A Covenantal Theology or Relational Spirituality Part 2: The Measurement of the Spiritual Life
When I was a student minister in 1981 I officiated at my third wedding and had an epiphany. The couple had chosen “The Wedding Song” for a musical interlude while lighting a “unity” candle, which they did simultaneously from two distinct tapers that each had in hand. They did it almost at the exact point when the singer crooned, “And a man shall leave his mother and woman leave her home/They shall travel on to where the two shall meet as one.” They blew out the individual tapers and the single, unity candle burned alone.
I had been married three years and knew the misconception. Two don’t become one. The individuality, the separateness, the differentiation that makes two distinct human beings doesn’t evaporate when married. It doesn’t happen in any relationship born of vows and declarations of faithfulness. Or, to say it another way, when a religious covenant is formed the identities of the covenanted parties remain distinct. In my experience, when a covenant is formed, as it is in marriage or any declaration leading to a union of love, there actually are three entities. In a marriage, there is the woman, the man, and the married couple. The author of “The Wedding Song” should have written, “They shall travel on to where the two are transformed into three.” Or, as I say to couples now when we talk before the religious service commences, you are about to participate in a mathematical impossibility where one plus one equals three!
We have noted something that is grossly evident in our time, although it is part of previous eras as well: The way in which human beings today avoid a realistic view of human nature, forget or ignore our fallibility, declare they possess “God’s Truth” or know “God’s Will and Ways,” and then almost gleefully inflict untold horror on others who do not believe as they do. We have noted how this propensity towards idolatry, rampant in our time, can easily leave one in despair, spiritually beleaguered. Many liberal religionists have responded to this despair by renouncing religion, declaring God dead, and leaving behind religious language and the life of faith for philosophical pursuits. Is there or is there not a God?, a philosophical question, hounds the liberal religionist because today there is no evidence of a God being believed in that is worthy of human conviction. There is no Truth that doesn’t lead to someone who holds a competing Truth being killed. The liberal religionist has countered the rant that is religion today with a rant against religion. But, it’s still a rant.
A covenantal theology or relational spirituality offers something different.
If a religious covenant, when formed, continues the distinct existence of the two entities involved in the relationship, then it is a misconception to claim that the thoughts and beliefs of one are understood completely and held absolutely by the other. Or, as the poet wrote, “love’s function is to fabricate unknownness.” To “love God,” is to recognize first and foremost the distinction between God and me! And second, it is to declare that this relationship is a ‘third entity,” something that I participate in, but is greater than just my own self-interest.
How is it greater? In part, human self-interest is towards order, predictability, sameness, a conformity of one moment to the next and a familiarity that gives continuity to identity. Religions who claim God is Truth, and in the next declaration claim to know that Truth, reveal this inclination. “Jesus the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” is a bumper-sticker declaration of it. God, the Unmoved Mover, to be adored as absolute and complete in every way, is a more formal theological way to express a similar view. But what if one’s relationship with God involved being grasped by something entirely distinct from self-interest, and being “lured” towards a transformation out of the self’s security in its desire for order, predictability, sameness, and conformity and familarity, and towards something more. What if faith is about risking the self here and now? What if faith involves a lunge towards novelty, a newness of self and world? If God is Love, then what if being in covenant with God is a way of saying I am being called to expand the breadth and depth of my love for other human beings beyond what my self-interest deems comfortable and my culture affirms is proper and correct and practical? What if being in covenant with God means I am being held accountable individually for extending a larger sense of love to others than what self-interest would warrant; and that I am obligated to hold my society and myself accountable for extending justice beyond what is in the civic self-interest, and that societally that accountability is measured by how just and loving we are to the least among us?
In other words, in a covenantal theology or a relational spirituality the measurement of the spiritual life is in terms of transformation. Will you change? Will you risk becoming a "novelty" that you are not now? Are you transformed out of your current understandings, rooted as they are in self-interest, and towards a larger love and greater justice? Will you help your culture to change, to offer the novelty of affection towards those not now in its purview or embrace? Is your culture transformed out of its societal and culture self-interest, measured by a larger love and greater demand for justice for the least amongst us? For the disenfranchised and impoverished? A liberty and justice for ALL?
