How Crucial is the Cross?

Jesus is a teacher of contemplative spirituality... but is he necessary?

A reader named Gary wrote this question to me:

I would greatly appreciate a discussion on the necessity of Christ and the cross. I am sometimes confused between the relationship between experiencing God directly through Awareness and the need for the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, if I can experience oneness by awakening to God’s presence within me, what crucial role does Jesus play?

Does that question make sense?

Gary, Your question does make sense, and it’s a big one. And an important one.

I think we almost need to approach it on two levels:

First, what “crucial role” (great pun there, by the way) does Jesus play for the world at large, but just as importantly, what role does Jesus play in each of our individual spiritual lives?

This a question about the doctrines of the Christian faith, which right away makes it tricky, since different traditions within the Christian community (Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical, Pentecostal, to name just the most prominent traditions), all have their own way of understanding concepts like “the necessity of Christ.”

But you are also posing a question about personal spirituality/mysticism, which is even trickier since there are probably as many different types or flavors of Christian mysticism as their are individuals. For this reason, the way I answer your question will no doubt be very different from how others who study the mystical tradition might respond, even if their theological background is similar to mine.

Furthermore, we should acknowledge that your question touches on the thorny but very real questions concerning not only Christian soteriology (how we understand “salvation”), but also universalism: the theological principle that God saves everyone in the end, or at the very least freely offers salvation to all.

My Perspective

To begin with, I think it’s important for me to lay my own cards on the table. I am much more loyal to the teachings of those mystics and contemplatives that I believe embody the most spiritually mature expressions of Christianity — and therefore, the most theologically mature expressions, as well. I do believe that many Christian thinkers — even renowned ones — are often so immersed in a dualistic way of seeing that they simply cannot see the world — or God — the same way that nondual mystics do.

For example, if you are a dualist, I would suspect that you would have no problem believing that God rewards some people and punishes others. Once that thesis is accepted, then the most interesting question becomes “Where does God draw the line?” Now some Christians believe that God punishes those who reject the sacraments as propagated by the institutional church; others believe that God punishes those who do not make a freely chosen act of “accepting Christ as their personal savior.” Clearly, it is illogical to assume that both of these perspectives are equally correct, but those who dualistically adhere to one or the other will fight for “their” perspective as aggressively as they can. One does not have to look very far to find such exclusionary, dualistic thinkers loudly promoting their viewpoint through social media, Substack, etc.

So if anyone reading this is a dualist, and insists that their belief is the only one “correct” teaching about matters such as the role of Christ, the nature of salvation, the requirements for being justified, and so forth, then just about everything I’m going to say in this post will seem unacceptable, indeed heretical.

But for those who are doing the deep interior work of a stable silent contemplative practice (work that the great mystics have been promoting literally for centuries now), it is possible to see and understand the Christian faith in a nondual way.

From a nondual perspective, the idea that God rewards some people and punishes others no longer makes any sense — especially once one has deeply experienced, for themself, the beauty and universality of God’s infinite love. One might still believe that it is possible for some human beings to actively reject God’s free gift of salvation, although the very thought of that seems absurd to those who see things in a profoundly mystical/nondual way. But to anyone who has learned to see spirituality nondually, the quibbling that separates Catholic from Protestant, Evangelical from Orthdox, Pentecostal from Anglican suddenly seems silly rather than meaningful — not wrong, not bad, not heretical, just silly and absurd, and therefore, meaningless. Nondual mystics have literally learned to see the world from an entirely new and different perspective.

Meanwhile, here’s one thing that the dualists, despite their many theological and doctrinal disputes, do have in common: they will unite in their conviction that those who promote a nondual spirituality — in other words, the mystics and contemplatives — are themselves dangerous! Fundamentalists and other religious literalists intuitively sense that dualistic consciousness ultimately is dissolved by a nondual way of seeing. But rather than seeking to experience for themselves what the nondualists have through grace and prayer learned to see, they just reject it out of hand. More’s the pity.

To repeat: I myself trust nondual mystics and contemplatives, rather from the past (Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart) or from our time (Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr); and I certainly trust nondual mystics far more than any dualistic theologians, no matter how brilliant or erudite their work might be.

So now, let’s get into Gary’s questions. Once again:

I believe that most nondual mystics, especially in our day, would offer a nuanced understanding of “the need for Christ” or the “crucial role” he plays in the Christian faith.

Christianity is built on the teachings of Jesus. But if we don’t have a reason for taking Jesus’s teachings seriously, too many people might just ignore what he had to say. If the Christian community does not proclaim Jesus as “crucial” or “necessary” for salvation, won’t too many people find it easier just to ignore what Jesus had to say?

Is It About The Teachings… or the Teacher?

Here’s how I see it. Jesus himself tended to downplay any efforts for people to call him “good” or otherwise praise him (see, for example, Mark 10:17-18). I think it’s fair to say that Jesus was less interested in people admiring him, and more concerned that people take his words and teaching seriously. But we live in a world where people will judge someone’s words or ideas by the character of the one who’s doing the talking. So the more that Christians can make the case that Jesus was special, was holy, was divine, was “crucial” and “necessary” for our salvation, the more likely folks would pay attention to his words.

Peter bluntly said to Jesus, “you have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). This is what I believe is truly essential and crucial about Jesus: his teachings.

The church — the Christian community, which over time became the Christian institution — has insisted that Jesus himself is crucial, important, necessary for our faith. I believe such claims were first made to ensure the community would value Jesus’s ideas and teachings. And while the “big” claims about Jesus may have been helpful for keeping the importance of his teachings central to most Christian communities, there has also been a price to pay for the way that Jesus is often presented as more important than his teachings; for there is a level on which claims about Jesus (and the cross) end up being exclusionary, and that have been used in the past to judge or condemn the views of non-Christians (or even Christians who disagree), are actually harmful rather than salvific.

