The poem by Walt Whitman
suggests that everything we encounter becomes part of us and that
we carry all of our past experience with us into new situations.
It’s an especially interesting fact for Unitarian Universalists
to ponder because most of us are come-outers; we have come out of
other religious traditions, and we carry with us into this
denomination a great variety of specific religious experiences,
both positive and negative.
One of the most important tasks we
face as UUs is a kind of sorting out of our experiences with
religion. We need to clarify what it is we have found here, what
religious values and experiences we wish to bring with us from our
earlier lives and what we choose to leave behind. Most of us are
clearest about the last one—we are usually very vocal about the
kinds of religion we want no part of. We tend to forget that there
were also some positive influences toward freedom of thought and
toward the human values we hold now. Those positive influences may
or may not have occurred in churches but they were of a religious
quality and we need to honor those past experiences and
consciously bring them with us into our present search.
As searchers we have another
tremendous need, and that is for kindred spirits. We need to know
not only that we are not the only ones on this questioning road
but also that we are not the only ones to arrive at certain
heretical and unorthodox insights. As UUs we love to sift through
history and claim all the mavericks and heretics as wise men and
women who were precursors of our own views. It’s an important
task. It gives us a sense of continuity with creative and unusual
people of many times.
This morning I thought we might
work a bit on both of these tasks, the personal and the
historical.
In 1945 at a place called Nag
Hammadi in Upper Egypt, near a mountain full of caves, a man was
digging for a particular kind of soil. In digging out a boulder he
unearthed a large pottery jar. Thinking it might contain gold he
smashed it and emptied out the contents. No gold, but a whole
collection of papyrus books bound in leather. After years of black
market sales, smuggling and political intrigue, the collection was
finally assembled in a museum in Cairo and copies made available
to scholars. The actual books have been dated to the 4th century
A.D. and are copies of the scriptures used by Gnostic Christians.
Their ideas were vehemently attacked and labeled heresy by the
growing orthodox Christian Church which in that century became the
official religion of the Roman Empire. It appears that someone hid
the heretical texts hoping to reclaim them later. They remained
safely buried until 1945. As Elaine Pagels points out in her book,
if they had been discovered a thousand years ago, even a few
hundred years ago, they would surely have been burned as
heretical.
At a personal level the gnostic
Christian writings set me to thinking about my own years within
Christianity and the whole question of what I chose to bring with
me from that experience and what I chose to leave behind. I’d
like to share some of those reflections with you, and take some
time for you to share some similar reflections with each other. I
would also like to tell you some of the ideas the gnostic
Christians had which made them heretics and perhaps kindred
spirits for us.
Think if you will of your own
past religious journey. What values and beliefs and
attitudes from that past do you choose to reject? What is
the most important rejection of a belief or value that has
occurred in your life?
Think now of the past values
and beliefs and influences you look upon as positive, as
nourishing the free mind and independent spirit that has
brought you to this place at this particular time. What
beliefs or values do you choose to retain, to bring with you
into the future? What is the most important belief you wish
to retain?
Now turn to someone near you and
share those reflections—what beliefs you have rejected and what
you choose to retain. When I ring the bell it will be time to
return.
Back in the 1950s when I was a
theological student at Drew University (liberal Methodist), Nelle
Morton who was a professor there asked me one day in her lovely
Tennessee accent (which it is totally beyond me to imitate)
"Shirley, what church do you go to?" "The Episcopal
Church," I said. Her mouth fell open, her eyes widened and
she said "What?! You can’t! That’s not possible!" I
think that may have been the day I was arguing in her class that
we should expand the Bible, open up the canon and put some new
life in it. The rigid doctrines and attitudes and structures of
the churches sat very lightly with me. My attitude was that most
of it had little to do with Christianity as Jesus might have meant
it to be. It didn’t surprise me at all to learn that most
theological doctrines were the result of arbitrary decisions made
for political reasons. The reason I stayed with the Episcopal
church for about 30 years of my adolescent and adult life was that I was committed
to some values and attitudes which I persisted in labeling
Christian.
From my mother who considered
herself a Christian but would have nothing to do with organized
religion (she considered all churches citadels of hypocrisy), from
her I absorbed the strange idea that what mattered about religion
was how you lived your life. It was Jesus, she said, who healed on
the Sabbath, who dined with publicans and sinners, who taught that
the stranger who stops to help is more virtuous than the priest
who fails to stop, and Jesus would have the same problems today
with self-righteous church-goers that he had in his own day with
the scribes and Pharisees and money-changers. I have no quarrel
with that kind of Christianity. It molded my values; it became
part of my bones. I choose to bring that with me. My mother had
another odd idea which she passed on to me and which I definitely
choose to retain: she did not believe in missions. Although she
knew little about other religions she greatly admired some of the
ancient pagan writers—the Greek dramatists and the Latin poets—and
she assumed that Christianity had no corner on religious truth.
From my father who went to church
every Sunday, I absorbed the liberal traditions that the Bible was
an ancient set of books which could not be accepted as literal
truth; that science and religion could be reconciled and that such
stories as that of the resurrection of Jesus or the virgin birth
of Mary had to be understood in psychological or sociological
terms. I had no quarrel with that liberal tradition in which I was
nurtured.
But at theological school in the
1950s the crucial word in our religious lives was relevance—how
to make the ancient gospel relevant to modern life. People, we
said, were not asking the right questions. I began to understand all the centuries old
theological debates which gave rise to the particular words I
repeated every Sunday. But what could those issues possibly mean
to people in the modern world? Finally, about halfway through my
early theological education I asked the crucial question—what
does it mean to me? I knew the words; I even knew their history. I
had read large sections of the New Testament in Greek and had
speculated about the implications of different ways of translating
particular words. I had often discussed the relevance of
Christianity to modern life, but I had not really considered its
relevance to my life.
