Reflections from Journal Entries
In May 1992 – having left a place/career as a history professor within the ‘religious’ sphere and moved from Memphis to Vermont in order to be directly/intimately ‘with the world face to face’ within the medical education/practice sphere, I began jotting down my descriptions and reflections in shirt-pocket size notepads. I did not begin adding a month and year notation to such journal entries until our move January 1995 from Vermont to New Orleans to fill an ethics educator position with the LSU School of Medicine’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department. I have continued this journaling to the present.
When I began drafting journal entries in Vermont, I had passed a point of no return re the resolve to see ever more closely/clearly ‘from below’ and, associated with this resolve, to thoroughly explore/adopt a ‘non-religious’ way of being/thinking. In my journal entries, I did not mask the range of emotions – e.g., disappointment, fear, uncertainty, exhilaration, loneliness, wonder, gratitude, . . . -- I was experiencing as I moved away from the familiar shoreline and out into the uncharted sea. When beginning to swim or sail away from a coastal shoreline, the waves push back to the shore. Considerable energy and resolve are required to counter this push back to the shore. Some of the waves I had to counter surrounded me – e.g., the responsibilities as a spouse and parent, the concerns of extended family members, the expectations of friends, the inaccurate assumptions new acquaintances made about my training in theology, . . . . Many of these individuals – with no basis to understand the situation and with my limited ability to explain – called me back to the shoreline and, in some cases, tried to rescue me from the uncharted sea. Some of the waves I had to counter were inside me as I discovered more and more layers of ‘religious’ habit and instinct I had to unlearn.
This existential move necessitated a relentless critique/clarification of the meanings/nuances of the term ‘religion’. I had no other comparable counterpoint in this examination than the Letters and Papers from Prison Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an association profoundly intensified by my fortuitous 1993 meeting with and subsequent special friendship with Eberhard and Renate Bethge.
Here is a first set of ten reflections selected/adapted from my 1992-95 Vermont journal entries that illustrate a determination to achieve this critique/clarification of the term ‘religion’ as one new experience followed another.
1 The ‘religious’ sphere I have in mind (1) encourages adherents to expect providential protection from tragic/suffering experiences and (2) instructs adherents to view such experiences as only appearing to be (rather than as being in fact) tragic and/or innocent suffering.
[Note: At that time, I had in mind primarily the Christian ‘religion’ I had experienced from birth and had studied across its twenty centuries of history. I had become increasingly aware that experiencing and interpreting an approach to spirituality and ethics ‘with the world face to face’ required that I be very precise about my critique of ‘religion’. The term ‘sphere’ points to the dynamics – e.g., traditions, assumptions, language, liturgies, defining ideas, symbols, methodologies, values, distribution of authority, expectations, discipline, loyalty, . . . – within which the identity of those who seek/hold membership in the ‘sphere’ takes shape.]
2 ‘Religion’ -- according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Letters and Papers from Prison -- (1) follows the ‘inner line’ (rather than seriously engaging ‘the world’ as does the ‘outer line’ by which one remains ‘face to face with the world’), (2) associates ‘God’ partially, marginally, and in ‘the gaps’ re life experiences, (3) uses the word ‘God’ in ways analogous to the ancient theatre’s deus ex machina, (4) expects privileged treatment, (5) turns inward, (6) presumes to be society’s tutor, (7) capitalizes/builds on human weakness. My critique of ‘religion’ -- in addition to Bonhoeffer’s critique (with which I agree) in Letters and Papers from Prison – includes the proposals that ‘religion’ (1) expects adherents to be able to ‘get home by suppertime’ re interactions with ‘the world’, (2) presumes and requires some variation on a pre-modern world/life view, (3) expects adherents to treat their ‘religious’ experience as an end in itself, (4) is deeply self-conscious, (5) can permit no unconditional human relationships, (6) is idolatrous, (7) is immodest, (8) is a business, (9) is exclusive, (10) is compromised by financial investments, (11) insists on its vocabulary/discourse, (12) is overtly and/or eventually opposed to serious/radical inquiry, (13) is institutionalized, (14) is cultish, (15) offers false security. Does the presence of one such trait of ‘religion’ imply or necessitate the presence of all such traits of ‘religion’? I do not think so. However, analogous to a patient presenting symptoms to a physician, I have found that several of the traits tend to exist together. I do think the number and intensity of such traits increase as one looks toward the evangelical/fundamentalist expressions of the ‘religious’ sphere and diminish as one looks toward the unorthodox/heretical edge of the ‘religious’ sphere.
