Here is an issue I wrestle with and have not yet come to a sense of good resolution. It was stimulated by a thought from Karl Rahner in, Ignatius of Loyola.
"Every way of life, and especially one that aims to mould a man right from his innermost self, presents a claim to universality, whether wants to or not, a claim to general validity."
If you really believe in your way, you at least have a tendency to think it has some universal validity. You believe your way of understanding has gone to the "heart of things," correctly understood them and is true, not just for you alone, but for others.
You also tend to see other ways as lacking and not as good as the way you have chosen. I have yet to read a book by anyone, holding any position, that is not making a case that I would benefit from following their way presented. And of course, the implication is, that if I don't follow the way they are presenting, then I am missing something.
Even in a post-modern world, where the assumption of radical pluralism and relativism is a given, and where tolerance of other ways is suppose to be the "way," that belief is considered superior to those who would not agree with it. I have yet to meet a post-modern who does not believe their postmodern conclusions are superior to the previous ways of modernity.
The more important is any particular "great thing that matters the most," the more strongly we will tend to believe our understanding should be accepted by others. Even "gentle souls" like Parker Palmer can be scornful and dismissive (almost arrogantly so) about views with which they disagree. I recently re-read some of Palmer's views of the human condition and what he thinks about those who work with a "doctrine of sin" to understand the human condition. He was not charitable toward such views.
If gentle souls like his struggle, how much more so will those struggle who are less gentle. Rob Bell, while endlessly creative, will never be considered a gentle soul. And in his latest book (Love Wins), on a great theme which matters the most to Bell, he is radically in-the-face of those who hold to what he thinks to be a dated and abysmal theology of hell and heaven.
Trust me, I know this struggle about how one thinks about the importance and the validity and the universality of one's beliefs… I don't fault Bell at all for his strong language of denouncement of ways he thinks are dangerous and deceptive. (I do think he is seriously wrong in his conclusions, but I don't fault his passionate approach.)
Back to Rahner who continues in his thoughts . . .
Some, do indeed, become arrogant in their belief about their ways.
Others, fearing even the hint of arrogance and being so labeled, become uncertain of their own beliefs and way. They almost conclude that if a way is not valid and needed for all - perhaps it is not even valid for themselves. They become lukewarm about their own beliefs, their own experiences.
Isn't that an interesting phenomena of our age. Lukewarm about our own beliefs.
And then Rahner goes on to make a fascinating statement, one which really got my attention. Prophetically, writing from 1979, speaking of the end of modernity and the beginning on "post-modernity" he predicted we would do this:
"So you seek a 'synthesis' of everything and everyone and produce nothing but a characterless mishmash that claims to be for tomorrow merely because it has mixed up together everything from yesterday."
That got my attention, because, as an evangelical post-modern,
who does not like the boxes of modernity's theology and spirituality…
and who does like a sampled faith (Tim Keel) and a generous orthodoxy (Brian McLaren)…
and who by personality likes to collect diverse ideas and synthesize them
I may be in danger of creating a "characterless mishmash."
And sure enough, as I read certain late moderns / post-moderns, I think some (perhaps many) are moving toward a Christian spirituality, that in its goal to be tolerant of everything, inclusive of all and offensive to no one, is becoming boringly bland, inanely the same and predictably monotonous…. and maybe (eventually) not Christian at all.
For a number of years, I have been seeking both the sampled faith of a generous spirituality AND to fasten those insights to a strong theological center and experiential core.
I have found the Ignatian Way to be integral for this center/core.
And now, Rahner points the way forward out of the boringly bland, characterless mishmash of a postmodern synthesized spirituality.
"If one is in modest but certain possession of one's own position, one does not need to be excessively anxious to follow every fashion."
And with both confidence and humility, conviction and openness, we live out of our spiritual position and heartily commend it to others.
So I will continue to swim in the various streams of living water of Christian spirituality, but also remain an Evangelical on the Ignatian Way of Proceeding, warmly, gently, but with great confidence - commending it to you for your own spiritual journey into the heart of Christ.
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way
www.lci.typepad.com
