CHRISTIAN IRONY
There is a disturbing irony at the heart of contemporary Christianity.
The foundation of the Christian faith is two basic ideas and experiences. The first is what we call the incarnation, the idea that God is embodied in the physical world, and especially in the human person, Jesus of Nazareth. The second is what we call resurrection, the idea that, after he was executed, Jesus rose from the dead and, more generally, that reality operates in a pattern of life, death, and new life.
The great irony, though, is that the religion that proclaims the truths of incarnation and resurrection, denies them in so many ways. It is common for Christians to resist caring for creation and addressing the climate crisis because “it’s all going to be destroyed in the end anyway.” You will often hear Christians speak of their bodies as “just a tent” which gets left behind when we die and go to heaven, as if it has no value and it’s not really a part of who we are. And much of how Christianity is taught today denies the essential unity of creation and, in doing this, dismisses the value of most of what we know about our universe.
When we reduce the incarnation and resurrection to a strange or miraculous event that happened to only one person in the ancient past, our entire religious focus is shifted away from what we know and experience here and now. Our faith is locked into the past and our hope is based on a future disembodied reality in heaven. We create a dichotomy between matter and Spirit and believe that, when the Bible says that “God is Spirit” (John 4:24a), it means that God is uninvolved in, connected with, or concerned about the physical world—except (and this is strangely contradictory) to intervene in the world in response to prayer.
A UNIFIED UNIVERSE
Most Christians seem completely unaware of this irony—perhaps because it is framed as essential to being a true believer in Christ. But this is not the only way we can follow Jesus. Our faith does not have to pretend that such ironies don’t exist, and we do not have to switch off our brains to believe in incarnation and resurrection.
The great theologian and scientists Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote:
Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.
Teilhard taught what we are beginning to learn is the truth about reality—matter and spirit are not separate. There is no dichotomy. They are integrally and inseparably united. And that means that, as those who are influenced by the life and teachings of Christ, we need to take incarnation and resurrection seriously. They are not once-off events from the ancient past. They are realities that affect our lives now and that are inherently true of our universe.
The story of Jesus of Nazareth is important from a historical perspective. But it is even more important and transforming as an archetype that helps us to understand and experience the sacredness and unity of all things. As we enter into this universal truth, it empowers us to embrace our nature as divine incarnations who are living the potential for resurrection here and now.
This is why I believe that all spirituality needs to be evolutionary in nature. What I mean by this is that all authentic spirituality is rooted in the evolutionary reality of our universe and existence. It takes evolutionary science seriously and it is open to evolving itself as new evidence and data emerges. And it leads us into a conscious process and practice of personal and collective evolution.
In the past few weeks, I have been exploring what it might mean to view the resurrection of Christ from an evolutionary perspective. Now, I invite you to explore with me what it might look like to put those evolutionary perspectives on resurrection into practice in our own daily lives.
RESURRECTION STORIES
Human beings are ‘storied’ creatures. Our hearts are captured by stories that resonate with us and help us make sense of our world and our place in it. We seek stories that explain why things are as they are and those that give us a vision of what could be. And when our hearts are captured by stories that give us a sense of meaning, hope, purpose, and aliveness, we try to live into those stories, to embody those stories in our own attitudes, actions, and relationships.
The resurrection, when it is understood and experienced as an evolutionary archetype, is a powerful, life-shaping story that can connect us with the divine presence within us and empower our capacity for hope, creativity, resilience, and love. This means that, to live a resurrection spirituality, to live a life that is shaped by the archetype of resurrection, we can seek out and embrace resurrection stories:
Stories of letting go, releasing what no longer serves us, and allowing—or even facilitating—the death of anything that needs to die;
Stories of new beginnings, transformed realities, and hope where all seemed lost;
Stories of unity, oneness, deep interdependence, and inseparable connectedness in the face of a world that promotes fragmentation, division, and exclusivity.
So many of the stories that fill our news media, social feeds, and entertainment are shaped by themes of destruction, endings (whether happy or not), separateness, and opposition. But we cannot find the wholeness, unity, and peace we seek, when our lives are formed by such stories. We desperately need to start telling, and living into, stories that bring the resurrection of Christ out of the past and into the lived realities of our lives in this time and place. These are the stories that will empower us to evolve, personally and collectively, into people of compassion and a society of justice and love.
