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wee thread: on my walks with Luna (the dachshund mutt) this week, I listened to @BacklistedPod 's excellent episode on William James' Varieties of Religious Experience (I wrote so many papers @obunews with "VRE" as shorthand I'll do it here too)
VRE in James' own words: His interest is not in religious institutions, ritual...or religious ideas, but in “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine”
the above description of religious faith is something I wrestle with a lot, in reflection on the world around us. I think it describes how religion metastasizes in America fairly perfectly, but I want to reflect on it inwardly:
To clarify, I'll use "religious" to keep the door of perception wide, but for me it's always rooted in Christianity - I've never been interested in a Jamesean approach to my own religious commitments - I need the "teeth" of the Bible, Apostles' Creed, and the Church
But, I also don't think about "relation to the divine" as a categorical imperative for others - which is where I really appreciate James' complete lack of irony in approaching the "data' he uses in VRE: our age is allergic to sincere religion, so often, so he is refreshing
Anyhow, the idea that "individuals...in relation to whatever they consider the divine" summarizes religious commitments is accurate, but unhealthy when it obtains: it allows for support of all manner of corrosive public life, and a tiny political imagination
and here's where it stings: my own most intense religious experiences (again, always in direct relation to the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob as revealed in Christ) have been almost entirely individual, in solitude. if you know me, I'm happy to talk about them 1 on 1
and this very individualism is what I find so troublesome! I'm constantly in tension with how God reveals himself to me, and what my hopes are for more communitarian faith practice. I confess the communion of saints, but usually just see God (rarely at that) when I'm alone
So my hopes?
1. To encourage anyone feeling the same, even those outside of organized faith communities/confessions: we might just have to live with the tension. But you're not alone
2. Don't let the principalities mock you with individualized, keep it 2 yourself faith
1. To encourage anyone feeling the same, even those outside of organized faith communities/confessions: we might just have to live with the tension. But you're not alone
2. Don't let the principalities mock you with individualized, keep it 2 yourself faith
3. Read William James, he's great.
