Why Be Christian Now?
Fourth Century Fresco of Jesus from the Catacombs of Commodilla
ICN Foundational Identities – Part 1
Religious affiliation is steadily declining across North America and has been in Europe for some time. Recent survey results from Pew Research show a 15% drop in those self-identifying as Christian over the last fifteen years, while at the same time seeing a corresponding increase in spirituality without claiming to be religious. It seems more and more people are ditching the religious associations, connotations, and institutions, but still find spirituality as an important aspect of their lives.
Many spiritual teachers of mysticism and contemplation are presenting a broader spirituality, drawing on particular sources across a variety of traditions, or primarily from one without necessarily overly claiming that tradition solely. The idea of the perennial tradition has become more popular—that every tradition at its heart points to the same ultimate truths and reality.
Factor in the long history of abuses and failures of traditional religion over the centuries, the negative connotations it conjures for many in our society today, and the exclusionary nature of such a choice, why would we choose to identify with a singular religion such as Christianity? Is there a need for exclusivity? Or even differentiation anymore? Why be “Christian” now?
If you consider yourself a part of this community, that doesn’t mean you have to consider yourself a Christian—whatever that word means to you. Whether you personally take on the label or identity of “Christian” is of course a choice you can decide for yourself, but as an organization and a collective community, this article will explore some of why we have made the very conscious choice to do so.
Navigating Collective Identity Markers
To begin, we need to first address the inherent problem with any kind of collective identity marker. Words are always symbols that point to a larger reality, and in the case of any word that we might choose to define ourselves with, it will probably represent qualities and aspects to us that others may not perceive or associate with it.
This can be especially true of identities that include a wide spectrum of historical and cultural expressions, such as a religion, nationality, or movement.
Public perception and negative associations can make us think twice about what we choose to identify with. Our own internal reservations and tensions with more institutionalized forms and abuses can be a great source of conflict as well. Even if we have had powerful and profound experiences of divine connection and spiritual meaning through a particular tradition, do we want to associate ourselves with the totality of all it represents?
Enter SBNR—spiritual but not religious. Here we have a way to avoid the adverse associations with traditional religion, but still claim and hold the importance and value of our spirituality. There are many good reasons to do this, to ditch traditional religion and its institutionalized aspects. I’m not here to try to redeem the word “religion,” as its negative connotations have become far too pervasive and I agree with many of them.
But the further we shy away from meaningful yet problematic collective identities, the more we lose the collective bonds and benefits that come from shared belonging. Our dis-association trends us more fully into individualism and the prison of self-referentialism. It leads to the loss of essential aspects of healthy living such as supportive community, healthy belonging, collective wisdom, and shadow awareness, among many more—collective identities have served vital evolutionary purposes throughout all of human history.
While the process of healthy individuation through evolving differentiation and personal autonomy is a necessary evolutionary process, so too is the reintegration and discovery/co-creation of nourishing communities and intimate spiritual kin. We all need healthy tribes. We all need to find “our people.” And yet this has become increasingly harder and harder, even as we have more exposure and access than we’ve ever had before. For we are in a liminal time when so many of the old identities and enclosures are crumbling apart. And the new are still emerging.
Religious and Spiritual Identities
And so what do we choose to identify with? We most often cannot simply claim the old forms and terms, even if they hold a different meaning and value to us—they are too tainted. They no longer represent what they were meant to point toward. And yet, we need to particularize, otherwise we will have no compelling gathering impulse, no uniting force to come together around, no shared mythos and vital commonality for healthy bonds.
Instead of claiming an entire messy tradition, some find themselves identifying with a particular spiritual teacher as a marker of shared identity. This can be beneficial for a while, so long as the teacher doesn’t do anything to fall off the pedestal—a common pitfall for many elevated spiritual leaders and charismatic gurus. At best, even the most morally upstanding will fall short because no single person can contain the totality of wisdom and guidance necessary for our spiritual evolution.
Some prefer to attach themselves to a particular practice, coming together around a form to grow together through shared dedication. That’s part of what we do at ICN, to be “dedicated mystical practitioners” which we seek primarily through forms of embodied mystical awakening and by practicing community together. This can create a really healthy and beneficial sense of “we-ness.” However, most of the best spiritual practices caution against becoming identified with the practice itself for a number of valid reasons.
These can be very useful for the purpose of finding others who have made similar integrations and seek to enact similar ways of being. One of the purposes of identification is not just self-understanding, but also as a communication of shared commonality. So these teachers and practices can be forms of finding one another, so long as someone comes across them and finds a resonance or sense of connection with the teachings and/or practices.
And yet, when it comes to identity, it seems to me that a larger container is in some way naturally healthier. Teachers and practices, no matter how great, just aren’t encompassing enough to contain spiritual identity. They don’t create the same deep bonds of the heart.
Spiritual teachers and practices are all born out of traditions. Even evolving and integrating from various sources, they are drawing on a heritage and spiritual lineages that have come together into a singular, particular form—whether that be a particular person or practice.
Some have embraced this wide-ranging sourcing to identify around that process itself, such as those who identify as “Interspiritual” or “interfaith.” These can certainly be helpful and useful identifiers, but also sometimes become too broad in their expression, losing dynamic particularity for the sake of general inclusivity. Still, many find these very helpful and liberating spiritual identities.
