Unpacking The Lord's Prayer

Somewhere before Matthew and Luke was most likely a text that was the source of their common threads, but we'll never see it. So extrapolating from these two storytellers as to what may/must have been said requires more than a literalist view of the two texts' recounting this often repeated prayer (for which most of us seem to have defaulted to Matthew). But the question I have pondered so many times is not “what exactly did Jesus say” but rather, “what was his intent in this teaching?” So despite not having an imprimatur of any religious organization, I am finally going to take a crack at what this itinerant country preacher may have intended for his audience to understand about prayer.

In order to attempt this we first need to understand two things about the speaker, Yeshua of Nazareth, whose name we Anglicized as Jesus. First of all, while there is no evidence that he was formally trained as a Rabbi, Jesus clearly had a good handle on the sacred texts, quoting frequently and selectively from them to make his points. He is, from most of what we can extrapolate from all of these stories, at all times very intentional and consistent about his message, his context and his intent.

Jesus declared himself a “jubilee” messenger – referring to the Deuteronomic rule (Deut. 15:1-11) that every seventh of the seven year periods (that is, every 50^th year) is to be a Jubilee year, marked by forgiving all debts, freeing all prisoners, caring for the poor, the widows and the children – using a reference to the same from the book of Isaiah (Is. 61:1-2). However, true to his philosophy, Jesus intentionally left out the last phrase of the passage dealing with vengeance. Jesus was very intentional. He never refers to the wrath or vengeance of God, but rather only refers to the healing, loving and forgiving nature of God. He used scriptures and events to teach a specific message, and that message is the second part of our understanding his contextual framework.

Jesus’ message through all of his teaching was a revolutionary understanding of God, the nature of God, and the nature of “God’s kingdom.” Kingdoms were plentiful in ancient times, and mapped out a domain of influence for each king. Jesus used this metaphor as a way of describing his theological foundation: God was not elsewhere – apart from us, ruling over us – but rather was very real and present, in and among all of us. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he would say, “as you are in me and I am in them and they in me.” He had a unitive theology; that all things were one and united by the same loving force, like one big family. We are inseparable from God but likewise God is inseparable from us. In an age where Gods were thought to reside on a mountain or in the center of the temple, Jesus taught that God not only belonged to all but was resident in all. So let’s see if we can see his understanding of the scripture and his theology evident in this prayer.

Right from the outset, he changes the game, calling God, “father” (implying the one big family). Matthew’s text even adds the descriptor, “our” (like all of ours, not just some of us). And some translations refer to the idea that he used the word “abba,” the familiar form of father: “daddy.” This was not the El Shaddai of old, nor was it the king who lorded over us like some benevolent master. It was intentionally familiar, familial and personal. And least we get all bound up by the masculinist term of father/daddy (as opposed to mother), let’s look at the role of parents in Judea at that time. Parents were fairly equal, though different, long ago. There was clear understanding that both mother and father were necessary and equally important. Fathers typically taught the trades and mothers taught the values of life. Both were essential. So why father then? Because father’s role was to teach purpose – how and what to do to be a contributor in life. And to be certain a father was not absent – off at work – as in modern times. Dads were always present, in the home, working at the house and very present. A father was meant to be purposeful, helpful and always present.

But what then are we to make of the reference to heaven? Doesn’t that connote the sky kingdom and the sky god? Not if you take a further look at how Jesus defines heaven. Heaven is not out there, not some future destination. Heaven is right here, right now. Heaven is among us and. He even goes so far as to say that it is “within you” (Lk. 17:20-21). So this daddy, this teacher, was a very present member of the community, of the family and of life in the present moment. Jesus’ intent was to demystify the concept of God; to make God real and present and palpable.

“Holy (sacred, blessed) is your name.” If we now understand God to be within the very life we are living, Jesus is calling that sacred. Life is sacred and holy. But remember that, as a Jew, Jesus learned that one could not say/speak the name of God, not because of its specialness, but because once anything was named it became separated – by name – from anything that was not that thing. Speaking the name of God would be suggesting that God was some thing, some entity, apart from other things, and certainly apart from us. That is the most sacred aspect of God; that God, being a very real and present aspect of everything, was inseparable from anything – that God was everything and everywhere. That is what holy and blessed really means.

