Process Theology

It is really interesting and exciting stuff, but you cannot get from here to there on it in a hundred words or less. Our little tiny congregation church of progressive Christians had fully 14 people attend the first book club discussion on a book by John Cobb and David Griffin entitled Process Theology: an Introductory Exposition. (To give you an idea of what kind of congregation this is, on a good Sunday we will have 25-30 people attend services. So that means about half the people in the church will first of all read a heavy, academic assignment, and then come out on a weeknight for a 90-minute discussion.)

 Here's the scoop in only the most general terms: it's a 20th century attempt to apply the concepts of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy to our thinking about God. It is dense and fun stuff. Its chief progenitors are John B. Cobb, Jr. and Charles Hartshorne. And it is seminal in the thinking of progressive Christians, although most of us may not even be aware of origins, we embrace the main ideas. I'll be writing about this some more, but for now let me lay out the concepts of God that process thinking rejects. You cannot but notice that these ideas are foundational in traditional unitheistic religions. So we will not take as our starting point the following assumptions about God:

1. God as cosmic moralist, that his fundamental concern is the development of moral attitudes. Which makes such attitudes intrinsic to the basic importance of human beings. No.
2. God as the Unchanging and Passionless Absolute. God is not really related to the world, that his influence upon the world is "in no way conditioned by divine responsiveness to unforeseen, self-determining activities of us worldly beings." No.
3. God as controlling power who determines every detail of the world, even down to deciding who dies in natural disasters, finding a parking place, or who wins a football game. No.
4. God sanctions the status quo. The previous three notions set the stage for this one. Cosmic moralist = primary interest in order; unchanging absolute = God has established an unchangeable order for the world; controlling power = God wills the present to exist. Therefore obedience to God is preserving the status quo. No.
5. God is male. He is the archetype of the "dominant, inflexible, unemotional, completely independent (read 'strong') male. No.

More on all this later. As you might imagine, if you start with the rejection of these age-old notions of the nature of God, you're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Always Wise

Richard Rohr is always wise:

C. S. Lewis believed it was undemocratic to give too much power to the present generation or one’s own times. He called this “chronological snobbery,” as if your own age was the superior age and the final result of evolution. I would say the same about one’s present level of consciousness. Our narcissism always tends to think our own present stage of consciousness is the ultimate stage! People normally cannot understand anybody at higher stages (they look heretical or dangerous) and they look upon all in the earlier stages as superstitious, stupid, or naïve. We each think we are the proper reference point for all reality. G. K. Chesterton stated: “Tradition is democracy extended through time.” And I would say that enlightenment is the ability to include, honor, and make use of every level of consciousness—both in yourself and in others. To be honest, such humility and patience is rather rare, yet it is at the heart of the mystery of forgiveness, inclusivity, and compassion.

I'm struck by the line about ourselves being the only acceptable reference point for all reality. What is that if not our core selfishness?

Speechless

Sometimes a picture is worth a lot more than 1000 words. This one is such a one. It leaves me utterly speechless.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old  unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by  surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was  diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his  mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics  nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical  procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in  Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still  in the womb. During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via  C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.  Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny,  but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the  surgeon's finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger  was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for  an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.  The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The  editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope. Little Samuel's mother said  they "wept for days" when they saw the picture. She said, "The photo  reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a  little person" Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100  percent successful.

Peace and Stewardship

A friend of mine (thank you, Karen) from church sent me the link to this article about Jesus today. It more or less dovetailed with what our topic of discussion was this morning during adult religious ed. In short, to understand the historical Jesus is to understand that he was a non-violent person dedicated to the service of others. And to be his follower, we must be the same. And once you grasp this, it's perfectly clear why Christianity has failed. As G. K. Chesterton observed some time ago: "Christianity has not failed, it's just never been tried." It would revolutionize the entire globe if it ever were tried, but though I believe in my bones that this is what the practice of Christianity really is, I despair of even creeping a little closer to the standard myself.

Here's the heart of the article right here, carved out of it word for word:

The first great challenge to Christian faith in the future is the abandonment of the ways of violence and war. Love, peace and kindness must become synonymous with Christian faith.

The second challenge involves the ownership of property. This is a key to understanding the teachings of Jesus, who lived in a time and place of economic disparity. Jesus advocated a new celebration of the Year of Jubilee, which, according to the Bible, is the time when property and possessions were to be returned to the Temple priests for redistribution among the tribes of Israel. This massive redistribution was to take place every 50 years (though it never actually did).

