What I am Trying to Prove: It Is Natural for Christianity to Change
Jewish and Christian scripture and history record continuous change in both concept and practice. Faith has changed as needed, and it needs to change again.
Three cardinal assumptions have been made about readers of this blog: You are somewhat biblically literate; you are versed in basic concepts and practices of Christianity; and, you are interested in a path forward for thinking about Christianity as it faces its greatest transition in five hundred years.
One of the broad concepts I want to demonstrate here is that all scripture is interpreted by humans. The premise is that our only path to meaning in scripture—even assuming the guidance of the Spirit and renewal of mind in Christ—is through our own human minds that interpret its language into meaning and the external and internal factors that shape that interpretation. Self-awareness and an attitude of deep humility and great care are necessary as we reconsider the meanings and functions of Christianity’s basic narratives as found in scripture.
I want to address certain attitudes toward scripture that need to be reexamined by some Christians, including the bibliolatrous notions that the Bible is perfect, eternal, and inerrant, unaffected by the views and interests of the persons or groups who wrote and compiled it, or read and interpret it at any given time. The interpretation of scripture, necessary to know its meaning, requires intellectual and spiritual maturity, self-awareness, and care.
I want to highlight three types of distinctions that must be made when hearing, reading, or studying scripture. These distinctions are between the truth conveyed by scripture and the essential narratives that convey it; between the literal or denotative, and the metaphorical or connotative meanings in scripture; and, between actual events, events as depicted in scripture, and creation of the texts that depict those events.
Another broad concept I want to demonstrate is that God doesn’t change, people do. We have changed over and over in how we understand God and the practice of faith, so we can change again, as our moment seems to warrant. I want to show that there is a continuum of theological change embedded in scripture itself, from polytheism in the Levant (eastern Mediterranean) at the end of the Bronze Age, through contestation and accommodation over the supremacy of YHVH1 during the Iron Age, to the assumed monotheism of Judaism in the context of the Greco-Roman world, and of Christianity from its beginnings.
Another continuum of change within scripture—that of God’s location—extends from local shrines in the Levant where many gods were worshiped, to the centralization of Judahn worship at Jerusalem, to the struggle over local bamot, or “high places” vs. exclusive worship of YHVH at the temple, to a monotheistic God who is Spirit, and in every place, to a God who is all and in all.
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I want to write about the history of Christian theology and practice to show how much it has changed, and to show how natural it would be for it to change again. My thinking has been significantly influenced by The Case for God by Karen Armstrong (Anchor, 2010). Armstrong’s exhaustively sourced text focuses less on what Christians believed, and more on how they sought to experience God and exercise their faith. This recasting of faith as a practice rather than a set of beliefs provides a much-needed reorientation toward ancient forms that can better inform our religion as it changes yet again.
I am interested in the early history of Christian religion, when basic teachings and practices of the church, and the canon of scripture that supports them, were being hashed out. The political circumstances under which doctrines were developed and disputed are telling enough to warrant at least their reconsideration. Running through this developing and transforming religion is the thread of Christianity not as a set of correct teachings and beliefs, but as a legacy of deep spiritual practice and ways of living that are crying out for reexamination from postmodern points of reference.
I am interested in significant developments over nearly a thousand years of church history during the Middle Ages. Early on, institutional Christianity expanded and enriched itself by partnering with the violent and subjugating forces of temporal empire, in exchange for their ideological legitimization by the church. As theory follows practice, a new theology developed—that of a violent, demanding God for whom crucifixion and atonement were reconstructed as a requirement—and given a new position of centralized importance in the teaching and practice of Christianity. Scriptural interpretation was retrofitted to accommodate this new theology.
As Western Europeans rediscovered intellectual traditions from which they had long been isolated, there was a new effort to educate both clergy and laity and a new interest in ways to know and experience God through the human mind, created in the image of God as a vehicle by which to know God. And again, through all of this ran a thread of contemplative spirituality expressed through techniques of prayerful focus and silent meditation practiced by laypeople, clergy, and monastics alike.
I am interested in how early modern Christians understood Christianity. In early modern Europe, newly unified nation-states began to rely somewhat less on psychological coercion by the church, and more on the economic power of emerging capitalism. Christianity began serving to forge national identities. The emergent Protestant religion was less symbolic and communal, and more scripturally focused and personal. Some changes in Christian faith and practice reflected new forms of consciousness and new worldviews related to them.
Following the European wars of religion, the Christianity of the Enlightenment era aristocracy became rational and empirical in its focus. God came to be seen as an inventor, who functioned as the remote force behind the physical universe. At the same time, Christianity had already begun to lose touch with a sense of an ongoing, inward spiritual journey.
