Heights of Being Human
Authentic humanity is a work in progress; growing up takes practice. Key insights of mature behavior are available to us for creating and sustaining healthy human relations worldwide. We know what works in acting rightly. The path to right practice seems clear and distinct though we prove crippled in our will to walk the path.
We know what is necessary for a balanced life: meet basic needs for love, power, freedom, fun; and rely on a pragmatic test for right vocation: personal satisfaction, social utility, and spiritual nourishment. Work and spirit are linked. A job that hinders contemplative pursuits will retard employee performance�because contemplation is at the heart of all work, every creative act.
We know the essential step for dealing with our differences: put aside selfish craving and seek fairness. A win-win approach has been shown effective for countries, corporations, and colleagues alike. We know how to massage the meanest bigotry: gently uncover and let heal the pain that is beneath our every prejudice. Positive healing manages the shadows of negativity.
We know what is required to govern: promote the dignity and integrity of the individual citizen and provide opportunities to meet basic human needs and to exercise basic human rights. Internationally, war is a poor substitute for diplomatic relations. Among the highest of art forms, diplomacy manages whatever conflict proves necessary for life-growth. In all endeavors the upright beast called human has recourse to cooperative models of decision-making and problem-solving. But a religious impulse so often stands in the way.
The Adolescence of Organized Religion
Being truly human is the very province of religion, conveying a sign of transcendence, going beyond crass expedience (sin) to stress a deeper, more humane nature. In the history of the Christian tradition, it is said that persons are created in the image of God. At the heart of my own Methodism is the cleric's vow to go on to perfection. Yet there is a single prerequisite for that sanctifying grace, and no organized religion has proved up to it. That is, overcoming faithism, the belief of religious adolescence that one's own faith object is superior. In faith one's superiority challenges another's sovereignty, belief becomes dogma. A particular faith perspective deigns to falsify all others while claiming for itself absolute verifiability.
Utter prejudice in favor of one's own spiritual resources provides kindling for conflict around the world. Conflict arises among peoples of faith when personal claims of faith are made into truth claims for all. Personal creed is made collective doctrine that becomes totalitarian dogma. Mutual doubt, distrust and discord arise as the sad historic consequence of religious totalitarianism.
Faithism plagues the Christian house of faith. In my own Wesleyan tradition we are called together to love alike, not think alike. Still, how often do we judge and pre-judge others on the basis of our little tradition, limited experience, languished reason, or lustful view of holy writ? Is it not deed that counts most when we seek to be humane in a world of human beings? Is this being truly human in a world of human beings not, after all, the necessary and sufficient condition for authentic faith, for growing beyond religious adolescence to supreme love?
Page 2