What does a Valentinian Catholic hold to be essential tenets of belief?
[A Prefatory Theological Outline]
4/22/2005
What follows are a series of brief reflections on theological issues of importance in our times. They are intended as catalysts for ongoing dialogue in the Church from which we all can derive perspective.
A. Jesus instituted a new and radical mandate to all that followed him:
"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." John 13:34
From this we derive our first and most important principles of right living.
His meaning in this teaching is clear, and sophistries that would "spin" this to accommodate clearly incompatible behaviors are to be accordingly challenged and resisted. If we accept, as we do, the full import of this teaching, we must then also hold that:
All are welcome to receive Communion who come to it with open hearts and sincere yearning to take part in this great sacrament of divine alimentation by which we fulfill our connection to the One Body of Christ and express our Love of God with every fiber of our being; mind, body and spirit.
This is an act of reconciliation and reunification. It is an act affirming that we are not separate and that we are called to eternal communion with the Heart of the Cosmos. In issuing this great commandment, we hold to the conviction that the Master himself would be appalled to see the Church turn away from Communion those that it judges "unworthy" owing to differences that are essentially socio-political, or by virtue of variations of conceptual understanding, or sexual orientation.
The radical and compelling commandment to Love is also the basis for our opposition to war in all of its forms. There can be no such thing as a "just war." Much as is held by the Society of Friends, we feel ourselves called to a difficult and high standard in resisting the power of hatred, rage and the felt need for retribution and vengeance, and the grotesque appetite in the World to shed blood for what amounts to geopolitical advantage and the so-called "national interest." Instead, we look to and support the great efforts of diplomacy and negotiation. "Blessed are the peacemakers."
Sinful conditions are all around us and, indeed, within us. We embrace disciplines whereby we work to become ever more aware of the drama of ego and hubris, as well as the states of mind that cause us to at times behave badly toward our neighbors. We aspire to ever expanding consciousness of the truth of our stewardship for one another.
For those members of society who commit terrible wrongs against the lives of others, there must be just punishment, as there should be just reward for those who sacrifice themselves in service of others. Punishment is the right and loving response to those who commit crimes against civilized culture and who cause harm to others. We are accountable to each other for how we behave.
However, there cannot ever be justification for murder in return for murder. In committing the most horrible and unthinkable of crimes, that cost others their lives and health, those duly convicted must pay the price with the ultimate punishment of life-long incarceration. However, there is no place for capitol punishment.
B. The goal of spiritual formation
is spiritual liberation and transcendence of the minimal self, a conversion and
evolution of being and character: "...Put on the new man which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
- Ephesians 4:24
This is the true meaning of Self Actualization: To see with new eyes one's place and role in the world, and to offer one's gifts and spirit in service to the full flowering of the gifts and spirit of others, and the well-being of the greater community. Self actualization is much more than a psychological state of satisfied needs giving rise to greater personal capacity. While this is part of the experience, the actualized woman or man has cultivated a deep and abiding fellow-feeling, and is astutely sensitive to the needs, feelings and conditions of others.
At our best, we become healers and reconcilers of the many ways in which our brothers and sisters can be "split apart," living fragmented and hollow lives with an insatiable craving for more. The achievement of spiritual fullness rests in our recovery of the Knowledge of the Heart (the Gnosis Kardia) which demands the full embrace of what is real, and the silencing of ignorance, stereotypes, prejudices and preconceptions.
Entering into the Holy Mysterion through Eucharist, deep prayer and meditation, along with prayerful scholarship and discourse, are the only reliable routes to the revelation of hearts and mind that we are called to help uncover.
1. The clergy are not unquestioned authorities, but learned and prayerful men and women, who are called to serve as rabbis in the World, bringing their learning and experience to the many lines of work and interactions to which they are committed so as to cause a flow of dialogue and inquiry.
Their objective is to act as catalysts for the discoveries in the Spirit that all should enjoy in the Christos. In effect, they are celebrants and mentors, teachers and guides, and facilitators of community and individual attention to the movement of the Spirit in and among the congregations of friends banded together in pursuit of reconciliation and redemption.