“Thy kingdom come.” Then Jesus returns back to his core theological construct: The kingdom is

here, there and everywhere, and that life-intent that is God is already in action in every element of all creation (on earth and heaven). It seems obvious at this point that Jesus simply means “god is here, among us, already, right now.” Enough said! But here comes the one-two punch!

The first hit refers back to a scriptural reference. Jesus reminds his followers not to take more than enough. The reference to “daily bread” comes from the story of manna in the desert. The Israelites were wandering in the desert and supplies were low, so the story goes. In answer to their hunger and prayers, their God provides something bread-like that appears in the morning like dew. But it came with a rule: take only enough for one day. If anyone took more than a day’s supply, it rotted and would become toxic to them. The hoarders actually died. God’s rule of abundance is that “enough” is all you need. So Jesus’ reference to that story is a reminder (not a request) to the pray-er (not the one prayed to) that we only need “enough.”

And right on the heels of that is the knock-out punch about how forgiveness works. It seems to be a bit of a tricky turn of the phrase, but the pivotal word is “as” – “forgive us as we forgive others.” For most of my life I heard that phrase as a meritocracy: when I forgive enough others, I get to be forgiven, or if I forgive others I will be forgiven. But that was never a part of Jesus’ teaching. Or I thought it may have been some hold-over of the eye-for-an-eye morality of the Greeks in the area. But in fact, just the opposite was Jesus’ message: that you are already, and always forgiven. The nature of this loving God, that is love and life itself, is that you will always be forgiven – even before you think to ask for forgiveness. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son? The passage reads that, before the son was able to even ask his father for forgiveness, “while he was still a long way off” his father saw him, had compassion for him and “ran out to embrace him and kiss him.” God’s forgiveness is not dependent on our having done it first. But knowing Jesus’ understanding of the presence of God, god’s forgiveness is part and parcel with our forgiveness. God-in-us forgives us through each other – it’s how God is made manifest. It is seeing the God in the other as we forgive them or they forgive us. That is God’s love visibly in action!

And in conclusion… Jesus ends his prayer instruction with the oddest phrase of them all, “lead us not into temptation” or in other translations “deliver us from the test.” Jesus taught that the purpose of prayer was that it altered the pray-er (your father already knows what is in your heart). So what might he have meant with the reference to temptation. I have a couple of theories that may explain this one. First of all, the time he spent in the desert before starting his ministry is still fresh in Jesus’ mind. He clearly felt led into his path of teaching and healing. Could he have felt led into that time that tested his spirit and was hoping that others might not have to endure the same?

Many exegetes note how fond Jesus was of the Psalms, and certainly the Psalms are a part of every Shabbat service. The Psalms are rife with references of being put to the test and of being tempted (mostly by wealth and power). The Psalmist seemed to wrestle with his own temptation and the fear that God might turn away because of his weakness or, worse yet, that God would put him to the test! That being the case, Jesus might have been drawing on a common theme from worship.

Now Matthew may have a different take on the prayer and adds the element of evil (or in some translations “the evil one”). But that does not fit with the teachings and philosophy of Jesus. It may well be an editorial comment either added because Matthew wanted to appeal to the cultural norms of the people to whom he was writing. Or it may have been added by a later editor as part of the doctrine of the church of the time (a practice that happened with all sacred texts throughout time).

But more in keeping with my hypothesis that Jesus felt that the prayer was more about how one prayed (more to alter the pray-er than to bend the divine ear) he may have included that line as a last piece of training. “Master, teach us how to pray,” may not have been answered by this teacher with a rote formula. More likely he may have said something to the effect of, “It’s not what you say but who and how you are when you say it! Remember, God is already in you, and in me. God has already given you all you need. God has already forgiven before you could even recall the sin. And this God, would never, ever lead you astray!” Amen.

Mystical Moments

When we talk about true mystical experience, it seems as though the general thought is that anyone who has a genuine connection with the divine floats about in some kind of mystical state 24/7. However none of the mystics ever seem to report it that way. What is more the case is that they (and we) have scattered mystical moments; small glimpses of what that connection looks and feels like. It is here one moment and slips away as soon as we try to latch on to it and hold it as our own.

