Today, when I see where I've been, it gives me pause. The more I learn, the more I think that contemporary religious movements designed through some sort of supposed divine guidance are merely attempts to create comfort for and to ensure conformity from the masses. They exist in sharp contrast to the process marked by the ancients: a path mainly involving meditation, contemplation and personal transformation. The spiritual path as a personal path rather than as a pied-piper path to wealth, popularity and power.
The more I study and explore, the more I am coming to appreciate the concepts associated with Catholicism. Not the Roman Catholicism that most of us assume to have a general idea about from an outside view, but a broader view of Catholicism.
From Wikipedia:
The word catholic (derived via Late Latin catholicus, from the Greek adjective καθολικός (katholikos), meaning "universal"[1][2]) comes from the Greek phrase καθόλου (kath'holou), meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words κατά meaning "about" and όλος meaning "whole".[3][4] The word in English can mean either "including a wide variety of things; all-embracing" or "of the Roman Catholic faith." as "relating to the historic doctrine and practice of the Western Church."[5]
It was first used to describe the Christian Church in the early 2nd century to emphasize its universal scope [italics added]. In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. In non-ecclesiastical use, it derives its English meaning directly from its root, and is currently used to mean
* universal or of general interest; or
* liberal, having broad interests, or wide sympathies.[6]
I am finding great interest in the idea of studying a universal religion of general interest that is liberal in its exploration of areas of mystery related to God. The thing I find most interesting about this school of thinking is that it allows me to study without reference to exclusionary doctrines.
It is freeing. Liberating. It carries a broad message through which people of many varied levels of belief and spiritual development can find growth, transformation and enlightenment. For some reason, I think this is the kind of religion God would intend for humankind.
As I write this, my mind goes to last Sunday morning's church experience. My husband provided the sermon for the Unity of the Crossroads Church in Riverside, California. His talk was decidedly Catholic (which I understood based upon my recent studies - very different from the sermons of the Unity slant - which I have listened to for much of the past year). I watched as the congregation were moved by the Spirit moving through my spouse. With a Catholic message. The congregation were united, uplifted and inspired. The message was broad and rich; while providing a specific call to action for personal and communal transformation. The concepts were beautiful. A Catholic message that appealed to a Unity congregation. Simply. Beautifully.
My Sunday morning experience provided a stark contrast to the experiences of my roots in Mormonism. Mormons often refer to Catholicism as the "great and abominable church" or the church of the devil. The basic assumption is that all churches or organizations that are designed to take men away from God comprise the church of the devil. Mormon scholars and lay scriptorians will point to the pageantry, rituals, symbolism and rites of Catholicism and accuse the oldest Christian religion of taking men from God. It's curious.
In my experience and opinion, the reading of the ancient fathers related to the Catholic belief have brought me closer to God. And, informed by ancient wisdom related to God and the Universe, Catholic rites feel rich, symbolic and nourishing. In so many ways, what I am learning is so much simpler, yet so much more rich than anything I've ever encountered in a religious forum before.
It brings me to conclude that in the attempt to make religion more accessible to the masses, modern men messed it up. I'm speaking of all of the Protestant sects that rebelled against the old ways. True, the Catholic institution may have become corrupted, but why throw out the old teachings and ritual ceremonies that carry so much spiritual power while rejecting more modern policies?
So, in rebellion, Protestant sects developed. Among them, Mormonism, with it's unique vision of God: as a man perfected. Why would Joseph Smith decide to proclaim that he had seen a vision wherein God and Jesus personally appeared to him in the form of men having flesh and blood?
I've written about this before. We can't help but place human definitions on God. But our definitions of God have nothing to do with the reality of God.
Let's listen to ancient wisdom (as explored by Clement in "The Roots of Christian Mysticism":
"People never cease to project on to God their individual and collective obsessions, so that they can appropriate and make use of him. But they ought to understand that God cannot be apprehended from without, as if he were an object, for with him there is no outside, nor can the Creator be set side by side with the creature . . . . " Olivier Clement then quotes Clement of Alexandria "Most people are enclosed in their mortal bodies like a snail in its shell, curled up in their obsessions after the manner of hedgehogs. They form their notion of God's blessedness taking themselves for a model." And Theophilus of Antioch: "Seeds in a pomegranate cannot see objects outside its rind, because they are inside. Similarly human beings who are enclosed with all creation in the hand of God cannot see God . . . Friend, it is through him that you are speaking, it is he whom you breathe, and you do not know it! For your eye is blind, your heart hardened. But, if you wish, you can be cured. Entrust yourself to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your soul and your heart. Who is the doctor? God, using his word and his wisdom . . . ." Finally, Gregory of Nyssa: "Every concept formed by the intellect in an attempt to comprehend and circumscribe the divine nature can succeed only in fashioning an idol, not in making God known."
So, what would be the appeal of making God into a man (as Joseph Smith did)? For God's purposes, God became incarnate (in the person of Christ) so that through our physical experience, God could communicate to us in a way that we understand. So that God could lead us home. God speaking our language and using The Son as God's vehicle to create such a miracle.
