On Religion and Spirituality

How does path-agnostic spiritual growth fit with religion?

Author’s note: I apologize for not posting last week. There was a death in my in-laws’ family.

Throughout the life of Heal the West, I've advocated for path-agnostic spiritual growth. That is, whatever spiritual path that you're on, I want to encourage you (in whatever small way I can) to grow closer to God. But a long conversation with my wife and a close friend got me thinking: is that the same thing as encouraging everyone to go deeper in their chosen religious institution? The answer is "it's complicated"...and is in fact complicated enough that I felt called to write about it.

I think religion as a whole has a complicated relationship with God. Good religion (and a good religious institution) can function as a map that can help us to chart a course closer to God. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis lays out the logic:

"In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, ‘I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!’ 

"Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

"Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map."

Before we get too deep, I want to quickly differentiate what I'll call religions (Christianity, Judaism, etc) from religious institutions (our local church, synagogue, etc; or branches or sects of a religion, such as Westboro Baptist Church in Christianity). Lewis' lessons, and hopefully the ideas in this piece, can apply to both. But it is a good deal easier to change religious institutions than it is to change religions. At the same time, because there are so many more religious institutions than there are religions, I suspect there's a lot more variance in the caliber of the former than the latter. As such, most of this piece will look at the question of how God and organized religion fit together through the lens of religious institutions. But if you feel so called, you can use this same analysis to look at your religion as a whole.

A good religious institution can serve as Lewis' map for a few reasons. First, it will have elders who can guide us towards a deeper relationship with God. These elders have walked the path that we wish to walk, and can point us in the right direction while also helping us to avoid pitfalls. This institution can also furnish us with a community of fellow seekers (ex. a local Bible study, a spiritually grounded men's or women's group) who can help us to hear God more deeply, and in this community members can sometimes keep each other on the right path.

A quick note on spiritual communities. I think they tend to fulfill their role of bringing us closer to God more effectively if they are composed of people of different backgrounds and perspectives. When we see the world differently, we can more effectively check each others' blind spots. When our group is composed of people whose False Selves want and believe different things, we are less likely to get sucked into theological distortions and group-think. For example, a community of people who all suffer from depression, and whose False Selves all insist that they are worthless, would benefit immensely from the presence of someone who has either overcome depression completely or who has never dealt with it. The latter people could shine a light on the lies of the False Self (that we are worthless), and therefore help their fellows out of that negative script. By contrast, a community of only depressed seekers might be more likely to conclude that they really are worthless, since everyone in their community hears the same lie.

A good religious institution can also offer rituals, which can be valuable aids in our pursuit of God. I've been blessed this past year to find a local church that does all of these things.

But there can also be drawbacks to some religious institutions. Some religious institutions can push us deeper into our False Selves. They can do this in a myriad of different ways. Some religious institutions (and of course most folks disagree on which ones) may be overseen by God, but every single one is built and maintained by humans. As such, their noble original goals can be distorted in a million ways.

For example, some religious institutions can push us, not towards brotherly and sisterly love, but towards hatred and intolerance. Westboro Baptist Church made a name for itself picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers, its members holding signs with slogans like "God hates fags" and "God hates Jews." While I don't doubt many members' sincere desire to find and to be with God, I am skeptical for this reason that going deeper into Westboro Baptist Church would be the way for these members to achieve this goal.

Bad religious institutions can also encourage us to pursue worldly things above our relationship with God. In the Christian church, prosperity gospel churches come to mind. There's nothing wrong with money, but when we try to use our relationship with God as a means to become wealthy, we turn money rather than God into our highest ideal. If the human heart is an idol factory, and if the leaders of religious institutions are human, then the unfortunate corollary is that some of these institutions will encourage us towards idols rather than towards God.

If our highest goal is to pursue God (or Spirit, Source, our higher selves, etc) than we have to grapple with the fact that some religious institutions will be better than others at helping us to pursue this goal. Does this mean that your particular religious institution is unhelpful (or helpful) in this area? I have no idea. That's a question that only you can answer, ideally in prayerful community with other Godly people whom you trust in your life. But I think it's a question that we have to steel ourselves to ask; if only because, if our goal really is to come closer to God, then the last thing we want is a bad map.

But perhaps, as we grapple with this question, we can add some clarity by attempting to describe God. I think God is one of those things that can never be grasped in His (or Hers, Its, etc) fullness, but can only be pointed to. But nonetheless, perhaps pointing to some of God's characteristics can help us to more effectively determine if our given religious institution is bringing us closer to God or moving us further away.

Here are three of the (infinite) characteristics that I think God possesses.

First, when God speaks to us, He does so in a tone of infinite love, joy, peace, and connection. I have known God to correct, but never belittle. I have known Him to chastise, but never stop loving. If I orient myself towards God and I ask a question, and the answer that comes back is not full of love, peace, joy, and connection (for instance, if I ask God "What do you want me to know about my most recent article?" and the answer that comes back is "You're a bad writer and you should feel bad for writing it"), then I can be confident that it is my False Self rather than God who is speaking.

Second, it's been my experience that God will tell us things that our False Selves will insist are too good to be true. I don't mean prosperity gospel; I've never known God to say that He will give me $1,000,000 tomorrow. But when I ask God what He wants me to know about myself, very often the answer is "I love you more than you could possibly know." Given my past of dealing with abuse, depression, and feelings of worthlessness, that's the kind of answer that my False Self will insist is too good to be true.

Third, I believe that God loves every human being on this planet equally. This does not mean that God always calls us to nonviolence. But it does mean that we should interrogate our hearts on a regular basis with this fact in mind. If we feel that we are being called to disparage or to think little of someone, then I do not believe that that message is coming from God.

Religious institutions can be powerful tools. It is up to us to use our discernment (ideally in concert with other God seekers whom we know and trust) to determine if our religious institution is helping us move towards God, or pushing us away. If the former, we might consider taking a step deeper into the institution. If the latter, then (and this is not always easy) we might consider a move.

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