Actually the term mysticism and mystical were not even part of our language until the 15th century, so the early "mystics" did not even refer to themselves or their experiences as mystical. They were simply trying to be present in the moment.  But as the church tried more and more to make god and spirituality more other-worldly, they pushed the experience of the divine into the realm of the non-human - and we have been trying to get it back ever since.

Truth is: mystical moments happen all the time but because we tend to be looking elsewhere for the big kahuna "aha" experience, we don't recognize them. You know what they are: a baby's smile, catching another person eye-to-eye, sunsets and sunrises, a rose blooming or a crocus poking its way through the last snow, and so many more. In fact every instant there is another moment that is mystical and transcendant. and when you start to see them, life itself becomes more beautiful and precious.

The trick in the whole mystical experience is to be awake and aware enough to notice what is happening in the now. And each time we forget that life is filled with these mystical moments, we slide back into our routines of worrying about the future or wishing away the past. Dan Millman wrote a book once called No Ordinary Moments which really captures this understanding.  But we don't need near death experiences to wake us up - we need only to wake up. Then you'll see why the so called "mystics" lived quite ordinary lives - but were filled by the abundance of mystical moments they allowed themselves to experience in every moment. So coming back to the beginning of this thought stream, if we are actually capable of being present I suppose we could enjoy a mystical life.  The problem, as Ram Dass said, is to Be Here Now!

Baptismal Inheritance

Last Sunday, my pastor asked “what did we inherit through baptism?” I think it is far more than we suspect, however.  For many of us, we think that the great inheritance of our faith is that we have the promise of God; the promise of heaven and salvation.  But I think that misses the mark.  And to understand what that is, we need to look at Jesus.  Jesus is our model. Jesus was not something other than we are, or separate from us.  Yes, Jesus was the incarnation – the word and spirit in human form – but he was here to show us that we are all the incarnation of God’s word.  His message was consistently that what he had and how he was connected to God is what we have as well.  Just as Jesus and the Father were one, so are we and the Father one.

So here is the big “aha” about baptism, as revealed though the actions of Jesus, our model.  What Jesus inherited (and by extension what have inherited) in baptism was not a promise but rather permission. Through baptism we are given permission to be audacious and call ourselves children of God.  Through baptism we have permission to live larger than life. Through baptism we have been given permission to heal the sick, and to mend the broken hearted – literally to work miracles.

So I ask you this, if you had permission to be anything and do anything that you felt called to do, what would that be? If you had permission to walk into the White House, what would you say?  If you had permission to stop any economic or ecological runaway train, what would you do? If you had permission to love fully anyone you choose, who and how would you love?

Through your baptism you have been given permission to be God’s presence in this world, in this state, in this parish, in this family. You are God’s child in whom God is well pleased, and with that baptismal proclamation, you have been granted full permission to go and serve.  How will you use that?

Ending the Madness

"No one's religious anymore. Not anyone with any sense. Religion incites hatred, starts wars, and vilifies anyone who challenges its narrow-minded views." So starts an article in the Huffington Post UK version (by Felicity Morse). But where Ms Morse ended up with her article is not where I would go. So with thanks to her lead, let me turn a different way.

You're right, Felicity, and I hate it! I am sick of the divisiveness created by religions and religious sects. I am embarrassed when someone calls me a Christian and they mean that type of a person who thinks others are soiled, unclean or despicable because they don't say the right words.  Or when the mean some sort of narrow-minded bible-thumping "religious" fanatic that uses verses to their own defense and to the exclusion of others.

I can no longer find a religion that I can claim and yet I love God, and I do my best to follow the teachings of Jesus.  It's just that I do my best to also follow the teachings of the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zoroaster, and just about every other wise sage that ever graced this planet. And I do not believe that I am special if I believe in the resurrection of Jeshua, the Nazarene, or that I am damned to eternity in hell if I don't.

That type of dualistic thinking is the root of the disease that we now call religions. But that was never the message - not the message of the Nazarene, not the message of the Buddha, not the message of Hillel, not the message anyone who has ever listened for God has ever heard. In fact the message of all sacred texts is one of acceptance and inclusion - not hatred and out-grouping; one of forgiveness and compassion - not revenge and hatred; one of care-taking and respect - not one of dominion and dominance. Where we went wrong and got off that path, I don't know. But I do know that our very survival depends on getting back to it.

