Once the religious leaders had determined to destroy Jesus, and Jesus had determined to protect his followers by demonstrating his spiritual superiority over every intellectual and physical challenge they could bring to bear, the stage was set in Jerusalem. Presenting a list of grievances and redefining identity, Jesus’ declaration of independence announced a break with implications for community. Jesus was speaking to a crowd that included enemies, followers, and some who identified with neither camp. He redefined identity when told them, “You have one Father, one teacher, and you are all brothers.” This new identity takes precedence over the identities of family and religion. Someday religious identity will be based, not on “what makes us unique,” but upon universal truth.
Jesus taught the kingdom of God, the Father’s spiritual family, as the community of spirit-born believers. At first, his followers defined themselves in terms of the new and better way that Jesus lived and revealed and taught; only later did his followers identify themselves as Christians. Jesus’ great hope for the world was for the Jews to embrace the gospel of the universal family and carry the message to all humankind, even as Martin Buber, Viktor Frankl, Elie Wiesel, and countless other Jews do today.
What communities will evolve with the loyalty to truth required to carry forward the hope that the truths of the universal family will prevail in our world? One factor in effective community is accountability, and the number one dimension of accountability is to truth, which implies that the community’s self-definition must facilitate rather than impede the spread of the universal values it professes to follow. It will not march about flying the flag of its own difference, which will become a stumbling block to most of the people who need that truth.
The new communities will cultivate the experience of spiritual unity, not a unity predicated on what makes them unique, special, superior, and bearing awesome gifts for those who are ready for their program. Rather their experience of spiritual unity will be based upon the recognition of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man (not as a slogan set in stone but as realities expressed in linguistic liberty) plus growth, personal transformation, in living that truth. Since the core truths of the universal family include and imply service, there is no question that service is essential to the unity of these communities within themselves and with one another. For example, the communities of those who profess to follow Jesus should unite in loving service (without waiting to agree on a formulated list of particular statements of belief).
Particular networks with agendas for social transformation may experience unity on the basis of sharing highly specific values and particular interpretations of the meanings of those values; such social-psychological factors in the feeling of belonging in the group represent a dimension of human functioning that plays a legitimate role in the mosaic of teams that serve on the planet. But the forward-looking leaders of emerging religious communities that choose primarily to celebrate and activate the universal family will protect the inclusive, big-tent function of their groups by not fixing their identity in terms of such specific values and interpretations. No one group should try to perform too many functions. Each task comes with project specifics; if these specifics are blurred and blended in the mind, the result will lack the quality of wisdom that is needed now.
These suggestions are not only brimming with religious idealism. They are also brimming with implications for scientific realism. Truth-coordinated living is based on integrating these two sides of the life of truth. The human mind begins with facts. It is easy to leap into action based on the facts that we most immediately associate with passionate enthusiasm about values. It is hard to be industrious in deliberation. We aspire to love in a way that is intelligent and wise, but if we skip the scientific and philosophical steps, we take serious risks as we form communities. Once again, lessons will be learned the hard way rather than from what study can teach us by drawing upon great heritages that are available and so neglected in contemporary education.
One more comment about identity. An exciting trend in the past couple of generations has been is a new emphasis on diversity and a critique of universalizing theories, institutions, and practices that did not respect the many aspects of our identity as human beings. Sometimes I recall the thought that God must be not only unity but also diversity. Today discussions of diversity revolve around gender, race, and class. In religious circles, they revolve around identifiable religions, denominations, and sects. Too much emphasis on such aspects of our identity can create a new kind of sexism, racism, classism, and so on, with the result that we see ourselves and others so much through the lens of demographic categories that we compromise our affirmation of our common humanity and our recognition of the unique personality of each individual we meet.
Our concept of group solidarity will take years of struggle before it becomes clear. The outworking requires divine guidance progressively discovered through the sustained focus of the powers of mind, soul, and body.
