Open Path

Are We Evolving

By: Fred Plumer

There are a growing number of dedicated thinkers and spiritual leaders who are writing, speaking and teaching of a new world view and new ways to interpret the Christian story in it. Dynamic theologies and renewed Christologies are springing up often stimulated by our scientific and philosophical thinkers, with a few theological revolutionaries thrown into the mix.

These creative people are talking, writing and teaching about a major shift of consciousness. In the words of Michael Dowd, “It is a shift from seeing ourselves as separate beings, placed on Earth,(the world was made for us,) to seeing ourselves as a self-reflexive expressions of Earth, (we were made for the world)…it is a major shift in our understanding of who we are and what we are. It is a shift at the deepest possible level: our identity or sense of self.”

Somehow these folks have been able to find the words and concepts to describe and define this shift, something that many people, particularly young adults, have been feeling for some time but have been unable to find the words or even a point of reference to express it. 

People like Brian Swimme, David Suzuki and Diarmuld O’Murchu are helping us create a whole new world view…actually a whole new universe view. People like Lloyd Geering, Bruce Sanquin, the late Thomas Berry, and Michael Dowd, among others, are helping us retell the Christian story with a freshness and in a contemporary and compelling way. People like Cynthia Bourgeault,   Jacob Needleman, Jim Marion, Greta Vosper are helping us rediscover ways to live it.  And people like Ken Wilbur and others are giving us ways to organize in our pluralistic world and the expanding pluralism in our Christian traditions.

I have had the opportunity to work with many of these gifted folks over the last couple of years and find their enthusiasm, their creativity, their depth and breadth of information more than impressive. Their openness, their positive outlook and faith is outright contagious.  If people sitting in the pews could catch some of this, I believe our churches would be overflowing.

 

THE LAST CHRISTIAN

By: Adrian Gibb

14th October 2084

I am the last christian!

Ron died this morning, so I am the last! Of course, nobody knows this. Maybe a decade ago you could declare yourself a person of faith, if you were brave enough, but not today. It would be, almost literally, insanity to do so. Not that Ron or I would have been thrown into jail or tortured for our belief, but we would be seen to be as deranged as those, in my mother's youth, who declared themselves to be Julius Caesar or abducted by aliens. We would be ridiculed, mocked, perhaps even ostracised, and I have a career and a reputation I don't wish to lose. No I can't declare myself a christian, even though I am the last, I just can't, can I?

You see, though I hate to admit me, I have started to ask myself if maybe I am deranged? How can my belief, on an intellectual level, be tenable, if literally the rest of the world has abandoned it? How can I still hold my faith to be true and real when I am the only one who feels its reality and truth? My faith, once adhered to by the majority on this planet, is now like a river in drought. Its shell still stands, its structure can be seen, and what it once was is obvious, but the life has ceased to flow through its walls, and it crumbles, thirsty for droplets of purpose. I have to face facts, Dawkinsism is the philosophy of the world now. Faith is dead, everybody else can see that, by I still pray. Why?

I hate myself for my wishes! I wish I didn't read the gospels and tingle with inspiration. I wish I didn't see Jesus as the face of God, and believe in an empty tomb. I wish I didn't feel the presence, the real and tangible presence of the limitless divine when I pray, or watch a sunset, or give my last five dollars to a homeless man. I hate myself for wishing that the love I feel caress me when I think of a man who lived over two thousand years ago would go away. I wish these things. I wish they could just leave my mind, and that science and logic and reason and all that the rest of humanity feels comfortable with would satisfy me. But it doesn't! And my wishes remain just that. Hateful wishes.

So what do I do? Do I accept the will of the masses and reject my faith, a faith that lives though I wish it to die? Do I declare my faith, with pride, with strength, and suffer the consequences? I would no doubtedly lose many of my clients, my boss, an ardent Dawkinsite, would probably sack me, and some may even suggest I have lost my mind. But so what, that doesn't matter right? I may be the last one, I may be the only one, but that doesn't mean my faith is not real! Right? It would be worth it! Even if I lost everything, it would be worth it. But would it? What if I am wrong? What if I am deranged? What would I be right, me, worthless me, and the rest of the world wrong? The numbers don't add up, do they?

So tell me, dear reader from who knows where, or when, what should I do? Please tell me, what would you do?