It is time for ministers and preachers and spiritual people everywhere to speak out that we are one.  It is time that we link arms and stand squarely in the path of those who would divide and vilify others. It is time we all band together and shout "Enough! No more! No mas muerta!" It is time to work for healing and bridge-building and forgiving. My heart is breaking - we cannot continue the way we are going.

Please - if you read this, pass it on! That's how we can turn this around. It's like Marge Piercy wrote in her wonderful poem, The Low Road:

It goes on one at a time,

it starts when you care

to act, it starts when you do

it again and they said no,

it starts when you say We

and know you who you mean, and each

day you mean one more.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

As I sit here and contemplate what course or courses I wish to take in seminary as I return (yet again) in the fall, I am faced with a huge dilemma: to what end? I have often contended I study religion for sport! I love it and literally nothing fascinates me more than the question of what people (myself included) believe in. They are among the strongest held and most polarizing beliefs we have. And yet it feels like I need to have a reason. Actually - truth be told - I want to have a reason.

I am now 63 and officially retired from full-time consulting - my livelihood of the past three decades - and yet I am still hungry. I continually ask myself if I have done what I was sent here to do. And I do not know the answer.  I know (because I have been told) that I am among the best psychometrists in the business. I love cracking the code of a diagnostic test and seeing it come to life for my client. It is my gift and I have used it well over the years.

But men of my age are not supposed to be asking "is that all?"  We are told to be content with life and what we have accomplished by now. And I am - - sort of.  But there is this nagging voice in my head and churning in the pit of my stomach that continually point me toward spirituality and some form of ministry - not church-based ministry, but the kind of ministry that assists, guides and helps others struggling with their spirituality as I continually do.

Struggling with spirituality is not the best term but I have no other.  I do not mean by that phrase the kind of struggles that search for a belief or an understanding of god or experiences of the sacred and divine. Struggling with deep spirituality comes from a deep and profound connection with the divine that walks and talks with that power (sometimes figuratively but often literally) yet has no clue of what to do with and because of that connection.

Carolyn Myss says that I might have to be content living at the end of my little cul-de-sac in life bringing my light to that street.  She says that maybe that is all that is required of ones spiritual connection - just to be a light in the world. Period. Nothing else. No other reason. End of story. And it is my ego that wants to make something significant out of what I feel. Maybe.

But as I head back to the hill this fall, I will be looking for a way to shine in other corners, on other streets, in other ways. And I still have not a single clue. God wants us on god's terms, in god's service, not ours, not mine. So again I have to surrender will. Again I have to seek understanding. Again I have to see if there are others who feel like this - because I know there is no denomination I have yet explored that describes the truth I feel and experience.

How can I feel so connected and yet so lost?

Divine Intervention

In one week my son will become a bar mitzvah – quite an important and unique occurrance in an interfaith marriage and I was not quite sure how I was to prepare myself to be fully present at this special event. But for the past three days I have been providing testing and career counseling to a small segment of the third generation members of a very large orthodox Jewish family business. I met with young adults with names like Shmuel, and Sorah, Reuven and Rivka; Chaim and Chana; young people who were on their way to a year in Israel or having recently completed their first, second or even fourth year studying and learning there. To a person they were bright and clear-eyed and filled with a profound spirituality. It was truly impressive – and I was deeply moved by not only the spirituality of their religious life, but by the open and effusive love they afforded each other.

We spoke openly about having been called to religious life by G-d (in respect to their tradition of not naming the Almighty) and how to integrate that into their desire to serve through a career – whether in the family business or elsewhere. While the success of the family business made nearly anything a possibility (including choosing a life dedicated to the study of Torah), all of them voiced a strong sense of responsibility to be a contribution to their family, to the family businesses, and to society.


What once appeared to me as perhaps odd or on the fringes of life, transformed before me into a rich and wonderful world. My attitudes toward the customs of orthodoxy shifted from thinking of them as almost neurotic to a kind of respect and wonder. There are deep roots to each of the actions and, like all ritual practices, each added to the richness of the individual’s experience as he prayed or studied. Because I got a chance to become intimate with these young people (psychological testing is like looking into the core of a person’s being and is about as intimate as it gets), I became immersed in their world for the time I was there. And, as is my habit, I fell in love with a whole new segment of humanity.