But here’s the great thing--we don’t have to be just one thing anymore. Identity is not a fixed cage, but a dynamic interflow of complementary realities and symbiotic interchanges. Of course, we need to find a balance of strong boundaries and somewhat fixed anchors for the sake of stability and healthy enclosure. But we can hold those alongside the permeable and integrative aspects of a more global consciousness and awareness.
We can choose to flow with a combination of identities and ways of being—finding the right balance that isn’t too quixotic and isolating but also not too broad and generic.
And so we have chosen to go with three primary nodes of orientation: Christian, Mystic, and Integral (along with Network, which is an expression of how we form and structure together—see my recent series on The Loving Evolution of Christianity and the World).
How we approach what it means to be “Christian” is very informed by our other two foundational identities. In fact, we try to rarely use the word by itself without Integral or Mystic attached to it in some way. We’ll center each of these in the next two parts of the series, with the others always co-informing the understanding.
Qualities of a Mystical, Integral Christianity
We employ the term “Christian” as a spiritual identity, rather than a religious one. What that means is that we seek to evolve and progress from traditional Christianity as an exclusive, religious institution. The heritage we seek to claim comes from the lineage of the mystical Christianity of Jesus and its empowering, transforming, and revolutionary consciousness that has the potential to heal and liberate the world—rather than the cultural and imperialistic religious forms of historical Christendom, which were often co-opted by empire or state with little-to-no interest in actual spiritual transformation.
At the same time, we also seek a Christian spirituality that is evolving, taking the best of what has come before in terms of practices, understandings, and life integrations while leaving behind the beliefs, practices, and expressions that have been harmful or no longer serve us well.
Here are just a few of the qualities we have found to be essential to this kind of Christianity:
Integrative and Non-Exclusionary
We’ll talk more about being integrative next week when we explore what it means to be “integral,” but a key point as this relates to being Christian is that it is not exclusionary. It is differentiated, but the boundaries are permeable and generative, rather than restrictive and separated off.
This is crucial to understanding why we would want and even need to be Christian. Not because it is the only right path and all the others are wrong. But because each path is rich and distinct with their own gifts and beautiful qualities to offer. This is Christianity beyond tribalism.
There can be a misconception that if all paths lead to the same place, we don’t need to choose any of them, but just keep walking. While there is some truth to this—we can learn a great deal from other traditions and practices—we cannot walk all of the paths at once. Rather than just focusing on the restrictions and exclusions, we can recognize the benefits of committing to a particular path with its shared language, context, and experiences that create the container for meaningful shared experiences.
And so we integrate from other traditions, but we claim and honor our home path as a deep identity that we get to draw from the best of and also even be part of remaking anew, into something more loving, more inclusive, more generative.
The Heart of Jesus
To be Christian is to follow in the path of Jesus. Lately, the vast spiritual wealth of the Christian tradition has been overshadowed culturally by its more vapid forms and historical abuses—most often through entanglements with empire and other perverted expressions.
Rather than defining something by its worst aspects, we can embrace the beauty and depth of the heart of Jesus found not only in the teachings but also the lived, mystical reality we can encounter today.
This includes meeting the Living Jesus in his resurrected presence as a spirit guide today. It can be through the body of Christ and the body of God, indwelling through the whole cosmos, one another, and other spiritual ancestors who are with us still today. It can include the path of embodied love, healing the sick and caring for the downtrodden. It can follow the path of the transformation of consciousness, kenosis, death and resurrection, a new heaven and a new earth.
There is so much in the path of Christian spirituality that is life-giving, transformative, and beneficial. It has expressed itself in myriad ways over the centuries, with even more to discover. These many streams feed the flowing river of life that we can move with, that we can offer in nourishment, that we can become ourselves.
An Evolving Spiritual Tradition
Perhaps not surprisingly for a tradition that began 2000 years ago, much of Christianity today is pretty concerned with the past. From endless studying and learning about early scriptures, about the life and teachings of Jesus, and about past Christian figures, one might get the impression that to be a Christian is about learning and believing something that happened in the past.
At the same time, other less-informed Christian expressions become all about the future, wrapped up in saving souls from this world and getting to the afterlife—that to be a Christian is all about making sure we go to heaven after we die.
We seek to deeply honor the past of this rich tradition while not getting stuck in it. At the same time, we aspire to transformation and a new reality of heaven, to making all things new. But this is expressed in the here and now, in the way of Christ which brings together heaven and earth, material and divine, past and future into the unbound now of our very lives in this time and place.
In the lived reality of the details of our day-to-day lives, always becoming more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, and all the like fruits of spirit consciousness.
We could write a book on all of the qualities and expressions of Integral Christianity—well, of course, Paul already did! And others have been written as well, along with the further evolution of thought and practice that have emerged in the decade since Paul’s book on the topic. We’ve been doing that through these articles the last 3+ years!
And most essentially, we’re doing it through the living embodiment of a mystical community of dedicated mystical practitioners for the loving evolution of Christianity and the world.
What else? What would be your reasons for adopting a (mystical, Integral) Christian identity?
