When religion and spirituality collide

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/when-religion-and-spirituality-collide/2012/04/16/gIQABv56LT_story.html


By Diana Butler Bass| Religion News Service, Updated: Monday, April 16, 1:21 PM


Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, recently announced that he would step down by year’s end. A few days later, the Church of England rejected a Williams-backed unity plan for global Anglicanism, a church fractured by issues of gender and sexual identity. The timing of the resignation and the defeat are probably not coincidental. These events signal Anglicans’ institutional failure.

But why should anyone, other than Anglicans and their Episcopal cousins in the U.S., care? The Anglican fight over gay clergy is usually framed as a left and right conflict, part of the larger saga of political division. But this narrative obscures a more significant tension in Western societies: the increasing gap between spirituality and religion, and the failure of traditional religious institutions to learn from the divide.

Until recently, the archbishop of Canterbury was chief pastor for a global church bound by a common liturgy and Anglican religious identity. Expectations for religious leaders were clear: Run the church with courage and vision. Bishops directed the laity, inspiring obedience, sacrifice and heroism; they ordered faith from the top.

Today’s world, however, is different.

All institutions are being torn apart by tension between two groups: those who want to reassert familiar and tested leadership patterns — including top-down control, uniformity and bureaucracy; and those who want to welcome untested but promising patterns of the emerging era — grass-roots empowerment, diversity and relational networks. It is not a divide between conservatives and liberals; rather, it is a divide between institution and spirit.

more at link

[DonCoquixote]

1. The letter of the law

2 Corinthians 3:6 (KJV)

" ... Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

Most religion, be it in Canterbury or Mecca or Dallas, is about the letter of the law, if it wishes to survive, it will learn to respect the spirit of the law, that which is centered around people.

[cbayer]

2. Well said, and I am glad to see the revolt taking place from within in some spheres.

Jesus and the money changers - the cleansing of the Temple.

[longship]

3. Here is a dialog which may change ones mind.

The Anglican church, AKA American's Episcopal church.

This is a link to a compelling conversation between particle physicist Brian Cox (please Google him) and the Very Reverend Victor Stock, the Dean of Guilford Cathedral in the UK.

This is a dialog which cuts to the core of the confluence of religion and science. Here are two people, one a scientist, one a theist, who have a discussion at the cutting edge of both their disciplines.

This is a wonderful thing, whether you are a theist, or an atheist.

Please Google CERN podcast, Victor Stark, my BW doesn't permit it.

Religious language is more like poetry than it is the instructions on the back of a washing machine. But a lot of simple people read it like it is the instructions on the back of the washing machine. You can't do religion with screwdrivers.

Rev. Victor Stark, Dean of Guildford Cathedral

Cox takes the very Rev. Stark on a tour of of the Large Hadron Collider, the LHC, the largest machine ever made. They talk about physics, science, and religion.

Stunning conversation.

Here, I hope:

Brian Cox, Victor Stock touring the LHC

This is a very important dialog, in a stunningly profound environment. It is like Cox took Stock to the the surface of Mars. Stock shows that he is up to the task, as does Cox.

It is a brilliant conversation which all Republicans should heed, and all atheists and liberal theists should, too.

This is the cutting edge of the dialog between religion and science. It is a wonderful conversation between the two disciplines as each talk beyond each other, yet form a very important human, common bond.

Do not miss this. It is important.

They are doing, as Rev. Stock phrases it, the spade work. Cox agrees.

[tama]

5. Bohm-Krishnamurti dialogues

made great impression on me in my youth, youtube has these:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1806753623176869477
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5493135277782860485

Just found out that Bohm talked not only with Jiddu but also with UG:
http://tkpi.org/content/conversation-between-david-bohm-ug-krishnamurti

[laconicsax]

4. About that tension at the end of your excerpt...

The wish to "reassert familiar and tested leadership patterns" is, in a nutshell, conservatism. The "want to welcome untested but promising patterns of the emerging era" is a pretty good description of progressivism too.

So, it's a bit inaccurate to say that it's not be a divide between conservatives and liberals since liberal and progressive are often used interchangeably.

[trotsky]

6. Sure sounds that way to me too.

Status quo: conservatism
Change: liberalism/progressivism

We can make some educated guesses about why the author chose to try and re-label the conflict.