A View from the Back Pew -- Review

A VIEW FROM THE BACK PEW: God, Religion & Our Personal Quest for Truth. By Tim O’Donnell. Kansas City, MO: Linchpin Publishing, 2011. Xiv + 264 pages.

More and more people are identifying themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” This new category of religious people is comprised mostly of people who believe in God or at least some “higher power,” but are either dissatisfied with institutional religion or have been hurt by it. They like God, just not the institution. This “new” breed of spiritually-inclined people tends to be eclectic, though their understandings of spirituality often reflect aspects of whatever tradition they may have been born into. In this new age of spirituality, where religious observance and institutional membership aren’t required or expected people feel free to strike out on their own, picking and choosing from among the various religious offerings. In this new world of spirituality, there is no central authority, but because of the entrepreneurial spirit that is inherent in this new age, one can either choose to be one’s own spiritual authority or attach oneself to one of the many spiritual guides who have emerged in the age of new media. Ultimately, in this age of spiritual eclecticism the individual is the final arbiter of truth.

Tim O’Donnell’s apparently self-published book A View From the Back Pew offers readers a personal memoir of a spiritual journey that reflects this new spirit. The author is a business entrepreneur, former newspaper publisher, and most importantly is a former Roman Catholic. He writes about the journey he took from a rather traditional Roman Catholic upbringing, which included the requisite run-ins with narrow minded and physically abusive Nuns to the realization that he was free to embrace the God within. In large part this book is a product of what O’Donnell calls “The Deal,” a pact he made with God while a college student studying in Rome. He had a spiritual experience that led him to abandon college and pursue his fortune, which he would then use to serve God. When the Roman Church seemingly didn’t have much use for his gift, once he had made his fortune, he chose to strike out on his own and use his fortune to tell his story.

The book itself alternates between stories from his life that carry him to the point at which he could share his sense of the life in the Spirit, with his reflections on the nature of this life – including sharing his own doctrinal perspectives. In the epilogue O’Donnell provides the window by which the journey can be evaluated. The title of the book comes from a more recent experience in Rome, where he is sitting in the back pew of the chapel where he had worshiped as a college student. At that moment, he realized that “one could come to communion with God from within. In a rush of overwhelming understanding, I knew the Church was a man made institution that could not deliver a man to where God really dwelt” (p. 256).

As you read this book you can’t help but sympathize with his struggles, though as a Protestant I have to be careful not to embrace too eagerly a negative portrayal of the Roman Catholic Church (Protestants have been known to do this). But while I can understand why O’Donnell felt hemmed in by the institutional forces of religion, I also found myself needing to raise questions.

Although I could critique this book on theological and historical grounds that wouldn’t seem to make much sense. That critique might sound defensive, and I’m not sure the author would find my critique all that compelling. So, for the most part I’ll leave those issues alone. What I would like to do is raise some questions about tendencies I see in the “spiritual but not religious” movement, which are exemplified in this book, that do concern me.

I’ll start with O’Donnell’s relationship with Roman Catholicism. It is clear that his understanding of Christian faith is wrapped up tightly with what he learned and experienced growing up in the Catholic Church, especially his education in Catholic schools, including those encounters with rather physically abusive nuns. This schooling introduced Tim O’Donnell to a rather narrow view of faith, one that was rigid and punitive. There were, of course, signs of grace here and there, but these seem to be the exceptions. Although O’Donnell knows that there are other forms of Christianity, including Protestantism, he doesn’t seem interested in them. Like many who emerge from the Catholic context it’s hard to break free of this orbit. As we often hear – once you’re a Catholic always a Catholic, even if you’re a lapsed one. So, much of his argument with institutional Christianity is wrapped up in his experiences of the Catholic Church. Ironically, even though he is disenchanted with traditional Christianity, it is this faith tradition that provides the foundation for his own reflections. This Catholic Faith provides the lenses through which he reinterprets his own experiences.

More problematic in my mind is what I’ll call the “infatuation with Gnosticism” that is so prevalent among many “spiritual but not religious” folks. The idea that the Gnostic texts were excluded from the canon by a narrow minded religious institution seems to give them added authority. Whether it is the recent hullabaloo over the Gospel of Judas or the popularization of gnostic gospels in The Da Vinci Code, the idea that the Church tried to suppress alternative versions of the Jesus story has caught on in the popular mind. In an age that distrusts institutions, this process of canonization, rather than being an example of divine providence, is a sign that the church knows something to be true that they don’t want out. And what is that truth? Well, often the truth is that there is a pathway to God that bypasses the institution. But what we don’t see in this engagement with the Gnostic texts is a recognition that Gnosticism tended to be elitist (after all the Gnostics saw themselves as possessors of secret knowledge), docetic (by and large they denied the value of the physical/material world), and they also tended to be anti-Jewish (Marcion – one of the heroes of Gnosticism – believed that the God of the Old Testament was the creator of the world – which was evil – and not the God of Jesus). The existence of these texts do remind us that the early Christian community was diverse, but I would question the enthusiasm with which their message is being received, without much further examination of them.