Yea, love. Love has this accepting, unquestioning, and unconditional quality to it that changes the lover probably more than the person who is loved. And that is really how it feels. I came here to offer my skills and services, but I was the one who was changed, opened up and moved. Oh perhaps I did my job well and helped them out on their path, but in the process, I was the one who really moved. Isn’t that always the way the Divine works?

Whose Prayer?

Here’s another one of those thoughts that I have that may not be terribly popular. It has to do with how we pray and with the essence of prayer. And sorry - this is a bit longer than usual.

The great teacher Jeshua of Nazareth almost never answered a question directly (Another sorry, about the Josh thing. Folks tend to get flaky about his popular name if you do anything less than take him literally. So, because I am going to say something quite possibly viewed as blasphemy, I won’t use it). In fact, I read somewhere that of the nearly 200 questions put to him, he directly answered only three! Furthermore, when teaching a lesson, he invariably taught – as in he never varied from this pattern – through paradox, metaphors and parables; stories that were intentionally puzzling to the listener. Yet against this backdrop, nearly every person I know views the “Lord’s Prayer” as a discrete formula to be taken literally at face value, or at least to be memorized precisely.

Why? Why would his pattern be different for this one lesson? Remember, this is the same man who actually ridiculed formal prayer as either empty or something tantamount to show-boating. Always the consummate Rabbi, what if Joshua was staying true to form? If we suspend our literalist thinking for a moment and examine this instruction – his answer to the request, “Master, teach us to pray,” – through the lens of the other 99% of his teaching style, we just might see something else. Let’s start from the top.

“Our Father in heaven.” As he continually taught, the kingdom of god is now, here, and most importantly within you and me. Why then a reference to a heaven (elsewhere)? Might this instead be a reference to the kingdom among us and within us and not to a divided world of heaven and earth or heaven and hell? Jeshua was fervently interested in having his followers see the kingdom in the here and now. Furthermore, I am told (though I have never read the original text) that his word used for father was the child-familiar equivalent of “daddy” again suggesting that such a “heaven,” if not inside us already, may be closer and more accessible than the priests wanted us to believe. Then, almost as a wake up call he adds, “Thy kingdom come.” Might this perhaps be a declarative or even stated as a done deal? But wait, there’s more.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” follows in the same vein. This is spoken into a time, not too unlike our own time, when whatever might be “god’s will” is clearly NOT being done. The truth is that human willfulness was the rule of the day (and still is). Thus this phrase and its later partner, “forgive our sins as we forgive others,” seem most surely to be a Jeshuan trap. It is more like a double trap, actually. First of all, attaching our forgiveness to our own praxis of forgiving is quite simply ludicrous. Our egos have very little ability or capacity for true forgiveness – they are too concerned with being right and better-than. But secondly, and more importantly, following a literal path we are trapped into hoping that god’s forgiveness could or should be earned by anything we do. The teacher never said either of those – in fact he always said exactly the opposite, in nearly every story, parable or teaching. You are already forgiven; you can't do anything to improve your chances; the kingdom is with(in) you.

So what could possibly be going on with this “how to” manual for prayer? There are two killer requests that need to be addressed before we answer that. “Give us our daily bread” and “Don’t put us to the test.” One of the greatest failed test stories in the bible is the manna in the desert. Our daily bread most likely refers to the daily allotment while in the desert during their flight from Egypt. The tribes were instructed to trust god and to take only enough for one day. Any more than “enough” would rot and turn poisonous, which of course, owing to our human scarcity model, was exactly what happened. Test failed!

Dare we even pray not to be put to the test – the test of our trust in god? C’mon, our very lives are an antithesis of that 24/7! How often do we free fall into our trust in the divine? I don’t know about you but I regularly trust and rely on me (and my effort, intelligence and perseverance) more than I remember to trust and rely on god.

But knowing this, our great teacher must have been lining up a litany of human errors to show us how praying should not be concerned with our human worries. What’s more, our prayer should not – cannot – be about our trying to get it right! We have not gotten it right, ever. It is almost – from this perspective – a mockery of our neediness for rules and boundaries of right and wrong (“Master, teach us the right way to pray – the only way to pray, the way that if we do it correctly, we will be assured of being better than everyone else.”) So he just stacked up a short list of our most stupid and non-spirit-filled errors, for fun! “Look guys, don’t even go there, no one can teach you how to pray, not even my cousin John. Prayer is about getting to human nothingness in order to let in the divine. Empty yourselves and you will be closer to real praying.”

