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Growing into mature spirituality

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By Brien Pittman

In the last post, we considered the characteristics of abusive religion; the actions of Jesus against those who attempted to pervert his message; and finally, we considered our responsibility, because that is what mature spirituality does: it asks us to stretch our perceptions and understandings and possibly face that which we may not want to face.

Mature spirituality will never provide us with childlike answers to the incomprehensible, to the difficult questions in life, or to the social problems plaguing our country, and rightfully so. Instead, it will ask ever-larger questions of us and demand arduous actions that ultimately lead to a larger life. The alternative is an infantilized spirituality that we simply inherited with adopted values that delude, divert and diminish us.

So often spirituality is fear-driven, which is not to be judged, but a fear-driven spirituality will always diminish rather than enlarge. It has been said that religion is for those who are afraid to go to hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there. Any spiritual perspective that seeks to slyly avoid difficult questions, seeks to scapegoat others or that defers personal authority is an infantilizing spirituality. Any spirituality that makes people feel guilty and judged is merely adding to the primal complexes they already have. Any spirituality that keeps people in bondage to fear, tradition or to anything other than that which is validated by their personal experience is doing violence to their souls.

Many times in life our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate for the task. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Our playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing spiritual about shrinking so that you do not have to face fear or so other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to be bold in our faith. And as we let our own lights shine through our actions, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same, as Psychologist Marianne Williamson would say.

The unbalanced and unhealthy pursuits of power, materialism, or selfish interests all pale and diminish each time we face a critical juncture of choice and ask ourselves: “Does this path enlarge or diminish my spirituality?” Usually, we already know the answer to the question. We know it intuitively and instinctively. Choosing the path that enlarges us is always going to mean choosing the path to mature spirituality. It will many times be the more difficult choice, for in order to enlarge you, it asks more of you than you originally intended on giving.

Enlarged Christianity

Many outside of Christianity see us as a religion where Jesus loved the whole world so much that he came to earth and gave his life on the cross—so hundreds of millions, especially women and children, could be abused, scarred and oppressed by abusive forms of the Christian faith.

Is this what the God of love intended for his Church, or has much of Christianity become, once again, the religion of small, fear-driven, power-hungry men who want no more than to pervert the saving message of our savior in order to enslave and oppress? (Matt 7:15-23; 2 Tim 3: 5-10, 13-15; Matt 15: 7-9)

What was the example and religion Jesus taught, and is Christianity headed in that direction—or have contemporary Pharisees and Sadducees been teaching the commandments of men?

I hear people say, “That’s not my form of Christianity,” but consider the following numbers, for you are quickly becoming a minority.

A Pew study categorizes white fundamentalist evangelicals as 26.3 percent of the entire United States population, the country’s largest religious cohort; another study estimates fundamentalist evangelicals of all races at 30–35 percent.

Do the math: of the more than 361 million people in the United States, up to 35 percent are fundamentalist evangelicals. Whether we stay in our microcosm of denial or not, the fact remains that most of these denominations are well known for practicing abusive forms of Christianity. This does not even take into account the tens of millions of members belonging to well-known Christian cults.

In an age of religious tolerance, we need to be more conscious of others’ beliefs, but is spiritual abuse to be tolerated? Consider the numbers once again, and hopefully you will see what I have come to understand—arguably, that Christlike Christianity is losing this battle between light and darkness, between the 21st century and the Iron Age, between love and oppression.

Starting here in Spokane, are we, the Christian community, responsible for demanding a more Christlike form of religious ideology and practices that are free from the commandments of men? Stop and think for a moment about the impact it would have, not only on religious abuse, but also for many other social issues. It’s no secret that many times the direction our country takes and the decisions it makes regarding the poor and other social issues are, to a large extent, influenced by the extremely oppressive fundamentalist forms of Christianity.

Yes, it will require effort, and yes we will have to actually commit ourselves to action, but isn’t that what mature spirituality and Christianity are all about?

Is it our moral responsibility to demand love over oppression (John 13: 34, 35), and is it our Christlike obligation to be bold like Jesus, or should we do nothing?

As one of his earthly representatives, what do you think Jesus will guide us to do—and will our Christian leaders lead the way?

Brien Pittman
Brien Pittman
Brien’s articles for FāVS generally revolve around ideas and beliefs that create unhealthy deadlock divisions between groups. He has received (minor) writing awards for his short stories and poetry from the cities of Portland, Oregon and the city of (good beer) Sapporo, Japan. In 2010 he was asked to present several articles for the California Senate Committee “Task Force for Suicide Prevention” and has been published by online magazines and a couple national poetry anthologies in print form.

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charles vaden
charles vaden
9 years ago

Excellent article, well done, with the presidential election approaching and $Billions on the table, how about for fun we play with the Idea of the Kingdom as a Social construct and define it Organizationally, monetarily, economiclly and social policy wise then compare it to what is coming. I’ll help if you’re interested.

Vivianduncan2016@outlook.com
7 years ago

Thank you for your personal insight into mature spirituality. Certainly your journey has withstood some relative truths since you may believe that people are at different spiritual levels in their lives. Additionally, I sincerely agree with you concerning your understanding of oppressive fundamentalist. Since Christmas bought good changes to a very large group of Christian supporters of Christ.

Vivianduncan2016@outlook.com
7 years ago

I read a Christian sermon that stated that the war Christians have is that Satan is trying to destroy everything. Why is it that we as Christians attribute or attempt to shrug off our own individual behavior by blaming it on some ambiguous evil spirits when each of us know full well what we do? Has our time we live in, pursuing the American dream of wealth and pleasurable living allowed us individually to mislead ourselves into creating an evil spirits for our unrepentant bad ethical behavior as if it could save us privately?

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