Yet, there is no way we can avoid the clear Bible standard of limitation of private ownership — of land in particular and wealth in general. That was also the view of Jesus.

By Bible standards, today’s wealth gap between the rich and the poor is so enormous that it is a complete affront to the professed beliefs of those who are wealthy and claim to be followers of Jesus. The standard is clear: We are to be stewards of wealth, not owners.

It's really interesting that the heart of Christianity is not about sorrow for sin and obedience to law. In fact, to try and meet these two great challenges would require the breaking of numerous laws. If Christians ever began practicing Christianity, there would not be enough cops to contain us, enough jails to keep us off the streets.

My Wise Friend

I think he's about ten times smarter than I, at least. He goes by the monicker "Montag" and he's been blogging here for a number of years. His stuff is so meaty, that I have to confess to having to be in the mood to read him. For example, if I'm just tired of thinking, I don't go get rejuvenated at Montag's place. I guess this is a confession to checking in with him far less frequently than I ought. But every time I do, I'm really glad. Because I run across stuff like this all the time. Thanks, Paul.

Plato made the distinction between opinion and knowledge and that is pretty much the same as hypothesis and fact.

Since I do not conceive of God as an hypothesis, God is not subject to belief in my way of looking at things. God cannot be proven to be false. Hence, I do not believe in God, as I say, but I expect God. I live with the anticipation of divine immediacy... on the edge...
I am not "one with God", but I am on the "verge of falling" into eternity.

We are all on the edge of eternity, in one sense or another. We shall all die, yet that reality does not make us live in terror, just as the immediacy of God need not cause us to act like desert anchorites or medieval mystics.

I think this is what he's saying. God's for real and he's in there somewhere:

Native American Insight

Only after the last tree has been cut down, the last fish has been caught, the last river poisoned will you realize that money cannot be eaten. Cree Nation Tribal Prophecy.

To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. [There] you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space. N. Scott Moomaday

Rohr Into the New Year

My regular readers are aware of my fondness for Richard Rohr, the Franciscan mystic whose thinking has been so instrumental in the growth of my own faith life.What he has to say always strikes me as so blindingly true that it's a wonder that millions of other people just don't seem to get it at all. Look around you, he says. Look inside. Things ain't right. We've lost a sense of the most important identification we have: as brothers and sisters in a huge human family. Which is the first and primary one, the one which claims our fundamental allegiance. "We need new ways of thinking and being to engage with others through our simple humanity," Rohr says. It's a profound challenge because we all fall short of the essential prerequisite: dying to our own selfishness and short-sightedness. The only way we see everything else is lose ourselves in the sight . . . the paradox at the heart of the virtuous life.

Here's Rohr:

Listen to the news or look around and within you—it is clear that we are mostly going nowhere. Each individual is on his or her own to find and create his or her personal meaning. This does not work, especially for the young. As a result, there is little sense of the common good. Thus we are repeating the same patterns that produce violence, suffering, emotional immaturity, and death. We need new ways of thinking and being to engage with others through our simple humanity, our brokenness, differences, and complexity. We must do the hard work of learning to live a generative life for others, living out our sacred soul task in service to the world.

How you do anything is how you do everything! For our spirituality to be authentic, we must practice unitive consciousness in our conversations, problem solving, politics, vocations, lifestyle, and even our dying. Indeed, the goal of mature religion is to help us die before we die, so we are ready for our real life! All major religions describe this in one way or another: a false sense of self must be let go of before the True Self can stand revealed. This is basic and essential conversion.

Praying All the Time

This is Richard Rohr, whom I've talked about and quoted before.

Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. Prayer is commonly a willingness to say “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current.

I really love the "willingness to say 'I don't know'". Never thought of this being a prayer. If that's the case, then I'm praying all the time!

I guess in my heart of hearts somehow I realized that what I always perceived as mystery would remain so as I got older. But commonly I'll tell people that I'm surprised at the amount of confusion and befuddlement that attends this aging process. What I'm saying is, "I guess not really." It's just sort of a different flavor and vibe to it now. Somehow the "I don't know" seems . . . well, right. The way it's supposed to be. I'm afraid in my case, though, it leads to an overage of contempt, rather than sympathetic understanding, of all those people out there who think they've got it figured out. Even allowing for the fakers--those who act like they've got it figured out, but don't--that still leaves millions upon millions who go to preposterous lengths to defend their own certainties.