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to teach the simplest things. It is the conundrum faced by all the great spiritual teachers (who, by the way, all used koan, metaphor and parables to confuse and get their students out of their heads). The instruction which I can most likely envision from Jeshua – to sit down, shut up and listen –would not have made good press for whomever was writing the story. So we got this… this, “Lord’s Prayer” concoction. I am beginning to seriously doubt that it was OUR lord’s prayer – ever – it is so out of context with the rest of his teaching. Unless, of course, he was following his standard formula of confusing the logic out of us. You will have to decide that one for yourself. Meanwhile, you’ll have to excuse me – I think I need to go empty my cup once more – it is too full to receive anything else!

Systematic Theology

Wow - It has been a while since I posted here, though admittedly most of these are more like my talking out loud than postings with the intent of generating tons of responses!

This semester I am in a class called Systematic Theology - subtitled perhaps "how does all of this stuff hang out together in your head or heart?" I have to admit it is kicking my butt mostly because it is forcing me to put in writing that which I have gotten away with not having cleanly defined for most of my adult life. Topics like: What is the nature of humanity? If you believe in a god, what is it that you actually believe? And the big one for me is if I call myself a Christian (on the days that I do call myself that) then what is it that defines my Christianity?

It requires first and foremost a starting point: would that be god or humanity? Since I cannot ever comprehend fully god as the fullness and source of all is-ness everywhere, I have to start with humanity. It led me on a path of recognizing that we only can know anything in our own language and limited through our own experience. So certainly whatever I may claim to understand is most certainly NOT god. It is only my experience of god, and at that, it is still limited to the antecedent referent list of tools, experience, vocabulary and imagery that my history, ethnicity, gender, society, economics (etc, etc) has afforded me.

All I can come to then is that this (all of this world, this universe, this life) is but a mere reflection of god - not god nor even full evidence of godliness - just "reflections as in a mirror" as Paul wrote. And to be certain the point of view from which I see that reflection is not the one from which you (any of you) see your version. But theology courses want you to come down with a theory or a theology (literally some god words or god logic) that you could espouse.

Hey, I am working on it!

Separate Truths

Commentary on Professor Prothero’s “Separate Truths” (with apologies for the length.

First of all, I cannot step over the need to express appreciation for Professor Prothero’s daring and well-informed essay in the Globe Ideas section (Sunday, April 25, 2010) – daring in its venture in to the un-vogue territory of recognizing and embracing differences (and in particular religious differences) and obviously well informed from the Professor’s years of study. Furthermore, I admit to not having read the full text from which his comments are taken. But unfortunately, from my personal perspective as a novice student of theology, the article fails on both the front end assumptions and on the concluding end of resolution.

The Professor points in great detail to the many differences between the world’s religions as the foundation of his argument and produces from that foundation the obviously related concept of their mutually exclusive goals, using as example the differing goals of various sports. Obviously earth’s many peoples and cultures have a plethora of differences. Why for example do roofs on Norwegian houses have a different pitch than those in the Sonoran desert? Why is the attire of the Inuit inappropriate in the Congo basin? Or allowing for the sport analogy, why must one relinquish the ball when tackled in rugby but cling tightly to it in American football, its second cousin?

The questions that might be asked are not how are these sports different in goals and rules, or why do houses and clothing differ, but rather why do humans play sports and games and why do they seek shelter from the elements? Do we as humans share a need to believe in something, and if so how do those beliefs evolve into group think, cultural mores, out-grouping and hate crimes or perhaps in a shared need to find commonality? While the professor sweeps aside Karen Armstrong’s earlier work, A History of God, he might do well in reviewing her more recent deep dive in The Great Transformation.

In this more recent work, Ms. Armstrong ties together not so much the tenets of some major world religions, but rather the socio-political and economic precedents to them. Evolving out of some common threads in world history and founded in what appears to be a universal human need to understand one’s existence, Armstrong makes a more compelling argument for the commonality of the human spiritual quest. The great sages that developed those religions she traces did so in an effort to make sense out of human suffering and tragedy. Our pains, large or small, personal or societal, are differently named (as our sports are) and so, in the dualism that follows defining one thing from another, the courses of action and thought processes that ensue are even more radically differing.

