A Reasonable Mystic

First, let me apologise for the delay since my last post. Di and I have been to Queensland for a school on cutting edge ministry with Peter and Heather Toth – anazao.com.au . It was mind-blowing, and I’m sure I’ll say more later. But for now, something else.

A few weeks ago Richard Rohr, a modern mystic, was interviewed on The Religion Report on Radio National .
He says some provocative things about church and ministry. (Thanks for the heads-up Gary – theeighthday.org.au/mt/gdh/). Here’s an excerpt of what Rohr said:

Richard Rohr got some flak from readers of his column in the National Catholic Reporter recently when he suggested that few transformations happen in church, that the places where real transformation happens in our world are Alcoholics Anonymous, Ground Zero, the cancer ward, and of course the mountains of New Mexico.

Richard Rohr: Well I did say that. I wrote a whole Lenten series on the concept of liminal space, liminality. It’s amazing how interesting that subject has become to people. But in that, I said are the typical Catholic liturgies liminal space? Do they pull you out of business as usual, into an alternative universe where you have a different frame of reference, which Jesus would call the Kingdom of God. And I have to say it’s overwhelmingly obvious that they don’t. They’re very much a confirmation of the present consciousness, of the present politics of the present self-serving world view. And I’ve often said I go to Switzerland, God looks like a banker; I go to Germany, God looks like a policeman; I got to America, God looks like a businessman. I don’t know yet what he looks like in Australia. But it’s so obvious to me that we’re not leading people into alternative transcendence experience, but for the most part largely affirming and confirming. I mean talk about feel good, we’ve been the people in the church into feel good, in terms of making people think that American politics and wars are wonderful. I mean only today are we finally waking up to what a tragedy this war has been.

Stephen Crittenden: You’re talking there clearly, about more than just dead liturgy, aren’t you?

Richard Rohr: Well really, a whole consciousness, that’s right. The whole understanding of priesthood itself, which has so aligned itself with power, money, control, and I’m not saying that in an angry or malicious way, but it’s just to join the clergy is to join an establishment world view of status and security. And I think that’s what my father St Francis was trying to oppose. When I joined the Friars, first of all we were not encouraged to become priests. You know, Francis himself was not a priest, he refused ordination. And then they said, ‘If you are going to accept ordination, at best we’re blue-collar priests’. I don’t know, do you use that expression over here? Yes. We’re not white-collar priests. Our job is to live on the edge of the inside, so we can lead people into the larger world of the Gospel instead of mere churchyanity, and churchyanity is far too often, (and I think I’m being fair) become a substitute for Christianity.

Stephen Crittenden: We often hear secularisation accused as part of the big reason for the collapse of churchgoing and so on, that there’s a failure going on in the outside world, with all its false allures and so on. But it often occurs to me that perhaps a big part of the failure has been a failure of imagination on the part of the church and its leaders, and that’s what it sounds to me like you’re talking about.

Richard Rohr: Yes, I think so. When religion doesn’t move to what I’m going to call the mystical level; now don’t let that be a too far-out word. As far as I’m concerned, mysticism simply means when you move beyond external belief systems to inner experience, where you know something, you’ve experienced a love and a life and a quality of being that we would call God, for yourself. When religion doesn’t move to the mystical level, almost always the substitute for mysticism is morality. It gives the ego a sense of boundariedness, of superiority, of control, of earning God’s love, in fact I’d say the more you become preoccupied with moral minutiae -

Stephen Crittenden: And doctrine, perhaps.

Richard Rohr: Well that’s what I mean by external belief systems, when it remains at the external level of belief systems and rituals, to the degree you’re preoccupied with that, it’s almost a litmus test of how little you’ve experienced the real.

Stephen Crittenden: As a sociologist friend of mine says, ‘Doctrine is death’.

Richard Rohr: When that’s all you have. When you don’t know, you have to pretend that you do know. When you don’t really know the goodness of God; when you haven’t really experienced mercy, or forgiveness, the generosity of God, you have to bolster it up with all kind of heroic affirmations about the nature of God, and you can tell it doesn’t mean very much….