The biggest concerns that I have about this movement, which are exemplified by the life of the author, relate to two areas that I think are related. First, there is the issue of a moral/ethical vision, and the second has to do with community.

I’ll deal first with the matter of ethics/moral foundations. Although, the author appears, from his own self-description, to be a man of high moral standards – he exhibits these in his business practices – I’m left wondering about where these standards were derived. My sense is that they were instilled in him by his Catholic upbringing. Despite this, I don’t see much concern for social justice in this understandings of spirituality. He criticizes the Catholic Church for excluding women from the priesthood, but that seems to be part of his overall reaction to the narrowness of the institution. I may have missed something, so I’d be glad to hear from the author about his vision of social justice, but something that did stick out was his rather angry rejection of a statement by a Catholic college professor that wealth was evil. Since the author wants to include Jesus in his own spiritual self-understanding, I’m wondering what he makes of Jesus’ rather regular denunciations of a pursuit of wealth, including his call for the young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor or his suggestion that one can’t serve God and wealth. So my question is – if I am my own religious authority, who is in the position to challenge my moral/ethical standards?

The final concern that I have about the “spiritual by not religious” movement has to do with the individualism that is prevalent in this movement. O’Donnell, like many in this movement, has essentially created his own religion to fit his own perspectives (yes I know that to some degree we all do this). He is, by his own admission, the author and founder of his faith, which is rooted in the supposition that we are all somehow God incarnate. That is, while he honors Jesus, he believes that we can all be Christs, and he tries to interpret biblical texts in that light. As I read his interpretations of these texts, many of which are filtered through his embrace of the gnostic gospels, I found his interpretations to stretch the meanings beyond what they’re capable of holding, but again my focus isn’t on the doctrinal side of things. My concern is with the individualism that undermines the call to community. O’Donnell doesn’t say this, but there is a sense that if Christ is within us, and that all we need to do to find God is to look within, then why would we need a community? We are essentially spiritually self-sufficient. And if we’re self-sufficient then no one or no institution can challenge my sense of what is true and what is right. In the end, not only is the institution unnecessary (and human-made), but community is unnecessary? But as I read the biblical texts I see in them a call to community. Paul speaks of the church not as institution but as the body of Christ. It is a living being, in which every member is important. I’m wondering what will happen to the spiritual lives of those who have no connection to a community that challenges and supports one as one takes the journey of faith. I struggled with how to respond to this book, because I don’t want to come off as defensive of my tradition or the institution. I must admit that the institution and the tradition needs critique. At the same time, while I found O’Donnell’s book to be a well-written and expressive of his own journey, I believe that there are important questions that need to be posed to those who have embraced this “spiritual but not religious” idea. And these questions need to be asked now while this movement is growing at an increasingly fast pace, so fast that it is in many ways leading to the emptying out of the church that employs folks like me. So, I do have a vested interest in this conversation.

What we on the institutional side of things can learn here is that there is a strong sense of disappointment and frustration among the populace. The traditional institutions aren’t speaking to their hearts or their minds. The question is why? Why do people feel the need to strike out on their own? At the same time, I wonder if this new movement pushes the pendulum of institutionalism too far in the other direction, and what that will mean for people’s journeys as they become less and less connected to traditions once held? These are all questions that I pose to further the conversation, and not cut it off.

This review is offered as part of the TLC Book Tours,

which provided this review copy.

Saltiness -- A Lectionary Meditation

Isaiah 58:1-9a



1 Corinthians 2:1-12


Matthew 5:13-20

Saltiness

The question that continually emerges from our engagement with is: Who am I in God’s economy? That is, what does God want from me? Micah 6:8 seems to answer that question fairly clearly – justice, kindness/mercy, and humility. There is, of course, another question that pushes ast us: Where is God in all of this? It’s not just what does God want, but is God invested in this as well? Or, am I on my own? The conversation about spirituality and religion stems from these other questions. In this Modern/Post-Modern Age that we live in, the institution isn’t enough. It’s not enough that religion reinforces moral virtue. We want to have the sense that God is in this with us.

