When I was in graduate school, one of the things we joked about was all the big words we were learning. Learning the big words was not a joke. We all understood why we were doing it. The big words gave us an ability to be more precise about what we were discussing. Our conversations were often about deep things that were not capable of absolutely clear description. God is the biggest example here. We would joke that if anyone described God precisely, that person did not know God. And we felt like the joke was true!
We joked about our big words knowing that we could never use these big words in many of our venues of ministry. If we were preaching to a group of normal folks, we cannot use the big words. They would not be understood and that is the point of speaking---to be understood. And if we use big words when they hampered our cause, then we were the joke.
I thought about this when I recently read one of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations. I will use only one sentence from that selection. Rohr says, “As the old saying goes, do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship?” It does not much matter the context of this sentence within the Rohr meditation. I want to use it to illustrate my own point.
I do know that Rohr talked about relationship because this is a primary way of talking about God. And this is my point, too. Relationship is key to our dealing with God. And if you think about God with respect to the Trinity, relationship is key there, too. Let me address that in the first place.
While I don’t want to make a big deal of the Trinity, I do find it still a useful way---albeit one way---to talk about who God is. The early church chose to use personal terms to describe the members of the Trinity. The classical terms are Father and Son. I am ok with that description. I am also quite good with using maternal language, so that we talk appropriately of God as Mother. The Son of God can also be used with feminine, such as Wisdom (or Sophia, as she is in Greek). The advantage of this kind of personal language is we can talk about relationship within the Trinity.
More importantly for our meditative reflection here is that relationship is a key way of talking about humans and our experience of God, the Holy One. As a Quaker, I always heard that relationship was first. Relationship was the way we “knew God.” Without relationship---which is to say, experience---we can only “know about God.” To know about God is what doctrine is about. So this is the basic distinction to be made here: the distinction between experience and doctrine.
It is understandable how doctrine arose. Let’s say we have an experience of God. For example, I sometimes experience God as a kind of “presence.” In my heart I know and call that “presence” with the word God. But then, someone might ask me about my experience. This causes me to have to do theology. I now have to reflect on my experience and try to put it into words. I might even say something like, “words don’t really capture my experience.”
But I struggle and say that God’s presence is like a “light.” If others concur that this is a good description of their experience, then a doctrine begins to develop. We can all say that “God is Light.” This becomes a doctrinal statement. Fair enough. But doctrine can develop in some particular ways. For example, we might begin to think it is necessary to affirm that God is Light. This doctrine starts to be “true,” even when there may not even be an experience with which it is associated. A personal example of mine would be all those times in my younger years when I would talk about religion and use doctrine, but was not sure that I had even experienced God---at least yet.
While I could articulate doctrine, I longed for experience. I even took Religion classes in college where I learned a great deal about doctrine---the Trinity, etc. Even atheists can learn Christian doctrine (or Jewish doctrine or Muslim). But it does not mean you know anything about God. Furthermore, various denominations might insist that some doctrines are “right” and others are not. Now the emphasis is upon doctrine---often at the expense of relationship, as it is grounded in experience.
Doctrines can become the way to have theological fights. These never interested me much. I was more interested in how people experienced God and then how this could nurture my own experience. This is why the Rohr sentence so captured my own spirit. Indeed, I would rather have relationship than be right about doctrine. Or to quote Rohr again, “As the old saying goes, do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship?”
I want to be in relationship. Relationship is the way experience is extended over time. It is with God, just as it is with members of our family or our friends.
We joked about our big words knowing that we could never use these big words in many of our venues of ministry. If we were preaching to a group of normal folks, we cannot use the big words. They would not be understood and that is the point of speaking---to be understood. And if we use big words when they hampered our cause, then we were the joke.
I thought about this when I recently read one of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations. I will use only one sentence from that selection. Rohr says, “As the old saying goes, do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship?” It does not much matter the context of this sentence within the Rohr meditation. I want to use it to illustrate my own point.
I do know that Rohr talked about relationship because this is a primary way of talking about God. And this is my point, too. Relationship is key to our dealing with God. And if you think about God with respect to the Trinity, relationship is key there, too. Let me address that in the first place.
While I don’t want to make a big deal of the Trinity, I do find it still a useful way---albeit one way---to talk about who God is. The early church chose to use personal terms to describe the members of the Trinity. The classical terms are Father and Son. I am ok with that description. I am also quite good with using maternal language, so that we talk appropriately of God as Mother. The Son of God can also be used with feminine, such as Wisdom (or Sophia, as she is in Greek). The advantage of this kind of personal language is we can talk about relationship within the Trinity.
More importantly for our meditative reflection here is that relationship is a key way of talking about humans and our experience of God, the Holy One. As a Quaker, I always heard that relationship was first. Relationship was the way we “knew God.” Without relationship---which is to say, experience---we can only “know about God.” To know about God is what doctrine is about. So this is the basic distinction to be made here: the distinction between experience and doctrine.
It is understandable how doctrine arose. Let’s say we have an experience of God. For example, I sometimes experience God as a kind of “presence.” In my heart I know and call that “presence” with the word God. But then, someone might ask me about my experience. This causes me to have to do theology. I now have to reflect on my experience and try to put it into words. I might even say something like, “words don’t really capture my experience.”
But I struggle and say that God’s presence is like a “light.” If others concur that this is a good description of their experience, then a doctrine begins to develop. We can all say that “God is Light.” This becomes a doctrinal statement. Fair enough. But doctrine can develop in some particular ways. For example, we might begin to think it is necessary to affirm that God is Light. This doctrine starts to be “true,” even when there may not even be an experience with which it is associated. A personal example of mine would be all those times in my younger years when I would talk about religion and use doctrine, but was not sure that I had even experienced God---at least yet.
While I could articulate doctrine, I longed for experience. I even took Religion classes in college where I learned a great deal about doctrine---the Trinity, etc. Even atheists can learn Christian doctrine (or Jewish doctrine or Muslim). But it does not mean you know anything about God. Furthermore, various denominations might insist that some doctrines are “right” and others are not. Now the emphasis is upon doctrine---often at the expense of relationship, as it is grounded in experience.
Doctrines can become the way to have theological fights. These never interested me much. I was more interested in how people experienced God and then how this could nurture my own experience. This is why the Rohr sentence so captured my own spirit. Indeed, I would rather have relationship than be right about doctrine. Or to quote Rohr again, “As the old saying goes, do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship?”
I want to be in relationship. Relationship is the way experience is extended over time. It is with God, just as it is with members of our family or our friends.
Comments
Post a Comment