Mysticism Matters More Than Ever
It's the Only Real Alternative to Dualistic, Aggressive Forms of Religion and Belief
Karl Rahner, the German philosopher and theologian who was one of the leading thinkers in the Catholic tradition in the middle of the twentieth century, is famous for having said "the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist." For years now I have used this quote as a way of making the case to people who are devout Christians that they need to take mysticism seriously. While more and more people are doing so all the time, unfortunately many Christians still cling to the erroneous idea that mysticism is somehow opposed to Christianity. Indeed, you can find entire websites devoted to exposing the "danger" that contemplative spirituality and mysticism pose to Christian believers!
Many Christians fear mysticism, I believe, because they can sense that the deep spiritual wisdom of the mystics moves us away from fundamentalism or literalistic, legalistic religion. Indeed, this is one of the major themes of my latest book, Read the Bible Like a Mystic. Meanwhile, it’s hopeful to see that many other Christians are recognizing that a mystical spirituality is closer to the heart and teachings of Jesus than rigid fundamentalistic legalism could ever be.
I think we could amend Karl Rahner's famous quotation like this: the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist — but to the extent that followers of Jesus choose fundamentalism over mysticism, they are contributing to the end of the Christian movement.
I’m aware that many people might think that "the end of the Christian movement" couldn't come fast enough. They are sick and tired of how Christianity (in its fundamentalist forms) has become synonymous with the oppression of women, the fear of and hatred for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other queer persons, and in more recent years how too many churches have become a safe harbor for white nationalism and racist xenophobia.
I agree with the critics of hostile religion: to the extent that "Christianity" has become a synonym for sexist, racist, queerphobic thinking, it needs to be vanquished. But at the same time, I sincerely hope that the demise of fundamentalist religion does not signal the rejection of Jesus's wisdom teachings overall. That, I believe, would be a great tragedy.
Jesus was a profound mystic in his own right and a great teacher of contemplative and nondual spirituality. He taught his followers to be deeply merciful and forgiving. He taught them that nonviolence is the most spiritually vibrant way to resist oppression. He taught them to love their enemies (not to be complicit with them and acquiesce to them, but to love them even when they need to be resisted), and to practice a spirituality of compassionate, loving non-judgement. As my friend the late Trappist monk Brother Elias Marechal used to say, Jesus taught radical equality and inclusivity.
In other words, Jesus taught the moral and ethical foundations not only for a just and compassionate society, but for a truly mystical spirituality as well.
I know that not everyone who reads this essay will necessarily identify as a Christian (which is totally fine by me). So another way that I believe we should expand Karl Rahner's wisdom would be to say this: every religious path and spiritual tradition must become more and more mystical in the years to come, or else they will eventually cease to exist.
Fundamentalism — a level of consciousness shaped by dualistic thinking, rigid and literalistic beliefs, a strong sense of "our way is the only way" and that everyone else is wrong (or worse), that tends to see the world through the eyes of patriarchy and an exclusivist hierarchical understanding of society — is, by heavenly grace, an endangered species. More and more young people of each succeeding generation rejects the fundamentalist worldview.
The problem is there are still plenty of fundamentalists in our world. They can be found in every religious tradition. They feel threatened, and because they feel threatened, they are hostile, aggressive, and committed to defeating those who do not conform to their narrow way of seeing things. Which means not only do fundamentalists have it in for the followers of every religion other than their own, but they are hostile to mystics as well.
Why? Because of what mystics stand for.
Mystics tend to value compassion over control, and often are eager to form bonds of kindness and relationship with people whose faith, or political values, or skin color, or sexuality and gender identity, is different from their own.
In other words, mystics are eager to build communities based on “kindness, compassion and forgiveness” — communities grounded in peace, justice, and mutual respect with others. Mystics even want to extend a kind hand to fundamentalists — as long as the fundamentalists are willing to heal from their hatred or rejection of everyone who is different from themselves.
Mysticism matters more than ever, because mystics subvert the world-view of fundamentalists. Mystics stand for an alternative to the violence, aggression, and hostility (overt or covert) that characterizes the fundamentalist mind. The more people are exposed to the message of kindness and compassion that characterizes mystical spirituality, the more likely that fundamentalists will lose their privileged place in church and society (and their power and influence will diminish).
Regarding mystics as a threat, fundamentalists denounce mysticism as "demonic" or "new age" or "morally relativistic." Meanwhile, mystics tend to view fundamentalists as trapped in an obsolete worldview that no longer works in today's world (and will be even less and less relevant in the future). Mystics believe that fundamentalism tends to breed hostility and violence. The Al-Quaeda terrorists who caused 9/11 were fundamentalists, just like the Christian terrorists who have committed acts of violence against doctors who provide abortions. Likewise the Christian extremists who promoted hostilities in Northern Ireland. White Christian nationalists are fundamentalist, as are the so-called Christians who protest at military funerals with their hateful anti-LGBT signs and slogans.
Fundamentalism sooner or later leads to hostility, aggression and violence. Mysticism is the antidote to fundamentalism (I didn't say it first, that honor goes to Rick Doblin), just as surely as compassionate lovingkindness is the antidote to hatred and oppression.
I clearly remember the first time I heard Cynthia Bourgeault speak, at a weekend sponsored by Contemplative Outreach of Birmingham, Alabama, just a few years after the horrors of 9/11. Cynthia began her talk by acknowledging that tragedy, and then pointing out that contemplation is the only real alternative to a religious mentality that leads to such acts of terror.
