Hi John B,
Thank you for your generous and considered response. Much to think about,
but there is one main point I think I can respond to fairly quickly.
I'm familiar with Scott Peck's work, and indeed 'pseudo-community' (Road
Less Travelled made a big impact on me when I read it at university). I
would wholeheartedly agree that there are large areas where the established
churches function as a pseudo-community. I think the MOQ provides a good way
of assessing what happens in those situations - the social level dominates
at the expense of the intellectual. [BTW I share various people's discomfort
with the word 'intellectual', although Oisin's formula - "The organised
search for self-consistent understanding, that transcends all local mythos'
and linguistics." - has some potential I think] The question then becomes,
as Oisin points out - "Why _must_ we regard Religion as necessarily
excluding an Intellectual component? Even if that is how one chooses to
define it, the definition would seem to contradict the experience of many."
Or, to put it differently, although there are many situations where churches
are pseudo-community, there are also many places where churches function as
genuine communities, where 'religion' fosters that genuine community, and
where the individual's own search (call it 'intellectual') for growth and
quality is reinforced and enhanced.
I think this is a place where some attention to our language would help. The
situation of community that you describe as your experience I would say has
made great strides in the 'education in love' - but I would then point out
that Peck is a committed Christian and his work reflects that. In many ways
the insights of modern psychotherapy replicate what I see as the insights of
traditional Christian spirituality, it's just that the traditional language
was framed in terms of an overall cosmology that is now (rightly) rejected.
I find Wittgenstein helpful as he points a way for translation between the
two, so that we don't discard the baby with the bathwater.
Perhaps we could agree on a form of words that would distinguish between
those bodies which represent social-values-but-repress-intellect and those
bodies which represent social-values-but-enhance-intellect. I would argue
that there are churches that fall under both categories - and indeed secular
bodies which fall under both. On the religious side, one option is to
distinguish a religious community from a faith community, but there are
difficulties with that. I would be interested to hear what other people
think on this.
One last point - the mystics are (I would say) those who have advanced most
in the education of love, and the ones with most to teach us. Most of them
fell foul of the church authorities, many were condemned as heretics, all of
them are astonishing people. When I think of 'Christianity' I'm thinking of
these great teachers, not the fourteenth century papacy - or those who bomb
abortion clinics today.
Cheers
Sam
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