Foreword xi
Introduction xv
1. God Beyond Religion 1
2. What Becomes of Prayer If There Is No God? 13
3. From Belief to Faith 27
4. Jesus: The Way, or in the Way? 39
5. Why Didn't Someone Tell Me I'm a Mystic? 51
6. Inspiration Is Not Dictation 65
7. Morality As Right Relationship 77
8. What Problem of Evil? 89
9. Church with a Mission, Mission with a Church 103
Epilogue: A Spiritual Epoch on the Rise 115
Acknowledgments 119
Notes 121
Suggestions for Further Reading 125
Tom Stella, a former Catholic priest, is author of A Faith Worth
Believing and The God Instinct. He is a hospice chaplain, visiting
professor of religion at Colorado College, a retreat facilitator
and spiritual director and cofounder of Soul Link, a non-profit
organization whose mission is to bring spiritual seekers
together.
Tom Stella is available to speak on the following topics:
CPR for the Soul
Living in the "I" of the Hurricane
Thomas Merton: Guide for a Seeker's Soul
A Community of Mystics: A New Old Way of Being Church
Becoming Our True Self Again
Meaning In the Madness
Religion: Help or Hindrance on the Spiritual Path?
A Spirituality for Men
The Rev. Canon Marianne Wells Borg is former canon pastor at
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, and founding
director of The Center for Spiritual Development, an outreach
ministry engaging in Christian life in the twenty-first century.
So begins the Rev. Canon Marianne Wells Borg's Foreword to Tom
Stella's book: Finding God Beyond Religion. Drawing on this poem by
Amichai, Borg explains, "Tom Stella has been moved, shaped,
liberated by 'doubts and loves'."
A Christian author who champions doubt? Here’s why Borg’s insight
is so important: Millions of men and women are coming to appreciate
the value of doubt in their spiritual lives. Of course, some
religious traditions value doubt more than others. The full
spectrum of Judaism, for example, runs from ultra-orthodox through
secular humanist congregations—Jews who believe that the entity we
have traditionally called "God" is really the enlightened spirit of
humanity. In Buddhism, as the Dalai Lama regularly explains, the
traditional Western concept of God is irrelevant to the Buddhist
search for compassion and enlightenment. Sufis and other mystics
value doubt.
To clarify his message, Tom Stella is not an atheist. In fact,
you’ll find in today’s interview with Read The Spirit Editor David
Crumm that Tom considers himself a Christian. But, he also
describes his concept of God, now, as a powerful sense of a Spirit
within the world and within all of us. He says his theology is much
like that of retired Bishop John Spong, who we also interviewed
recently. Stella’s opening lines in this book quote the Muslim-Sufi
mystic Rumi inviting "us to leave behind the narrow notion of
religion understood as moral teachings and to enter the field where
spiritual seekers gather." That “field” does not try to impose
traditional doctrines, Stella explains.
Many religious writers scoff at people who describe themselves as
“spiritual but not religious.” But, Tom Stella is a stalwart friend
of such seekers. He has become a spiritual counselor to the
Nones—the growing minority of Americans who decline to give
pollsters a religious affiliation and, instead, respond: “None.”
Read The Spirit earlier took a close look at the Rise of the Nones.
Sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker, creator of the Our Values project,
also has reported on the Nones.
For much of his adult life, Tom Stella served as a Catholic priest.
Now, he has left his religious order. As you can learn from Tom’s
homepage, he is a spiritual director, counselor, hospice chaplain
and author. He has become a sage of the Rockies—a wise teacher
drawing from West and East to help men and women from his home base
in Colorado Springs.
Highlights of Our Interview with Tom Stella on Finding God Beyond
Religion
DAVID CRUMM: You don’t like that label—”Nones.” Instead, you use a
phrase that I like, too: “unorthodox believers.” Explain what you
mean by that.
TOM STELLA: These are people who are not being fed by the
traditional church. Yet, some of the healthiest religious people I
know are unorthodox believers. They wouldn’t call themselves
“religious” necessarily. Many of the unorthodox believers I have
encountered do believe that there is a communion with the divinity,
although they are likely to see this divinity as a communion with
the spirit of humanity. The term “unorthodox believer” covers a lot
of ground—it’s a big umbrella. I’m saying in this book that it’s
important for traditional religious groups not to just write off
these folks as heretics or atheists. These folks are spiritually
hungry. They’re grappling with—and many of them longing for—ways to
relate to the larger community.
