Courage for Creative Theology

Courage for Creative Theology

*This article previously appeared in an issue of _Creation Spirituality_ magazine.*

Of all the many religions of the world I have had the privilege to explore and study, none has captured my heart and imagination as profoundly as Hinduism. Hinduism is frightening to many people, and this is quite understandable. It is a kaleidoscope of ever-evolving ideas about the Divine. There are nearly as many historical Hindu gods as there are living Hindus. This is not a problem for the Hindu, because in his or her universe there is no thing, in physical space or in the imagination, that is not God. This is incredibly important, because what it provides for the believer is infinite creative liberty where the mind and spirit are concerned. As for material existence, philosophical Hinduism is fairly firm in its devotion to nonviolence, but in the realm of the creative drive that is our inheritance as beings made in the God's image, its bounds are unlimited.

This is at first a frightening thought. Indeed, a terrifying thought to the fundamentalist element in most traditions. Growing up in a conservative Protestant denomination, I would quickly be seized with terror if I happened to have a thought contrary to the accepted religious formula and would hastily ask God's forgiveness over and over to the point of despair; so vivid for me were the threats of eternal damnation awaiting heretics who do not keep their imaginations in check. We were taught to resist "unorthodox" ideas and were discouraged from allowing curiosity to bring us into contact with others who had such ideas. Not too long ago, it was with empathy and understanding that I first read of C.G. Jung's boyhood vision of God defecating on the cathedral. Such thoughts devastated me as a child, and I felt helpless in preventing them, thinking myself soiled and sinful.

But I have come to see that it is not ungodly to allow our imaginations to roam; and in fact, it is most imperative that they do. For the unfettered Hindu, this great liberty has fostered what I have come to believe is the most theologically advanced faith tradition known to humankind. For, as we Christians juggle and shuffle our traditional formulas, searching for new combinations in the puzzle of our faith that will provide answers to our present situations, the Hindu visionaries have transcended all formulas and christened all the universe as sacred in every conceivable form of matter, mind, and spirit. To allow the mind to soar to unprecedented heights, to journey into unexplored territory is not for the Hindu a sin and a threat to one's eternal security, but an ecstatic exploration of the infinite mind of God.

What do we gain, then, as Christians, in exploring this most alien faith tradition? What gifts do Shiva, Vishnu, and the rest of the Hindu pantheon bear to us in our communion with their faithful? The liberty to soar. Jeremy Taylor has said that "either the universe is a safe place to play or it isn't." With Jeremy, I believe it is a safe place to play. What is called for from us is courage. We have been unwitting captives in a foreign land that has raised us to suppress our abilities, to destroy our inheritances, and to deny the freedom that should be ours through the Gospel. And like the Israelites, newly liberated from Egypt, we have a choice to make: we can follow the Spirit as she leads us into the promised land that God intends, which will involve getting used to a whole new conceptual terrain-indeed a new paradigm already unfolding in the collective consciousness of our race-or we can cling to what we know, and with the fundamentalists of our traditions, harden our hearts and remember with fondness the leeks and onions we knew in an age of barbarism and slavery. If we do not go forward, then we damn ourselves and our children-and our children's children-to a joyless subsistence in a wasteland of our own creation. And we can be reasonably sure that our choice will affect more than a mere 40 years of our planet's history. It will decide its destiny.

It is not dangerous to dream. We are in danger if we fail in our responsibility to follow the Spirit into places we know not of, even deserts or dungeons. And we must not fear to make mistakes: we must trust that the One who has created us is also faithful to shape and correct us, as the potter revealed to Jeremiah. Our fellow journeyers in the Spirit in the Hindu tradition have already dared to dream, whereas we have not yet begun, even though the apostle Paul told us so long ago that there is "Neither depth nor height...that can ever separate us from the love of God." (Rom 8) The Hindus have liberated their imaginations; yet we have not, even though the apostle revealed to us our freedom in Christ to exercise our Divine right as co-creators of the Universe. (Gal 5) Our Hindu brethren have found God in all that is conceivable, whereas we have not yet found the eyes to see this, even though we have already heard the Psalmist and the mystics say that there is no place in the universe where God is not. (Ps 39) For what have we to fear, when there is no place we go alone?

I do not deny that this can be scary; I still scare myself, such as when I first read Matthew Fox's The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, and it occurred to me that the second person of the Trinity includes me! But we must remember that the heroes of our faith faced identical opposition, from within themselves and from without. We must be willing to suffer the scorn of our tradition's leaders, even unto death as did Jesus and St. Joan. We must dare to dream of justice, as did Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King, Jr. And we must have the courage and humility to receive the gifts our sister traditions bring to us in peace as we dream of being, and learn to become, a planet full of a People of Faith.