A covenant, a relationship, formed by love is measured by the way we consent to be transformed by affection, into greater affection.
Perceiving the spiritual life in covenantal ways, as a relationship between an individual and God, and the spiritual community as a group formed for a spiritual purpose by a religious agreement, a walk together, requires of the individual and the group a willingness to be “led in the ways of the Spirit” which transforms entities – individuals or groups – out of self-interested complacency and into the spiritually vibrancy of an ever-expanding love and an expectation of liberty and justice for all souls.
But if the measurement of the spiritual life, covenantally and relationally understood, is in terms of transformation, a liberation of one from one’s current myopia in self-interest, and towards something greater, then the life of faith becomes the ultimate risk. Not of losing the afterlife, but of changing oneself in this one. You lose yourself as conceived of in self-interest, to find yourself in a matrix of greater affection (which, of course, is also involved in self-interest, so the transformation is to go on again and again, never ending growth into affection!). Jesus called this greater love and this expectation of liberty and justice for all, the Kingdom of God, and in the same breadth he is reported to have declared that it is at hand. That land exists at this moment hidden in the forms of existence our eyes catch as they now see. To immigrate to this kingdom requires nothing as easy as physical relocation, but something far more difficult. A change of heart, mind, and soul!
We can step into that land and live inside of a covenant with God any time as long as we have breath; therefore, it can be called a covenant of grace. But this third entity, the covenant, when entered into by one will change one towards loving deeper and broader than before, and expecting and working towards liberty and justice for those society has forgotten and culture despises; therefore, it can be called a regenerating religious experience.
O God, if it be thy will that I should live through this day, through the evening, to breath again tomorrow, give my eyes to see thy ways, ears to hear thy call, a heart to receive thy love, a will to extend and declare that larger love to others, and a courage to be transformed in the larger likeness of your affection; that I might better walk a path with others towards thee.
I had been married three years and knew the misconception. Two don’t become one. The individuality, the separateness, the differentiation that makes two distinct human beings doesn’t evaporate when married. It doesn’t happen in any relationship born of vows and declarations of faithfulness. Or, to say it another way, when a religious covenant is formed the identities of the covenanted parties remain distinct. In my experience, when a covenant is formed, as it is in marriage or any declaration leading to a union of love, there actually are three entities. In a marriage, there is the woman, the man, and the married couple. The author of “The Wedding Song” should have written, “They shall travel on to where the two are transformed into three.” Or, as I say to couples now when we talk before the religious service commences, you are about to participate in a mathematical impossibility where one plus one equals three!
We have noted something that is grossly evident in our time, although it is part of previous eras as well: The way in which human beings today avoid a realistic view of human nature, forget or ignore our fallibility, declare they possess “God’s Truth” or know “God’s Will and Ways,” and then almost gleefully inflict untold horror on others who do not believe as they do. We have noted how this propensity towards idolatry, rampant in our time, can easily leave one in despair, spiritually beleaguered. Many liberal religionists have responded to this despair by renouncing religion, declaring God dead, and leaving behind religious language and the life of faith for philosophical pursuits. Is there or is there not a God?, a philosophical question, hounds the liberal religionist because today there is no evidence of a God being believed in that is worthy of human conviction. There is no Truth that doesn’t lead to someone who holds a competing Truth being killed. The liberal religionist has countered the rant that is religion today with a rant against religion. But, it’s still a rant.
A covenantal theology or relational spirituality offers something different.
If a religious covenant, when formed, continues the distinct existence of the two entities involved in the relationship, then it is a misconception to claim that the thoughts and beliefs of one are understood completely and held absolutely by the other. Or, as the poet wrote, “love’s function is to fabricate unknownness.” To “love God,” is to recognize first and foremost the distinction between God and me! And second, it is to declare that this relationship is a ‘third entity,” something that I participate in, but is greater than just my own self-interest.
