My Human Rights

In this week when the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I came across Dignitas Personae, a recent proclamation of the Catholic Church on questions of sexual, bioethical, and scientific ethics. In a day when abortion kills 9 of 10 Downs Syndrome babies and IVF is used to weed out people with disabilities long before they are born, it’s good to see someone still standing up and saying loudly and unapologetically that disability is “part of the human condition” and that those of us with disabilities are entitled to the same right to be born and live as anyone else:

“Preimplantation diagnosis is therefore the expression of a eugenic mentality that ‘accepts selective abortion in order to prevent the birth of children affected by various types of anomalies. Such an attitude is shameful and utterly reprehensible, since it presumes to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of ‘normality’ and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimizing infanticide and euthanasia as well’.

By treating the human embryo as mere ‘laboratory material’, the concept itself of human dignity is also subjected to alteration and discrimination. Dignity belongs equally to every single human being, irrespective of his parents’ desires, his social condition, educational formation or level of physical development. If at other times in history, while the concept and requirements of human dignity were accepted in general, discrimination was practiced on the basis of race, religion or social condition, today there is a no less serious and unjust form of discrimination which leads to the non-recognition of the ethical and legal status of human beings suffering from serious diseases or disabilities. It is forgotten that sick and disabled people are not some separate category of humanity; in fact, sickness and disability are part of the human condition and affect every individual, even when there is no direct experience of it. Such discrimination is immoral and must therefore be considered legally unacceptable, just as there is a duty to eliminate cultural, economic and social barriers which undermine the full recognition and protection of disabled or ill people.”

Looking East? Try the Vatican!

It is a sad result of the Reformation and “Biblical Christianity” that so much of legitimate Christian belief and practice has been lost on Americans. There are lots of reasons why American religious seekers turn away from Christianity, to be sure. Some truly do not believe in the concept of a personal God. Others really do affirm that reincarnation, nirvana, the many avatars of the Divine, and Bodhisattvas are the most accurate ways to see the universe.

For a lot of Eastern-oriented seekers, though, it seems like a lot of issues with Christianity are based on practice and hackneyed understandings of Christian doctrine. A lot of people, even people who still identify as Christian, look to the East for beneficial spiritual practices. Yoga, meditation, Zen, koans, and incense are all great spiritual practices, to be certain. I have experimented with all of these practices and find them useful. However, it really strikes me when Christians earnestly desire personal spiritual fulfillment, but don’t believe that deep spiritual practices fit into Christianity.

American Christianity has two main wings: liberalism and conservatism. Much like our politics, these two wings are often at odds with each other, endorsing different sources for legitimacy. Liberalism often looks to modern culture and personal experience as the starting point for religious understanding, while conservatism tends to look to the Bible and little else. Given that context, it is well-worth asking what the original Christians saw as the source of legitimacy in their faith.

It was obviously not our modern culture, and, shocking though it may seem, the first four centuries of Christians could not have been Biblical Christians! After all, the New Testament was not compiled and there was no definitive Christian scripture beyond Jewish scripture.

The early Christians sought legitimacy by seeking Christ in contemplation, service, and their interactions with others. The Church, however you define it, is essential for a Christian. Jesus promises us that whenever two or three are gathered in His name, there He is also. Service is also essential: after all, whatever we do for the least among us, we do for Christ. These first two are fairly obvious parts of Christian tradition and are still alive and well in American Christianity. Doubt it? Google “Bible study + (your zip code)” or “Faith rehab program” and see how many gazillions of hits pop up.

Contemplation, essential to the Christian life, has tragically fallen by the wayside. We are taught to speak to Christ in prayer, but never taught anything other than verbal prayer. When our voices get sore and we just feel frustrated, it can seem like Christianity has reached the end of its rope. We are told to meditate day and night on Scripture, but given no means of doing so. We are taught that Christ transcends our ability to understand Him fully, and given no way to interact meaningfully with Him in light of that. Needless to say, many Christians leave the faith frustrated, or seek to bring Jesus with them into Eastern spirituality.

Eastern traditions offer a lot of promise when Christianity stops making sense and offering fulfillment. Zen offers intense meditation focused on cutting through illusion of every type and awakening. Yoga offers us a way to bring the body and mind into harmony and feel connected to the Divine. Koans engage our minds in active contemplation of their mysteries. Looking at images of Buddhas, with a smile as enigmatic as Mona Lisa’s with a radiant joy that can only be spiritual in nature, it can be easy to see Christianity as a rigid set of rules when compared with the vital spirituality of the East.

For everyone who seeks the spiritual enlightenment that only comes from personal interaction with the Divine, however, no conflict with Christianity is needed. Catholicism (not exclusively, but primarily in the modern Christian world) has set contemplation at the forefront of its traditions. Contemplation is seen as the highest expression of spirituality. The Church (as I define it this time) is chock-full of spiritual disciplines and practices. All too often, they are dismissed as “superstitious” or “outmoded” at best, and heretical at worst. The same personal searching that animates Eastern faith is at the very heart of Catholicism, albeit with a different understanding of metaphysical context.

Some of the most blatantly contemplative practices of the Church are often the most understood:

-The monastic life: somehow, many of the same critics of Catholicism find the idea of celibate men living in silent communion in the middle of nature practicing communal prayer find the idea of celibate Tibetan men living in silent communion in the middle of nature practicing communal mantras highly enlightened. Catholic monks are every bit as dedicated to seeking direct interaction with spiritual truth and legitimate living as the religious of the East, yet they are seen as out of place in the West when, in reality, they are one of our greatest spiritual resources. Monastic authors like Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross have written spiritual works on the nature of the soul that equal the understanding and wisdom of Lao Tzu, Mahatma Gandhi, Ramakrishna, and D.T. Suzuki.