RESURRECTION AWARENESS
We know that our brains are wired to focus on certain stimuli and shut out others. We know that we have an incredible capacity to choose how we understand and experience our world by choosing how we think, depict, and speak about what we observe and endure. Our perspective shapes our communication, but equally, our words shape our thoughts. Politicians, marketers, and con artists know this and they invest much time and energy into learning to create our reality for us. You need look no further than the “Make America Great Again” meme to see that this is true.
It’s strange then that, religions which are meant to be about meaning and hope, so often use rhetoric that is apocalyptic, destructive, exclusionary, and despairing. It’s time for us to change our verbal and non-verbal vocabularies to ones that are creative and life-giving. We need intentionally to develop a greater awareness of the sacred, incarnational nature of our world and all its inhabitants. We need to learn to notice and participate in the processes of resurrection within us and around us. And we need to be deliberate about evolving into a more compassionate, creative, and connected society through:
Practicing conscious self-reflection and careful choosing of our perspectives, attitudes, and communication;
Intentional and open listening and seeking guidance from teachers who embody the incarnation and resurrection in their lives and lessons;
Cultivating gratitude, praise, and hope in the conversations, interactions, and values that shape our worldview and behaviour.
RESURRECTION CONSCIOUSNESS
But we also need to go deeper in than awareness. We need deliberately to train the consciousness that is part of our deepest selves. This means we need to be mindful of the symbols, images, and metaphors that shape our subconscious without us even realising it.
Those of us who have been amazed by the magical performances of entertainers like Derren Brown, are familiar with the techniques of ‘forcing’ or ‘priming’ participants to make certain choices or believe certain propositions. But the truth is that we are constantly being subconsciously primed thousands of times a day—through billboards, screens, and propaganda.
The good news is that we have power over what we feed our subconscious and how it affects us. One simple example is a game that we used to play in my family when my children were small. When adverts came on screen, we would automatically start ‘interpreting’ the subtle messages they were sending us so that, in making them conscious, we would resist their charm. “If we use this toothpaste, then we will always be loved!” or “We should buy that car, so that our lives can be perfect!” we would say through our laughter.
When we become intentional about the metaphors, images, and symbols that we surround ourselves with and feed into our subconscious it can make a massive difference to our thinking, perception, and experience of the world. It’s breaking the glass in the window the world gives us to look through, so that we can be conscious about how we choose to see and live. These practices help us to do this:
Choosing to investigate and uplift the signs of incarnation and resurrection in our world;
Intentionally employing symbols of incarnation and resurrection in our spiritual practices;
Making critical thinking and questioning an essential part of our spirituality;
Deliberately engaging with people and cultures that are different from our own.
When we choose to embrace a resurrection consciousness like this, we take back control of our subconscious selves and we claim our capacity to shape our dreams and aspirations. And in this way we prime ourselves for life, hope, connection, resilience, and openness to change, evolution and resurrection.
RESURRECTION HABITS
We are what we repeatedly do. Rituals shape our actions. Actions become our habits. And habits become our lives. Rituals—often (but not only) embodied in worship and liturgy in religious communities—are the practice courts of life, training us to act and react in certain automatic, ‘second nature’ ways. And it is these automatic ways of being that ultimately reveal who we are, especially when we’re under pressure.
Sometimes our habits form without us being aware. That can be a good thing, if they’re healthy. But if they’re unhealthy, they can lead us into a downward cycle of brokenness and despair. The better alternative is to develop our habits deliberately. Using rituals to form our habits can empower us to evolve consciously, embrace our incarnational nature mindfully, and practice resurrection consistently. Particularly helpful are spiritual practices that:
Relate to Spring, fertility, and hope;
Connect us to the Earth and to our bodies, value and honour our physicality, and celebrate the cycle of life, death, and new life.
Help us be more mindful in eating, exercise, and activities that feed our minds, souls, and bodies (like gardening, hiking, playing with pets, or basking in the sun).
Nurture wholistic healing.
RESURRECTION LIVING
Ultimately it’s all about how we live and interact. It’s about what shapes our lives and what mark we leave on the world. We are either contributing to resurrection and positive evolution or we are contributing to destruction and decay (negative evolution).
We can choose to do nothing and become those who are carried along by the world’s forces. We can settle for passivity and following the path of least resistance. Or we can choose to evolve consciously, embrace our incarnational nature actively, and live purposefully into the reality of resurrection. My hope is that more of us will choose the daily practice of living an incarnational, evolving, and always-resurrecting life. God knows the world needs it.