A BRIEF BACKGROUND
Recently a friend of mine began to post a series of blogs chronicling some very drastic personal and spiritual changes. He made these changes public through his blog via his Facebook page. Me, in typical true to myself fashion, began to ask some questions in the comments section below. In all honesty I was merely seeking clarification at first, and at some point, the conversation was lost and it was clear that my friend felt attacked. To my shame, there was a clear point in the preceding conversation where it would’ve been appropriate for me to bow out and avoid causing any relational damage. Unfortunately I did not heed. In general, I don’t mind a good argument; it is at times one of my strengths, and at other times my weaknesses. On this day, it was my weakness that was on full display.
It is no surprise that the best relationships are often the most messy. My friend and I, who I will now refer to as “John” because that is his name, have always been able to cordially go back and forth, even in our disagreements. It’s been one of the most enjoyable aspects of our relationship and has always managed to hold steady even through moments of tension. John is always fair, and even sometimes fair to a fault, that is both sometimes his strength and sometimes his weakness. We’ve always been able to see each other’s views clearly, respond honestly, and bro hug it out at the end. Some mutual friends saw the comment fight for what it was, two bros who care for each other fighting it out. Yet for those with no context to our relationship, this dynamic was lost, and I fear I may have not been the best representation of Christ and his church, nor was I a very good friend to John either. This was, and is, entirely my fault and my responsibility.
So why am I telling you this?
Is this some sort of public apology?
Not exactly.
It is an invitation to a public discourse.
Privately, the air was cleared and the relationship was restored. John was able to express his views a little more thoroughly, and also share some of his recent pain, something that I had not consider when I first began to respond. After the dust settled, John and I agreed that there may be a public benefit to this conversation, even if only for those who have interest the conversation itself. At the very least we can hope to be an example of friendly disagreement, and gentlemanly debate. In the end, John’s blog is public, and he made it public, so my descent to his ideas will also be made public.
A DISCLAIMER
I can’t stress enough that John and I are friends! He means a lot to me, and I hope I mean a lot to him. So in my responses, I will only comment, make observations, and ask questions to what John has revealed in his blog and in some of our subsequent conversations about the content of his blog. Anything I know personally about John will not be made know with his consent unless it is something that he has already made public in his writings. John is a pretty open guy anyway, so it’s not like he has anything to hide, you can typically just read what he has already written if you want to know more.
I will not tolerate any slandering of my friend in any comments or personal messages. I have promised John to do my best to keep these responses on topic by arguing for my position, and representing his position fairly, in as much as I understand it. Please realize that any tone that may come through in my writings is in your own head. My tone to John is always friendly, even when I’m being sarcastic or poking fun, and these are all things that I would say to his face if he wasn’t living several states away right now.
THE NITY AND THE GRITTY
John’s revelations first began to unfold in a past blog post announcing he and his wife’s divorce. For me, divorce, especially Christian divorce, is a bit of a personal issue, and while that particular issue is not my focus, there were still words typed, and implications made, that need to be addressed in that first post that are connected to John’s new understanding. These implications seem to flow back and forth from John’s new theology.
Theology is simply the study of God. If you or anyone has had any thoughts about God whatsoever, you are engaging in a theological mental exercise. “Does God exist or not?” is a theological question, it is that simple, congratulations, you are now a theologian. As I grow older, I believe more firmly that what we believe about God shapes our lives dramatically. For example, if you believe that God prefers your particular race over every other race, this will change how you interact with people who are of different than you. This means that no matter what your beliefs are, that the theology behind them is extremely important. What we think about God informs the way we interact with the world around us. This is also why our theological positions and their implications must be tested for sufficiency (truthfulness) and deficiencies (falsehoods).
In our conversations surrounding the divorce post, John explained to me that all of this made sense according to his current understanding of the Christian faith. Stating that he would explain more in subsequent blog post, and that he and I were no longer in the same theological universe (his words). He describes it as a Journey into Mysticism, and starting with that first post I will respond here in my first post. If you care to follow the conversation, you can read John’s full post here, and if you hope to read this blog with any understanding, you should!
In THE BEGINNING John describes his current belief system as the culmination of nine months reconciliation in this one specific area. He identifies his new understanding as being “closer to Mysticism”, which is hard to define specifically or with any real certainty. Although John claims that his mysticism appeals to reason, under scrutiny, it appears that it doesn’t have much of any. It is as if the flowery language surrounding its description and practice sounds just sophisticated enough, and just spiritual enough, that it must be rational and therefore true. An extremely loosely defined belief system such as mysticism should give any rationally thinking person pause. Being so loosely defined, it allows the mystic to redefine as needed, what works yesterday in mysticism doesn’t work today, so you can just change it. Which sounds fine, but just like a buffet that gives you just about any possible food option you could want, there is rarely ever a healthy option to be found in it. Spiritually this is mysticism, and although it may serve John in the immediate circumstance of his life, we quickly find that it creates more problems in the long term than it solves in the immediate. Sure, unlimited food sounds nice until our hearts give out or we can no longer bend at the knees, collapsing under the weight of our poor choices. Mysticism is ultimately a poor choice for spiritual food, even if it does taste good.
