MYTHIC CHRISTIANITYby jonahThere are many different ways of looking at our Christian Tradition. We canexamine our traditions with the tools of philosophy and try to express it invery exact philosophical language. The philosopher asks: How can this be? Attimes, however, this method leads to irreconcilable opposites—free will andgrace, God’s justice and mercy, three persons in one God, a divine and humanperson, and so forth. Or we can apply the methods of historical research to thestudy of our traditions. The historian asks: What really happened? Thismethods looks at our traditions externally and fails to penetrate deep innerrealities. And at times it becomes extremely speculative. There is yet anotherway—a third way. Christianity can also be explored as mythology. Mythology is here used as a different way of finding and expressing truth. Thetruth we find in myths is intuitive and need not always be logical. Philosophyand historical research often challenge mythological truth. But thesedisciplines are also challenged by mythology. Like poetry mythology oftentranscends words. Mythology can point to reality that is beyond words; to areality that even appears contradictive. Because God and Divine Realities aremysteries beyond our human comprehension, the expression of these realities inmythological language is often superior to the language of philosophy andhistory. Without asking how or what, mythology simply describes what is—theincomprehensible. Mythology is an expression of our human experience ofmystery.In a series of essays, let us explore mythic Christianity. Let us begin byexamining the Trinity as a mythic reality. TRINITYHow do Christians think of God? How do Catholic Christians think of God? Christians think of God as trinity. In the Christian psyche, God isfamily—Father, Son (child), and Holy Spirit (breath). God is community; God isrelationship; God is singular diversity. Here we find a mysterious union ofopposites, singularity and diversity—one is three. The Father and Son are one;the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one without any real distinction orseparation. Philosophically this makes no sense. The Catholic psyche includes a Divine Feminine. Mary, Jesus’ mother, by thedefinition of her assumption into heaven, has been elevated officially inCatholic Christianity to the divine realm. This was an official response tocenturies of persistent devotion on the part of the faithful to Mary, the motherof Jesus, the mother of God. The Catholic Church insists that Mary is not agoddess. But in the Catholic psyche she approaches as close to the Divine as ahuman being can. The Mary of history was a Jewish woman who was a wife and amother; the Mary of faith is a symbol of the feminine in the divine realm—aDivine Feminine. Protestant Christianity has not yet accept this understandingand so are still without a feminine symbol in close association with God. CarlJung lauded the definition of Mary’s assumption as psychologically a move in theright direction.How did Christianity arrive at this understanding of God? The early Christians, before they were Christians, were Jews. As Jews theyexperienced God as the Lord—superior to all other gods. In fact, the Lord alonewas seen as God. All other gods were viewed with contempt as mere idols craftedby human hands. They had eyes but could not see; mouths but could not speak;ears but could not hear, and so forth. Very early on these Jewish Christianswould speak of the Lord as “Abba”, a heavenly parent. No doubt this was howJesus himself experienced God, namely, as a provident, merciful, loving parent. But after Jesus’ execution a change began to take place in the way his followersexperienced God.The change that took place in Jesus’ followers way of experiencing God was notphilosophical or theological but intuitive. Philosophy and theology arescientific disciplines. They represent ways we have to rationally understandand explain what we experience. Jesus’ followers began to experience him asthe Christ. The man Jesus had indeed been executed and had died but then he was“raised up”. He became, in their eyes, the Christ. He became Lord, which is aname given to God. Why? Because God had raised him up. He “ascended intoheaven”, that is, into God’s realm. Now he, Jesus as the Christ, was elevated toGod’s right hand. In other words he was equal to God—a status that was his, asthe Word, from all eternity. So another dimension was added to the firstChristians’ experience of God. They were beginning to experience God in theirhumanity. The Word had become flesh. Jesus, a humankind, was Lord. This isall mythological language. These words all point toward meanings that arebeyond words.There is yet a further development in the Christian psyche. Even though Jesuswas no longer physically present to them, his Spirit continued to be experiencedas a living presence. This living presence of Jesus as Christ is described