Going to Church

It's something that I do most Sundays. Church has always been for me about community, and that's what draws me back to it almost any week. I simply want to be with people I know and whom I've grown to love because I know them as people, their insides, who they are and how they hurt and what makes them laugh. It matters not to me how old they are or where they've been or come from, what color they are, or what kind of sexual life they lead. It's enough that they have a view of the Christian journey similar to mine. That would be one that's fraught with mystery and questions. Many, many more questions than answers. Even the question of how to proceed as a Christian--what does a Christian, a follower of Jesus, do in this world so full of suffering and injustice, so torn by hatred and violence, so twisted by greed, ignorance, and selfishness? And what's the course for old guys like me? Wondering even today why I've done so little to foster the gospel I have professed to believe most of my life.

So I go to church on Sundays and kind of hunker down with that little intrepid band that would understand such quandaries, even if they could not offer resounding answers for me. 

Syria Again

My friend Warren preached a fine sermon today about peace . . . except he didn't answer the question he posed at the beginning of it: should the U.S. intervene in Syria? I think he may have phrased it more generically, like, what should the U.S. do about the use of poison gas by the Syrian army? Actually, I have to say I was surprised. Susan came to church with me today, and she chatted with Warren afterwards. She wanted the answer too. Actually, Warren is ambivalent. I hope that's being fair to his views. He is not four-square against it, as I understand it. She talked to him, I didn't. But I do know we heard no outright opposition to some kind of action in what he had to say.

And in the context of what a follower of Jesus should do in this situation, that was the premise. Well, I call myself a follower, and I really don't think that he leaves me much choice. I have to oppose war; I have to oppose violence; I have to stand for peace in all circumstances. How can I possibly say war is OK because someone used chemical weapons to kill people? Hell, Assad has used bombs, bullets, and tanks to kill about 71 times as many of his own people as he did with chemicals--100,000 to 1,400. And Obama and the U.S. have done nothing about that. How can a little bit of war be acceptable? He also reminded us of the "hard sayings" of Jesus . . . and the fact that you're not going to follow him without suffering. And pacifists have ever suffered, in all ages and climes. Violence seems so utterly more congenial to us, doesn't it? Peace . . . that's unnatural.

How Big?

I attend a tiny little Christian Church (tiny by the standards of what you normally think of as an urban church community). We're an open, accepting community, theologically and politically left. Not your standard-issue Christian. On a good Sunday we will have 35 people attend services. Our norm is about 20-25, and even fewer at religious ed. One of the brightest events of the day is seeing a new face or faces(s) at services. I've been going to the UCC of Norman for about 18 months, if my memory serves (and it doesn't a lot of the time), and I know that it's seldom a visitor comes back again after a visit. We never know why, and we don't question. People are where they are, and that's fine with us.

But the question of why they did not choose to come back is often nagging. Yesterday we had an engaging discussion about what people thought of growth as a church community. I think it's fair to say that opinion was divided. One the one hand there's the security, safety, and warm fuzzy feeling of being among people who accept you, listen to you, and (for the most part) agree with you. Do we want that endangered or diluted by numbers of "others"? Do we want to bend or fashion our bedrock beliefs to suit the sensibilities of others? These are valid concerns. But on the other, there's the desire to share what we have, to let others know that we follow a Jesus who's human first and foremost and who has taught us how to be authentic human beings ourselves. We believe in a God who is still speaking. Revelation of this wondrous God didn't stop in the first century. What we have to share with others is truly good, liberating, joyous news. We want to share this with people

Why then aren't more people interested in hearing it? That's our dilemma, as I suppose it must be for any group of people outside the mainstream, outside the ordinary. That constant tension between our being and our becoming, and how much choice we have in either. 

46 Years

Today Susan and I celebrate 46 years of marriage. Three grown children; two lost very early in their lives; two grandchildren; several major changes of vocations and life venues; our share of marital crises, arguments, and pains--and amidst them we'd often construe them as considerably more than our share--here we are. Still discovering each other, still in love with each other, still amazed at what love has wrought in our lives, still looking forward to more years together. Because we know that the essential grounding to what's real that we share in our love for one another will only grow.