In other words: if Jesus is crucial for my salvation, then no one else matters. And if no one else matters, then everyone else could actually be dangerous, especially if they seem to provide an alternative path into the heart of God other than Jesus. This is the kind of thinking that dualists love, because it is logical, tidy, and easy to manage. But contemplative spirituality tends to see through this kind of thinking, choosing to let it go in favor of unconditional love and compassion.

The wisdom teachings of Jesus are truly valuable for those who are seeking healing, spiritual well-being, and eternal life — in other words, “salvation.” That, I believe, is the sense in which Christ may “save” us — but meanwhile, some of the things we believe about Christ can be a distraction or might actually cause harm — not only to ourselves, but to others in the human family. For example, teachings that emphasize Jesus as “the only way” to God ultimately cause divisions in the human family rather than bringing us closer to each other and to the love and mercy of God.

Divisions are the opposite of what Jesus taught — and what nondual or mystical spirituality stands for. To nondualist mystics or contemplatives, Jesus’s “crucial role” is simply how he provides us with one very real and very meaningful way for people of good will to access the Spirit of God in their lives. One very real way — but not necessarily the only way.

Someone might argue that most of the mystics of the past never promoted any ideas such as universalism — or that God loved the members of other faith just as much as he loved Christians. But even merely 100 or 150 years ago, the world was a radically different place. Most Christians did not live in a multi-cultural society. When your only choice is between “being Christian” as an expression of faith, or “rejecting Christ” as an expression of ignoring or dismissing spiritual wisdom, then no wonder that the consistent message within Christianity was about how crucial Jesus is, how essential to salvation, how indispensable. But what if there are many alternatives to Jesus, such as the wisdom of the Buddha, or the scientific evidence of the healing power of mindfulness practice, or even the wisdom of Gandhi or Laozi… the list could go on and on.

Meanwhile — and this is vitally important: in our day, many people choose a path other than Christianity not because they reject Christ, but because they reject the harm that institutional religion causes. It’s important to understand such nuances as we seek to understand the realities of human spirituality in our time.

How can Christ be “necessary” or “crucial” or “essential,” when sometimes the people who promote Christ cause harm, and meanwhile, those who promote other faiths (like Buddhism, for example), might actually be more faithful to love and compassion? In a situation like that, I can see that turning away from Christ in favor of a compassionate and wise immersion into Buddhism would actually be an expression of profound and beautiful faith.

So perhaps we need to rethink all the rhetoric about how “crucial” or “necessary” Jesus is, and focus instead on the beauty and power of his teachings: “Love God. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies. Judge no one. Be forgiving. Treat everyone the way God treats them.” And so forth.

Those teachings are what I believe is truly essential. It’s the teachings of Jesus that keeps me engaged with Christian spirituality and mysticism: not anything the church does!

“Whoever is not against us is for us”

So what if people glean teachings about love, compassion, forgiveness and mindfulness from the wisdom of the Buddha, or some other great spiritual teacher? That question reminds me of Jesus telling his disciples, “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). The wisdom is what is crucial and necessary: but you can get the teachings from sources other than Christianity. Once again, the old way of thinking about Christ as being essential or necessary just doesn’t seem to matter so much in today’s world.

Again: a fundamentalist, a literalist, a dogmatic or doctrinaire person will reject these ideas out of hand. But someone who has begun to sense the wisdom and the inclusivity of nondual awareness will admit that this way of seeing things makes a lot of sense, even if it means seeing a lot of old ideas about Jesus as now obsolete.

Which leads us to Gary’s point that “I can experience oneness by awakening to God’s presence within me” — a theme that appears again and again among mystics and contemplatives down the ages.

As an institution, Christianity has historically tried to keep the teachings of Jesus alive, even though those teachings sometimes seem at odds with the institutional dimension of religion. Ironically, the more a Christian accepts and integrates the teachings of Jesus into their lives, the more likely they will end up choosing their loyalty of Jesus (and his teachings) over any loyalty to the church, even though it was the church that gave them access to Jesus to begin with.

I believe that mystics and contemplatives owe a debt of gratitude to the Christian church, even though the very mystical spirituality they embrace often calls them out of, or away from, the very church that helped them to learn about Jesus to begin with.

Did Jesus teach that we could “experience oneness by awakening to God’s presence within us”? I believe so. I believe there are hints of Jesus teaching this scattered throughout the Gospels. There’s evidence of it in the Sermon on the Mount or in the Farewell Discourse — the last teachings Jesus offered his followers before he was arrested. And then Jesus’s followers often made this idea ever more explicit (see Romans 5:5 or II Peter 1:4, or for that matter Ephesians 3, for examples of explicitly mystical teachings that are encoded within the New Testament).

Gary, if I try to answer your question in a relative sense, I might say of course Jesus was crucial and essential for the journey of faith. But in a more universal sense, I would argue that it is the wisdom, love and other fruits of the spirit that truly matter, and that one does not need any one “story” or tradition to find that wisdom — not even in the Bible.

But if we find ourselves “not needing” the historical Jesus, we should be very careful about remembering that for many others, the historical Jesus is their lifeline to God and even to mystical spirituality. Jesus taught us not to judge: so we all need to learn not to judge others whose faith experience is different from our own (including those who continue to insist that Jesus, is, in fact, essential and crucial for salvation).

I hope this is helpful, Gary. I certainly encourage you to continue to unpack your own experience of awakening to God’s unifying presence within you. If it gives you a different perspective on the cross and the importance of Jesus, trust that new way of seeing. But work hard to refrain from judging those who don’t see the world the way you do. Always lead with compassion and love.