridging the chasm which the church apparently doesn't even admit exists. In an age dominated (so we are told) by science, it is significant that sales of Tarot decks, the I Ching, and the Bardo Thödol have soared. Even astrology and witchcraft have come into their own once more.

Why? Because, despite all of the cries of relevancy, the church is adjudged irrelevant. And it is judged irrelevant, I suspect, precisely because it has failed to take seriously its role as the medium through which the sacred and saving mysteries are revealed. Therefore, people look elsewhere for that revelation seemingly denied them by the church. For some, such secular morality plays as the Super Bowl game suffice mythologically, but for the more acute these soon pale in importance and faces once again turn Eastward.

There is, however, no need for western man to seek his myths among the Vedas, for within his own heritage are to be found all of the essential saving myths and mysteries. The Bible is a vast storehouse of images which have served mankind for centuries and is certainly far more spiritually accessible to the west than the Tao Te Ching or the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Religious knowledge, however, demands far more than armchair perusal, for saving knowledge is not merely intellectual. It needs to be lived out in rite and ritual within the context of a community. Reading about the

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Last Supper is not enough. One must enter into that primordial time of beginning in the sanctuary where the bread is actually broken and shared and where the cup of wine is blessed and drunk. One must become once more a contemporary of Jesus and sit as his disciple.

III

In brief, then, I believe that the church must begin to take itself seriously as a religious community and concentrate upon its role as the revealer of the sacred. Furthermore, we might very well learn from the phenomenologists and psychologists of religion who can show us much about the direction which this "turning" ought to take. It is beyond the scope of this brief article to explore this matter in much depth, but a few observations may be in order to at least break ground.

(1) Among the features of earlier religions which have been largely discarded by contemporary Protestantism are the rites of passage. Of the many rites which, for the African tribesman, for instance, mark the decisive stages along life's way, we have preserved only a birth rite (baptism), marriage, and the funeral. For the child reaching the age of puberty, however, we have little to offer beside a rather non-demanding confirmation class which is, most often, only a quasi-intellectual enterprise. There is no ordeal besides the ordeal of tedium to mark this moment of change. Certainly confirmation is not a rite through which a person experiences the death of childhood and the rebirth of himself as an adult. Hence, in our culture most adolescents are not sure whether they are children or adults. As a consequence, the maturation process is very confused and often retarded. Schools do, in a sense, fill this void with examinations graduation exercises, etc., but such secularized phenomena hardly provide the sacred depth which this moment of passage deserves. Moreover, because there is no moment of passage from death to resurrection through rite (except among the Baptists), the ultimate moment of passage, death, looms menacingly before us all. I would suggest that one cannot fully understand the doctrine of resurrection as taught by the New Testament without enduring the rite of baptismal immersion and all that that implied for the early church.

(2) Not only do many religions celebrate the rhythm of human development through rites of passage; they also mark the tempo

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of the year through seasonal feasts and festivals. Following the lead of Judaism, Christianity has preserved the seasonal rites but has given them "historical" meaning by relating them to events in the life of Israel and Jesus. The old rites of nature, however, have remained underneath the surface, though in a somewhat transfigured condition. Unfortunately, this is a source of embarrassment to some ministers and theologians who insist that only Christ belongs in Christmas.

I suspect, however, that the church could do a greater service to mankind by emphasizing rather than denying the rhythms of nature. Man in our modern metropolis is dangerously isolated from the natural order, the order which has given him birth. Adam and Adamah, to use Hebrew terminology, have become divorced and isolated one from the other. As a result, the earth has been about as maltreated as is possible and man accordingly suffers. Is it not time for religion to call for a reunification of man and the land, of man and the cosmos through rite and ritual? Rather than deemphasizing Easter as a rite of spring, perhaps this should become a more prominent motif of the day, for until people have learned to celebrate the coming of Aries, they will find the return of the Lamb of God only an enigma.