We've long past the point where our consciousness of being melded into the other is palpable, where we know (sometimes, lots of times) what the other will say or think before the words express it. And yet we remain for one another the essential mystery of life. We're past the point of thinking about the might-have-beens. Those are for people who haven't gotten here yet. Of course, there are regrets, but all of mine are about hurts I've caused, things I wish I could undo or unsay. But I don't wonder, as once I might have, if somehow I could have more of Susan's love had I not hurt her. Don't wonder at all because I know I'm loved by this other person as much as she can love anybody. Because I'm so secure in her forgiveness and she in mine. That's the way this works.

I cannot help but believe there's something utterly otherworldly about the power of human love. It's a glimpse into another reality where we long to reside all the time. Like everything else in life, though, we cannot grasp it and keep it, that glimpse. We see Reality but we can't hold it. We're always pulled away.

I love you, Susan. I always have. I always will. What more can be said?

Progressive Christianity

Well, so much for the good intentions and the blather about writing more often. I think it must be over a week since I last wrote, although I haven't actually checked. Be that as it may, here I am again, Saturday afternoon after spending the morning over at my church listened to a man named Welton Gaddy speak for three hours about progressive Christianity. He was great. Susan and I want to hear him last night when he spoke just down the street from us. Gaddy heads up the national Interface Alliance in Washington DC. He also pastors a church and Monroe, Louisiana, and I was amazed to learn that there are actually progressive Christians there. This little snippet about him barely does him justice, but it will not be long before his talks of last night and today are put up on our web site and you can listen for yourself.

This understanding of Christianity has become my new rock. I went for so long feeling almost alienated in the Catholic Church, that it's just such a comfort just to be with people who don't cause me stress or tension, who tend to see the world like I do and who aren't afraid of either ideas or ideas that don't agree with their own. And who also understand the practice of Christianity the way I do. The practice not the belief system, which is non-essential, although it's the litmus test for many denominations. I talked briefly about the subject of progressive Christianity not too long ago: you can check it out here. So I'll not go over it again--others can do it much better than I; I'm just a neophyte-- but I would like to point you to some resources on the web in case you're interested in learning more about this. I'm absolutely convinced that there are scores and scores if not hundreds and hundreds of churchgoing and non-churchgoing people who need to hear about this. I cannot help but think that this is the kind of religion that would make sense to my children, my son-in-law, and my grandson, all of whom reject traditional Christianity, not to mention Roman Catholicism, as not relevant to their lives.

So the resources. Try these, and in all cases consult the "resources" section:

• The Center for Progressive Chritianity
• Progressive Christians Uniting
• The progressive Christian channel of Patheos (This site encompasses all the major world religions, as well as atheism.)

Wisdom Break

Let's take a break from worrying about storms, how the World Series turned out, the possibility of Mitt Romney being elected president. Let's take a wisdom break. My friend Montag over at his always-erudite blog once in a while hits the true heights. He did with these words a few days ago. I have to share them with you.

How many people today are in prison? How many whose lives are lived in a grim, dank dungeon? How many desperately yearn to escape?

We are imprisoned just as the soul of Jacob Marley was, doomed to drag the chains of our assumptions, belief systems, and world views to our graves.

Contrary to the opinion of many people, we are not best served by striving to create coherent "belief systems", for any coherence we achieve is on the surface; we do not go deeply into the realms of the soul.

Faith is better.
Faith is tougher.(Source)

And all the assembled said "AMEN."

It's Time

It's quite a liberation to reach the point in your mind and your life where the sacred and the profane are no longer two separate worlds. I'm not completely there yet, but it's the direction I've been pulled in for several years now. I've been thinking about going over to Santa Fe for one of Richard Rohr's conferences for quite awhile. I think at this point in my spiritual development, it's time.

Have to Share This

A few days ago, I blogged (angrily) at the "Fortnight of Freedom" initiated by the Catholic bishops. And today I discover my wonderful guide Richard Rohr on the same subject but oh, so much more charitably. Really, is there any better indication of how far I have to go spiritually than comparing my screed of a few days ago with the following? I have to share this whole thing with you. Nobody I know of could have put this in such the right perspective. This is how a real Christian sees it.