The critique of religion has been with us from some time, and no one was more critical of “Religion” than Karl Barth. In a recent Christian Century article, theologian Douglas John Hall reminded us of Karl Barth’s critique of religion, calling our attention Barth’s definition of religion as “grasping” after God. Religion is our Tower of Babel, our attempt to storm heaven and take control of God. Such efforts ultimately have dangerous implications. Hall writes:

In every religion, there are vulnerable points—ideas, attitudes or emphases which, under certain historical conditions, are bound to become flash points of conflict. But surely there is no point more redolent of potential violence than this kind of spiritual certitude itself. In a global village where religious disputation no longer limits itself to quarrels within the various historic religions but spills over increasingly into the unprecedented meeting of world religions, every one of them made newly insecure by their felt awareness of one another and of rampant secularity, the greatest flash point of all is inseparable from the religious impulse as such. With its clamoring for ultimacy, its frenetic triumphalism, its incapacity for existential doubt and the entertainment of alternatives, such religion inevitably courts violent opposition. The newly minted atheism of today understands this and capitalizes on it. It argues, with a kind of dogged logic, that the only way human-kind can avoid the great catastrophes to which this situation points is by dispensing altogether with "the God delusion." (Douglas John Hall, “Against Religion: The Case for Faith,” Christian Century, January 3, 2011).

If we are to live the Christian faith in a way that differs from the grasping nature of religion, as Hall describes, what will that look like?

The answer, interestingly enough, seems to emerge quite clearly in the three texts that appear in this week’s lectionary readings. Each speaks of this issue a bit differently – Isaiah focuses on living justly, Paul hails the unconventional nature of God’s wisdom, and in this excerpt from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls for the people of God to be salt and light, even as they exhibit an unconventional righteousness. Our temptation is to use religion to benefit ourselves, often at the expense of the other, but as we see from these three texts, this is not the way of God in the world.

Isaiah shouts to the people of Judah, who have returned home from exile and have returned to old habits. They delight in God and say they wish to know God’s ways, pretending, the prophet suggests, that they practiced righteousness and “delight to draw near to God” (Is. 58:2). They show their religiosity through fasting and prayer, but apparently they do so in order to be noticed – whether by God or by their neighbors! But God isn’t impressed by their religiosity, their desire to approach God on their own terms. God’s impatience, if we can call it that, is due to the fact that the people are serving their own interests, for even as they fast, they oppress their workers. Indeed, it appears that while fasting, they also engaging quarreling and fighting. The prophet responds – your fasting won’t make your voice heard by God. Bowing your head and lying in sack cloth and ashes, won’t gain God’s attention, as long as your religiosity is accompanied by injustice.

Even as we heard from the prophet Micah, Isaiah suggests that God desires that the oppressed be set free, bread be shared with the hungry, the homeless brought into one’s own homes, and the naked shall be clothed. Then, this post-exilic prophet says to the people, “your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.” Yes, and they your vindicator will go out before you and the glory of the Lord will serve as your rearguard. When you act justly, God will answer your cry for help. Our witness, if we can call it that, is rooted in our acts of justice.

Paul picks up a theme that relates directly to Douglas John Hall’s statements on religion. This text follows upon the previous verses that defend the message of the cross from those who would call it foolish. What we know of the Corinthian situation suggests that the “spiritualists,” the pneumatakoi, were calling for a different understanding of the Gospel, one that was more intellectual or spiritual, a perspective that had little regard for the cross and its image of weakness. That’s why Paul speaks in the first chapter of the letter of its supposed “foolishness.” But Paul isn’t afraid of taking his stand on this foolish idea. Rather than define his message and ministry in terms the “spiritualists” would find acceptable, he is willing to present his calling in terms that can be conceived as weak and fearful. Yes, he will take his stand with the crucified one, putting the wisdom of the cross up against the wisdom of the world. Once again we need to be aware of the danger of anti-intellectualism that could present itself in this text. But the point isn’t one of rejecting science or history, but recognizing that too often the conventional wisdom that puts too much regard on power and class can undermine the gospel. Then it becomes mere grasping for power. Paul will have none of this. The power of the gospel isn’t found in my (or any preacher’s) rhetorical abilities. I may be able to offer a stemwinder of a sermon, but if it only points back at me and not on to the message of Christ, then does it have any real value? As Mark Achtemeier puts it:

One would not want to use Paul’s point to excuse poor preaching, but it does point to a truth that preachers know all too well: The person in the pulpit does not have power to create faith in the hearers. Preachers bear testimony to the best of their ability, but it is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit to write God’s truth upon people’s hearts and bring them to faith. (Mark Achtemeier, “1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16): Theological Perspective” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, WJK, 2010, p. 328)

Thus, bearing as we do the Spirit of God, we can bear witness to the light, we can be the salt of the earth, by making use of the gifts of the Spirit who bears witness to the Crucified One.

The Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the Beatitudes – what Stanley Hauerwas calls gifts to the church – now moves on to describe the nature of our existence in the economy of God. We are salt and light. As salt we act to conserve the well-being of this world that we inhabit, and as light our “good works” stand out in such a way that God receives glory.

As salt and light, we must attend to the Law of God. Now, in this section, Matthew’s Jesus takes on those who would claim that in the new order the law has been done away with. Do you hear echoes of an argument within early Christianity between those who would elevate the law and those who would rid the church of law. Paul seems, at points, to throw the Law under the bus, but here we are given a reminder that the Law has not been abandoned. Now it is possible that Jesus will redefine the Law, but he makes quite clear that not one letter or even one stroke of a letter will pass away, so there isn’t any room here for those antinomians (anti-law) folks to hang their hats. In fact, Jesus even tells the teachers that they’ll be held liable if they teach the people to disobey the law. Your righteousness, Jesus tells the people, must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. I have been reminded that as we listen for the meaning of this verse, we need to remember that this is a caricature of the Pharisees. The purpose of this passage, though, seems to be one of pointing us back to the message of Isaiah 58. It’s not our staying true to the ritual that God considers ultimate, but the way we treat one another. Justice and mercy and humility – these are the markers of Jesus’ message, a message to which we’ve been called to bear witness.

If we will act justly and humbly, then we can be salt of the earth and a light to the world.

Religion In News Clips -- Sightings

Martin Marty notes the thesis -- Religion is in decline in the Secular West.  He suggests that the news may suggest otherwise.  I'll leave you to Marty's hands!

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Sightings 1/17/2011

Religion in News Clips

- Martin E. Marty

Thesis: Religion is on the ropes in our modern secular world. Still, look at the stealth news about religion in one week. (Harriet Marty breakfasted Saturday with what looks like confetti left over after I have clipped religion-relevant stories from our four dailies.) It may be hard to process this mosaic jumble, but at least return for the punch-line ending.

Documents: Suburban DuPage County leaders are having fits about plans to build a mosque near a Macedonian Orthodox Church and a Dharma Meditation Center. Complaint: “Present application increases in what is my opinion a saturation of religious institutions into this specific area. . . .”

Also local: A federal court lifted an injunction against a moment-of-silence school law “that critics claim is essentially state-sponsored prayer.”

A miracle: a long letter to an editor lauds the educational influence of the nuns. Nuns usually get blasted on- and off-Broadway and on all channels. Speaking of miracles: another nun was miraculously cured of TB when she prayed to Pope John Paul II. Rome seeks a second miracle to help launch the late pontiff from beatific to sainthood status. Still speaking of miracles: if you want more than two, read of the life of Bishop Charles Little, pastor of God’s House for All Nations, a Chicago influential who prayed for dozens of healings every Sunday. Many were healed. Sainthood for Little?

Martin Luther King, Jr., observances recalled other dimensions of the black religious experience.

Headline for a dance review: “Warring Relatives and Joking Rabbis.” Another: “Matters of Faith, Prayer and Physical Exertion,” has Jesus, Mary, Adam and Eve and “the Spirit of Religion” soaring. Shirley Caesar, 72-year-old performer, moving aisle to aisle in a New York theater sang: “Jesus, how I love calling your name; every day your name is the same.” She says, “Nobody can tell me that God isn’t real.” Another review: “A POW’s Awe-Inspiring Act of Faith” about a “masterwork” of chamber music composed by Olivier Messiaen and played in a German POW camp.”

Aspiring presidential candidate ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota publicly refers to his wife Mary as “my red-hot smokin’ wife,” who turns out to be a district judge “who can always supply an appropriate Bible passage in times of crisis.”

In Lebanon there’s a “fault line in the confrontation between Lebanon’s Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims. . . ‘the battle lines are clear. . . ’” Nigeria’s ruling party is torn over conflict between contenders in the Muslim North and the Christian South.

Loosening restrictions on travel to Cuba provide “broad opportunities for travel to Cuba by academic, religious and cultural groups.”

Christopher Hitchens writes about Mumtaz Qadri, who, “as a slave of the Prophet Muhammad . . . had the natural right to murder” a Pakistani governor.

