Despite my apparent criticism of modern-day Christianity, which is really a criticism of the claim of continuity, which isn’t there, it is important that religion develops with humanity. I see religion/spirituality as an inherent aspect of humanity, and something that, if it isn’t pursued, warps into some kind of ideology. In the 20th century, we had so many deaths to lament because the spiritual aspect of religion was lost, and ideologies took their place, costing millions of lives.
I believe that it was Schleiermacher who said that we humans experience the things that happen, and we experience ourselves in the midst of them. And if we pay attention and are receptive, we experience something that in Christianity is called the “grace of God”. It happens in strange ways that are as varied as the circumstances in which we live. It is also not something we can grasp, and yes, sometimes we experience grace far from the organised religions or scriptures, in places we don’t expect it, or in circumstances we don’t think it is appropriate. When such things happen, the experience is at least on par with the accounts of God’s grace that we find in the Bible.
That is, organised faith often leads us astray, as does doubt when we are sick or when we fail, because we want something tangible, something predictable, something concrete. We think if we do this or that it must happen, but it doesn’t work that way. Grace is given, “the Spirit blows where He wills”, and we humans, when we experience it, long for it to happen again. That is why science fails to get it, and why organised religions harden and get dogmatic, because this aspect is missing.
There is a story in the Old Testament that describes this. The prophet Elijah is described as a religious zealot whose spiritual energy is seemingly endless, but then, all of a sudden, he feels alone and fearful. When Elijah climbs the mountain in search of his God, he is asked: What are you doing here? And after the cataclysmic storm, earthquake and firestorm and silence ensues, he hears nothing but a low whisper. But he knows what he has to do. I believe that Schleiermacher found the same calm and clarity in the hustle and bustle of his time that we often lack.
I believe that something spiritual started the whole Christian movement off, but in a short time it was lost to the masses, and the church tried to regain it by all sorts of measures. It was there, but it was in the places distant from Rome that it occurred, and the Christians who experienced it were lowly, humble people. Occasionally, it occurred amongst theologians who dared to speak up, but the church silenced most of them. In this way, Grace was shut out from the congregation and only single, sporadic cases occurred. Relatively recently, the church has allowed the letters and sermons of people, like Meister Eckhardt, to surface, and we have discovered other cases in other religions, which shows that it isn’t only a Christian experience.
This is brave Christian worship …