The proposition of mysticism as a worldview is rather simple…
“Hey are you looking for something to build your life on and/or around?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Well it’s really a little bit of this and a little bit of that, really whatever you want.”
“I’m already good at doing whatever I want, so why should I buy into your new thing.”
“Oh, well because it has a fancy spiritual sounding name, we call it “Mysticism.”
“Well I’m already a Christian.”
“That’s fine; you can just call it “Christian Mysticism.””
Now I know this sounds like I’m poking fun, and I don’t mean too, but I do intend to demonstrate the absurdity of a belief system that is the spiritual equivalent of shrugging your shoulders and saying “I don’t know.” And the allure of mysticism is strong until we peek behind the curtain. Honestly it would be easier if John had just come out and said “You know what, I don’t believe anything anymore!” At least that has a specific basis on which to build your belief set, unlike mysticism which is as stable as quicksand. To use John’s own words…
“I now identify closer to Mysticism which when studied through the lenses of each different Religion is seen as being essentially the same, which has lead me down the road of understanding spiritual experiences as being personally different but universally unified in a spiritual nature. Your religion and personal experience are not right or wrong universally, just personally. We are the ones who separate them from one another. ”
Essentially, John is stating that there is no wrong way; we all start in different places, but ultimately end up in the same place. This is what is commonly called relativism, although John himself does not use the term, it is inescapably what he has defined for us. All “Religion is…essentially the same”, that experiences are “personally different but universally unified” and finally that we are “not right or wrong universally.” Herein we see the central appeal of John’s worldview, ultimately we get to be deterministic over ourselves, we get to be our own authority, we get to decide what is good and profitable for our own benefit, we get to be our own god. I would argue that this is what we all do by default any, and I think the Christian bible would make the same case, so why claim any belief of a greater spiritual experience at all?
IS IT RIGHT OR WRONG?
A few things are commendable in John’s mysticism. First, it seeks to turn the discussion away from a simple issue of “who is right and who is wrong.” Many see the discussion of different religions as a simple battle between “who does the right things in order to please the correct god.” John’s relativistic Christian mysticism seeks to eliminate this tension by getting rid of those two distinctions by asserting that all things are okay, they are only wrong if you personally think they are wrong, and it doesn’t matter to which god you do those things towards because they all lead to the same place. Universally, there is no right or wrong, those distinctions came from us, no objective standard or authority, by which to measure anything, which is simply another way to say that there is no absolute truth.
This is the primary deficiency in John’s worldview. Maybe he denies that this is relativism, but make no mistake, this is definitely what John lays out for us, the language he uses surrounding it is just a little different. As a central part of John’s mysticism, this relativism falls entirely flat on its face. We can demonstrate this relatively easily by asking one questions. Is the statement “There is no absolute truth, absolutely true?” Or, in the language John uses, “If nothing can be universally right or wrong, can anything thing be right or wrong universally?” This creates a serious morality problem for the mystic. Right and wrong are, in this view purely subjective, and making morality completely subjective makes it no different than preference. In the extreme, if nothing is universally wrong, then we have no true objection to make against civilizations that practice child sacrifice or child prostitution. At best, mysticism can only say that ” by my subjective reasoning, I think what you are doing is wrong, and I’d prefer that you would stop.” This is the implication of John’s new world view, and in this post and subsequent post, he does not rise to the occasion of answering the problem of morality from a mystic perspective.
Pushing the conversation from right and wrong is not a bad thing, but I would argue that this idea is actually imported from the bible. It’s not an idea original to mysticism, yet unlike mysticism, the bible does define an objective standard by which to measure morality, that measure is a reflection of God’s character, and that measure is called the law. Yet, knowing John’s upbringing, I doubt very seriously that he grew up in a Christian context that understood the purpose of the law. This is where I feel for John, I grew up in a similar church context. It was awful, the entirety of God’s law was distilled down to a list of do’s and don’ts, and following that list is what made God either happy or angry with you. This is a very common few, it is also very wrong.
Growing up, I was very good at keeping the law. I never ever said a cuss word, I never drank, other parents wanted their kids to be more like me, and the first and only girl I ever kissed is now my wife. I was very moral, I was also very proud, a sin just like any other, yet rarely ever taught about, because pride is not an action, it is a flaw that comes from within us. After further study I learned that the law is not a list of what we should do, and should not do, and that keeping the law is not sufficient enough alone for us to be reconciled to God. Many people are able to control their behavior, like I was, they can keep the law, but the law reveal what is truly in our minds and in our hearts, and I do not know anyone who can fully control every thought and every intent.