It was in the process of
psychotherapy that I discovered what was to be for me the essence
of religion—an encounter with my own potential and my own
demons, an encounter which occurred within the context of a human
relationship. Suddenly the Sunday liturgy took on new meaning—relevance.
"Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I
will refresh you." I was refreshed. I was finding a new life.
I labeled it a religious, a Christian experience.
So I repeated the familiar words on
Sunday, going through an elaborate cerebral process of
translation, remembering the history and feeling the connections
between a new life in Christ and my own experience in
psychotherapy. Professionally I moved into the world of psychology
and I wondered over the years how many other people sat in church
translating ancient stories into modern equivalents in their own
experience. For me the issue was no longer how to make an ancient
story relevant, but how to lift up that which is religious in our
own lives today. For many years I didn’t know there was a
denomination where that task was central. It wasn’t until 1972
that I visited a Unitarian
Fellowship and knew that I had found my real church home.
I left the Episcopal church because
I found a religious movement which actively acknowledges that
truth has been proclaimed not only by Jesus but by other religious
teachers and more importantly, that it is proclaimed today in
obscure places if only we have ears to hear and eyes to see. I
leave behind churches which try to limit truth to one particular
revelation.
There were other reasons too. I
became increasingly frustrated with the authoritarian structure of
the church with its hierarchy and its liturgical demands for what
I considered unhealthy submissive behavior. And as a woman I
became more and more aware of the sexist symbolism and practices
of Christianity. I needed a church community which had a
commitment to more democratic processes in its organization and
one that would acknowledge women as the equals of men.
Among the startling heresies
proclaimed by the Gnostic Christians of the 4th century
is the notion that humanity created God and so from its own inner
potential discovered the revelation of truth. The Greek word gnosis
of course means knowledge. For gnostics exploring the psyche
became a religious quest. They believed that the psyche bore
within itself the potential for liberation or destruction. These
words are from the Gospel of Thomas and are attributed to
Jesus. He says "If you bring forth what is within you, what
you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is
within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
According to the gnostics most people live in oblivion,
unconsciousness, and so self-knowledge is crucial. In another
text Silvanus the teacher says "Knock on yourself as upon a
door and walk upon yourself as a straight road." The Gospel
of Truth says "Say then from the heart that you are the
perfect day, and in you dwells the light that does not fail…For
you are the understanding that is drawn forth."
Several interesting implications
follow from this central focus on self-knowledge. Any person may
achieve enlightenment and at that point becomes the equal of her
teacher. Authority then is derived from self-knowledge and not
from one’s position in a hierarchy. As Pagels points out, this
self-knowledge offers nothing less than a theological
justification for refusing to obey the bishops and priests.
Gnostic Christians refused to
acknowledge the authority of the hierarchy, and they rotated
leadership in their churches, operating on a more democratic
model. Bishop Irenaeus complains that when the Gnostics met all
the members first participated in drawing lots. Whoever received a
certain lot was designated to take the role of priest; another was
to act as bishop; another would read the scriptures for worship,
and others would address the group as prophets, offering
extemporaneous spiritual instructions. The next time the group
met, they would throw lots again so that the persons taking each
role changed continually. Instead of ranking their members into
superior and inferior orders within a hierarchy they followed the
principle of strict equality.
Another implication of the gnostic
view is that since both men and women seek self-knowledge,
divinity is imagined in both masculine and feminine terms. Gnostic
literature contains such lines as these: "I am Thought that
dwells in the Light, she who exists before the All, I move in
every creature. I am the Invisible
One within the All." Or this: "I am the first and the
last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and
the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin; I am the mother and
the daughter." As orthodox Christianity rejected female
imagery and gradually excluded women from positions of leadership,
Gnostic churches continued to encourage female leadership.
Of course they were severely
criticized by the orthodox church fathers. According to Pagels,
Bishop Irenaeus notes with dismay that women are especially
attracted to heretical groups. He admitted that even in his own
district the gnostic teacher Marcus had attracted many foolish
women including the wife of one of Irenaeus’ own deacons. Marcus
invited women to prophesy and even to act as priests in
celebrating the eucharist. Tertullian expresses similar outrage at
the gnostics. He writes "These heretical women—how
audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to
teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake
cures, and, it may be, even to baptize!"
Orthodox Christianity made many
theological decisions which would strengthen the centralized power
of the church. One of the most crucial and politically ingenious
theological decisions had to do with the nature of God. God was
determined to be a creator outside the creation rather than within
it except in the person of Jesus. Jesus’ resurrection had to be
accepted literally because only the apostles were supposed to have
seen him after he arose. In this way only by tracing one’s
authority through the bishops back to the apostles and thus to
Jesus, could one have access to God. In case you think this kind
of thinking is peculiar to the 4th century, take a look
at bumper stickers today which say that Jesus is the one way to
God. Gnostics who experienced the Divine within
themselves and refused to accept a literal interpretation of the
resurrection didn’t really need the bishops or the apostles or
even a resurrected Jesus in order to have access to God, so they
were labeled heretics. It may be, as Pagels suggests, that
the decisions of the orthodox church enabled Christianity to
survive. Today however it may be that our survival as human beings
depends upon the assertion of the very principles once espoused by
the gnostic heretics: the freedom to pursue self-knowledge and the
use of a democratic process in human relations. Principles that
should sound very familiar to Unitarian Universalists.
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