asGod’s breath—an image that we find elsewhere in Scripture as, for example, inPsalms where when God withdraws His breath we turn to dust and when God sendsHis breath we are recreated. The word for breath is translated into English asSpirit. In the Acts of the Apostles the living presence of Jesus’ Spirit isdescribed as fire and wind. For Paul it was a flash of light and a thunderingvoice: “Saul, Saul why do you persecute ME?” The author of John’s Gospel callsthat presence “The Advocate.” The presence is thus experienced as an empoweringpresence, an enlightening presence, a unifying presence, a presence that isenlivening and recreating, a presence that is God’s breath—God’s Spirit, theVery God.So already by the end of the first century of the present era, the followers ofthe Carpenter and their descendants had three distinct ways of experiencingDeity—as the Creator and Source, as the Christ, the Word made flesh, and,finally as a continuing, empowering, enlivening, enlightening, creative Divinepresence in their midst. The God creator was called Father, Christ, God’s Wordincarnate, was called the Son, and God’s presence in their midst was called theSpirit—the Breath of God. And paradoxically, at the same time, they continuedto experience God as one not many.These intuitive experiences were revelations. But for the first disciples andtheir followers these revelations were not problematic. They were real. Theywere accepted unquestioningly. But inevitably some began to ask: How can thisbe? Some began to examine these experiences in the light of reason. They beganto theologize. How can God be both one and three? How can a person be both Godand human? Some challenged the meaning of these experiences. Others defendedthe meaning of these experiences. Some tried to fix the meaning of theseexperiences in carefully worded statements—in creeds and doctrinalpropositions. This process continued down through the centuries. This processstill continues. Often the meaning of these experiences was hotly debated and these debates even,at times, led to violence. Then, as we moved into the nineteenth century of thepresent era, in the period of the “Enlightenment”, new challenges arose. Somebegan to apply the methods of historical research to the study of the originsand meaning of Christianity. They began to ask: What really happened. Theybegan to examine the sources of Christianity critically. New methods forstudying Scripture were applied. Modern scientific approaches such asArcheology were used to verify or to challenge past assumptions. Ancientwritings were discovered that shed new light on early Christianity. Many of the religious institutions became defensive and tried to repress thefindings of these modern methods of inquiry or tried to escape through variousforms of denial. As this struggle has intensified, there has developed an everwidening gap between informed Christians and naïve Christians, betweeninnovators and traditionalist. The faith of many has grown cold and some haveeven abandon Christianity.Christian MythologyWith help of such scholars as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, a new but old wayof expressing our Christian tradition is beginning to emerge. Carl Jung developed an understanding of innate psychological structures calledarchetypes. He found these innate psychological structures in our human psycheto be of a universal nature. Joseph Campbell in his study of comparativemythology demonstrated how these archetypes find expression in varying cultures.Scholars such as these have opened the way to a new way of interpreting ourreligious experiences.A mythological understanding of Christianity, however, is not really new. Manyearly Christian writers interpreted our Christian tradition allegorically orsymbolically. They used scripture not in a literal way but as allegorical andsymbolic expressions of their deep spiritual experiences within the Christiantradition. In so doing, these early Christian writers were anticipatingmythical Christianity. Early in the twentieth century, the Roman Catholic Church officially rejectedattempts to “demythologize” our Christian tradition. This was wise because manyof our religious experiences as Christians can only be expressed mythologically. The Jesuit theologian, the late Karl Rahner, said that God is the mystery inhuman experience. The universe is a mystery, life is a mystery, death is amystery. Rahner also said that “the silence of God, the toughness of life andthe darkness of death can be graced events.” A “graced event” is an experiencethat opens us to the Great Mystery of Being. In the gospel stories we find theChristian response to the “silence of God, the toughness of life, and thedarkness of death.” These gospel stories are not intended to be historicalaccounts. They are the Christian response to events we all experience—birth,struggle, death and the Mystery of Being. posted by Jonah 4:25 PM . . .