Richard Rohr’s website: www.malespirituality.org/ The full transcript of this interview can be found at www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2006/1788767.htm

If you are reading this post you would probably also be interested in posts in some of my blogs:

Listening 2 God

• Theology of Lying
• Prophecy Versus Preaching
• Purifying the Prophetic – Sanctified Psychic Reading
• Tell him he’s dreaming!
• Ministry to Children
• Step Out and Prophesy
• Welcome to Listening 2 God blog

Mal’s Meanderings

• The Law and the Prophets
• Barbers don’t exist – irrefutable proof.
• Please, Mr Einstein
• The things you are asked in counselling
• Is prophecy the same as inspired preaching?
• Purpose-Driven?
• Noctaphobia
• Why ‘Beth Tephillah’?
• Doppler Shift
• Being Made One
• What we believe
• Top Ten Truths That Shape My Teaching
• Jesus and Walls
• A Vision for the Church
• The perfect pastor
• The words ‘charismatic’ and ‘pentecostal’ have passed their use-by dates
• Managed Friendship
• Crossing Over – a word from Rick Joyner
• History of Medicine
• I’ve just discovered a great website on open theism
• I am greatly enjoying the stimulating lecture series
• If you’re wondering how this blog came to be called Mal’s Meanderings
• This morning I felt like taking a short break
• “If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy”
• In this blog I plan to talk about many things

speak-in-tongues blog

• Allowing Speaking in Tongues
• Welcome to the Speak in Tongues blog

First, let me apologise for the disjointed order of these posts, although I shouldn’t need to apologise – blogging gives an author the freedom to post items as they come to mind. The reader must wait in anticipation to see if and when some order emerges from the heap. Why should I deprive anyone of that adventure?

Today I plan to begin discovering what mysticism is, and I will begin with a definition from Wikipedia:

Mysticism from the Greek μυστικός (mystikos) “an initiate” (of the Eleusinian Mysteries, μυστήρια (mysteria) meaning “initiation“) is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious wareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is an important source of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Traditions may include a belief in the literal existence of realities beyond empirical perception, or a belief that a true human perception of the world trancends logical reasoning or intellectual comprehension. A person delving in these areas may be called a Mystic.

The term “mysticism” is often used to refer to beliefs which go beyond
the purely exoteric practices of mainstream religions, while still being
related to or based in a mainstream religious doctrine. For example, Kabbalah is a significant mystical movement within Judaism, Sufism is a significant mystical movement within Islam, however Gnosticism can refer to either a mystical movement within Christianity or as various
mystical sects which arose out of Christianity. Some have argued that Christianity itself was a mystical sect that arose out of Judaism. While Eastern religion tend to find the concept of mysticism redundant, non-traditional knowledge and ritual are considered as Esotericism, for example Buddhism’s Vajrayana. Vedanta is considered the mystical branch of Hinduism.

My only interest is in Christian mysticism, so I will give the Wikipedia definition of this:

Mysticism is the philosophy and practice of a direct experience of God. Christian mysticism is traditionally pursued through the practice of the disciplines of prayer (including meditation and contemplation), fasting (including other forms of abstinence and self-denial), and alms-giving, service to others, as discussed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Other forms of mysticism in general include participation in ecstatic worship and the use of entheogens, the latter not being associated with the mainstream of Christian spirituality. Christians believe that God dwells in Christians through the Holy Spirit, and therefore all Christians can experience God directly.

Without needing to accept that these definitions by the unknown Wikipedia authors are the be-all-and-end-all of truth, one point immediately becomes clear. If mysticism includes “the pursuit of achieving communion … with, or conscious awareness of, … God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is an important source of knowledge, understanding, and Wisdom“, and if “Christians believe that God dwells in Christians through the Holy Spirit, and therefore all Christians can experience God directly“, then all Christians can and, I contend, should be mystics!

Of course, there is at least one growing mystical movement in the Protestant church, alongside the mystical elements of more Catholic and Orthodox traditions, which never went away. This is typically expressed in an exploration of the contemplative traditions, and perhaps accounts for the fact that so many Protestant, and even Evangelical pastors now have Roman Catholic spiritual directors. The movement is typified by such organisations as Renovaré, a Christian renewal para-Church organization founded by Quaker Richard Foster in 1988. There are many other signs and centres of this stream.

Some of the resources of this stream have been useful to us in our teaching people how to hear God’s voice, as can be seen on our listening2god website.

Some Renovare resources:

• Richard Foster (ed), The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible (Protestant Edition). SanFran, 2005.
• James Smith & Richard Foster, A Spiritual Formation Workbook – Revised edition: Small Group Resources for Nurturing Christian Growth. HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.
• Richard Foster, Devotional Classics: Revised Edition: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups. HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.
• Richard Foster, Spiritual Classics : Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups on the Twelve Spiritual Disciplines. HarperSanFrancisco, 2000.
• Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
• Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.