The Catholic Bishops of America have initiated a two week campaign to fight for religious freedom in America. It is called a “Fortnight for Freedom”. It strikes a large part of the population as crying wolf when there is no wolf. Probably no population in human history has had more religious freedom and more religious support than the present population of the USA. (I myself, as a Franciscan vowed to common purse, pay no taxes. Nor do our local parishes or institutions.) It feels like entitled people wanting more entitlement.

How different from the early Christian martyrs, whom we piously venerate, who became holy and courageous through the limitations imposed on them by empires and emperors. Too bad Sts. Perpetua and Felicity could not sponsor a fortnight for freedom from their prison cells. Now we suffer no limitations or constrants, refuse to dialogue fairly or up front, and just complain that “our freedoms are being taken away”. The final irony is this was initiated by an issue that 98% of Catholic women do not even believe in–contraception. It really feels like bishops are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to divert attention away from our own problems and sins. Christian spirituality has always first sought spiritual freedom, inner freedom, freedom from self, freedom for love, and never did we expect governments to supply our “freedom” by any political mandate whatsoever. Our dear bishops are beginning to look like “the Republican party at prayer” more than men of the Gospel of Jesus.

 Fr Rohr blogs regularly. Right here. You could do worse than read what he has to say sometimes.

Strained Gnats

It's difficult for me--well, it's actually impossible in this instance--not to share this this timely message from Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest I've spoken about several times before. Especially with the absurd rise to prominence of what in my opinion is the very worst kind of advertisement for the Catholic Church. I'm speaking, of course, of former senator Rich Santorum.This guy is a crazy Catholic fanatic of the furthest right. A puckered-butt moralist who has a problem, as he says, with the separation of Church and state. And he's running for the Republican nomination for president.

This little piece is just for people like Santorum.

In recent elections one would have thought that homosexuality and abortion were the new litmus tests of Christianity. Where did this come from? They never were the criteria of proper membership for the first 2000 years, but reflect very recent culture wars instead—and largely from people who think of themselves as “traditionalists”! The fundamentals were already resolved in the early Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed. Note that none of the core beliefs are about morality at all. The Creeds are more mystical, cosmological, and about aligning our lives inside of a huge sacred story. When you lose the mystical level, you always become moralistic as a cheap substitute.

Jesus is clearly much more concerned about issues of pride, injustice, hypocrisy, blindness, and what I have often called “The Three Ps” of power, prestige, and possessions, which are probably 95% of Jesus’ written teaching. We conveniently ignore this 95% to concentrate on a morality that usually has to do with human embodiment. That’s where people get righteous, judgmental, and upset, for some reason. The body seems to be where we carry our sense of shame and inferiority, and early-stage religion has never gotten much beyond these “pelvic” issues. As Jesus put it, “You ignore the weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy, and good faith . . . and instead you strain out gnats and swallow camels” (Matthew 23:23-24). We worry about what people are doing in bed much more than making sure everybody has a bed to begin with. There certainly is a need for a life-giving sexual morality, but one could question whether Christian nations have found it yet.

Christianity will regain its moral authority when it starts emphasizing social sin in equal measure with individual (read “body-based”) sin and weaves them both into a seamless garment of love and truth.

The Great Art Form

You cannot grow in the great art form, the integration of action and contemplation, without 

1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity; 

2) an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety; and 

3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know. 

This is how you allow and encounter mystery. All else is mere religion.

From A Lever And a Place to Stand:
The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer, p. x (foreword)

I'm OK with #1. I'm shaky on the other two. I am greatly drawn the kind of Christian spirituality that Richard Rohr expounds. He wants us all to practice great art, and he teaches us how. I refuse to believe that the Holy is beyond. No, it is in all things.

"So What"--Really?, Part II

So you've seen all the numbers last time. And you've heard some of the stuff these "So What" people are saying. One guy, who attends the Catholic church to hear his mom sing in the choir, but for no other reason says, after reading neuro- and evolutionary psychology concludes that "we might as well be cars(!) That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can't see." I don't suppose anybody has bothered to point out to this deep thinker that you can't see psychology either, nor atoms, nor truth, freedom, etc., etc. Maybe he doesn't believe in these things either, but I rather doubt it.

