Religious Institution

Eww...

There once was a man who was a seeker of God. He had traveled the world spending time with deep spiritual teachers of every sort he could find. He sang the 99 names of Allah. He spent months in silence with Buddhists, Hindus and in Christian monasteries. He danced with Sufis, did vision quests with shamans and trained with Shaolin Monks. Then one day, he heard that were he to climb a certain secret (if everyone knew about it, it wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it?) mountain deep in the Hindu Kush, that were he to reach the top, he would meet God and find total enlightenment.

This was a very dangerous quest because the mountain was very remote and was difficult to climb for even the most experienced climbers. But the greatest danger came from the many bandits that always saw spiritual seekers as easy pickins.

The Devil heard about this upstart and sent his demon to follow him and report back. The seeker headed up the mountain with the demon not far behind.

It was a difficult climb, but eventually, the seeker made it to the top. Standing at the very top of the mountain, standing on his tippy toes, the seeker reached up, higher and higher… and grasped hold of Ultimate Truth, met God and became cosmically aware! The seeker now knew all of the secrets of the universe and existence!

Naturally the demon was terrified and ran back to the Devil with his report, fearing how his master would react. To his surprise, the Devil just leaned back in his chair, yawned and said, “It’s not a problem. I’ll just tempt him to institutionalize it.”

(with apologies to Huston Smith for my embellishment of the story)

All through human experience, there have been prophets. The dictionary definition is “one who utters divinely inspired revelation.” Most of the world’s major religions have a founding voice or prophet. Abraham for Judaism, Jesus for Christianity, Muhammad for Islam, Siddhartha Gautama for Buddhism,

Guru Nanak for Sikhism, Lao Tzu for Taoism all come to mind. But they were not the only prophets.

There have always been those who have felt called to express wisdom and ideas they felt were divinely inspired. Anyone who writes or speaks about spirituality or philosophy, including myself, could probably be lumped in there. There will always be those who have a unique vision they feel called to share. The thing which enables one vision to endure and another to be forgotten is institution.

There were many wandering prophets at the time of Jesus. The Christian Bible is full of them. Yet it is only Jesus that people talk about from that time. At the direction of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the First Council of Nicaea codified Christianity. They were the first to establish what content was in the Christian Bible, certified that Jesus was Divine and the Son of God, canon law, etc. These all were intended to make Christianity into one defined religion and thus create a structure of authority with the church. This allowed Christianity to become state sanctioned and thus grant Divine Authority to the emperor. Politics and religion have been tightly joined for as long as there have been politics and religion.

This is how religions endure and prophets fade from memory. Even the written word is forgotten by most. It is in institution that gives authority and power their endurance.

How many times have you met someone who said they were a “recovering Catholic?” The largest growing spiritual demographic in America are those who many classify as “Nones.” These are people who prefer to not be subject to the dictates of any one religion. Some are atheist. Some are agnostic. Some culturally identify from the religion they grew up in, but just don’t want to be told what they can and cannot do.

King Henry VIII of England abolished Papal authority, dissolved the monasteries, confiscated their assets, and established himself as the head of the Church of England because the Pope wouldn’t grant him a divorce.

That the Americans chose to establish a separation of church and state with the 1st amendment to the US Constitution was nothing short of revolutionary at the time. Europe had suffered religious warfare for centuries and the American Founding Fathers wanted to spare the new country from this.

But as much as people revolt from spiritual institution, it is institution that enables a teaching to endure. At first, the Christian gospels were an oral tradition that didn’t get written down until decades after the death of Jesus. That they exist and endure is entirely due to being made canon by the First Council of Nicaea. Say what you will about not liking religious institution, but without it, we would not have the teaching today.

The same can be said for all of the major religions. Someone had to take scripture, create a structure to the teachings and establish some form of institution that codified it. Buddhism began with the one man we now call the Buddha, but it endured because of those who followed and carefully preserved it. It was an oral tradition until the teaching was first written down in the 1st century BCE.

Every religion has its spiritual heart and this is what speaks to us. Most of the Christians I personally know are kind, generous and thoughtful people. But being the author of this blog, I have been accused of the worst that Christians can imagine and told in no uncertain terms that I was going to Hell. Every Muslim I’ve ever met has been gentle, kind, welcoming and generous. Every one. Yet the images we see in the news of repression in places like Iran and Afghanistan cannot be ignored. Hindu nationalism in India provokes violence against the Muslim population there, yet many see Hindu spiritual practice as a deep relationship with The Divine Mystery.

All of these institutions preserve their teachings and each has something different to say. All of the religions offer useful ideas and inspiration for those who seek spiritual truth. There is value in institution because it lasts longer than we do. All formal religious institutions have organizational structure, people in positions of authority and power, some of whom inevitably use that power to squash personal expressions of individuality.

It is our Nature as humans to seek strength and power in the various forms it is presented. There is always competition and only one person can be the Alpha Dog. This is true in business, politics and religious institution. People in positions of power work as hard as they can to stay in power. It is the nature of personal power. This is even true in the most liberal of organizations. I’ve known more than one disenchanted Unitarian who ran into the organizational buzzsaw.

I personally chafe at the restrictions in religious institutions of any sort. They may claim spiritual freedom, but in truth, are anything but that. I personally reject religious authority, and yet at the same time, find inspiration in the heart of religious ideas and scripture. Ultimately we each have our own personal relationship with purpose, meaning, God, the universe, The Great Mystery, or however you wish to call it. That’s why I call my path, “A Religion of One.”

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I write my blog for those who prefer to find and know spirituality on their own terms, without the demands from any religion. I write because I feel called to speak equally to both the heart and the mind, because neither love nor rationality has to supplant the other. If what I write speaks to you, please subscribe to my blog and share it with others.

I’ve been writing weekly since February 2022 and have covered many subjects in that time. If you’re a new reader of this blog, you can find all of them at the blog main page.

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