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New visions
C S Lewis describes in one of his writings how he suddenly noticed a disgusting, insect-like creature wriggling on the top of his desk. He recoiled in horror - and then just as suddenly realised that the insect was a leaf being moved by the breeze entering his study window.

Perhaps all of us have experienced a similar transformation of perception at some time in our lives. An ordinary girl is transformed into a must-have object of passion. A book fills one with joy - but only at the second reading. A person at first intensely disliked gradually becomes a flesh-and-blood being like oneself. A dreary landscape is magicked into an ethereal scene by a sudden change of light.

The nine authors in this book are among 60 "renowned intellectuals" who have dialogued since 1976 with church members in the Diocese of Newark, USA - the den of that much-maligned Anglican bishop, John Spong. Deborah Brown believes that each of the 60 has given us 

... conceptual breakthroughs that were so thought-provoking it seemed advantageous for Christians and others to enter the next century with [their] insights.

She presents the main issue today as a struggle between three groups of Christians. The first, coming from mainline traditions holds firmly onto a personal God with personal attributes. The second finds certainty through what is broadly termed "fundamentalism". Neither of these groups is likely to have a radical change of perception in the light of discussion about Christianity.

The third group includes those who are "... freely challenging many traditions of their faith" and appear to be working towards a non-theistic, abstract, transpersonal understanding of the divine. Their perception has changed radically in recent times.

The book picks up several themes:

• The 21st century may usher in a convergence between the main world faiths, which have tended to exclude each other.

• Humans may come to perceive themselves in unitary terms. We may begin integrating with nature, rather than seeking to dominate it as a "thing" separate from ourselves.

• In the wake of these changes, the Church may change in ways its controllers - the bishops, clergy and involved laypeople - can now barely imagine.

The new way of being Christian will entail, she writes, a 

... continual winnowing of beliefs, systems, and practices to see if at least some of them have become chaff to be discarded because they are no longer credible, moral or relevant.

A new God
The volume kicks off with an article by Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God and The Battle for God amongst other books. She writes: 

We can no longer be religious in the same way as our ancestors. The world has been irrevocably transformed and so have our patterns of thought and experience.

The same theme is picked up by Gordon D Kaufman in Ecological Consciousness and the Symbol "God". Part of the way things have changed is how we relate to the world around us. 

We will inevitably think of the world in which we live, and our human place within it, in terms quite different from those presented by Western religious traditions ...

Focused as we naturally are upon our own current slice of time, we may find it hard to step back and look at the longer historical picture. Armstrong points to the beginning of an Axial Age around the seventh century BCE. Since then the human image of God has changed many times in both East and West.

We are now in the early days of a new Axial Age, says Armstrong. For the first time in history we have begun to develop "... a wholly new type of culture, one based not on a surplus of agriculture but on technology." In the process, God seems to have disappeared - or, in the language of some, God is "dead". This has happened because reason has been elevated to become an arbiter of truth, a task for which it is not equipped. The result is "... neither good science nor good religion."

The West has been, and is, the centre of this movement. But, as Keith Ward points out (in Convergent Spirituality) we have recently been overtaken at speed by the idea and reality of globalisation. This has

... made possible ... a way of thinking which takes the whole earth into consideration, and which is freed from limitations of local culture to a very great extent.

Until now, religious traditions have in fact been "... expressions of the social will, with the function of making a society cohesive and strong".

As scientific rationalism has risen, thinks Ward, the God who has died is merely the God of the Christian institution. In this God's place has arisen a "... many-headed counterculture, which refuses the methods of critical enquiry and dispassionate experimental observation."

The unifying factor for in the resulting blooming, buzzing confusion is "spirituality", by which Ward means 

... the practices of prayer, contemplation and meditation which are aimed at liberative experience ... and ... form the heart of the world's religious traditions.

In such a world the stark either-or contrasts which claimants to absolute truth seek constantly to emphasise, tend to melt away.

Armstrong's conclusions, approached from a different direction, are similar. A global planet will, she thinks, 

... be characterized by the determination to deconstruct established interpretations, to undermine absolute claims, and [to point] out that all our knowledge can only be interpretive and that we can never attain absolute certainty.

A new man
As we move towards a global culture I have been puzzled by those we call "animal rights" activists, more particularly by those among them who will kill one type of animal (human) to protect other types. Kaufman's answer is that "nature" has become their God. As Christians know all too well, those who think they have captured the Absolute can also claim the right to force their own views on others.

