Twice before leaving for the USA in May and twice whilst there I heard different people pronounce the church dead. Knowing a little about each of these people and their journey I know they were talking about the death of mainstream church as we know it - the so-called Christendom church which takes its place at the centre of western power structures and is concerned about membership strength and institutional conformity. Each of these people related the death with some joy, not in petulant ways ("the mean old church is dead, hooray") but in ways of some depth ("how does the passing of church as we know it open opportunities for a new depth of spiritual development?"). Each of these people was practicing lament in what I think is its true sense.

I hear the call from time to time that "The death of the church is to be lamented." But usually what is meant by that is that we are to mourn the passing of previous structures of faith as if they were the only way for faith to be developed. Oh we of little faith! How can people of a religious tradition that has death and resurrection as a central tenet experience the passing of previous structures in this way? Surely what Christianity teaches us about death and resurrection is that life and death are not opposites? Death (the passing of old structures) is part of life (the development of the new). Lament then is part of a process of allowing something to "die well" - to allow something to be ushered from present reality to deeply cherished memory - and to allow that ushering to happen graciously, gracefully and with deep thankfulness for what was added to our lives. And hence it is a process of great joy. Not joy as cheap bliss but joy as appreciation for the eternal given-ness of God - that every passing carries into a new presence. I know that is not the way we have come to understand either lament or joy but these are understandings I think we need to develop.

I sense we will be helped in our process of lament if we can better come to understand the concept of tradition. Most understandings of tradition focus on "how" something has been done in the past rather than "why" it has been done. We can better let the exacting nature of "how" go (or even re-adopt it with new life!) if we begin to understand the "why."  Christian researcher and author Diana Butler Bass speaks in her book The Practicing Congregation (and Dr Butler Bass is also the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us) about a process of fluid re-traditioning. I think this process has at least some resonance with what I am saying here. In calling for a continual process of re-traditioning I suspect Butler Bass is calling from a movement from "how" to "why." A couple of examples from my recent experience may highlight something of this movement.

Example 1: Let's say an early Christian community develops a particular prayer process which helps them, in community, to settle themselves to "experience" God. The practice requires a particular physical posture - comfortable but not too comfortable - and a particular mantra. It seems to serve that community well. Seeing how well it seems to serve that community, other communities take up practice, sometimes contextualising it appropriately, sometimes not. In certain streams of "tradition" the practice allows communities to deepen their connection to God. In others it becomes a rote action, bereft of much meaning.

Fast forward one thousand years or so and in an early, modernist review of the practice experts have identified that there is a slight chance of long term back injury through repeated use of the practice. They have introduced a set of warm up exercises to lessen the chance of such injury. The purpose of the exercises is purely functional, not spiritual.

Fast forward another sixty years to "The Church on the Hill" and note that they are using an adaptation of the technique, including warm up exercises, in their weekly liturgy. No one can tell you much about the original meaning of the practice and no one can tell you at all that the warm up exercises are indeed that - warm up exercises! But three stalwarts of the worship committee vehemently insist that the practice must be repeated exactly as it was done when they arrived at the church in the 1960s. "It is important to us and to God" they insist.

Tradition as "fluid re-traditioning" would have kept "the Church on the Hill" (and all of the earlier communities in the path of this tradition) aware of the "why" behind the tradition. It would also have kept people questioning the appropriateness of the tradition to their context rather than blindly adopting. And if you think this example is far fetched, I do know of a Christian community where the meaning of a health and safety practice became lost, and it became lodged as an insisted-upon spiritual practice in their weekly liturgy.

Example 2: I have been reading and reflecting significantly on the Christian understanding of Trinity recently. The topic will receive more attention in this blog in coming times. However my reading and reflection has led me to understand a deep wisdom in Trinity. This is about the wholeness (the holiness, the divinity) which is experienced through the inter-relationship of more than two entities. Early Greek Christian reflected on Trinitarian God as the "dance" of more than two entities. Specifically for me, I have a sense that "communities of wholeness" are formed where a sense of vocation/ purpose dances with a sense of contextualisation/relationship and simultaneously dances with a sense of practice/discipline. As I have travelled in the USA, reflecting and speaking of this concept, others people (both from Christian and non-Christian perspectives) have come to me and said "That's interesting Adrian. We have been reflecting on something similar." Then they have produced their own three pronged perspective. Different words - same concept.

Nuanced Christian thinker and writer (and board member of the Center for Progressive Christianity [sic] in the USA) Jim Burklo, recently published a blog entry about Eckhart Tolle at his Musings blog. Burklo's blog focussed on the important contribution that a non-Christian writer like Tolle can make to Christian understanding and practice of faith. Burklo writes,

One of the more significant books I've read recently about the practice of Christianity was written by a non-Christian. I found Tolle's book ("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose") to be an exceptionally good introduction to spiritual practice.  The message of the book is very simple.  The more often we can have what I call "out-of-ego experiences", the happier we'll be and the better life will be for human beings on planet Earth.  If we can wake up to the fact that the essence of who we are is divine and one with the whole universe, if we can wake up to the fact that our egos are artificial constructions of our minds, then we can live more in harmony with the here and now, and more in harmony with each other and with the earth. Tolle describes this awakening beautifully in clear, non-sectarian, non-religious language.  But he also salts his prose with quotes from the great world religions, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and, yes, Christianity!

I too have been impressed with Tolle's ability to open up the sense of post-egoic mind that is present in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Exponent of Christian centring prayer, Cynthia Bourgeault, uses an information technology metaphor to describe this post-egoic mind. Around five or six thousand years ago humans' sense of self-awareness came to the point where they were able to exercise judgement - to "line things up" in terms of good; better; best (or not so good, worse, worst).  This "egoic operating system," though necessary for evolutionary purposes, also gave individual humans the ability to develop an unnecessary sense of separation from creation. Then around 2000 to 3000 years ago a range of actors on the world stage (among them Jesus of Nazareth) began to boldly demonstrate the ability to transcend this egoic operating system. They demonstrated a capacity to relate to all creation, and through them we became aware of the capacity for unitary consciousness. Taking her information technology metaphor further, Bourgeault suggests that at this point a new post-egoic operating system became available. However, despite the likes of Jesus making it available, society in general decided against taking the download. Mystics over the last two thousand years have tried to increase the popularity of the "new" operating system. But it is with the likes of Tolle, with his popular new book, that the download is seemingly becoming a more common thing.

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