3 ‘Religion’ builds on human weakness in a way that leads to timidity, false pride/humility, and an unhealthy co-dependency on ‘God’ (analogous to children who remain childishly dependent on parents long past childhood age).
4 Jewish scripture and Christian scripture (minus Ecclesiastes and Job) were written from deeply ‘religious’ perspectives.
[Note: I had in mind the nuances for ‘religion’ discussed in the earlier entries. I have since come to exercise the same caution when entering writings in Jewish scripture or Christian scripture as when entering ‘religious’ gatherings. Without the ending paragraph to Ecclesiastes and without the prologue/epilogue to Job, I suspect both texts would not have gained canonical standing.]
5 ‘Religion’ presupposes a ‘scripture’ paradigm (with some adherents willing to admit exceptions to the paradigm on certain points, but in few enough instances not to be compelled to radically question or forfeit the paradigm).
[Note: I was raised in a denomination of Christianity that immersed me in an extreme example of a ‘scripture’ paradigm. ‘Scripture’ was treated as a flat, unified book with a single (divine) author. No consideration was given to historical or textual criticism. References to scripture texts were regarded as final, independently authoritative, and self-evidently understandable. For a time, I was not too disturbed by the growing number of flaws within ‘scripture’ paradigms I discovered as my graduate studies advanced. Eventually, the weight and number of the flaws raised my concern to the point I concluded academic and existential integrity necessitated discarding any ‘scripture’ paradigm prerequisite to the attempt to see, think, act.]
6 ‘Religious’ traits can be demonstrated (in a Tillichian way) to be present in ‘spheres’ other than the ‘religious sphere’. Therefore, to be(come) ‘religionless’ is not a matter of moving away from organized/institutionalized ‘religion’ while associations/memberships with other societal ‘spheres’ remain unexamined/unchanged. Instead, be(com)ing ‘religionless’ has to do with a spiritual death (if one is moving away from the ‘religious’ sphere) and with a way of being that is defined by (1) the ‘wilderness’ metaphor and (2) genuine/vulnerable ‘community’ with those who are by existential lot ‘religionless’ in the sense of being shunned by societal spheres (including the ‘religious’ sphere).
7 ‘Religion’ cannot avoid ‘partiality’ (as discussed by Bonhoeffer in his prison correspondence) in that life experiences that do not confirm the ‘religious’ paradigm/orthodoxy (1) are minimized, (2) are interpreted in a way that removes the offense, and/or (3) are ignored/avoided.
8 The ‘non-religious’ approach I am following focuses/centers ethics on the ‘outer line’ (Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers phrase). ‘Outer line’ is for me another way to say ‘with the world face to face’. Bonhoeffer saw the Confessing Church turn inward (i.e., the ‘inner line’) by 1938 after failing as a strategy of non-violent overt resistance against the Nazis. By remaining focused on the ‘outer line’, Bonhoeffer became increasingly marginal to the Confessing Church during the war years as he participated instead in the covert resistance cell embedded in the Abwehr.
9 Traits of a ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’ would include gratitude, vulnerability, hiddenness, penitence, humility, silence, absence of special privileges, open/unrestricted inquiry, trust that includes doubt, the ability/courage to conceive of not being perpetuated, . . . .
[Note: I now do not think ‘include’ is strong enough. ‘Is at its core’ or ‘is in essence’ or ‘is by definition’ would be more accurate. The point is that being ‘non-religious’ entails a communal experience clearly distinguishable from a ‘religious’ experience of ‘community’. The implication is that ‘religion’ lacks in essence the ‘community’ traits listed in #9 above.]
10 Being ‘non-religious’ correlates with being ‘post-suicidal’ (in the existential/spiritual sense discussed by Walker Percy who proposed that a writer is not prepared to write a novel until s/he is ‘post-suicidal’).