Where once God was defined as distinct from creation, the concept of nature has become, says Kaufman,

...the central metaphysical concept ... the all-encompassing reality ... nature and God have become rivals in the claims they make on our interest, attention, commitment, and loyalty.

Humans, says Kaufman, are "biohistorical" entities. Our gradual development of culture has enabled us to transcend our purely biological origins. This seemed to me at first the kind of high-minded assertion typically made by so-called New Age theorists who seem sometimes to regard humans as thinking animals. Like our fellow biological organisms, we are supposed to be securely bound into a mindless natural cycle.

Fortunately, Kaufman's main point is precisely that 

... our transcendence of the natural orders within which we have emerged is far from adequate to assure our ongoing human existence.

Humanity is at peril because on one hand we can't help pushing back natural boundaries, and on the other have not fully realised our place "... within the context of a larger cosmic ... development."

Roger Shinn's contribution in The Mystery of the Self and the Enigma of Nature points out that the origin of our difficulty lies in the Western attempt to "... separate the self from nature" which began with Plato and continued with Descartes. We have since rediscovered the ancient knowledge that we are part of nature, though it will take time for this to become part of the emerging worldwide culture.

In this role we are guilty of hubris if we pretend we have no natural limitations. We are naturally subject to what Shinn calls the "egocentric predicament", the lack of desire to be like animals. We prefer to be human. In that role, however, nature remains an enigma because it is greater than ourselves. Our role in the world is "... a modest human dominion and a responsibility to 'till' and 'keep' a God-given Eden." We can abuse our role (planetary ecological destruction) or forward it (genetics used against disease). That's our choice.

Rustum Roy (Whole Person Religion) and Matthew Fox (Creation Spirituality) take up cudgels for the formation of a new vision of the individual through spirituality and nature.

Roy looks back on decades in which he and others championed change in the Church. As he remarks, "... the masses were not ready." In relation to the women's movement, for example, " ... by the mid-1990s, it was hard to find a single inclusivist movement to cheer about." Those who promote something called "whole person healing" are "... the newest group of champions  to tackle the establishment to reform it."

I found it difficult at first to pinpoint exactly why Roy's conclusions seemed increasingly nonsensical to me as I read on. Many of his points are valid. In relation to medicine, for example, he reiterates a well-known principle: "It is more important to know the person that has the disease, than the disease the person has" (Hippocrates). Holistic medicine has long espoused this principle in the face of the atomistic, mechanistic doctoring to which most of us are exposed.

It gradually occurred to me that Roy is using simple yet profound truths as convenient hooks upon which to hang silly assertions. For example: 

No one contests that we are all, without exception, complex assemblies of three interacting 'states': body, mind and spirit - just like the three states of matter: solid liquid and vapor

is uncritically attached to the idea of persons as entire systems. This is such tosh that it's too tedious to spend much time dismissing it.

We are wholes. We divide ourselves into parts only for the sake of understanding. To fail to put the parts together again is a serious error. But the parts are not as Roy describes them. Or rather, we are wholes in a way of which he is clearly ignorant. We are systems within a universal system. Humans are open systems in that they exchange energy (in many forms) with other systems. To be alive is to be in balance with all other systems. We die when our system is no longer viable in a total systemic context.

Unfortunately, Roy's entire article fails in this way. If his method of thinking and his conclusions are to help form our future faith, then (to use an ancient term) God help us.

Matthew Fox's offering is more tolerable, if only  because his claims are not overblown. I don't much like the term "spirituality" as he uses it. It's a word which is too misleading in the minds of those who tend to be over-concrete about abstractions. But in this context it has its uses.

"Imperial Christology", Augustine, the popes and Jerry Falwell all contribute, says Fox, as exaggerated role for Jesus. He writes, 

...we must not allow this poisoning of the Christ experience to taint all our experiences of the Christ.

Strong words!

Where then are we to find healthy "spiritual" food? Fox answers: 

The creation spirituality tradition finds the Christ in nature - including our own human nature - [in] all of nature in all time and space ...

This idea is an old one. God is to be found in nature.

What then of the person of Jesus, without whom what we call Christianity falls apart? Fox is spot-on in this respect. First, he is clear that the foundation of faith in the 21st century must be an historical Jesus, not the doctrinal construction of twenty centuries of theology. More than that. We should strive, he thinks, to create what he calls the "cosmic Christ". The first "Christians" (they thought of themselves as Jews) "... were tremendously creative and trusted in their own experience of the Christ".