How is it greater? In part, human self-interest is towards order, predictability, sameness, a conformity of one moment to the next and a familiarity that gives continuity to identity. Religions who claim God is Truth, and in the next declaration claim to know that Truth, reveal this inclination. “Jesus the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” is a bumper-sticker declaration of it. God, the Unmoved Mover, to be adored as absolute and complete in every way, is a more formal theological way to express a similar view. But what if one’s relationship with God involved being grasped by something entirely distinct from self-interest, and being “lured” towards a transformation out of the self’s security in its desire for order, predictability, sameness, and conformity and familarity, and towards something more. What if faith is about risking the self here and now? What if faith involves a lunge towards novelty, a newness of self and world? If God is Love, then what if being in covenant with God is a way of saying I am being called to expand the breadth and depth of my love for other human beings beyond what my self-interest deems comfortable and my culture affirms is proper and correct and practical? What if being in covenant with God means I am being held accountable individually for extending a larger sense of love to others than what self-interest would warrant; and that I am obligated to hold my society and myself accountable for extending justice beyond what is in the civic self-interest, and that societally that accountability is measured by how just and loving we are to the least among us?
In other words, in a covenantal theology or a relational spirituality the measurement of the spiritual life is in terms of transformation. Will you change? Will you risk becoming a "novelty" that you are not now? Are you transformed out of your current understandings, rooted as they are in self-interest, and towards a larger love and greater justice? Will you help your culture to change, to offer the novelty of affection towards those not now in its purview or embrace? Is your culture transformed out of its societal and culture self-interest, measured by a larger love and greater demand for justice for the least amongst us? For the disenfranchised and impoverished? A liberty and justice for ALL?
A covenant, a relationship, formed by love is measured by the way we consent to be transformed by affection, into greater affection.
Perceiving the spiritual life in covenantal ways, as a relationship between an individual and God, and the spiritual community as a group formed for a spiritual purpose by a religious agreement, a walk together, requires of the individual and the group a willingness to be “led in the ways of the Spirit” which transforms entities – individuals or groups – out of self-interested complacency and into the spiritually vibrancy of an ever-expanding love and an expectation of liberty and justice for all souls.
But if the measurement of the spiritual life, covenantally and relationally understood, is in terms of transformation, a liberation of one from one’s current myopia in self-interest, and towards something greater, then the life of faith becomes the ultimate risk. Not of losing the afterlife, but of changing oneself in this one. You lose yourself as conceived of in self-interest, to find yourself in a matrix of greater affection (which, of course, is also involved in self-interest, so the transformation is to go on again and again, never ending growth into affection!). Jesus called this greater love and this expectation of liberty and justice for all, the Kingdom of God, and in the same breadth he is reported to have declared that it is at hand. That land exists at this moment hidden in the forms of existence our eyes catch as they now see. To immigrate to this kingdom requires nothing as easy as physical relocation, but something far more difficult. A change of heart, mind, and soul!
We can step into that land and live inside of a covenant with God any time as long as we have breath; therefore, it can be called a covenant of grace. But this third entity, the covenant, when entered into by one will change one towards loving deeper and broader than before, and expecting and working towards liberty and justice for those society has forgotten and culture despises; therefore, it can be called a regenerating religious experience.
O God, if it be thy will that I should live through this day, through the evening, to breath again tomorrow, give my eyes to see thy ways, ears to hear thy call, a heart to receive thy love, a will to extend and declare that larger love to others, and a courage to be transformed in the larger likeness of your affection; that I might better walk a path with others towards thee.
posted by Brent Smith | 11:53 AM
8 Comments:
I attended a very interesting lecture recently given by Father Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute. His lecture very broadly dealt with some of the theology of covenant you write about in your most recent blog. The title of the lecture was “Tolerance and Truth: a Dialogue on Constructing a Free and Virtuous Society”. The mission statement of the Acton Institute is: “…to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles”. The lecture was approximately 30 min and included a 30 min q & a session. The q & a helped to clarify a few of his position somewhat along with offering a several working definitions. One of his definitions was tolerance: listening to, but not necessarily agreeing with another’s opinion/belief without either party attempting to “coerce” the other into their way of thinking/acting. He also seemed to use “free” and “liberty” interchangeably. One of his statements was “to have liberty, you must have ‘truth’, otherwise you have a totalitarian utilitarian culture”. I’m not sure what he meant by “truth”, but I always get nervous when a religious/political leader begins using the term. He was quite insistent about the need for a truth that we all could agree upon and know. I am assuming that he meant “God” or some derivative.
