Church attendance is declining, and not only in Canada or the Western World but all over the planet. We seem to be entering a Secular Age. Organized religion is dying a quiet death. But why is it dying, and what are the possible cures – if any?
The Church is dying, “not with a bang but a whimper,” as T.S. Eliot said the world will end. I think the Church is dying a gradual “Death by Doctrine.” The various Christian doctrines such as The Triune God, The Transubstantiation, The Immaculate Conception, The Virgin Birth, The Physical Death and Resurrection of Jesus, The Infallibility of the Bible, and others, are regarded as “superstitious absurdities” by the majority of modern people.
For most Christians, however, the belief in the absolute truthfulness of their doctrines is all there is to religion. They have quite forgotten about the roots of doctrine, the wellspring from which Christianity and all other major religions have sprung: mysticism.
Abraham was a deep mystic, and so was Moses, along with all other Old Testament prophets. Gautama the Buddha and Jesus the Christ were deep mystics, and so was Mohammed – whose name be praised. The founders of virtually all of the world’s religions were mystics, and the early communities around them were largely mystical.
Unfortunately, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the early 4th Century, a mystical religion in which everyone forges their own connection with God was neither in the interest of imperialistic Rome nor in the interest of a politicized, centralized, hierarchal and patriarchal clergy, so mysticism was replaced by doctrine. Belief in the absolute truthfulness of a fixed doctrine became the essential – and for many the only – element of faith, and remained so to this day. Now, cut off from its mystical roots, the doctrinal Church is in danger of atrophying and dying.
Although secular humanism can and does teach morality, it lacks the spiritual passion and the organizational and institutional strength of religion, and is therefore not as effective as religion. The Church has traditionally been society’s keeper and teacher of morality. Now, that the Church is dying, it becomes necessary to act out her most important metaphor and resurrect her. But how?
The answer seems simple. Bring back the wellspring form which the Church has sprung; reconnect her with her live-giving and life-sustaining roots – bring back mysticism!
This is easier said than done. Over the past few decades, mysticism has fallen into disrepute. Many cults and a few Christian fundamentalist denominations have abused mysticism to gain converts. They first indoctrinated their new members and then initiated them into a mystical experience, claiming that the mystical experience was the divine conformation of the absolute truthfulness of the doctrine. This unholy mixture of dogmatism and mysticism constitutes a grave abuse of mysticism, and has brought both doctrinal religion and mysticism into ill repute.
Many modern and even liberal Christians distrust modern day mysticism and mystics, but believe in the sayings of 2000 and 3000 year old mystics, who didn’t think and speak in the language and concepts of our day, and whose accounts have been altered through much copying and translating, and given a doctrinal spin. This makes me shake my head with incredulity.
Mysticism need not and should not be combined with indoctrination. Classical mysticism is pure, which means devoid of indoctrination. In pure mysticism one seeks the state of the “original mind,” the state one was born with, and experiences the mystical union in that state. In the medieval Grail legends, only the “pure of heart” could receive the Grail. Purity of heart, in that context, meant purity of mind: one had to cleanse oneself of all pre-conceived concepts prior to receiving the Most Holy Communion.
For the Natives of the Americas, mysticism has been – and in many places still is – the essential element of faith. If we are interested in their mysticism, we could contact them and humbly ask them to share their mystical spirituality with us. Or we could attempt to re-discover the mystical spirituality of our Pagan European ancestors, or that of early Christianity and mystical Judaism.
Even the leading edge of science has become quite mystical. The Principles of Relativity, Complementarity, Uncertainty, and Quantum Mechanics have taken absolute truth out of science. In a relative universe, nothing is true, except, perhaps, the pure experience of our mysterious and mystical reality.
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Hermann Harlos recently wrote “The Awakening – A letter-guided Quest for mystical experience” This Quest is pure in the aforementioned sense of the word, and is available on-line at www.hharlos.com or http://ca.msnusers.com/TheQuest Anyone who reads it and wants to contact him personally can do so by email at hharlos@live.com