The thought processes that dismiss the validity of spirituality are broken and shallow, in my opinion, at least judging by the kind of comments the article contained. Here's another: "God? Purpose? You don't need an opinion on those things to function." Well, no, I don't guess you do. But you will function as what? Some creature of the consumer culture whose sole purpose in life is to acquire and to amass. And then there's this: "There may be unanswerable questions that could be cool or fascinating. Speculating on them is a fun parlor game [sic], but they don't shed any meaning on my life." Well, of course they don't, Bozo, because the meaning of your life is determined for you by the consumer culture that envelops you. And in fact, by making such a statement, you're basically saying that your life has no meaning. If you're good with that, than you're even more hopeless than you appear at first blush.

That gets to the root of it. The whole problem with discarding the big questions as irrelevant to one's life is that it makes one's life meaningless by definition. And if life means nothing, than there is no barrier to rationalizing the worst human behaviors imaginable. All the suffering we inflict upon one another, the injustices, the screaming inequalities, the stupid waste of resources and human lives--all of this can be justified if our lives are defined by nothing other than the accident of our being here.

I'm not claiming to have any answers to the big questions, no way. And I can certainly sympathize with those who execrate the baleful effects of organized religion in human history. Not a single one of them is blameless. But because religion is imperfect, grossly so, it seems to me, throughout human history, does not therefore mean our lives have no meaning other than what the world says. Hell, if that's the case, I'll take religion at its absolute worst. For at least they, in their halting, sometimes infuriating, sometimes scandalous and cruel ways, accept the concept of something bigger, something beyond the grubby, greedy self.

Related articles

• The Validity of Religion Outside the Mind (ideasandanecdotes.wordpress.com)
• Some Thoughts: What is Religion? (kevinjjmurray.wordpress.com)

"So What?"--- Really?

For some reason, and it's difficult to explain, this morning's piece in USA Today (which has become a frequent source lately since it lands in the driveway five days out of seven) entitled, "God, religion, atheism 'So what?' That's what many say" was really kinda upsetting to me. My spiritual journey in a nutshell: lifelong dissident Catholic; ordained deacon; out of the Church for myriad reasons since August 2010.

But still, to read that "So what?" characterizes the attitude of a growing number of people about matters spiritual is distressing. Apparently there are quite a few in this category, and judging my own family, both immediate and extended, and Susan's, too, that's pretty much the prevailing attitude. I cannot determine that many of those we are closest to and know best care about spirituality or even wonder about it. Maybe I do them all a disservice, and if so, I'm certainly sorry. But so it seems to me.

Here are some numbers:

• 44 percent told one survey they spend no time at all seeking "eternal wisdom"--a pretty lousy phrase, I think, but there it is
• 19 percent say "looking for meaning" is "useless."
• Another survey finds 46 percent who never wonder whether they will go to heaven

Well, okay, on this one, I haven't got much of a problem. I don't wonder about it at all myself. Heaven is a specifically Christian concept, and so is the notion--derived from Scripture and expanded and expounded by centuries of theology and Church pronouncements--of "earning" a way there or forfeiting your place there by your actions is at best problematical and at worst, silly. I tend towards the silly side. Why? Because the whole concept anthropomorphizes God into a crabby and totally unreasonable perfectionist who contradicts himself at every turn by first creating humankind in his own image, according to Scripture, then instilling it with appetites, proclivities, bad genes, and drives that ultimately cause it to fail his rather exacting code of behavior which must be followed to get into heaven. The other alternative is hell where you go if your behavior doesn't measure up to the said exacting code. Yet the Christian God is a god of love. Hmmm.

• Same survey found 28 percent who say finding a "deeper purpose" in the their life is not a priority
• 18 percent of those surveyed scoffed at the notion that God has a plan or purpose for everyone.

Does this mean that 72 percent are intent at some significant level on finding a deeper purpose in their lives? What does "priority" mean in this context? What about the 10 percent between the seekers and the scoffers? Are they seeking a deeper purpose but only sometimes or without much fervor? Sorry, I digress.

• 6.3 percent of Americans are totally secular, "unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion is not important in their lives."

This figure is from Pew Forum's 2007 Religious Landscape Survey; it seems really low to me.

In fact, this has turned into quite a little essay, so I'll have to take it up again tomorrow. Right now I'm tired, and the subject really deserves closer attention than I've got to give it right now.

Related articles

• Spiritual apathetic, the new and fastest growing class of religion. (pastormikesays.wordpress.com)
• Religious Diversity among Atheists (freethoughtblogs.com)
• Study Finds American 'Millennials' are Spiritually Diverse (prweb.com)