2. Transcendence is not achieved by mere attendance at communal rituals. Worship together is a vital part of our praxis, but so is one's own private spiritual disciplines aimed at listening for the voice of God through direct personal experience. This "listening" is embodied in the teachings of this School established in the Lord's service and receives full expression in the mystical theology that is the foundation of the Order of the Christos.
The heart of the Order Rule, based on the Rule of St. Benedict, is both simple and profound. It is to listen ("ausculta"). We must invest our energies, so easily distracted in a consumer-oriented and materialistic society, in such a way as to enable the flow of light into the World's darkness.
3. Dogmatic Theology must arise from direct experience and phenomenological reflection on that experience and must never become a thoughtless program of legislated beliefs that the laity must accept without question or inquiry. We have faith in the truth of the revelation and redemption through Christ, but ideas intent on interpreting that revelation must not be so constrained that people feel compelled to adopt a belief from the outside; the beliefs of others into which they are indoctrinated simply as a rite of passage and obligation of group membership.
It is too easy for this to devolve into thought reform, whose goal is the preservation of a presumed orthodoxy that was itself arrived at as an accommodation by those who wielded greatest political power in the life of the early Church. Jesus spoke often of Pharisaism and the blindness of the Sadducees who understood one paradigm or worldview, and fought vigorously to preserve it against any change.
Dogma, then, is the expression of heartfelt principles and constructs of right living grounded in direct experience that we share and exchange, and a fulsome test of our assumptions in the interest of a clearer revelation of the truth beneath the many words, concepts and redactions of history, cultures, personal dispositions.
C. The moral theology of the Church must fully appreciate the post-modern human dilemma and avoid both the rigidity of absolutism AND the vagueness of relativism.
It is unacceptable to talk of moral behavior as relative to circumstances and spokesperson (or," anything goes"), without reference to guiding principles. However, it is equally poor judgment to apply black and white proscriptions and prescriptions that essentially play out an adult-child relationship between the Magisterium of the Church and believers.
Moral and ethical dialogue must be a vigorous exercise in examining the strengths and weaknesses of positions taken by projecting the issues against the new Commandment instituted by Christ Jesus, and further subjecting our assumptions to thorough-going challenge. Relativism and Modernism are insidious forces that make almost any program sound justifiable.
We must push back on facile spin and political advertorials, that have profound long-term consequences for the human family, and present real time, real world impediments to living the Gospel teaching. The "Sermon on the Mount" is a wonderful standard and starting point for our dialogues in the Spirit, always coming back to first principles as defined by the commandment to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.
At the same time, we must avoid simplistic absolutist sophistries that are not about the Spirit, but about the manipulation of language and deception through clever phraseology and analogy, and the attempt to both engender fear, and shut down inquiry and critical discussions.
We must always test root intent and examine the strength of integrity behind positions, or the lack thereof. This is "discernment of the spirits" and it takes a patient, loving, astute, and critical attitude with ever respectful deep listening.
1. Framing the debate over the sanctity of life as "Pro-Choice" or "Pro-Life" is a false and erroneous dichotomy.
It posits an either/or mentality when the issues are far more complex. Truly, the sanctity of all life must be defended with complete and unwavering resolve, and terminating a pregnancy must therefore be approached with substantial care for the implications and gravity of doing so, and one's responsibility for it. It must never become an after- the- fact prophylactic, assumed in a cavalier manner, as one might approach a routine and simple procedure. Yet, accepting a woman's right to choose cannot be held equivalent to failure to be "pro-life."
Human freedom to make choices is the very nature of Man and Woman as created in "His" image, and an "and/both" approach to these dilemmas of our times would instead present a paradigm of choice combined with profound regard for the sanctity of life. Taken as conjoined aspects of judgment, this means that the Church's encouragement must be that the choice be one based on prayerful examination of the question of bringing new life into the World at a given point in time. Each woman would need to get in touch with personal matters of accountability for doing everything possible, including prudent use of contraception, to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.
However, things happen, and at times a pregnancy presents itself in spite of all due diligence to apply reasonable and thoughtful safeguards. In such an instance, a choice to end the pregnancy should be made swiftly and decisively in the first months of fetal development. Late term and partial abortions are indeed abhorrent. Should a choice to end the pregnancy be made, it should be a rare and very unusual event in the course of a lifetime. If it is a frequent road taken, a careless lifestyle and irresponsible behavior are all the more likely and this should be part of any examination of the events and professional clerical counsel.
