Dear friends,

I've been mulling over Ian Elmers' "New Vision of Church" since I first began preparing it for publication on Friday. There is much in what he wrote which excites me and also ideas that honestly have caused me to go back and query material in the base paradigm and frame of reference out of which I imagine and live my faith that I would have never thought required discussion.

	Ian Elmer

In this commentary I'd like to explore both the positives of what Ian wrote and also those things which cause me not so much unease or disquiet but intrigue as to whether they ought to be agenda items if we are to successfully re-vision the Church of tomorrow.

Starting with the positives…

Let's start with the positives: I fully support what Ian wrote in this paragraph:

"I firmly believe that the first step must be to deconstruct the old myths and reconnect the dots in a new more radical way. We can no longer continue to offer a message that is patently unhistorical and irrational. We need a new "myth" that is grounded in solid historical analysis and honest criticism, not only of our principle scriptures but also the myths that underpin some of our erroneous notions about the nature of humanity as a body/soul amalgam and human salvation as an other-worldly expectation. We must dispense with what St Paul called "old wives tales" (1 Tim 4:7) and embrace a new vision (an "apocalypse" to use the language of the New Testament) that is fraught with political and social overtones, as well as spiritual."

The first sentence of his final paragraph also finds sympathy with my own long-argued suggestion that we need to lift religion out of the political paradigm within which we do so much of our thinking in the Western world today: "Let's do away with the false labels of 'conservatives'and 'liberals' and focus on spirituality."

Politics, and democratic politics in particular, has been a brilliant innovation in civilisation that helps our communities manage conflict and differences of opinion and outlook. It has been a wonderful mechanism for finding consensus within our communities for the management of our business, social and civil affairs. I would argue though that our spiritual aspirations are "beyond politics" in the sense that the "spiritual" is essentially "other" or "supernatural" and an aspiration for something beyond the here and now.

The question of labels…

I am not a person who is against labels per se. I think labels are a very useful tool that we can use to analyse broad demographic and social trends in society and help us better understand the dynamics of what drives different groups of individuals, and different individuals in the choices they might make in life. I find them useful in both understanding myself and where I stand in relation to various other groupings in society and I find them useful in better appreciating where other individuals, and groups of individuals are coming from in their outlook and aspirations. Of course perhaps only a tiny minority in society fall neatly within any particular label or categorisation but, to me, that does not make the value of labels meaningless. Of course labels are not always pleasant but I do not believe that diminishes their value. Broadly I consider myself at heart to be more a political conservative and believer in harnessing the creativity of the individual and free enterprise than I see myself as a socialist and believer in the collectivist outlook that is more characteristic of the left-wing in politics. At the same time I also believe that unrestrained capitalism is as great a scourge to humankind as is national socialism or the forms of State-sponsored communism that very nearly exerted enormous destructive power in human affairs in the last century.

Not too many years ago I was a "died in the wool" member and activist in the Liberal Party of Australia. Today I am a critic of the Liberal Party but I do not see myself as having moved to become a socialist, or on the left-wing of the political spectrum. Rather, my personal outlook today is that there is in fact no ideal political party. Democracy to me is not some quest to create some "ideal" political party, even ideal political consensus. It is a mechanism for mediation between a series of parties that are non-ideal — each has strengths and weaknesses. It is not endeavouring to construct some "super-party" that takes the best ideas of the competing parties that make up a democracy. The strength in democracy does in fact come from having basically two or three relatively strong and idealistic parties that do fairly accurately represent the broad aspirations of the community at large. Necessarily to reduce down all our individual aspirations so that they become expressed through two or three major political parties, such as the Liberals, Labor and the Greens, we need to label and categorise ourselves with broad labels. While my personal sympathies might still be in favour of political parties that represent the individual interest as opposed to the collectivist social interest, at the same time, I believe it is essential for good governance and social cohesion that we do have a strong political party in society that does express the collectivist aspirations in the commonwealth. That's a very different outlook to the one I basically had when I was an activist in Liberal politics and I tended to see all socialists as "the enemy" and a deep scourge on society that were dragging humankind backwards.

Analysing everything through a "political lense"…

Politics has become so deeply embedded in the psyche and thinking paradigm within which Western society operates that I think we are scarcely aware today that we tend to analyse almost everything in society through a "political lense". I'll back such and such a proposal if John Howard (or my side of the spectrum) is for it and I'll oppose it if Kevin Rudd (or his side of the spectrum) is in favour of it, or vice verse if one is positioned on the other side of the political divide in society. I honestly believe thinking of religion and spirituality through that mechanism we use as a short cut to making many of our political decisions in society is dangerous.

Car Jung

Where I disagree with Ian is that I honestly don't think our end spiritual aspiration is to be building some "ideal political kingdom" in the here and now. Jesus is essentially non-political and even a-political.

