I have been interested in ‘habits of mind’ for as long as I can remember, though an ostensible intensification came when I dipped into meditation practices back in 2005ff: calm abiding (Theravadan Buddhist), centering prayer (Christian), then mindfulness/visualization (Mahayana Buddhist), and Choosing Presence (Christian) practices. The husband of a close Christian friend of mine was Buddhist and she felt Led to explore Buddhist meditation. Instead of reading books, as was his method, I pushed for affiliating with a local Buddhist sangha, convicted that one doesn’t really know a spiritual practice in isolation. Only in community, which of course brings all the human foibles into the mix as goads for growth. I’m all about goads for growth, but this election season is goad for growth on steroids. A bit much, if you ask me. [image: a SoulCollage card I made over a week ago], resting in the Sun, aware of the aged building under which I sit].
In my anxieties about a week ago, I dipped into a book Brian had downloaded onto our Kindle account: Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Zondervan, 2024), by N.T. Wright and Michael Bird. I was hopeful to listen in on a couple scholars' input into being a peaceful, ecclesially-minded presence in these days. (I use ecclesial to describe "all those who gather," as it means "the gathering." It's not a church term for me, in other words, because the gatherings that have most healed me have not been church-identified.)The first chapter, “The Kingdom of Jesus in the Shadow of Empire,” begins in Bird’s voice: “I was born in a country that no longer exists,” by which he means the Federal Republic of Germany, which was partitioned into West and East Germany (1945-90), before reunification into a new entity. His point is well taken for Christ-followers: empires rise and fall but the Word of our Lord stands forever (or some such aphorism)? My NT colleague imagines the book to be mostly written by Bird, as “Wright, while a good scholar, has been coasting for some time.” But the itinerary becomes clear: a manifesto for God’s kingdom in a troubled world. Focused on God’s providence. Reflecting God’s purposes. Creation transfigured into a new creation. The constant call to be a people of prayer.
At heart, I don’t actually disagree with any of this, though my language would be different. Kin-dom, for instance. This highlights kinship more than lordship, which doesn’t necessarily mean taking Jesus’s unique life-death-resurrection out of the light (in contrast to the either/or thinking of many of theological colleagues). It does honor the reality that the bible is immersed in empire-thinking and our notions of power-over prevent us from truly ‘catching’ the abundant relationality of Jesus, de-emphasized if not repeatedly eradicated out of the institutional church, grasping for its political power(s). If we actually took Jesus seriously, instead of imperially, a whole lot of our assumptions would begin to topple. Which brings me always to how to support institutional-thinking that is open-hearted for more and more of us...because we need new collective ways of being human(e) together.
Which brings me to my musing for the day, this Election Day: How and why is it that Christianity lends itself so very well to authoritarian nationalism? [This is not to say that other traditions haven’t had their expressions of this, to be sure–militant can describe any faith tradition, be it Muslim, even Buddhist etc., when given the necessary human-cultural-social-cultural pressures to deform in such fashion]. Many progressives today simply broad-brush the whole religious enterprise–word chosen intentionally, as that is how many have been marketed religion–and suggest a pathway beyond all wisdom traditions. This may work for them individually, but I’d argue it’s not working for us collectively. What is it about the Christian soul today that makes it so susceptible to authoritarianism?
The road here and the factors involved are multiple and complex, of course. But it’s hard not to find at least one common thread amongst all who profess themselves Christian today: the authority of Scripture. Over 500 years ago now, the reformers needed an accessible magisterium to combat the Magisterim (teaching authority) of the Catholic church. Scripture and the tools of exegeting, interpreting it became the primary soldiers in the battle, which became overwhelmingly powerful with the creation of the printing press. So now we’ve had well over five centuries of the centrality of the bible, interpreted in quite diverse fashion, yet wielding power over silenced or unvoiced oppositions unable to wield the bible's magisterium.
I don’t intend to throw the bible out, to be clear from the start, but I am fascinated by the habits of mind that are shaped into Christians from the moment they begin to call themselves Christian: authoritative allegiance and obedience. Supposedly to God, born witness to in Scripture, but wow has that gotten fuzzy and impalpable. I can’t even imagine that Jesus is attuned or approving of how so many of us use his name for our egoic purposes. Which always begs the question of how the church uses Jesus for its own material gain, rooted in fear and scarcity. Polarizing habits of scriptural interpretation have led to polarized tribes of Christian communities, with nary a majority ever seemingly interested in unity of any kind…perhaps to be found by slowing down, breathing, listening, receiving in silence all the suffering of the world we can no longer ignore. Which no one chooses to do, because it's the rigorous work of faith, not the certain work. It's increasingly bewildering and overwhelming, in fact.
I have found this in myself in spades, of course, though with a broader brush to “aligning within the historic Christian faith.” It used to require all input into my thinking, my imagination, even my wonderings and curiosities, to resonate within what I will call the counsels of the elders in some fashion. I have ideas, contributions to make from my particularities, but I also want these things to contribute to the Whole, to resonate with wisdom from the past. This sets up a dance of leaning into the New while discerning resonance or energetics with the Old. Which of late has meant greater and greater dissonance with what Christianity is becoming today, whether in a declining mainline or in a biblically-literate, other-refusing and creation-destroying Charismatic/Pentecostal/Evangelicalism. Am I ready to unaffiliate from Christianity while honoring I am yet a Christ-follower? I wonder...
The authoritative habits of mind, the constant need to be affirmed or confirmed by ‘dead traditions of the past,’ is the focal point of concern for me today. And as I get closer to being in that council of elders in the ancestral plane, I’m less and less concerned with aligning with the past. I’m beginning to trust its presence and wisdom in my own belly, both on fire and in cooling waters for saying what needs saying AND holding space in silence for what needs to be witnessed, without fixing or denying, but honoring. Reverence. So absent in collective expressions of Christian community today.
I don't know how to build toward a collective future built upon love, trust, compassion, healing, kindness. I suspect it is not dis-affiliating from human collectives, yet fewer and fewer actually live into what their professed values are. I guess what I’ll be praying into today is simply for each of us, each image of God in human form, to allow greater curiosity and trust in encountering one another open-heartedly, with a willingness to be seen and heard in our own fragilities, woundedness and desires. Within the three feet around me I’ll have access to all day…