Why are fundamentalists at greater risk for becoming hostile, aggressive or even violent? Because fundamentalism by its very nature is dualistic. What I mean by this is that fundamentalism is built on a worldview that has a stark sense of the separation between good and evil, or light and dark, or God and the devil. Of course we live in a world where both good and bad co-exist, and that is true whether our philosophical world-view is dualistic or non-dualistic. But in the dualistic mind, evil must be suppressed, overcome, and ultimately destroyed. In other words, to a dualist, responding to whatever is regarded as “evil” with aggression, hostility or even violence is seen as reasonable, for evil must be overcome, by any means necessary. By contrast, a non-dual approach to the problem of good and evil tends to follow the teachings of both Jesus and the Buddha: Jesus, who said “love your enemies” (The Sermon on the Mount) and the Buddha, who said “Hatred never causes hatred to cease in this world; only by love does hatred cease” (The Dhammapada). A non-dual worldview is just as committed to overcoming evil and harm, but recognizes that only the power of love is capable of defeating the power of hate.
Mysticism, anchored in the wisdom teachings of Jesus and the Buddha and other sages, saints, mystics and bodhisattvas the world over, is the spirituality that emerges out of a non-dual view of all things. To the non-dual mystic, love is the unified means by which we seek to affirm the good, and respond compassionately to the evil. In this, mysticism is utterly subversive of the idolatry of fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism (regardless of the religious tradition it is embedded in) is based on a narrow and rigid view of truth and religious doctrine. For the fundamentalist, dogma or doctrine works like this: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” (I first saw this on a bumpersticker many years ago). Fundamentalists insist that God speaks with clarity and unshakeable certainty, and our job as humans is simply to obey the unambiguous doctrine that the fundamentalists place their faith in.
By contrast, mysticism regards truth as a much more subtle and nuanced reality. The human mind is like a teaspoon, and the fullness of spiritual truth is like the ocean. Just as a teaspoon could never hold the entire ocean, we must acknowledge that our experience of God remains filled with mystery, unknowing, and uncertainty. This is why great mystics have written books with titles like The Dark Night of the Soul and The Cloud of Unknowing. For mystics, recognizing that no one has a clear apprehension of God’s ultimate truth is not a cause for alarm; rather, it is an invitation into humility. We are all humble before the inexplicable mystery of the Divine, and such humility helps to protect us from the arrogance of believing or thinking “my way is the only way.”
As I write these words, attacking fundamentalism but arguing that mysticism is the only real way of undoing the toxicity of fundamentalism, it occurs to me that some folks might think I have just set up another “dualism” — where mysticism is good, and fundamentalism is bad. Granted, I am clear in my position that fundamentalism is a type of toxic belief, and that the open-ended mystery and humble compassion that mysticism cultivates is the best alternative to fundamentalism (and can bring healing to those who are walking away from a previously held fundamentalist view). But I don’t see this as yet another dualism for the simple reason that I don’t believe our job is to treat fundamentalists with aggression or hostility.
In fact, I believe that a literalistic viewpoint is a normal part of human growth and development: it corresponds to what developmental psychologists call “concrete operational” thinking. The problem with fundamentalism is not that it exists, but that too many people get stuck in what is essentially an arrested developmental stage of spiritual growth. Unfortunately, institutional religions often seem to encourage fundamentalist consciousness in the minds of their followers, since fundamentalists often are the most loyal members of a religious institution.
So mystics are not called to treat fundamentalists as “the enemy” (and even if we did see fundamentalists as the enemy, our job would be to love them, which is to say, treat them with compassion). Rather, the task of the mystic is to continually invite the fundamentalist to keep growing and seeking healing in their spiritual life, which sooner or later will bring them to a place where their faith will ask them to surrender the dualistic thinking and over-reliance on a rigid and literalistic concept of truth. Mysticism does not seek to destroy fundamentalism, but rather seeks healing and spiritual growth for those who are caught in the grip of the fundamentalist worldview.
Finally, why do I argue that only mysticism can truly heal the fundamentalist mind? Couldn’t science give us that same path to healing? Maybe it can, but I think there is a danger to rely strictly on science as the antidote to fundamentalism. We’re comparing apples and oranges here, for science is a type of knowledge, whereas fundamentalism is a level of consciousness. Just as there can be Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists and even Buddhist fundamentalists, there can also be scientists and atheists or agnostics who have a fundamentalist way of seeing things. They are convinced that they are right, that others are wrong, and that those who do not see the world as they do must be suppressed, which taken to its logical extreme that could even warrant the use of force. We have seen in places like Turkey, Mexico and Russia the fruit of a secular government attempting to suppress religion. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work, and it just represents one type of fundamentalism trying to suppress another type.
Mysticism is also a dimension of consciousness, a level of awareness, a worldview. Whether you are a religious person or a scientifically minded person, having a mystical consciousness means you orient your life toward wisdom and joy, you are comfortable with uncertainty, you treat knowledge and “truth” with humility and respect, you are compassionate toward those who see things differently from you, and you prioritize love and relationship over the need to be “right” or in control. And if you don’t believe that scientists can be mystics, check out the writings of scientists like Carl Jung, Rupert Sheldrake, David Bohm and Carl Sagan — all of whom clearly developed a deeply mystical worldview, regardless of what their religious or spiritual beliefs might (or might not) have been.
We live in a society, a world, where it seems that fundamentalism is on the march. It affects politics, social conflicts, and culture wars around the world, and contributes to conflicts such as those we’ve seen in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. If fundamentalist is a growing problem, we need to cultivate a meaningful alternative. We need more mystics and contemplatives in our world.
And that’s why mysticism matters more than ever.