This is an entirely valid point, though beware Fox's somewhat over-enthusiastic language. For example, he uses the term "mystical experience" without explanation. Must we constantly revert to dualism to explain life experience? I don't think so. Similarly, Fox makes much of something he calls "our Celtic roots". Despite my own Celtic roots, what he says does nothing for me - and I wonder if it will do much for anyone else.

But there can be small doubt for those who perceive the radical breakdown of the traditional Christian worldview, that only an equally radical reconstruction will do in this century. Fox's Cosmic Christ will come to life only if Christians are prepared to put away the shackles of revealed tradition and creatively, adventurously and fearlessly do what our ancient forefathers did - construct a new Christ from the historical Jesus in the light of contemporary experience.

A new church
It's hardly surprising, perhaps, if in the first year of a new millennium, visions of God, man and religion are somewhat blurred and uncertain. The great adventure of the new Axial Age has barely begun. Who can see the future? But at least the contributors to this volume are trying hard, using their imagination, and taking risks.

This certainly applies to Robert Funk in his The Incredible Canon. As some Christians have emerged over the last 200 years or so from the caves of tradition, so has the Bible fragmented into its main constituents - history and theology. But not many realised in the 20th century that the very basis of the Bible as "inspired" by God is rationally untenable. Even fewer have ventured to take the next step and question the validity of the selection of the writings in the Bible.

To Funk the biblical Canon ("authoritative writings", derived from an Egyptian word for a measuring rod) is untrustworthy. He doesn't stop there. The 

...quest for the historical Jesus ... has made the New Testament incredible ... scholars have shown the gospels to be statements of faith mixed with some historical reminiscences.

If Christianity weren't fundamentally an historical faith, this wouldn't matter. But it is, so it does.

The outcome of his interesting and persuasive presentation of the nature of the Canon of Holy Scriptures is that we need a new New Testament in a developing global society. We must "...resume the process of canonization" by

1. including all relevant ancient documents so that those interested can sample a full range; and
2. retaining only those elements in these writings that can speak to a new Axial Age.

In contrast to Funk's imaginative and bold proposals are two contributions by churchmen: Reflections on the Church and City by Paul Moore Jnr, and Krister Stendahl's Can Bishops Tell the Truth as They See It?

Stendahl's approach (he is a bishop) is typical of the few prelates today who glimpse something of the nature of the new Axial Age. Their motto seems to be, "On one hand this, and on the other that." On one hand we must carry out "new interpretations which keep tradition alive." And on the other the bishop must be an animateur - one who animates. He continues: 

...the future of the church and its present health need renewal so badly that our caution ... must be trumped by Paul's advice in the oldest of all the New Testament writings: 'Quench not the Spirit, do not despise prophesyings.

Alas, much as I agree with the latter statement, the former is misguided. The great divide which has opened up between previous paradigms and modern ones cannot be bridged in the way he proposes.

Tradition itself will no doubt persist as a cultural phenomenon. Societies will always seek to preserve for its own sake some of what has gone before. But tradition as a guide to necessary truth about Jesus is going, going, gone. Stendahl cannot have his cake and eat it in this instance.

Moore's Reflections fascinated me. They demonstrated conclusively that this thirteenth bishop of New York has little idea of what has happened in the last 200 years. He writes as though the foundations have merely been shaken. He apparently hasn't noticed that the Twin Towers of tradition have already come crashing down. We can grub around in the rubble as long as we like. Reformation of the Christian faith won't put them back up again.

He's a city man through and through. As such he instinctively recognises that the church has been mind-numbingly slow to adapt to metropolitan realities. He points to the stark contrast between the comfortable pew and the shivering young outcast in a nearby alleyway.

Some say that by the end of the 21st century 80 percent of the world's population will live in cities. If that is so, perhaps Moore's timid suggestions may prove useful. But my overall impression is that they are better suited to the cities of the mid 60s than to the sprawling turmoil which marks most urban situations today - never mind the massive conurbations of the future. I blinked more than twice, for example, on reading the bishop's concerns about the tenure of clergy in Anglican parishes. Do he and I live on the same planet? I asked myself.

Overall, this book is more than worth a read, if only because it demonstrates than even someone as close to Bishop John Spong as is the editor may have underestimated the radical nature of the faith required for Christianity to survive the next two millennia.

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