DAVID: There’s an unfortunate stereotype floating around that
“spiritual seekers” are somehow self-centered dilettantes. They’re
too soft for real religion and prefer selfish feel-good
experiences. That’s essentially what Rabbi David Wolpe said in TIME
magazine this spring. We just discussed the Wolpe commentary in a
recent interview with Ram Dass. In sharp contrast, you say that the
spiritual-but-not-religious path takes a great deal of courage.
Some folks may, indeed, be using that line to avoid the whole
subject. But for many people, you’re saying, this phrase describes
taking a courageous dive into the deep end of the religious pool,
right?
TOM: Our culture has developed a very cynical take on these folks.
People discount them by describing them as just wanting fuzzy,
self-centered stuff. That’s an unfair stereotype. In my experience,
folks who’ve chosen to walk this path want a faith that has
integrity. Now, we don’t want to stereotype traditionally religious
people, either. But I can say this: It’s easier in our culture to
go the traditional route of membership and practice than it is to
walk the spiritual pathway.
Jack Spong says that people go to religion for safety, not for
truth. I think it’s very courageous for people to walk outside of
the traditional, institutional paths. People who choose this path
can find themselves separated from members of their own family, as
relatives learn what traditional beliefs they may have left behind.
In the last chapter of my book, I write about so-called “Cafeteria
Catholics,” a stereotype of Catholics who like to choose which
beliefs they will follow. The institutional Catholic Church wants
to write them off. I say: No, these people are trying to work out
what they can claim with integrity. I think Jesus was probably
regarded as a Cafeteria Jew in his day, which is why he encountered
so much friction from the religious officials of his day.
TOM STELLA: 'This can blow up old assumptions’
DAVID: At Read The Spirit, we have published a number of interviews
with Bible scholar Marcus Borg—the husband of Marianne Borg, who
wrote your Foreword—and Marcus often talks about this problem of
conflict within organized religion over what people truly believe,
and things the denominations tell them to believe. You’re a fan of
Spong’s writing, too, and Spong frequently talks about this
problem: Many organized religious groups insist on doctrines that
millions have a hard time believing. In your research for this
book, what would you say are some of the toughest barriers to
belief today?
TOM: Doctrines about Jesus are a barrier, which Marcus also
addresses in his books. I’m talking about what we could call High
Christology—Jesus descended from above, born of a virgin, died for
our sins, and so on. Today, a lot of people who want to have a life
of faith say, “I can’t go there anymore.” They may say, “I once
reveled in those traditional beliefs, but I just can’t believe that
way anymore.” I’m talking about those teachings that give us a
dualistic sense of life—that there is this world and then God is
somewhere else. God is this anthropomorphic Father, a Guy in the
Sky who sometimes decides to intervene. For a lot of people, that
notion just doesn’t make sense anymore. When people describe this
problem to me, they’ll say: “My life experience tells me this isn’t
so.” A lot of people have prayed for someone to recover from a
life-threatening illness—for the Guy in the Sky to step in and
change the world with a miracle. When that doesn’t happen, this can
blow up old assumptions about faith.
DAVID: So, are you an atheist? Turning to Wikipedia, the term
“atheist” means “the rejection of belief in the existence of
deities.” Is that you?
TOM: You might say that I am non-theistic. I believe in “God,” but
my definition of “God” is different than what you’ll find in most
churches. I go into this more in my earlier book, A Faith Worth
Believing: Finding New Life Beyond the Rules of Religion. I don’t
believe that there is a God who is a separate entity out there
somewhere—a Guy in the Sky. I don’t believe the word “God” refers
to someone. It refers, I would say, to the spiritual essence of
reality and creation. What I am describing, I think, is very
similar to what Jack Spong writes and teaches, except that he often
comes across as somewhat strident. My work is softer.
DAVID: Yes, I’ve read most of Spong’s books and have known him for
nearly 30 years and, you’re right: He deliberately remained within
the Christian church, as a bishop, and so came across as very
controversial and often as strident—an outspoken prophetic voice
within the church. You’ve chosen a different path. You left your
religious order and you’re working with folks who also are outside
of organized religion. I agree: Your book is pastoral, both for
people inside and outside of churches, now.
