1 Peter 3:18 ....but made alive in the Spirit....
Change and life are inseparable. Thus, both growth and death are part of this relationship because each is necessary for life to continue. . For those creatures which are able to be aware of this condition - this ability has led to the development of what we know as consciousness. and have used it to produce an understanding of life which we might term multi-dimensional. Or to put it another way - To use awareness as a means to initiate permanent behavioral change and understanding. We now know that this potential is somehow dependent upon the brain and we have given the term MIND to describe this ability which is associated with this so-called higher brain function so is deemed not to be a simple input-output condition but related nonetheless to sensory perceptions. Previous generations have assumed that this characteristic is unique to the human condition but with what we currently know about the molecular and biochemical processes involved in our evolution this assumption is probably too simplistic. Consciousness seems to go much farther down the evolutionary ladder than the obvious similarities recently discovered in the chimpanzee genome and detected in their behavior.
The evolution of the results of consciousness is difficult to determine. Tool making possibly, but certainly complex forms of community life probably qualify and certainly methods of communication and artistic expression are obvious examples. Language is clearly a big contributor because it makes possible the passing on of acquired knowledge between generations and over distance and the development of symbol systems for correlating this information. The storing of food maybe a very simple illustration of primitive consciousness but the storing of knowledge is a monumental breakthrough. It is likely that story telling is the earliest form of speculation about relationships between different kinds of human experience. More abstract forms of this speculation entailed specialized use of language or symbols such as numbers. Perhaps most interesting for us is the question of how these abstractions relate to or are dependent upon sensory perceptions. This question is paramount for considering the source and role of religion in human experience, particularly as to what we mean when we talk about spirit/s or spiritual things.
These observations make it unlikely that we can call any specific religious experience - unique. There is no Christian or Muslim genome nor even a phenotype that accounts for what is clearly an historical/cultural occurrence. This condition - read human experience - has a double effect. It leads to the creation of communities where none previously existed and the community then becomes generic for the maintenance and further development of this originating experience. There is an even deeper paradox to this situation - the experience of which we speak here is obviously totally dependent upon the existence of our bodies yet seems to refer (in terms of the symbols viz. language, art is uses) to that which goes beyond the body. Does this mean that it is possible to explain religion from a scientific viewpoint? Daniel Dennett(1) has made this attempt with the hope that even the religiously faithful will come to see the wisdom of analyzing their deepest beliefs scientifically and so weed out harmful outcomes from good ones - assuming of course that there is agreement as to what constitutes good and bad in this analysis. He is particularly fascinated by the role played by nemes - ideas that are so powerful that they seem to leap from mind to mind. Of course his goal is to try to discern what these ideas might be. The usual list of possibilities is assembled, such as the way in which we continue to experience the presence of those who are important to us even after they die. He suggests that the developmental process which moves folk religion to organized religion might be similar to the way in which folk music grew into the music of today. There is certainly a flaw in the view that the differences between music forms is hierarchical (as indeed there is a similar difference between religions) but it does suggest to him a metaphor for the process which offers an attractive account of goes on within religious communities.
Every minister in every faith is like musician, keeping traditions alive by playing the beloved standards the way they are supposed to be played, but also incessantly gauging and deciding, slowing the pace or speeding up, deleting, or adding, another phrase to a prayer, mixing familiarity and novelty in just the right proportions to grab the minds and hearts of the listeners in attendance.
What Dennett is describing is what we might call the internal rationality of a practice in which the practitioner is aware of the "rules" which are necessary to him to play. To the outsider a "riff" may sound completely spontaneous but to those in the group they know what is coming and how to respond. The similarity to the internal rules in religious practice is obvious and helpful to understand the dynamics which move through the practice of religion. The difficulty with this rational analysis of religion lies in the fact that it doesn't account for the complexities of human experience that religion embraces. The most interesting and profound being the pervasiveness of the terms spirit and spiritual to indicate its source. It is clear that the brain is involved but that the driving force seems to be a need to integrate the totality of human experience - grounded in a particular time and space but able to transcend this fixity by language and other symbol systems. This accounts for the fact that not all religions are alike but they are faced with the task of either making their particular brand supreme or devising methods of talking with each other so that they may share their common humanity. Obviously these two ways are not easily separated as illustrated by the ambiguity of Christian missionary activity right here in Lower Canada. Viz the difference between the Jesuit and Recollet view of missionary activity.
This is the first Sunday of Lent - a time in which we give over to thinking about our faith collectively and individually. Traditionally it has been a period in which we go after the body as the symbol of all of those practices which inhibit our spiritual life. - our closeness to God. But there is now an imperative for Lenten discipline to discover additional scope for its exercise. I would like to identify three aspects of our collective and individual practice that illustrate this demand.
1. The ways in which religion shares a common pool of human insight and activities which makes it difficult to speak about pure religion. One of my favorite historical examples which you have heard many times is that of the structure of the early Church which was borrowed from the example of Roman Law and government ( Scholars often speak of the baptism of pagan ideas by the early Church! In the same spirit Luther quipped no reason why the devil should have the best tunes) We have to acknowledge that two of the major issues in the Anglican Church today, the ordination of women and gay marriage have been partly at least been the contribution of non-religious insights. How is it possible and why is it necessary for us to treat them as gifts of the Spirit?
2. That part of our being faithful requires dialogue with other religious practices. This may be the most serious imperative we face. While we are part of a faith and political culture that believes and practices the understanding that no religious card should be trump. Others do not share our comfort with a secular notion of society and see the existence of a "pure" religion as a viable option. At the center of this challenge is a very real question as to the sources of religious truth and the question as to how we reconcile different versions of revelation. To what extent is any version of revelation have the right to call for the destruction of those who reject it? This is a dilemma shared by both Muslim and Christian.
3. How do individual practices of religious observance fit into the picture. Traditionally this exercise has been called piety and often in our time the "pious" have been relegated to the outer reaches. as being out of touch with the demands of the modern world. The great acts and metaphors of our faith - prayer, covenant, baptism and being alive in the Spirit are meant to be integrated into our individual lives so that collectively they may build up the community whose home they are. Lent is the great test of our understanding that without our bodies we are nothing. It is with them that we become alive in the Spirit.
I wish you a challenging, exciting and pious Lent.
1.Daniel C. Dennett, BREAKING THE SPELL: religion as a natural phenomenon, Viking (penguin) 2006 See all the review by George Johnson, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Vol. 294, No. 1 January 2006, pp. 80-81
The Rev. Roger A. Balk, Ph.d.