Humans appear to have a shared need to understand their existence, how they got here and to what end they are moving. Even atheists have an explanation to the why and what of existence (personally I love reading Douglas Adams’ brilliantly articulation of the atheistic point of view). The problem comes not from the religions, theisms and a-theisms, but rather from the very human act of meaning making wherein we all differ radically. Our brains have evolved to make sense out of the myriad stimuli bombarding us at each instant and to relegate some to meaning and others to irrelevance. The bulk of that happens through what psychologists call associative learning – “this is like that.” Since no two people (not even identical twins) share exactly the same perspective, our meaning-making begins to differ from the time we are born (and some would contend even before that). Thus when these somewhat to wildly differing meaning structures encounter human difficulty and the ensuing need to make sense of it, it is a wonder that there are not 6 billion religions on our planet.

But we talk to each other, and something as important and central to life as why we are here and where we are going frequently comes up, eventually rolling up to some commonly held themes as “our beliefs” – and the rest, as they say, is history. Additionally, along with the evolution of these beliefs and themes, our moral/ ethical processes also develop (some more than others). The Professor would no doubt be aware of the work of James Fowler, who outlines the stages of spiritual development from the undefined to universalized (an understanding level few ever get to). Parallel to the work of Kohlberg and Perry, Fowler found that development may stall out at some level, and as Perry found, under duress or challenge, people often regress to a lower level of understanding such as fundamentalism. There, life is simple once again – there is a right and a wrong and everything fits neatly into the package. To the fundamentalist, right comes from god and anything diverging from that is false, and therefore comes from the devil. Combining these aspects of human psychology with the evolutionary history of religions produces a vast array of religions and belief structures not only about morals, ethics and their source, but about who is or is not included and excluded from the defined principles and goals.
And to what point should this argument take us? Professor Prothero correctly points out that denying the differences is both ignorant and insulting. Whether fundamentalist or enlightened universalist, spiritual beliefs are closely held and sacred to the holder. Disavowing those individual beliefs, whether by exclusionary practices or pseudo-intellectual feints toward inclusiveness, is not just ignorant, it is morally wrong. Trying to make things fit neatly into our pretty little ethnocentric packages has virtually destroyed the environment, raped the land, justified wars and genocide – you name it. History should have provided enough evidence that such beliefs and practices don’t work.

But there is a pluralism that embraces diversity that may be a step beyond Dr. Prothero’s end point (which may perhaps be included in his book). Diversity requires our embracing differences as other component parts of the human condition. Not including the perspective of some Aboriginal villager in a world economic forum is as blind as not accessing the creativity of a person living with a mobility handicap when discussing a corporate strategic plan. Religious diversity is not adopting the “New Jerusalem” ideal that Stackhouse espouses, but rather making room at the table for every perspective in discussing our plight.

The problems of today’s world are more complex than ever and some might contend, are foretelling our demise. Unless we recognize that the solution is the unwieldy and awkward coming together of human perspectives, we may not be able to do anything about it. Adam Kahane outlined the process of creating resolutions to the complex and difficult problems presented at the Mont Fleur (South Africa) and in the Vision Guatemala discussions – both of which sought to include representatives of all elements in the discussions. Because religions play such a central role in the actions of peoples around the planet, they may (some would say should) have a role in working toward both a global peace and environmental survival. We as a people are suffering, and suffering, as Armstrong points out in her concluding paragraph of The Great Transformation, “shatters neat, rationalistic theology.” We need to let the pain of genocide in the Middle East, attacks like 9/11 (resulting in our retaliatory warring), and the suffering from natural disasters sink in and shatter the self-righteousness of exclusionary belief systems. We need compassion; a compassion that accepts others’ individual differences and that has room for differing beliefs. We need to follow the lead of Tony Blair and others who are attempting to call the religions of the world together in inclusive mutual respect (for our many differences) and, placing all the guns and knives on the table, begin the process of open and healing dialogue – trusting that somewhere in their respective practices love and compassion have a voice.