In May 1992 – having left a place/career as a history professor within the ‘religious’ sphere and moved from Memphis to Vermont in order to be directly/intimately ‘with the world face to face’ within the medical education/practice sphere, I began jotting down my descriptions and reflections in shirt-pocket size notepads. I did not begin adding a month and year notation to such journal entries until our move January 1995 from Vermont to New Orleans to fill an ethics educator position with the LSU School of Medicine’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department. I have continued this journaling to the present.
When I began drafting journal entries in Vermont, I had passed a point of no return re the resolve to see ever more closely/clearly ‘from below’ and, associated with this resolve, to thoroughly explore/adopt a ‘non-religious’ way of being/thinking. In my journal entries, I did not mask the range of emotions – e.g., disappointment, fear, uncertainty, exhilaration, loneliness, wonder, gratitude, . . . -- I was experiencing as I moved away from the familiar shoreline and out into the uncharted sea. When beginning to swim or sail away from a coastal shoreline, the waves push back to the shore. Considerable energy and resolve are required to counter this push back to the shore. Some of the waves I had to counter surrounded me – e.g., the responsibilities as a spouse and parent, the concerns of extended family members, the expectations of friends, the inaccurate assumptions new acquaintances made about my training in theology, . . . . Many of these individuals – with no basis to understand the situation and with my limited ability to explain – called me back to the shoreline and, in some cases, tried to rescue me from the uncharted sea. Some of the waves I had to counter were inside me as I discovered more and more layers of ‘religious’ habit and instinct I had to unlearn.
This existential move necessitated a relentless critique/clarification of the meanings/nuances of the term ‘religion’. I had no other comparable counterpoint in this examination than the Letters and Papers from Prison Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an association profoundly intensified by my fortuitous 1993 meeting with and subsequent special friendship with Eberhard and Renate Bethge.
Here is a first set of ten reflections selected/adapted from my 1992-95 Vermont journal entries that illustrate a determination to achieve this critique/clarification of the term ‘religion’ as one new experience followed another.
1 The ‘religious’ sphere I have in mind (1) encourages adherents to expect providential protection from tragic/suffering experiences and (2) instructs adherents to view such experiences as only appearing to be (rather than as being in fact) tragic and/or innocent suffering.
[Note: At that time, I had in mind primarily the Christian ‘religion’ I had experienced from birth and had studied across its twenty centuries of history. I had become increasingly aware that experiencing and interpreting an approach to spirituality and ethics ‘with the world face to face’ required that I be very precise about my critique of ‘religion’. The term ‘sphere’ points to the dynamics – e.g., traditions, assumptions, language, liturgies, defining ideas, symbols, methodologies, values, distribution of authority, expectations, discipline, loyalty, . . . – within which the identity of those who seek/hold membership in the ‘sphere’ takes shape.]
2 ‘Religion’ -- according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Letters and Papers from Prison -- (1) follows the ‘inner line’ (rather than seriously engaging ‘the world’ as does the ‘outer line’ by which one remains ‘face to face with the world’), (2) associates ‘God’ partially, marginally, and in ‘the gaps’ re life experiences, (3) uses the word ‘God’ in ways analogous to the ancient theatre’s deus ex machina, (4) expects privileged treatment, (5) turns inward, (6) presumes to be society’s tutor, (7) capitalizes/builds on human weakness. My critique of ‘religion’ -- in addition to Bonhoeffer’s critique (with which I agree) in Letters and Papers from Prison – includes the proposals that ‘religion’ (1) expects adherents to be able to ‘get home by suppertime’ re interactions with ‘the world’, (2) presumes and requires some variation on a pre-modern world/life view, (3) expects adherents to treat their ‘religious’ experience as an end in itself, (4) is deeply self-conscious, (5) can permit no unconditional human relationships, (6) is idolatrous, (7) is immodest, (8) is a business, (9) is exclusive, (10) is compromised by financial investments, (11) insists on its vocabulary/discourse, (12) is overtly and/or eventually opposed to serious/radical inquiry, (13) is institutionalized, (14) is cultish, (15) offers false security. Does the presence of one such trait of ‘religion’ imply or necessitate the presence of all such traits of ‘religion’? I do not think so. However, analogous to a patient presenting symptoms to a physician, I have found that several of the traits tend to exist together. I do think the number and intensity of such traits increase as one looks toward the evangelical/fundamentalist expressions of the ‘religious’ sphere and diminish as one looks toward the unorthodox/heretical edge of the ‘religious’ sphere.