I am interested in Christianity in the USA. Following the establishment of European colonies in North America, and continuing through the establishment and expansion of the USA, a new and unique Christian synthesis developed and spread that in many ways characterizes ‘Christianity’ in the USA. At first, it seemed to champion social progress and modernization, but a backlash within turned this evangelical form of Christianity into a hyper-individualistic religion, opposed to collective solutions, reactionary toward modern thinking and social change, and indifferent at best to the continuing legacy of white supremacy and other forms of bigotry and subjugation. With a continuing empiricist view of scriptural narrative and belief, the application of ancient rituals and practices as part of a contemplative journey inward and a Christlike self-emptying became all but lost within developing Protestant evangelicalism.
I also want to focus away from collective historical processes over many centuries toward individual development on the scale of a single life cycle. Just as the understanding of Christianity has changed many times and in many ways throughout its history, so each person’s individual understanding of faith changes in conjunction with the natural processes of human development. The long arc of collective development, and the short arc of individual development are, in fact, related. Premodern or traditional; modern or rational; and postmodern or systemic modes of thinking, social organization, and identity correlate with the middle and higher stages of individual faith development.
A third broad concept I want to demonstrate is that it is time to change again. I want to show why any of this matters. Dramatic shifts in religious belief, identification, participation, and valuation are taking place in the USA as people abandon Christianity over its lack of relevance to lived experience.
I want to show how concepts related to an afterlife, heaven, hell, and the end of the world—shared across Christianity—are not, in fact, original to the teachings of Jesus enshrined in the gospels and explained in the epistles, nor true to the long tradition of apocalyptic writing that culminates with Revelation. I want to show how the leadership of women shows up in scripture, how Jesus’ sayings put women on an equal footing, and how passages from the epistles that advocate the subjugation of women function less as essential teachings and more as a record of shifting attitudes. I want to offer an understanding of these passages that is more consistent with the actual attitudes of both Jesus and Paul concerning women.
I want to address basic scientific facts about sexual orientation and gender, and about our responses to them; and then examine those portions of scripture that have been used to address such matters. I want to show how scriptures have been interpreted in ways that are inconsistent with observable reality, heedless of original context and meaning, incompatible with Jesus’ teaching and example concerning compassion and inclusion, and oblivious to cultural assumptions and larger concerns in the epistles. I aim to show that scripture need not be interpreted to support preconceived negative ideas about same-sex sexual orientation and gender nonconformity.
I want to consider the place we are at now. I think it is a place characterized by multiple levels of adult human consciousness, as well as differences in Christian faith and practice that reflect those. I want to consider how we can live together in this situation. Because every stage of consciousness exists within the human family at once, and because every individual has the right to stop at any level they choose, all expressions of Christianity associated with these stages must be regarded as part of Christianity as a whole.
But the lower to middle stages still make up the primary modes of awareness reflected in the teaching and practice, not only of Christianity but of most religions in the world today. As more and more people in the modern world develop more complex modes of consciousness, Christianity will have to change once again to accommodate the emergent worldviews related to these developments. Insofar as it has not, people are already abandoning it.
I want to consider the question of how we go about praying in this situation. I think prayer as a practice of meditation is truest to what was considered prayer by Jesus, his apostles, and early Christians. Depictions of communication with God develop through the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus comes along with specific teachings concerning prayer. I would argue that his practice of prayer—conducted in solitude, free from distraction—was contemplative. I would reframe the model prayer as a meditative exercise, rather than a list of requests.
I also consider Paul’s instructions concerning prayer to be forms of contemplative practice. I think the current upsurge of interest in contemplative prayer indicates a way to connect with the high level of inner awareness modeled by Jesus (and also by other great sages whose wisdom spawned new religions). Such an understanding and approach is nothing new; it has been available to Jesus’ followers from the beginning.
Finally, I want to consider where we go from here. I would warn against a fundamentalist approach to postmodern thinking, but I also think it is imperative to acknowledge the genocide, slavery, and patriarchy that indelibly mark Christianity for all time.
I want to promote the development and teaching of theological concepts that better align with reality as it is widely understood today. Such concepts would not replace Christianity as we know it, but expand on what already exists to accommodate new modes of awareness. I would stress the need for change along the leading edge so that the whole of Christianity remains relevant enough to justify its continued existence in postmodern contexts.
When writing about the Hebrew Bible, I use YHVH as the Name of God—the Hebrew tetragrammaton intoned as “Adonai” (Hebrew for Lord) when spoken aloud, chanted, or sung. It is translated as “LORD” in English Bibles, and it is the term on which the Anglicized names “Jehovah” and “Yahweh” are based.