TOM: I wouldn’t choose to call myself more pastoral than Jack
Spong. I would say that my perspective is more contemplative.
Thomas Merton has been a big influence on me.
DAVID: Let me push you further. Jack argues strongly that he
remains a Christian. How about you? Do you use that term to
describe yourself?
TOM: Yes, I would say that I am Christian, because I see the person
of Jesus as someone who is a revelation of the truth of this
non-theistic God immanence, this God closeness, this Oneness. Jesus
is someone who woke up to the truth of his own divinity and
surrendered to that to a degree that most people don’t ever
achieve. Now, at the same time, I would not say that Jesus is the
one and only incarnation of God. I do think that—while Christians
have taken the idea of incarnation seriously for 2,000 years—we’ve
forgotten to take it personally. The term incarnation applies to
Jesus, but it also applies to all of us. We are the enfleshment of
the divine.
TOM STELLA: Prayer, T.S. Eliot and Waking Up
DAVID: So, a lot of readers will ask: Where does that leave prayer?
You just referred to Thomas Merton as a major influence in your
life. Throughout your book, readers will encounter a number of
famous Christian mystics, including the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
We just talked about the revival of Hopkins’s poetry in an
interview with Richard Rohr. You’re a spiritual director—an
advocate of prayer. Yet, in your book, you point out the obvious
question: “If we’re not sure there’s a God out there, then what’s
the point?” That’s a question a woman asks you in the book. So,
what do you say?
TOM: I’m trying to say that prayer is a lot bigger than we have
been taught. I was taught that I was praying when I intended to
pray and thought I was praying—and I was engaged either in a
communal setting or some other formal setting of prayer. Prayer was
confined to those settings and formats. But, in the New Testament,
Paul teaches us to pray without ceasing. What does that mean? He’s
inviting us to see that prayer is a lot bigger than we can
imagine.
And, I am trying to say that life can be so much richer when we
recognize that the living of it can be considered a prayer. Life is
an encounter with the divine, embodied in everyday ordinary
creation, if we are fully present and aware of this. Prayer can
become something much more pervasive in our lives, almost
indecipherable from the way we move through life itself. You may
have seen this in the lives of people who have truly given over
their lives to these truths. Think of the way St. Francis walked
through life. People can come to a realization that every piece of
the earth is holy ground. That’s where we get into contemplative
sensitivity. It’s not just another way of defining and teaching
prayer—this is about realizing that prayer is an entirely different
sensitivity to life.
DAVID: I have to ask you, in this regard, about your choice of T.S.
Eliot and a quote from his Four Quartets. Personally, I’m struck by
how often Eliot is turning up in contemporary Catholic writing,
these days. We published a review of a remarkable book, collecting
contemporary Catholic writers under a title that also is taken from
Eliot’s Four Quartets, the phrase “Not Less Than Everything.” Eliot
kept asking: How can anyone who cares about humanity keep going in
such tragic times? His answer was as long and complex as the 50
pages of the Four Quartets. But it involves making a total personal
commitment to life. Or, as Eliot puts it—a commitment “costing not
less than everything.”
In your book, you quote four lines that come just before that
famous phrase about the cost. You quote this:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our
exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for
the first time.
Tell us why you chose those lines.
TOM: Ultimately, this is all about waking up. That’s what the
spiritual life is all about—recognizing the fullness of where we
are and where we’ve been. It’s enlightenment. William Wordsworth
put it this way in his Ode, Intimations of Immortality:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with
us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh
from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
In a sense, Wordsworth is saying something very much like Eliot was
saying in those lines you just quoted. We wander through life. We
forget. We are lost. In a sense, we have to wander to find that we
are home, again. Ram Dass says it this way: “We’re all just walking
each other home.” Ultimately, we recognize that we’ve been on
sacred ground the whole time.
DAVID: What do you hope readers will find when they’ve read your
book?
TOM: I hope they will come away from this book with a spiritual
understanding of religious truth that is a deeper understanding
than the conventional interpretations that are all around us. I
want them to realize there is a real baby in this bathwater of
spirituality and it shouldn’t all be tossed out the window. I want
them to be able to name and claim something new as the foundation
for a more life-giving faith.
*Read the Spirit*
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