Wednesday, 26 June, 2002

The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.



APOSTASY

If heresy might be seen as slipping toward one extreme or another on a Christian continuum, apostasy is another matter altogether. The word comes from the Greek for "to revolt," "to defect," and signifies a break with the family... There is a certain pride inherent in apostasy, which often manifests itself as a remarkable faith in oneself, as in "I alone know what is right for me." Teachers, traditions, the family stories, and the beliefs of the common herd are all suspect; suspicion rather than trust is what defines the apostate. And it defines our age.

Let me now copy a whole paragraph from Norris that is quite an observation.

But the use of one's own experience as the measure of the world contains the seed of another kind of tyranny. The accomplished gadfly Wendy Kaminer...examines the way in which much contemporary spirituality (which from a Christian frame of reference is apostasy) offers a closed belief system in which "the possibility of error is never considered," as one's feelings are always right. But, as Kaminer points out, these trendy belief systems - she is examining some recent best-sellers that address alien abductions, personal angels, and the ability to will oneself into a supernaturally evolved state - usually fail to deal adequately with the evil in the world. And they encourage a disastrous self-absorption, allowing people to believe that they are part of a spiritual elite. "Like extremist political movements," she writes, "they shine with moral vanity." If I had to come up with a synonym for apostasy, that would be it: for the most part, it is simple vanity.



The almighty "I" become the corrective to all that is wrong in the world. Norris also notes that people will often leave a church because they get "angry" at what is going on as though the church exists for "me." In some ways she would say we all have a bit of the apostate in us. We go to "church" to be a part of the whole. To give and to receive...to teach and to be taught...to serve and to be served...and to praise our God for the many ways God makes us a people...holy. When we are so wrapped up in our "self" - either in the positive or the negative - we don't often step out of the tomb...where Jesus say unbind them...and calls us back to life. Life as given to us by our God is not a journey into ourselves...it is a journey alongside one another and in conversation with one another.



Connection: Your face, your presence, your participation in the this day may be all that someone else needs to see - hear - touch God's marvelous gift of life. Our faith, our spirituality, is corporate as well as personal. It is that constant play between these two positions.



O Lord it is by your Grace that we enter this day. Open our eyes to see how your whole creation is shaped by you and therefore we too are active agents within the creativity of this day under your reign. Amen