Cosmic Christ

The call to respond to the moving of the Spirit outside of our own particular brand of theology is naturally cast in the style and stories of the traditions of that "alien" culture or sociological reality. There are abuses and distortions in ALL versions of truth. Our American/Western theology has, with various versions of it, left out pieces here and there which are sorely missed by some in our culture. These people respond to the theologies which give what they feel is proper attention to these elements which they have felt to be "missing" or downplayed in the theologies which they have been taught. The "New Age" religions gain a following because of some omission in the theologies which have been handed to them as the one and only truth. Those who re-affirm for them these missing elements will appear as a new guru; a new saviour.

The reality of life is that there are a multiplicity of human elements and personalities that find expression in human religious practice. Groups gather around those expressions which best express their place in the cosmos. As religious expressions institutionalize, practices become expectation, and cultural viewpoints find some sort of adoption into the standard theology. Rites which were once a mutually accepted "expression" of the communal affirmations abut life become, for many, stale and suffocating.

I have received criticism and warning from my fundamentalist friends for my affirmation of some of the theology of Matthew Fox, who many label as "New Age". He is in fact "New Age" in the sense that he is renewing some elements of Christianity which have tended to get de-emphasized and drive "underground" by Western theology. He is "New Age" in his appropriation of some terminology that some "New Age" movements have adopted as their own.

But Fox is, above all else, a Christian. He demonstrates a deep passion for recovering a view of Christ which goes beyond the conventional, which I think is a good approach. And his respect for the spiritual journeys of those not explicitly Christian fits into my theology which tends to locate the Spirit of God not only inside but also outside the normal categories of Western-style Christianity.

The idea that "Christ is the only way" is true, and yet where I feel this concept is carried beyond what was intended is where we begin to "define" where Christ comes into a person's life, and how that experience is identified by the recipient. Which would you say is the more authentic spiritual experience of Christ?

1. A culturally polluted Christ who is more the embodiment of a culture's values than those of a God who moves often outside of the "acceptable" or "reasonable" as defined by a culture, and whose "influence" merely tends to legitimize the views of those in power .
2. An experience of the movement of God which a particular person from a Moslem culture interprets in light of what he sees as the best of Moslem theology, and spoken to him through the lips of Mohammed. It is so energizing and so life affirming that this person is driven to defy what he sees as a theology with the interest of a militaristic conquest at heart, and is therefore rejected by his fellow conventional/conservative Moslems as an infidel.

I think it is very spiritually possible, and happens frequently, that the spirit of God, the "Cosmic Christ", is one far above and beyond the typical representation of him by popular religion. It happened in the days Jesus was on earth incarnating all of this for us, and it should be of no surprise to his followers that there will be, today, people who argue from a "theological" viewpoint that the truth of God must fit their interpretation as they have appropriated it from their tradition, or it must be suspect.