One great aid in the work to be done comes from the artistic side of life. The true quality of the calm and happy laborer that we critically need is accessible through the emerging symbolism of the universal family. One way to access symbolic creativity is to begin, as the mind normally does, with problems, facts, and ideas like the proposals presented here. We find or construct a sequence, and then we have a slide show: the quote, image, or teaching shows up one at a time. After plumbing the depth in each one, we seek to comprehend the sequence until the mind can flow freely through the sequence. At this point the slide show becomes a movie. The flow transforms the static character of the initial ideas. It is as though the ideas we began with link up together, and the mind flies in fast-forward, like the reel at the cinema, where individual photos are no longer visible on the screen, only the motion picture. The acceleration can become so great that it becomes impossible to identify components or grasp anything which could be narrated. Or the acceleration can adjust to interaction in community, as a spiritually attuned speaker expresses herself smoothly. Discoveries can come when our purpose is clear and our mind flows freely.
How can we dare to design community without short-circuiting the unconscious process of evolution that adds essential stability from superconscious and human sources? Another dimension of study is important: We learn from best work of others of great achievement, and we learn also from failures.
With a prayer for your factual realism, philosophical care, and spiritual attunement as you participate in the intertwined leadership and teamwork of your communities.
Image credits
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Christ_teaching_in_the_Temple.JPG
http://w3.chabad.org/media/images/428/RxEQ4282906.jpg
By World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2003, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3581251
If we could only learn to truly love the heavenly Father with all of our heart, mind, soul and might, we would truly usher in the Kingdom of heaven that Jesus revealed and invited us to enter. Loving God supremely also means viewing others as our spiritual brothers and sisters, and loving them as we love our self as this self has been elevated to supreme levels.
This desirable state will bring about the heaven on earth that we all long for in our hearts, but as long as we refuse to accept the pulling grace of revelation, we must proceed solely with the gritty, stubborn, slow push of religious and spiritual evolution. We will get there eventually because it is the Father’s will that we get there, even though any given individual has the power to decline, being endowed with moral and spiritual free will.
What a glorious state, that even now we can faith realize and live in that Kingdom right now where there is joy, peace and righteousness in the Holy Spirit.
Dr. Perry
The slow path and the fast track. Sometimes the slow path lasts only until something has been learned. Once I was getting ready to vomit, and as I headed into the bathroom I thought, “This will have been for the best” (in the background of my mind: All things work together for good). Immediately the urge to vomit disappeared. I also remember a slow path of decades, during which period I countless times maxed out in the best intellectual, spiritual, and behavioral efforts I knew to attempt–to no avail. But gradually I learned the layers of lesson that awaited me. And the lessons continue, thank God.
Thanks Brother Jeff for sharing. I too travel the same road of extending my root system before the plant comes up. But I am encouraged by the inspiration of Jesus’ life. As I examine that life the only thing I see to account for his extraordinary progress was his consistent prayer and worship life. That I am doing to the best of my ability. Again thanks for the encouragement.
Dr. Perry
If we could only learn to truly love the heavenly Father with all of our heart, mind, soul and might, we would truly usher in the Kingdom of heaven that Jesus revealed and invited us to enter. Loving God supremely also means viewing others as our spiritual brothers and sisters, and loving them as we love our self as this self has been elevated to supreme levels.
This desirable state will bring about the heaven on earth that we all long for in our hearts, but as long as we refuse to accept the pulling grace of revelation, we must proceed solely with the gritty, stubborn, slow push of religious and spiritual evolution. We will get there eventually because it is the Father’s will that we get there, even though any given individual has the power to decline, being endowed with moral and spiritual free will.
What a glorious state, that even now we can faith realize and live in that Kingdom right now where there is joy, peace and righteousness in the Holy Spirit.
Dr. Perry
The slow path and the fast track. Sometimes the slow path lasts only until something has been learned. Once I was getting ready to vomit, and as I headed into the bathroom I thought, “This will have been for the best” (in the background of my mind: All things work together for good). Immediately the urge to vomit disappeared. I also remember a slow path of decades, during which period I countless times maxed out in the best intellectual, spiritual, and behavioral efforts I knew to attempt–to no avail. But gradually I learned the layers of lesson that awaited me. And the lessons continue, thank God.
Thanks Brother Jeff for sharing. I too travel the same road of extending my root system before the plant comes up. But I am encouraged by the inspiration of Jesus’ life. As I examine that life the only thing I see to account for his extraordinary progress was his consistent prayer and worship life. That I am doing to the best of my ability. Again thanks for the encouragement.
Dr. Perry