He also talked about economics and how it is vital for countries to advocate property ownership in order to encourage commerce and prosperity. I’m assuming that this is part of forming a free and virtuous society. No problem there.
During the q & a I was compelled to ask what I thought was an almost embarrassingly simplistic question/comment. I prefaced by saying that I was raised in a fundamental church and that the primary question was “do you accept Christ as God’s son, that he died for our sins and was born again, and have you asked for forgiveness in order to go to heaven?”. I admitted that I wasn’t up to date in the current views expressed by the Catholic Church, but that New Testament Christianity using that scripture seemed inherently cohersive. His reply in a nutshell was that the Catholic Church advocated a hell but that no one believed that anyone actually went there. He basically said that that was a Fundamentalist belief that doesn’t necessarily reflect the Catholic Church’s tenets.
In addition, he made clear some of the fears that those who are “religious” have with those who are secular: that is, the religious are afraid that the secular are advocating a society that is “free from” religion—i.e., banishing religion altogether. That was enlightening to hear. I often fear that the religious are advocating for a theocracy or at least their “truth” at the expense of my own.
He went on to use as an example of liberty and cohersion a scenario whereby a pharmacist is required to dispense forms of contraception that are against their “truth” or beliefs and that the pharmacist should have the right to refuse in order to preserve their individual liberty. If there had been time, I would have asked Father Sirico at what point his, mine, or anyone’s truth denies another’s liberty and how we deal with that. Using his example, what if I am a young woman trying to fill a prescription for RU 486 (morning after pill) at the only pharmacy in a small isolated town in Wyoming, and the pharmacist won’t fill the prescription because this would violate his/her liberty. And, what if the next nearest pharmacy is 45 – 60 min away and the woman has no transportation, does the pharmacist’s truth then become coercive to her and deny her liberty? Especially since the effectiveness of this contraception decreases in a non-linear fashion for every day that passes. If this is not coercive, why not?
Without being able to carry on a more lengthy conversation, I came to the conclusion that like the Calvinist’s, the Catholic Church does not believe in the capacity for humans to love and think rationally for themselves. That is, that human beings are actually inherently good and rational beings and that we have the capacity to exercise humane, benevolent behavior without an intercessory. Instead, Father Sirico seemed to convey a belief that a free and virtuous society is possible only when it is sustained by religious principles. Of course the question is “which religion?” Most if not all major world religions as well as their many sects and factions espouse certain religious principles. However, I don’t think he was advocating for Muslim, Buddhist, or Jewish religious principles. So I’m assuming he’s talking about the Catholic church’s interpretation of Christian religious principles, or at any rate his own. This sounds inherently coercive to me.
Anyway, this was an interesting exercise for me in critical thinking concerning theology, liberty, tolerance, and truth, the “liberation and cultivation of the human spirit”. I could be all washed up here. Perhaps my truth is not “the” truth at all, but merely my interpretations of thoughts/ideas at the mercy of my cerebral cortex?
"Catholic Church does not believe in the capacity for humans to love and think rationally for themselves."
You have to admit, there are times when they appear to be quite right on this one. :-)
The concept of a convenant extends beyond the religious realm. One of the problems with our country today is that we have forgotten the covenant the forms the basis of the United States of America.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In a large part, due to our current "leadership," the country is divided into groups seeking power and promoting their own welfare instead of the general welfare. But perhaps the Preamble to the Constitution is a religious or spiritual covenant since one of the goals of this covenant is to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
I was never clear on the whole unity candle thing. My husband thought it would be cool to have one at our wedding, so we did. Of course, we left our individual tapers burning. I still look at those stubs and think that the real meaning in the way we did the unity candle is how much of yourself you actually put into a relationship in order to build it.
I think those that blow out thier individual tapers are symbolically keeping themselves to themselves. They are not pouring themselves into the relationship.
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Quite regrettably U*U "covenants" aren't worth the paper that they are written on or the breath that they are spoken with. . .
Hey - I am definitely glad to discover this. great job!
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