Progressive? Emergent? Evolutionary.

As one who has struggled mightily with what to call myself as a post-postmodern Christian – one who takes perspective and context seriously, absolutely, but who also affirms the philosophical category of truth and believes that some truths are more valid than others.

I realize that I’m not comfortable calling myself a “progressive” Christian, at least not the way that adjective has come to be used and understood. Part of the problem relates to the implicit judgment of those who are not “progressive”. Are they regressive?  On the other hand Marcus Borg’s attempt to distinguish between “earlier” and “emerging” Christians leaves me a bit unsatisfied. In an attempt to be non-judgmental, this sense of “emergence” lacks any implicit definition that might help to draw important distinctions. I do think it’s important to find a way to describe difference, but without judgment. As well, without further defining “emerging”, this word can easily be confused with what Brian McClaren and others describe as the “emergent church movement – an attempt by liturgical, renewal, conservative, and social justice Christian orientations to cluster somewhere in the middle to have a respectful conversation.

In my book, I also use the “Emerging Church” in the title (The Emerging Church: A Model for Change and a Map for Renewal: Woodlake Books, 2008). But I define “emergent” in the scientific sense of the word, recognizing that in an evolutionary universe new, more complex and nuanced forms and processes emerge in response to changing life conditions. Cosmologically, biologically, psychologically, culturally, and spiritually we evolve through the dynamic of emergence. Unless we are prepared to drive a wedge between what happens in the realm of the rest of life and human beings, then we need to recognize, indeed celebrate, that we are evolutionary creatures. If the Holy is involved in reality as we now know it to be, then the Holy is immanent in the evolutionary process of growth. It follows that if the church is involved in reality as we know it to be, then the community of people who gather as a church also grow, develop, and evolve.

I’ve landed, for now, on “evolutionary Christian mysticism” as a tag for myself. We are the Spirit-infused evolutionary universe come to conscious awareness – the universe reflecting upon itself. In the human being, natural selection has become “actual” selection – we are now to exercise the incredible power to select our preferred future. We may consciously choose to cooperate with the evolutionary process. To use theological language – it is God’s intention for us to grow and evolve.

Notice the implications for theology, ecclesiology, and liturgy. Revelation is never once and for all time. It is a slow unfolding of  Spirit in space and time (in nature), and potentially speedier in the human expression of nature.  ”God” is known, not merely by looking backward, but by cooperating in the evolutionary capacity to shape the future :“Those who put their hand to the plough and look back are not fit for the Kingdom of God”. Scripture was written, therefore, within an evolutionary universe and could only have been penned from within the stage of consciousness reflected by the emergent culture of the day and age in which it was written.

The universe unfolds through a master pattern of “transcend and include”. Previous structures and processes lay the foundation for emergent processes and structures to transcend, yet include, the former iterations in response to changing life conditions. The church follows the same master pattern of transcending, yet including, its traditions, processes and structures. When we refuse to evolve in this way, we are acting out of alignment with the natural grace of the cosmic unfolding.

Part of being an evolutionary Christian mystic involves the practice of refusing to freeze evolution at any single point in human history or to freeze particular beliefs at one stage of development and call that “Truth”. As Ken Wilber says, all of reality is holonic. It is at once a whole in and of itself and as such has agency – it does things. But it is also at the very same time a part of a larger whole – it is in communion with something larger than itself. When theology, the church, and belief systems get frozen, they are actively refusing to be a part of a larger, evolving whole, and therefore not participating in God’s apparent intention for all of life. They become petrified fossils. For anything to have life, a church, a belief system, and truth itself needs to grow and develop.

We believe that God’s very being is revealed in the evolutionary process of transcending and including what has gone before. This dynamic unfolding in a biased direction toward increased complexity, consciousness, and compassion will never come to an end. It is the very nature of Ultimate Reality or Spirit. This is not a rejection of tradition, or a rejection of any particular belief system. Rather it is a positive embrace of a worldview that is grounded in scientific reality.

The apostle Paul got this intuitively, I’m convinced. He wrote that  we are to “grow with the growth this is from God” – that is, what today we’re calling evolutionary growth. When we were children, he wrote elsewhere, we thought like children. We reasoned like children. It’s time to become adults and put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13). Truth evolves as perspective and context evolve. Beliefs evolve. Our understanding of Jesus evolves along with the expansion of our own consciousness. More about this in a post to come.