“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”-Romans 3:20
“You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.”-Romans 2:30
So John is right to move the conversation away from right and wrong, but he does so by obliterating the law by saying there is no right or wrong, in doing so he completely misunderstands what the law is for. The law reveals the standard, but also that we are unable to keep it. For the Christian, the conversation is already NOT about who is right and wrong, but about revealing that every single last one of us IS wrong! This is remarkably different than the general cultural’s understanding of the Christian faith.
This being true, it would then be fair for John to ask me this. “Since no one can keep the law, the what is its purpose?” Well, instead of turning to the mystics, John should have turned to the early church fathers who already answered this question in early church catechisms.
“That we may know the holy nature and will of God, and the sinful nature and disobedience of our hearts; and thus our need of a Savior. The law also teaches and exhorts us to live a life worthy of our Savior.”
At my local church we say it like this, the law reveals to us that “God is Holy, we are sinful, and Christ is sufficient.” John’s worldview does correctly identify the problem, but it does not point us to a solution. Instead, it points us back to ourselves, and all evidence suggest the the problem started with us, and therefore the solution for that problem cannot emanate from within us.
So what are we to do about our sin problem? In a relativistic worldview, if you ask a mystic “Where do I start?” The logically consistent answer would be “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter, whatever feels right for you.” Intrinsically we know this is false. We have this tendency to think higher of ourselves than we ought, believing that in most cases we will do the right or moral thing, but in John’s view there is no objectively moral thing, so we only prefer to think of ourselves this way. Far too often, we believe ourselves to ultimately be rational in most situations, even though human history proves this wrong all the time. When pressed, we rarely do the logical thing, and even if we were able to appeal to our reason an choose what is right, our reasoning would have to be based of an objective standard of right, which again, John’s worldview cannot provide. Consequently this is what the bible already tells us about ourselves.
UNITY AT A COST
The second commendable goal of John’s world view is that there is an underlying desire for all peoples of all views to be reconciled, or in his words, to be “unified”, and in the words of Rodney King “Can’t we all just get along.” I would even go as far as to say that the bible, and therefore the Christian faith, also shares this desire.
“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” – 1st Timothy 2:3-5
Like with the previous idea, the second commendable aim of John’s faith is also found in the scriptures. and also like the previous idea, John’s mysticism offers no real solution to actually get us there. Christianity does so by insisting that we all be united under a single banner, a banner that is the truth, and to do so, we must repent of the things that we believe that are false. To do that, the bible assumes an objective standard, and as we already discussed, John’s worldview rejects this notion.
I like this idea in John’s mysticism, I really do, but we cannot simply pretend as if the very real and significant difference between these worldviews doesn’t exist, or that the implications of those beliefs are non-consequential. The only way mysticism attempts to do so by reconciling the ideas together by saying that they really are not so different. It is a simplistic attempt at best. Instead of insisting that some ideas are false and others are true, it would say that they are neither. Like I said, I like this idea, it SOUNDS very nice, but does it hold any water? I think not.
To begin with John, nor any other mystic Christian I’ve ever read, gives us any real means to do this. There is no exposition on how the Muslim view of Jesus and the Christian view of Jesus really aren’t that different, and that is kind of a big deal. The idea that all sincere religious attempts are attempts towards the same thing is pretty ridiculous. As much as it would like to, mysticism cannot deny the fact that many core religious claims are simply mutually exclusive. To have all these ideas be reconciled, we would have to sift through the validity of each religion’s various claims and determine which are valid and invalid. We could then potentially come to a singular agreeable idea, but to my knowledge, every attempt at this has failed.
Most religions, even those with similarities, usually hinge on those mutually exclusive issues of core doctrine. How exactly do you reconcile monotheistic beliefs against polytheistic beliefs? How does one reconcile reincarnation with annihilation-ism or the concept of heaven? If you explain them away, you explain the foundation of that faith away, and thus demonstrate it to be false, yet the mystic cannot demonstrate anything to be false, because core to mysticism is that there is no objective truth, at least in the way that John presents it. By contrast, the Christian faith has no issue in demonstrating the validity of it claims, or the invalidity of other religious claims, precisely because it holds to the conviction of an absolute standard of truth. Now we can argue over and over against which standard is the true standard, but I see no consistent way to actually believe that there is either no standard at all, or that all of them are essentially the same, other than accepting ignorance. Simply put, either one is wrong, both are wrong, but both cannot be right.