3 ‘Religion’ builds on human weakness in a way that leads to timidity, false pride/humility, and an unhealthy co-dependency on ‘God’ (analogous to children who remain childishly dependent on parents long past childhood age).
4 Jewish scripture and Christian scripture (minus Ecclesiastes and Job) were written from deeply ‘religious’ perspectives.
[Note: I had in mind the nuances for ‘religion’ discussed in the earlier entries. I have since come to exercise the same caution when entering writings in Jewish scripture or Christian scripture as when entering ‘religious’ gatherings. Without the ending paragraph to Ecclesiastes and without the prologue/epilogue to Job, I suspect both texts would not have gained canonical standing.]
5 ‘Religion’ presupposes a ‘scripture’ paradigm (with some adherents willing to admit exceptions to the paradigm on certain points, but in few enough instances not to be compelled to radically question or forfeit the paradigm).
[Note: I was raised in a denomination of Christianity that immersed me in an extreme example of a ‘scripture’ paradigm. ‘Scripture’ was treated as a flat, unified book with a single (divine) author. No consideration was given to historical or textual criticism. References to scripture texts were regarded as final, independently authoritative, and self-evidently understandable. For a time, I was not too disturbed by the growing number of flaws within ‘scripture’ paradigms I discovered as my graduate studies advanced. Eventually, the weight and number of the flaws raised my concern to the point I concluded academic and existential integrity necessitated discarding any ‘scripture’ paradigm prerequisite to the attempt to see, think, act.]
6 ‘Religious’ traits can be demonstrated (in a Tillichian way) to be present in ‘spheres’ other than the ‘religious sphere’. Therefore, to be(come) ‘religionless’ is not a matter of moving away from organized/institutionalized ‘religion’ while associations/memberships with other societal ‘spheres’ remain unexamined/unchanged. Instead, be(com)ing ‘religionless’ has to do with a spiritual death (if one is moving away from the ‘religious’ sphere) and with a way of being that is defined by (1) the ‘wilderness’ metaphor and (2) genuine/vulnerable ‘community’ with those who are by existential lot ‘religionless’ in the sense of being shunned by societal spheres (including the ‘religious’ sphere).
7 ‘Religion’ cannot avoid ‘partiality’ (as discussed by Bonhoeffer in his prison correspondence) in that life experiences that do not confirm the ‘religious’ paradigm/orthodoxy (1) are minimized, (2) are interpreted in a way that removes the offense, and/or (3) are ignored/avoided.
8 The ‘non-religious’ approach I am following focuses/centers ethics on the ‘outer line’ (Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers phrase). ‘Outer line’ is for me another way to say ‘with the world face to face’. Bonhoeffer saw the Confessing Church turn inward (i.e., the ‘inner line’) by 1938 after failing as a strategy of non-violent overt resistance against the Nazis. By remaining focused on the ‘outer line’, Bonhoeffer became increasingly marginal to the Confessing Church during the war years as he participated instead in the covert resistance cell embedded in the Abwehr.
9 Traits of a ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’ would include gratitude, vulnerability, hiddenness, penitence, humility, silence, absence of special privileges, open/unrestricted inquiry, trust that includes doubt, the ability/courage to conceive of not being perpetuated, . . . .
[Note: I now do not think ‘include’ is strong enough. ‘Is at its core’ or ‘is in essence’ or ‘is by definition’ would be more accurate. The point is that being ‘non-religious’ entails a communal experience clearly distinguishable from a ‘religious’ experience of ‘community’. The implication is that ‘religion’ lacks in essence the ‘community’ traits listed in #9 above.]
10 Being ‘non-religious’ correlates with being ‘post-suicidal’ (in the existential/spiritual sense discussed by Walker Percy who proposed that a writer is not prepared to write a novel until s/he is ‘post-suicidal’).