On the other hand I am attracted to what he writes in the section of his commentary dealing with the insights of Carl Jung. If I read this correctly, the spiritual quest is essentially something individual, albeit something acted out within a community. Essentially though the spiritual quest is as Ian/Carl Jung would posit: "The first step towards realising God's reign upon earth is radical 'metanoia' on the personal level. A 'change of heart' that requires, not flight from the world, but a world embracing and self-sacrificing cruciform life in imitation of the crucified Son of God. Ironically, it is committing to a life of self-sacrifice and unconditional love that we find psychological balance — and this is where the nexus between spirituality and social action comes in." [Emphasis added]

Let me try and make the distinction in this way: we can envisage two ways in which one might build a "kingdom". One is by mounting some "political" campaign in order to try and convince all the people (or the vast majority) to adopt some ideology or political agenda that builds "the ideal and loving community". That's basically what national socialism or the totalitarian ideologies of thinkers like Karl Marx and Frederick Engels tried to build. I think what Christ proposes is something radically different to that. It is not some "utopia" or "idealised kingdom" imposed "top down". It calls for the personal conversion of each heart not to some political program or ideology but to a radically different — and non- or a-political — way of viewing life AND time AND BEYOND TIME (ie Eternity). It is the aggregate of all these changed hearts that "builds the kingdom" NOT the political or theological ideology that might have induced the people to their "metanoia". Can you see the difference in what I am arguing?

What is the true "end objective" of this religious or spiritual quest?

So, in one sense I agree with Ian that the building of the kingdom is something that takes place in the here and now. But I suggest that is not the end in itself but rather an outcome of the personal metanoia that is called for in the hearts of the millions, or the billions. The end objective is not one of endeavouring to build some "utopia" in the here and now via a political-type agenda — some community or civilisation of "peace, love and mungbeans", or of "integrity, love and equality" to use Bishop Spong's words that Ian referred to. The most important objective is the quest for individual wholeness, or "holiness" (to use that term that today has all these "bad" overtones connected with its meaning. "Holiness" in the sense I am using it is not about trying to prove oneself a "goody-two shoes" or some "hoop-jumper" who knows "the rules" better than everybody else. It is about learning and endeavouring to think and act as God, or Jesus, would think and act.) It is true enough that we cannot achieve this process as isolated islands. We realise it best when the process takes place within a supportive community. I think Ian summed this up well in this paragraph where he is again discussing the insights of Carl Jung…

"Jung suggests that the individuation process should take place within a community. Our development is a precarious journey as it is, without the additional problem of having no companions on that journey. The transitions that occur in the individuation process are ably celebrated by the symbols and rituals of the Church, which also provides a community of people who are behind, alongside of, and ahead of the one who traverses the road to individuality. The symbols and rituals of the Christ story invite one to enter into the necessary dying (and rising) as the 'ego' meets the 'self'. Through the ministry and communal life of the Church, one is supported in one's descent into the unconscious by the community and its symbols point the way to a new, fuller and more 'together' life."

At the end of everything though I part company with Ian in his seeming over-emphasis on the "kingdom now" as opposed to the "kingdom that is to come". As I see it our earthly journey — i.e. the earthly journey of each one of us as opposed to the collective journey of all of us — is essentially and quintessentially a journey of learning to think and act through the mind and body of Jesus Christ.

I honestly do think there is enormous confusion at the moment within the Christian community — in fact I suspect the confusion exists in all "religious" communities — as to what the core objective is. Some do see it essentially as some quest to build a social justice utopia. Others do seem to see it essentially as some game of playing suckhole to God — trying to prove what a "goody-gum-drops" I am and how I'm not breaking any of the rules and why these demonstrations ought give me "favoured treatment" when the "lolly of heaven" is eventually handed out. I think many though reject those two formulations of what the spiritual and religious quest is about and are searching for something else again. I know I have been, and still am, and as best as I can sum it up it is what I've written in this commentary.

The question of "bodily resurrection". What does it really mean?

In his commentary Ian also touches on the question of bodily resurrection and how radical a proposal this seemed in the earthly time of Jesus. I suspect it is still a "radical" concept but is misunderstood in a kindergarten-level envisioning of us all "coming back" as we are "now". That, I suspect, is bullshit. For example, how would we "come back": as we are in our decrepit bodies at the moment of death; how we were in our "innocence" at birth; or how we were at the "prime" of our physical beauty or our best intellectual and emotional "togetherness"? Science herself points today through such things as the Laws of Conservation that nothing is ever lost. Theologically, haven't we intuited that almost from the time humankind crawled out of the proverbial cave? "Bodily resurrection" is not an absurd concept — unless is it is envisaged as some kind of emotional sop, some "kindergarten party in the sky". The end objective of our "metanoia" I suggest is not some "social justice kingdom in the here and now"; it is this radical conversion — the one Jesus proposed to the Rich Young Man — where we are able to leave behind all the things of this world, including our own emotions and particularly ego, to be guided alone by "the will of the Father". To borrow from the words of Thomas Merton in the headline of Patrick Collins second commentary in the recent series — it is about the journey "from false self to true self"!

So, Ian, in response to the three questions you asked at the conclusion of our commentary on Saturday…

A good start is to ask ourselves some hard questions. What do we have to offer the modern person on their spiritual quest? What unique insights does our tradition provide? What do we have to offer the "battlers" who are struggling to find, what John Shelby Spong called, a "Christianity of integrity, love and equality"? How can we move forward into a new, empowering vision of the Church that transcends all labels and distinctions?

I think you have opened up a timely and what I hope might be an engrossing discussion.

Brian Coyne is the editor and publisher of Catholica Australia.

We welcome your thoughts in response to this commentary in our forum.

Brian Coyne can be contacted at: Brian Coyne <editor@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Brian Coyne

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