Continuing the theme of my last post; I recently came across the work of the theologian Nicholas Lash who makes another interesting suggestion as to the common ground shared by the major world religions:
instead of envisaging the cultural traditions that we call ‘religions’ primarily as associations of subscription to particular beliefs, it would be more fruitful to consider them as schools whose pedagogy has the twofold purpose of weaning us from our idolatry and purifying our desire.”
(Nicholas Lash – The beginning and the end of ‘religion’, 1996 University of Cambridge p.27)
Another theologian Simon Barrow summarises Lash’s suggestion as follows:
God is most definitely not a ‘thing’ belonging to a class of things called ‘gods’.[10] “Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists all have this, at least, in common: that none of them believe in gods”, says Lash.
Therefore religions are best considered ‘schools’ in which people learn properly to relate to God precisely by not worshipping any thing – not the world nor any part, person, dream, event or memory of it …
This is why, at their best, the world’s religious traditions are schools teaching people that no feature of the world – no nation, institution, person, text, idea, place or ambition – is straightforwardly sacred.
The Holy calls us beyond worship of the creature to a process of discernment about how lovingly to bear the “gift and burden of contingent freedom” in all the world. To give ultimacy to anything short of God is to imprison ourselves, and likewise to cut ourselves off from the finality of love declared in and as God.”
(Simon Barrow, What difference does God make today? )
All of which looks quite promising for interfaith dialogue and indeed some of my discussions with Christian relatives have proceeded along just such an avenue. However in terms of engagement at the level of everyday belief and practice my experience agrees with that of Chris Ward, of the TripleGem think tank, who says:
I am, however, sceptical of the assertion that contemporary Christians familiar with modern theology have dispensed with the anthropomorphic super-being ‘metaphor’ since my experience is that Christians do not hesitate to refer to God in just this way. In fact this is the most common way they refer to God.” (a list of quotations illustrative of his point follows)
Many thanks for this, and for your last post – and, indeed, the site as a whole. Fascinating. I can sympathise with Chris Ward (and you). However, my experience, which includes a good chunk of time as an adult religious educator, is that those in the churches who are keen to develop a spiritual discipline, and especially those who perceive the connection that Dorothee Soelle makes between ‘resistance and mysticism’ (q.v.), begin instinctively to move away from the constraining ‘God as superbeing’ picture. This occurs precisely through the process of shared pedagogy by means of worship and reflection that Lash describes as having the purpose of weaning us from our idolatry and purifying our desire. One also needs to be aware of the possibility that while the language of popular religion can be rough and ready (or unready!), the hearts of those who use it may be much more capacious than their presenting rhetoric. The need, of course, is to discover a language and a pattern of echoes in life that can sustain and develop this capaciousness. Equally, I know many ‘simple believers’ who, though they might not put it this way, know that they are speaking in metaphors – while their (academic) critics do not! Sara Maitland’s book A Big Enough God is an excellent bridge in all this. On the issue and concern about “anthropomorphism”, I have written more in ‘What difference does God make today?’ – though, once again, I am in eternal debt to the wisdom of Nicholas Lash. Grace and peace to you. SB.
Dear Simon, How wonderful to get a response from you! Thank you very much.
My experiences of dialogue with a number of Christians certainly bear out your comment that “while the language of popular religion can be rough and ready (or unready!), the hearts of those who use it may be much more capacious than their presenting rhetoric”. In fact my Buddhist teacher made almost precisely this comment to me not long ago.
I also reject, with you, the crude distinction between ‘simple believers’ and the theologians or highly educated. Indeed it is one of the famous characteristics of the Jodo Shinshu tradition that historically some of its most profound expressions of faith have come from so-called ‘simple believers’.
I would be interested to hear about churches and communities in the UK that embody ‘the process of shared pedagogy’ which you and Nicholas Lash have put forwards so eloquently. Thank you also for the references which I will be sure to follow up.
Peace be with you, Kyōshin.