-The rosary: no, it isn’t us sitting around babbling out to Mary until we’re blue in the face. Every bead of the Rosary marks not just a verbal prayer, but an event from the Gospels that we recall while praying. The rosary is, arguably, the most potent of all Catholic mantras, using the intense images of the Gospel to draw us more fully into an understanding of God in life and the world.

-The Ignatian Exercises: instead of teaching that the Bible is a “plain and simple” book, Catholics believe that the Bible is incredibly complex and requires much mental effort and spiritual devotion to understand. To that end, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, offered up a series of disciplines, including reading Scripture and meditating as though you are in the story and seeking to rest in God’s wordless peace after reading. These practices seek to let God’s Word truly speak to us and change the way we see the world and know ourselves.

-The Blessed Virgin Mary: Many Americans find the concept of the Mother Goddess or the feminist god appealing. In Catholic belief, Mary is our loving intercessor before Christ, leading us gently and maternally to awareness of the Divine. She isn’t a modern incarnation of the pagan goddesses of old; she is the best example we have of how to love Jesus. She is the presence bearing witness to what complete spiritual transformation truly means for humanity and the person.

-Contemplative prayer: for the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, Christians incorporated contemplative prayer into daily worship. Much like meditation in Eastern traditions, the idea is to let go of thoughts and illusions to come to a more mature understanding of the Divine and live more authentically. Rather than opening ourselves to emptiness, as Eastern traditions teach, Catholicism teaches that the Christian opens himself to the Holy Spirit’s infinite fullness in contemplative prayer, thus welcoming the transformation that Christ promises us constantly in the Gospel. After centuries of neglect, contemplative prayer is rising again in the Church.

-The Bible: okay, the Good Book is definitely not neglected in American Christianity. However, it is rarely seen as a call to contemplative seeking. All too often, emphasis is placed exclusively on one aspect of Scripture: service, piety, history, or whatever else is the sole doctrine of the day. Far too little emphasis is placed on the concept of spiritual transformation, which is indeed the root of everything else we are called to do. Jesus is a great healer: is this a call to abandon medicine, or a call to look to Jesus to heal us of the brokenness of illusion? Idols are condemned: is this about Krishna and Buddha, or about putting a desire for the Divine over every false desire in the world, an extraordinarily difficult task in mega mall America? We are described as born anew in Jesus: does this sound more like signing a testimony sheet or awakening to the true nature of reality?

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and one of the great Catholic contemplatives of the twentieth century, described Zen as the atmosphere of the Gospels. During his life of contemplative prayer, he also wrote that awareness helps us to be better Christians, just as it makes a Buddhist a better Buddhist. A man some Catholics consider a saint, Merton was considered by at least one Tibetan monk to be the only natural-born Buddha he had ever met. Is there really such a great gap between how the saint and how the bodhisattva experience the world?

Being aware without making judgments, adding commentary, or reverting to prejudice is indeed the call of Christ in our lives. As Eastern religious traditions have made obvious to many Americans, contemplation is an arduous, but ultimately enlightening, path for the spiritual seeker.

As Christians, it is high time we reclaim our own contemplative legacy, with an understanding of the Living Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life that all sincere seekers interact with.

Renewing the Church

Jesuit Father Thomas Reese does a great job of nailing down what teachings people can connect with in Catholicism: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/04/benedict_not_a_singleissue_pop.html

Unfortunately, the Church is viewed as monolithic and devoted to crusty traditions, ultra-right politics, and an immutable hierarchy. People do not understand what the Church stands for in the world. The people do not see how devoted the Church is to social and economic justice, peace, human rights, democracy, and stewardship of the environment. They also do not understand the crucial why’s: why do we oppose birth control? Why do we oppose abortion? Why is the Pope seen as such an authority? Why do we believe things not found in the Bible? Why do we have so many ceremonies/what do they stand for? Why do we assign such a high value to the priesthood and to hierarchy? Why do we believe that Christ is the only way to salvation?

It is understandable that the Church could be misconstrued as standing for religious bigotry, sexism, invention against the Scriptures, authoritarianism, anti-rationalism, and empty convention. There are a number of theological areas that we need to clarify, starting within the Church and spreading outwards:

-the radical humanist philosophies espoused by St. Augustine, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI
-historical veracity underlying every iota of the embrace of Tradition as the context for understanding Scripture
-our devotion to intellectual reason and logic as ways of knowing God, including through science
-the Church’s belief that non-Catholics and non-Christians are fellow travelers and children interacting legitimately, albeit imperfectly, with God, and offering worthwhile perspectives on Truth
-the comprehensive nature of the social and economic doctrines of the Church, which tend to represent, at the very least, the most idealistic views on human nature
-the radical independence of the Church from national and political ideologies that mar countless “religious” movements, especially in the polarized world of Protestant America, where consensus beyond liberal pluralism or fundamentalist irrationality are hard to come by
-the deep, and ultimately overwhelming, intellectual traditions in Catholicism that have guided the Protestants most often regarded as wise, including CS Lewis and Karl Barth
-the solidarity and continuity with the early Church as established by Christ found uniquely within Catholicism
-the centrality of the mystical search to the Catholic life, especially given how sorely people crave for personal connection with the Transcendent (evidenced by the rise of everything from Scientology to palmistry to the bizarre love child of Eastern and New Age spirituality in pop culture)

If the Church can reclaim its heritage as the institution on Earth of the humane, loving God of peace, as the defender of generous and often radical orthodoxy, as the balancer of compassion and clarity, as the messenger to a world starving for Truth, as the exalter of all that is holy in humanity, and as the preserver of the faith documented by history as being initiated by Christ, then we will be in a unique position to save the American people, so desperate for a new path.

We can show them that the path that is new is, indeed, the path that is oldest of all.