I was really moved by this sermon. It offered me both reassurance and reminder. It was delivered with unmistakable sincerity in an atmosphere of alert reflection. It was nutritious. I am an unbeliever and had to sing dumb during the reciting of the Apostles Creed but the sermon did me unmistakable good. It was strange, that contrast between the sense of being part of a community during the sermon and being a bit of Romulan during the Creed.
What I got from the sermon was the kind of nutrition I can also get from a poem by Mary Oliver or Les Murray, or in heart to heart conversations with friends and loved ones, or in some arresting natural serendipity. The sermon experience also had the benefit of being able to access that open and alert stillness along with others in some sort of purposeful and organised way, as people might do at a poetry reading or in a communal meditation session.
What made it accessible to me was the fact that the minister used the mere hooks of the story to ground her message in ordinary life and human experience. And so the Christian belief system, while it clearly underpinned her whole approach, did not act as barrier to me getting the valuable juice out of the homily.
And that makes me wonder whether people with different belief systems could do more to acknowledge and articulate the common ground they share. It is the thought that sometimes almost prompts me to say to a close friend who is a Christian: “Aren’t we just using different language to talk about the same things?” Or to note that the values I share with another Christian friend (a conservative evangelical at that) seem to make me closer to him than many of his fellow Christians, especially when it comes to matters like compassion and tolerance.
So I have begun to play around with some categories that just might help me to clarify what is going on. I find it helpful to identify three main elements in this Life, The Universe and Everything business. (That’s a mouthful – how about LUE?)
One is the particular belief systems – you might call them “beliefs about” or “beliefs that”. It could be the Christian creed, a belief that astronomical bodies influence our lives, or that this one human life is all we have. Granted, an alert Christian will point out that the creed asks for belief in, indicating commitment as well as factual assent.
The next one is values – self-explanatory but especially important in forming human collaborations but of course not always positive.
And the third one is what you might nowadays call spirituality, the sense and appreciation of being part of a whole, of being connected to the streams of life.
The sermon I heard (and I don’t just mean the words but also the manner of it) was crammed with the last two elements - values I could cheer and a spirituality I could recognise and swim in. And the first element did not get in the way. And what a pleasant thing it was to be part of a kindly community, as expressed in the service itself and the informal stuff around it.
At this point I come across a few difficulties. Of course the interplay between beliefs and values is for good and ill a complex matter. Aside from the Apostles Creed I had another difficulty in the service I attended and this was indeed a values/belief overlap. Some of the praying and lots of the singing was tied into a very stratified view of life and the cosmos. Maybe this was made starker by the fact that one prayer picked out the British royal family for special and excruciating mention. Anyway, that value (that human life benefits from structural hierarchy) can easily derive from a belief in a spiritual pyramid, with you and me “a little lower than the angels”. And, going the other way, the values that people hold could be disposing them to particular beliefs. Of course, some people who sign up to the spiritual pyramid might well have a contradictory egalitarian approach to daily life.
The belief/sense of connection overlap is also full of intriguing wrinkles. Links to beliefs are usually about claiming some kind of description of what is happening when we have these experiences, so difficult to capture in words, and which convey such wholeness and peace. I see Richard Dawkins in tears, overwhelmed by the wonder and richness of the world and his place within it. I recall knowing it myself as I read CS Lewis “The Four Loves” years ago in the bath, or when I allow myself to really go with the meditation in the yoga class. The descriptive explanations will vary, from the descent of the Holy Spirit to finding the Inner Light, from an outcome let us not forget, the Nuremburg rallies.
Although I would suggest that to have the experience and to benefit from it you don’t need the manifestos, there does seem to be shared core in spirituality that is to do with the falling away of some kind of alienation, whether that is alienation from God through sin, alienation from a self that is better aligned with the rest of the natural world, or social alienation.
Could we make any use of this? While I listen when I can to Radio 4’s Beyond Belief because it is interesting I think that as a means of promoting understanding it is generally limited, though a recent one about Sunnis and Shias was a brilliant exception. The usual pattern is for spokespersons for a particular religious views being asked to comment on a topic of common interest. Predictably, as in Question Time, the contributors are under pressure to go into manifesto mode and there is only occasional and minimal movement from set positions. What is needed is a bit more risk taking.
The model I am using would also be relevant for examining cases where the commonality is strong in belief and spirituality but weak in terms of values, as for my evangelical friend and some of his fellow Christians. My particular interest, drawn from my own experience and observations, is in cases where the commonality is strong in values and spirituality but weak or negligible in belief. The other thing to note at this point is the potential fluidity caused by “third factor” dissonance between people who have strong commonality in the other two. I suggest that a healthy response is to re-examine your own third factor and that of the other in the encounter. At the same time it may be a very sensible response to leave third factor off the agenda and indeed this position may be reached unconsciously by one or both parties.
Anyway, about risk –taking. I am drawing the following argument from the world of mediation. My first formal experience of that was as a party to a dispute that seemed completely intractable. Mediation appeared to be the last resort. The underlying issues and wants emerged after very skilful and patient work by the mediator and were markedly at odds with the presenting factors. It turned out that my side did not want to punish. It simply wanted peace. The other side did not in fact want justice, it wanted respect. Although neither side was entirely happy, the war was over.
What counted was the recognition of needs. In LUE encounters the most vital commonality will be centred on human needs, especially those to do with relating to others. I like the list of these, under the heading Connection, provided by the Center for Nonviolent Communication and Meaning, which includes things like recognition, respect, consistency, contribution, participation, etc. I suggest that in LUE encounters, if recognition of needs is paramount, whether or not they are articulated, then there should be more ready celebration of commonality as well as potential fluidity in the third factor.
I have identified beliefs as the likely third factor, probably because that holds for my experience. But I don’t mean to diminish the importance of belief. It is of huge practical importance and indeed may be a matter of life and death. More tricky is the question of respect for the beliefs of others which you do not share. I have tried to work this out in connection with a good friend who believes in astrology. My own personal take is that the idea that the movement celestial bodies in quite that way influences characters and destinies is so unlikely that for practical purposes I completely discount it. In a freer moment I might call it hokum and mumbo-jumbo. But Alice uses it as a framework for thinking about the personalities of the people she knows and it seems to work for her. She applies it with lots of flexibility and it does not appear to prevent her seeing and appreciating newly discovered aspects of the people she knows. In other words her belief framework is more enabling tool than rigid formula. For this reason I don’t see much point in poo-pooing her belief. And, hey, I could be wrong. There is so much that is mysterious and personal about how people form, hold and manage their beliefs.
This affects not only how I respond when it comes up in conversation, as it does from time to time, but also how I actually think about it. Certain bottom lines remain. If it was obviously negative in its effect on how Alice relates to others I would try to articulate the problem with her. I also don’t leave her in doubt about my view of astrology, which emerged when she offered to do my chart. And, if for instance there was talk about introducing as a subject in public schools, I would pitch into the argument. Yet I am also a bit sensitive about putting the boot into a belief that is so intellectually unfashionable, as compared, say, to other supernatural beliefs that are more mainstream, such as orthodox Christianity.
If you and I can identify our common ground that’s going to be a pleasant thing for you and me and maybe an essential usefulness in our conflict-ridden world.