Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Holy of the Idea

For a course this semester entitled, "The Theoretical Approach to the Study of Religion," I have been reading Rudolf Otto's "The Idea of the Holy."  He takes what has been called an 'experiential' approach to the study of religion.  In other words, what is truly significant about the religious participation and belief is in fact the experiential value of encountering the 'numinous' as he terms it.  Now, after having established Otto's point, I wish to move on to what happened in class.

A hodge podge of seniors and sophomores, this course has students from many religious backgrounds, or no religious backgrounds, and many voices- passionate voices.  One could feel the average blood pressure of the room rise as the discussion of a holy experience unfolded.  As true children of the 21st century, many rushed to point out that we can now chart the parts of the brain active when an individual experiences something, 'ecstatic.'  Many wanted to say that Otto's stance on 'the idea of the holy' is obsolete because we can explain the 'mysterium tremendum et fascinanans' (tremendous and fascinating mystery) that is the experience of the holy.  Our professor quickly said that Otto would not buy it for a second- we can explain what's going on, but we can't explain why it's going on (unless there is some sort of drug ingested).  Thus, we can explain the reaction and not the cause.

I propose and impose another way of thinking about the phenomenon of the brain activity.  As an extreme rationalist, and one who feels wounded when my rationalism is rejected as non-belief, I propose that the holy, that which we experience, is an idea.  In other words, these holy moments are the culmination of pondering, or realization, a moment of clarity.  The idea of genetic change comes to mind in discussing this: most evolutionary possibilities (physical changes) exist already in genetic code as recessive, unexpressed traits.  Thus, rather than mutations causing the change, something we could consider a non-intentional outside force, the possibilities exist within already.  Our holy ideas could indeed exist outside of our realm of being, they could be inspired by an outside source, but the capacity we have to conceptualize these ideas is already there.  I feel that the keys to belief and understanding are already stored inside of us, and much of our lives are spent searching through the correct banks and drawers inside of us to find the right files to make sense of it all.


Thursday, September 22, 2011

Open Doors

My peers are mostly liberal, northeastern, twenty-something college students. Not surprisingly, given the previous string of adjectives, the mention of Christianity, God, the Church, or Lord-forbid, the fact that I feel called to be a living, breathing missionary, seems to cause many of my peers to react as if I have some sort of infectious disease, ranging in seriousness from the common cold to ebola. Given that the subject of religion throws a wet blanket on conversation, the prospect of getting my friends through Marsh Chapel's door is a task that probably would have caused Jesus himself to look for a metaphor stronger than "a camel through the eye of the needle."

The question of why so many college students have an all-consuming fear of the r-word (religion), is one best left to other blog entries, or, better yet, other books. The why is all-important, of course, but the scope of this entry is not nearly wide enough to even begin to address the issue. Instead, I'd like to address the how. How do we attract those 20-something students, leery of the mere mention of organized religion? How do we incorporate them into the life of Marsh Chapel?

The key word is access. I believe that once inside the doors of Marsh, undergraduates and grad students alike will find what I and so many others have found, a safe and nourishing environment in which to live, learn, and share in fellowship with others. The problem is not keeping them once they're inside, the problem is getting them through those doors in the first place. This offers many challenges, the first of which is that many people know nothing of the events planned by Marsh Chapel. Presence on campus is key. Brother Larry Whitney and Dean Hill are already doing an excellent job of being ambassadors of Marsh Chapel to the rest of the university, but it's not a two-man job, a three-man job, or even a fifteen-man job. Every single person involved in some way with Marsh Chapel must act as an enthusiastic and genuine advocate of Marsh if we hope to reach the student population at large. Advertisement is also immensely important. Presence at fairs are wonderful, handing out fliers and MarshChapstick, great. Much, much more can be done.

Secondly, the way that we interact with students, in my opinion, is all together too formal. Welcome brochures, literature, even the bulletins on Sunday morning, may be (and I say may) a little too abstract, too removed, somber, and traditional for the average college student. Some parts of Marsh fill the formality gap rather nicely; Servant Team comes to mind. However, there has to be a reason why Marsh is losing so many undergraduates to more contemporary, young-people driven worship services, and I believe that reason is lack of accessibility in the form of outreach and worship that we are projecting to the campus.

Obviously, this issue needs to be performed in dialogue. There are also many great minds within Marsh Chapel that think constantly, and have already taken many steps to rectify this situation. Undergraduate minds, however, are a great resource. So, I ask my colleagues and readers: how do we get our peers through those doors?

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Mountains

Many years ago, mountains were insurmountable obstacles. Traveling through them was a risky business at best, taking months during the summer season, and impossible during the winter. The catastrophe faced by the Donner party, trapped high in the Sierra Nevada, and eventually forced into cannibalism, serves as a gruesome memory of just how perilous high-altitude journeys could be.

Now, with the advent of planes, trains, and automobiles, mountains are easily sidestepped, avoided, or traveled through. The true semantic associations with scaling mountains have been lost, lingering on only in the realm of mountaineering, in which the true dangers and joys of climbing on foot have been preserved. Many mountaineers equate reaching the summit to a profound religious experience. British climber and cave explorer Robert Parker elevated climbing to the realm of theology, declaring:
"In a sense everything that is exists to climb. All evolution is a climbing towards a higher form. Climbing for life as it reaches towards the consciousness, towards the spirit. We have always honored the high places because we sense them to be the homes of gods. In the mountains there is the promise of... something unexplainable. A higher place of awareness, a spirit that soars. So we climb... and in climbing there is more than a metaphor; there is a means of discovery."
It's no wonder that we use the word "mountain" to describe our most challenging emotional problems. Lately, I've been facing a couple of metaphorical mountains. Who isn't? Looking around this campus, absorbing the snippets of the overheard conversations of students and faculty, one quickly realizes that we are living within an emotional mountain range.

How, beautiful, then are Jesus' words: "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). With a tiny amount of faith, faith in God, faith that we are his beloved children, not only can we climb the mountains looming threateningly before them, we can move them.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Insha'allah

I thrive on change. In fact, I practically can't live without it. After three or four months in one place, some small, but exuberant part of my brain starts screaming its boredom, and something must change. I didn't think any amount of change could phase me. A veteran of seven study-abroad experiences in four continents, I thought I had sailed safely through every storm. I was dead wrong.

This is my last year at college. I'm a senior. Yes, there are many of us; and yes, many, many more have been in the same situation that I have been in. Somehow that doesn't ease my mind. Change is imminent; I should be ecstatic; instead I'm terrified. I'm blessed to know exactly what I want to do with my life; to have experienced that elusive and often-misinterpreted sense of "calling" that both leads to intense joy, and often intense frustration. In short, I am not in the precarious position that most seniors face: that of not knowing the next step. My path is all too clear: seminary, ordination, service.

The certainty of my trajectory is what causes the apprehension I feel. Until this period of my life, my options were endless. I could do anything, become anything. As I near adulthood (true adulthood), I have noticed my horizons slowly narrowing as key decisions are made. What were once exciting opportunities are becoming certainties. With each step, the excitement of choice, of possibility, is wiped away. At the same time, new, far more fear-producing worries crop up, performance worries. Can I do this? Can I sustain this level of interest? Am I a capable leader? Am I a capable Christian? If I'm not, what then?

In Morocco and then Niger, I became used to using the phrase "insha' allah", or "God willing" after every statement of intention. It has stuck in my mind since then, a small reminder that God watches over us, directs us, and loves us. God is the ever-present guide, strengthening us for what lies ahead and instructing us in the ways to go forward. What better guide is there than an omnipresent, omniscient, ever-loving spiritual being?