(3) Among the features of religion which have been almost universally present since Neolithic times is the adoration of the Great Mother, the feminine aspect of existence; yet this is almost wholly missing in modern Protestantism. Even within Roman Catholicism, the cult of Notre Dame seems to be waning somewhat. Doubtless this is because our society is no longer agricultural, and the worship of the Great Mother was closely tied to the cultivation of the earth. I am keenly aware, of course, of the prophetic attack upon fertility cults and the highly "masculine" nature of Yahweh. Still, the universality of this feature of human religion should give us pause. It is true that the New Testament gives the church little basis for the veneration of Mary, but perhaps there was good reason why the church at a relatively early date exalted the Virgin and exulted in the mysteries of her Motherhood. Is it not possible that human beings need a Mother image as well as a Father image to which to turn? Man, Genesis says, is made in the image of God; yet man is both male and female. Does not the doctrine of the imago Dei then imply that Yahweh himself is bisexual and not just male?

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Our supposedly secular society, though demythologized, is clearly obsessed with sex and with the female body. Is it not conceivable that all of our Miss America pageants, Playboy fold-outs, and sex-advertising are feeble attempts to recover that lost image of the Great Mother which our unconscious yearns to behold more clearly? Our Lady, according to Henry Adams, built most of the great Gothic cathedrals of France. She might again build for us if she were allowed within the sanctuary once more.

(4) Most of the so-called higher religions have taught a way of contemplation through which a higher form of mystical experience may be obtained. The Yogi, Zen Master, Sufi, and medieval mystic may differ somewhat in technique, but their similarities greatly surpass their differences. Clearly myticism is one of the perennial forms of religious expression, but Protestantism seems to have little to teach in this respect. Protestant mystics there have been, to be sure, but where today could a Protestant go to engage in the mystical way?

Many theologians, of course, consider this lack of emphasis upon mysticism to be good, for the life of contemplation is considered by them to be illusory and useless. God gives his grace freely! There is no need to win it through self-denial and navel-watching. But such an attitude misses the point, for the mystic is not normally attempting to "win salvation." His aim is to follow a well-worn path of self-discipline to an inner enlightenment to which thousands of religious men have attested. Is not the general Protestant antipathy to mysticism a kind of self-defensive mechanism designed to defend what, in fact, is a highly materialistic world view? For many members of the "Now generation" such defensiveness is almost laughable. Because they are denied Christian guidance, they turn to Yoga, Zen, and drugs.

(5) Closely related to mysticism are the phenomena of clairvoyance, mental telepathy, healing power, and the like. Parapsychology, though still in its infancy, reveals that many of our assumptions about the human mind may be quite wrong. J. B. Rhine's findings concerning E.S.P. and psychokinesis, though not absolutely conclusive, certainly remind us that we must keep a very open mind concerning the hidden depths and powers of the psyche.

Aside from James Pike, however, I have found very few theologians who are willing to take such questions seriously. Surely the Christian

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theologian ought not to dismiss such psychic phenomena with a wave of his materialistic hand. After all, if we take the New Testament at face value, Jesus himself was a clairvoyant who could miraculously heal and drive out real demons. Perhaps there are powers hidden in the depths of man such that prayer really can change things. Perhaps the mystical vision (and even the drug vision) is not just self-inflicted illusion but reveals realities unknown to our conscious and critical intellects. I wish that someone would whisper in the biblical critic's ear that maybe, just maybe, clairvoyance and prophetic vision are in fact possible.

IV

I could add a number of other items to this list, but enough is enough. I am sure that by now I have annoyed many of the dwellers in the Secular City who want to get on with the work of cleaning up the political and economic mess which surrounds us and see little value in these remnants of a by-gone day. To all who feel this way I can only offer my cheerful blessing-and a word of caution.

It is true that our political and social problems are monumental and need solution, but it may very well be that at their root is a deep spiritual crisis which makes any cleaning-up operations frustrating illusions. The truth is that we have lost touch with the depth of being and hence have become alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from our environment as a whole. The man who is divorced from his own unconscious can hardly be reconciled with his brother. Our society, like Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together by all the King's horses and men, no matter how well financed they be. In fact, they may only make matters worse.

This is a hard fact which is difficult to bear. It is much more appealing (and easier) to work for social causes than it is to plumb the depth of our own selves or to bear the power of the Spirit. Surely it is easier to cling to society's world view than it is to venture into the unknown. Who wants to be offering sacrifices while the battle rages without? But then maybe the ancients were right. Maybe order will be created after a season of chaos only when the Great Rites are performed and the myths of creation are again recited before the whole community.