African-American pastor Suzan Johnson Cook, who presides over the 7,500 minister members of a black pastoral group was appointed as an ambassador for “international religious liberty,” but she was blind-sided by Senator James DeMint, so her welcome services will not be welcomed. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, in the news over plans for a Muslim Center not far from the World Trade Center was also blind-sided, damned with faint praise by Muslim rivals, and pushed into the background.

Astrologers and their clients, who live at the edges of conventional religion, find out that the Zodiac boundaries on which they counted were not accurate.

Have you noticed that the interpretations and commemorations of the “Tucson Incident” were drenched in religious symbols, acts, and sayings?

Enough: does the thesis of line one hold: that religion is on the ropes in our secular world?

 

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at http://www.illuminos.com/.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Blog Readers West of the Mississippi?

I've been rather serious in my postings lately -- nothing too light.  I would have posted something quite joyous on Monday evening had the Ducks been able to pull that game out.  Oh, they should have won!  But, alas they didn't and we'll have to wait for next year.

So, this morning I want to reflect on blog readership statistics.  That seems light enough, doesn't it? 

Here's what I've been pondering from some time -- why so few visits to this blog from folks living west of the Mississippi River?  Is there a digital divide that separates the two halves of the nation?  Are they still laying cable over the prairies and the plains?  Are the Rockies too high of mountains to surmount with blog waves? 

I ask these questions because every time I check the map on my "sitereader" the eastern half of the country is covered, but further west it's as barren as the western plains of Kansas.  Yes, there are a few readers well out to the west in California and Oregon, but I get just about as many readers in Europe as in California, and I've lived a hardy portion of my life in California and Oregon! 

So, why is this?  Why is it that the map gets covered east of the Mississippi and not so much to the west?  Is it the religious nature of the topics?  Is this proof that Westerners are secularists with little time for religious talk?  Or could it be that there is a digital divide that runs along the Mississippi River? 

Enquiring minds want to know, so what do you think?!

Islamophobia On The Rise

Here are three stories on Islamophobia that caught my ear over the past week. One is a commentary from Reza Aslan. The two others are from NPR's All Things Considered, and Tell Me More. They focus on the wave of Islamophobia that is taking over the Country (whipped up by Republican media), and efforts that are being taken to deal with it.

Here is a post of an old story that I highlighted a few years ago that illustrates the impact that this idiocy has on real people. It's a story told from the perspective of a Muslim family. This is what the Republican media, led by folks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, is doing to people. And they know exactly what they are doing. They know that their propaganda whips their followers into a frenzy...and they know what kind of risk that carries - particularly the risk of people being attacked. Yet hate mongers within the Republican media apparatus continue to do what they do. The only explanation for it is that they want to incite certain behavior from their followers.

Some are even hoping to incite Muslims with the hope of sparking some sort of crazy religious or culture war. They have even demonstrated a willingness to put U.S. troops and American citizens overseas at risk because of their stupidity and hate speech. Tea Party Republican pastor Terry Jones has even tried to wash his hands of any responsibility for harm to American soldiers as a result of his 'Burn a Quran Day' event, clearly anticipating violence (which he is hoping for). This shows just how sick some on the Right can be.

Tea Party Republican Pastor Planning 'Burn A Quran Day' to Commemorate 9/11

Burn the Quran?

Despite the potential harm that he is bringing to American troops overseas, Tea party Republican pastor Terry Jones intends to push ahead with plans to burn the Quran at his Florida church on September 11th. Even requests from General David Petraeus himself have been ignored.

Black Muslims and the Ground Zero Mosque

As is their way, Republicans not only do not care about minority opinions (note their positions on healthcare reform and the 14th amendment), they believe that dumping on minorities will help them with conservative white voters. Sadly, they might be right.

Read the rest at The Loop.

Sarah Palin Shows More Ignorance - This Time On The Issue of Religion and State

Has she even read the Constitution?

The Promise Of Prosperity

There are three essential building blocks of the Black community: faith, education and jobs. Two of three building blocks come together in the burgeoning growth of prosperity churches. Latest estimates suggest that 50 of the nation’s 260 largest congregations are prosperity churches, or churches who preach that God will reward you with material wealth.

The concern is that some of these pastors preach to their congregants to take financial leaps when perhaps they lack the proper capital or know-how to fully understand the risks. I won’t go as far as Hannah Rosin and suggest that Christianity caused the crash but I do agree that prosperity churches could have done a better job assisting parishioners make better financial decisions.

Read the rest at The Loop.