Let us hypothesize a scenario where we appeal to John’s relativistic mysticism to reconcile the various different worldviews. If you simply ask “How do you know this to be true?” the whole experiment falls apart. At best, one could only say “Because I’ve reasoned it to be so.” Then we could ask the simple follow up “Well why should I believe your reason over my own?” John’s mysticism has no real answer for this. The answer consistent to his worldview would be “I have no reason that you should trust my reason, I’d just prefer that you would.” It strikes me as odd that a worldview that claims to be based so much in reason is ultimately non-testable by any reason at all, and therefore cannot give any true answers. If you corner a mystic with their own inconsistencies, they will simply dismiss your argument by saying well “that is your interpretation”, or “that is true for you.” Mysticism then strikes me to ultimately have the same impact as a cleverly worded fortune cookie. You may get one,and it may seem like it applies to you or your situation, but it is so vaguely worded, that it really only appears to have meaning, and what meaning you derive from it is really your own confirmation bias.
IN SUMMARY
I really appreciate John’s journey. It sees the same fundamental flaws in the human condition that the bible sees and seeks to rectify them. However it’s bent on relativism ultimately gets us nowhere, and it ultimately has no objective authority on which to base its claims. Which to make any claim at all you first need and absolute standard, and an authority by which to claim it. For example, I say to my children “Do not play in the busy street!” Why? Because I know that it is objectively dangerous for them to do so. By what authority do you proclaim it? By my own authority as their father! This is no different than with us and with God, it is both by His standard and His authority that the truth is established. Mysticism, by removing both the standard and authority, is then no different then a child who seeks to do what it wants to do despite the instruction of their father.
The most praise I can offer John’s mysticism is that it has good intentions. It gives us answers to what the problem IS, only to ultimately say that there are no real answers on how to remedy the problem itself. What concerns me most for John is that through all of his post, he never expresses a true understanding of the Christian faith actually is. either historically or traditionally. In his conversion story you never see any thoughts expressed that look like any core doctrines that have been central, even among different denominations, to orthodox Christian beliefs. Some of the language is there, but not a demonstration that he actually understands what it means. I am all for giving the Christian faith a good cleaning, separating the wheat from the chaff, but in so doing, we must be careful that we are not also loosing the precious substance of the Christian faith while discarding all the waste.
I, like John, grew up in a tradition that was at best Christian-ish. Growing up, it has caused a lot of confusion, but what I learned is that the version of Christianity I grew up in was not the Christianity of the bible. If John is rejecting a Christianity that is based on performance and ability to stay within the correct lines instead of grace, or shaped by the felt needs, emotionalism and particular interest of the culture, then I applaud him! IT SHOULD BE REJECTED!
However, John needs to know that the Christianity he rejected is not true Christianity, and unlike John’s relativism, I have an objective truth standard that I can appeal to in order to demonstrate that his rejected version of Christianity is a false one. We simply need to look harder at the scriptures that inform the Christian faith and see what is really there. Yet, as inclusive as John’s mysticism claims to be, he has already excluded my worldview by stating that he cannot accept a belief that views everything through the lens of the bible first, yet another odd inconsistency within mysticism inclusive one size fits all approach.
My hope is that John would see that he has rightly seen some of the flaws, both in the world, and in false perversions of Christianity, he should continue to reject them. I would also hope that he would see some of the serious flaws in his newly adopted Christians Mysticism. Relativism and Inclusivism are cleverly devised myths. I then hope that this would encourage John to take a less man’s opinion centered view of Christianity, and instead look at what the bible actually teaches, seek to really understand what God has revealed about faith. Ultimately this is a hard road as well, but John has informed me that he would rather be challenged with, then agreed with and patted on the back. When John sees the problems and inconsistencies within all competing worldviews he needs to understand that the flaws do not originate with the ideas, but with the hearts and minds of the men who created those ideas. The problem is within us.
To this, Christianity is the only worldview that I know of that goes this deep in its diagnosis of the problems and failures that haunts us. It is also the only comprehensive worldview that presents us with a solution to this problem in Jesus. He is more than JUST as an example to learn from, which is the best John’s mysticism can offer, but he IS our actual atonement and substitute for our imperfections and our offenses against our creator. I wonder if John will ever be able to accept this. If he has already rejected the notion of absolute truth, then in his own understanding he could never acknowledge that there is such a thing as hope, for hope to be real, truth has to be real, otherwise our hopes are just outcomes that we hope favor our biases. If this is the case, then how can any hope be great if it is not also absolutely true?
Personally, I fear that this is still one of the “many choices in” John’s “life where” he “more or less” is allowing “others to guide” his “path.” Which John has admitted that he is prone to do. John, even if it is your own reasoning, how do we know that you are still not, more or less, allowing others to guide your path? Even if the “other” is just yourself, was it not you that reasoned that it was best to follow those others before? How do you know that you are the best one to determine which path you should go? How do you objectively know that you can trust your own reason this time?
In his second post, John explains to us exactly how he views the bible, and how he has reasoned that this is the best way to interpret them. However, as we will discuss, we continue to run into many of the same problems that we have uncovered today.
More to come next time…
Theist the Bearded 