But the story of Mormonism added so much more to the simple, beautiful story that still works when God is left to do it God's way. God, who is the origin of the Universe we know, the reason we breathe and the force that brings draws us to Divinity doesn't need man's help. In fact, I believe that reducing the Creator to a man does irreparable harm (see my previous post about this).
Today, I understand what non-Mormons saw as Joseph Smith worship - an idea that confused me while I still lived under the foggy-veil of the Mormon Church. God doesn't need Joseph Smith's help. Mormon folklore says that Joseph Smith has done more for mankind, save Jesus Christ himself, than any other man on the earth. I agree - more to pull God's creatures away from direct communion with God. But, why?
I think there were several things in play at the time. During Joseph Smith's youth, there was a great deal of energy and fervor regarding religious and spiritual things. Many men were recognizing that they could acquire a great deal of popularity and power by calling out their particular brand of doctrine and watching the masses follow them like so many lost flocks after shepherds who promised to know the way.
Joseph Smith, young and impressionable (yes, and uneducated as to the ancient spiritual fathers' teachings), got caught up in the fervor. Whether he was charlatan enough to make up the story of the first vision of God and Jesus before him - telling him no church was correct - or whether he was simply mentally off doesn't seem to matter. His hunger for power and/or delusionary states caught on and he got his own followers. Followers who still revere him today -
But, let's look at some of the ways Joseph's dogma differs from ancient wisdom.
The first is one I've explored here and in previous posts: Joseph Smith appealed to the human desire to understand God in human terms and proclaimed that God is simply an exalted human. Neatly packaged in terms easy for human beings to understand, we can use God for our own purposes. We can blame God when things don't go our way. We can shake our fists in the air at God as if God were just like the parent we have unresolved issues with. But, when we do those things, we are relating to an idol of our own creation - a human God. And, we limit ourselves. Unfortunately, Mormonism has this doctrine built in via Joseph's first vision. One of the first "testimonies" that a Mormon initiate must gain. (For a partial discussion of the nature of God, see the post I already referred to above.)
Another twist on ancient Truth involves Joseph Smith's assertions that the link of the priesthood was broken, so that Spiritual Gifts, Communion with God via the Holy Spirit and Priesthood authority could only be enjoyed through the authority supposedly granted him during his organization of the church. Mormons teach that a personal connection to God can only occur once one has been baptized a Mormon and confirmed a member of the Mormon church and been given the opportunity to Receive the Holy Ghost. While I was Mormon, I often wondered how other Christians could feel connected with God.
Now I know. This point makes me saddest for the Mormons. My connection with God has been intensified since I left the Mormon church. Communion with God is not an exclusive right of members of the "Only True and Correct Church on the Face of the Earth." No. In fact, Mormons would say that I am now relegated to the circle outside of the gifts of being touched by God's Spirit.
What I've found by personal experience is that I've been under God's influence in spite of my upbringing as a Mormon. Now that I've left Mormonism, I feel God more intensely. And I don't have to pray and pray and pray to feel it. I recognize that the spark that I feel inside of me is the Divinity that draws me to God. I'm moved by spiritual things much more easily than before. I have so much more joy in my life. My heart is open and changing. It is God's Grace like I've never felt before.
These are things I only hoped for and struggled to attain as a Mormon. They (the Mormons) make it too hard.
You don't have to be in the special Mormon club to connect with God. You don't need to hold the special Mormon priesthood to act in God's name. It makes me sad that they believe this way. That they have no idea of the joy that comes by stepping outside of the maze that is created by the Mormon Theology.
Another myth of the Mormon Theology is that the priesthood had to be restored because it was gone from the earth after the death of Our Lord. In my recent attendance at Catechism for the Orthodox Church, I learned otherwise. But it is unlikely that Mormons would get the history of the Old Church from the Old Church! They say that if you want to know about Mormonism, ask a Mormon - not someone else. But, they will "adjust" history to say that the Church was completely eliminated from the earth during the early centuries - to make way for the new Mormon Myth. It is simply untrue.
But, correctly packaged, a religion that takes people's focus away from the true nature of Spirituality makes the spiritual journey different. I wouldn't say easier or more fun, because I found Mormonism flat and unfulfilling during my last few years there. Too loaded with lists of things to do that kept me too busy and worried to correctly focus my daily life on God.
Yesterday, I attended my first High Mass in the Orthodox Church. It was beautiful and sacred. I'll write more about it and my thoughts about how that contrasts with my Protestant experience in a new post.
But, it suffices to say that since I left the Mormon church, I am experiencing a new level of awareness: that spirituality involves becoming increasingly open to personal, direct contact with God. And the dogma of protestant churches miss the point when they are doing things like splitting hairs of doctrine; that it is inner transformation that is the key. And there are powerful spiritual tools that have been available to us since the beginning of Christian history - but they require a different kind of discipline to acquire.
I want the meat. In my experience, the Protestant (specifically, the Mormon) way drowns the meat in a confusing casserole of story telling and silly rules that left me hungering for something more. A hunger that I am finding can be satisfied by partaking of the Truths preserved through antiquity.
*Just as an afterthought - In my journey, my husband points things out he thinks I'm missing. In this case, he keeps saying that the Orthodox have rules, too. Well, not like this!!! This article is tongue-in-cheek, but not far off the mark! Relief Society President Released After Confession
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