[February 2003 journal entry]
In a recent conversation with a Roman Catholic lay pastor/friend re the common ground shared by ‘sacramental’ (e.g., a Rahner or a Teilhard de Chardin) and ‘immanentist’ (e.g., a Schleiermacher) approaches to spirituality and ethics with which he expressed affinity, I suggested that the anchor/context should be the raw realities of human suffering. I proposed that such proximity and focus result in the discrediting of ‘religious’ T/O paradigm nuances re ‘God’. I also proposed that ‘sacramental’ and ‘immanentist’ approaches to spirituality and ethics face two risks/pressures – (1) to drift away from and, therefore, weaken the force of the raw realities of human suffering in order to retain a hopeful vision/message and (2) to redefine/nuance the term ‘God’ in ways that may appear to leave ‘God’ (language) irrelevant to those existentially engaged (by lot or by choice) in the raw realities of human suffering.