The Church's role, again, is to facilitate judgment in the face of life's challenges, not to impose a ready-made formulaic answer. With the exception of very early termination in the first trimester, more developed pregnancies should be seen to healthy conclusion with adoption as a viable and meaningful alternative. A woman must choose, however, based on her real world circumstances, whether or not the blessing of new life can be met with the kind of love and attention and resources necessary to ensure wholesome circumstances for the child and the family.
Our's is not the angry and martial God so often portrayed in the Old Testament, but a God who is the very epitome of Love.
2. Intimate sexual relations are themselves expressive of the Bridal Chamber of the Heart wherein God seeks to draw us near into the intimacy of communion.
Spirituality should never be dryly and reductionistically simplified to exercises of mind and dispassionate, non-sensual experiences. On the contrary, spirituality involves mind, body and spirit, and there is a deep sensuousness in our yearning for closeness to God. The obvious neurosis of the historical church regarding sexuality is a great tragedy perpetrated against people who feel called to express their need for the other by the most intimate of approaches to uniting in body as well as spirit.
The misogynism and puritanical attitudes that clearly course through the institutional orthodoxies is a clear symptom of this long-standing anxiety and fear. One only need read the Songs of Solomon or the Psalms to find the sensuous in spiritual experience, and the same is true in references to Jesus and Mary of Magdala's washing of his feet with her tears, and then drying them with her hair. The key is the degree to which the sensual intention is to enter into the other person's life and join the other with his/her best interests and well-being in mind.
Sexual intimacy should be an affirmation of union and partnership that is neither casual nor expedient, promiscuous or merely focused on receiving pleasure without regard for the choice made and the Person with whom one is involved. Again, choice is the heart of the matter. Deep and intimate relationships are blessed with such moments of tender vulnerabilities and mutual pleasure, but they are also a call to the hard work of listening and managing differences in viewpoint and in remaining ever-patient in the face of the challenges that life brings. The more important issue, then, is commitment and the degree to which our YES to physical intimacy is also a YES to enduring partnership and caring for one another.
3. Science and Natural Theology must be in continuous dialogue, each surfacing the kind of inquiry that will ensure that science exists within the context of moral principles of right thinking and acting while Theology is also fully appreciative of the lessons of a swiftly changing set of scientific paradigms and understandings. Theology and Science are not antithetical to one another in the least. While natural theology has not played a visible and substantial role in the history of Church teaching, the scriptures are replete with reference to the ways in which the cosmos are transfixed with the presence of the Spirit.
From the first chapters of Genesis, we are told the story of Creation and the metaphors are drawn for us characterizing a Creator who imbued all that he made with Goodness. In a moral context, therefore, the questions being raised in these technologically accelerated times are of utmost importance, as our technologic capacities are outstripping our investment in a more humble review of the consequences of what we do. Stem cell research can yield, as an example, a rich harvest of medical advances that benefit society. Cloning, however, can be carried to horrific degrees in rendering the mystery of life a matter of human engineering with consequences that need to be critically examined.
Similarly, our virological research threatens to unleash, by accident or terrorism, a Pandora's box of plagues upon humanity, and our environmental stewardship is being tested dramatically in these times as the economics of construction and appetite for fuel oil both stand in the way of a careful and respectful husbanding of the Earth's resources.
The Valentinian Catholic Church and the Order of the Christos are dedicated to a spiritual environmentalism whereby our actions in the world are an extension of our Love of God and His Creation.
[This partial list of tenets will be expanded upon in the coming weeks according to following subject matter areas.]
D. The Matter of Orthodoxy and "Right Belief"
E. The Meaning of the Sacraments
F. Theologians of a New Paradigm for the 21st Century
G. On Educating Our Children in Matters of Faith
H. The Philosophy & Theology of Love
I. "Movement with Repose:" An Hermeneutic of the Person
J. The Place of Mythologies & the Spirituality of the Arts
K. Questions for Dialogue & Reflection
L. An Understanding of the Doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception"
