Any authoritarian system of morals, whether it ascribes authority to God or the Church (or the Bible), if it is accepted uncritically, depends on the Super-ego. It is opposed to the Christian principle of using eyes and ears to learn for oneself. Both Ego and Super-ego must grow up and forsake infantile fixations.
In the sermon Life Abundant or Life Resisting? published in The True Wilderness Harry Williams asks whether our Christianity makes for a better and happier world or does not. He believed that quite often it does not - that Christianity in many of its forms is not a good but an evil thing. I think the theology of Living in Love and Faith draws on an unhealthy conception of God. The Christian story, it says, “is about our rebellion, disobedience and refusal to depend on one another and on God – a disorder which has infected the whole of creation. This results in a form of Christian teaching that makes the Church of England an unhappy place for me, a gay man.
Wilhelm Reich, the renegade disciple of Sigmund Freud, was driven to try and understand why his patients might want to escape or subdue their bodies and emotions and why, despite that, the body remains a naked source of power. An article about Reich provoked me to realise that although the Changing Attitude England campaign for equality in ministry and relationships is driven to reject biblical fundamentalist homophobic teaching, it also has to become a campaign against the abuse of LGBTIQ+ people by the Christian Church in general and the Church of England House of Bishops in particular. The House of Bishops, supported by various conservative movements and a toxic reading of the Bible, seek to maintain teachings that prohibit intimacy and sexual activity for clergy and licenced lay people, suppressing our bodies, emotions and life energies.
We human beings can feel guilty enough about ourselves and the things we have done without the need for the church to amplify the effect on our shame and guilt. I think feelings of guilt can be hauntingly present all the time and are not easily dismissed by the act of confession of sins and absolution in the context of Sunday worship. Where are the systems that can help people process their feelings of shame and guilt and relieve the pain they feel? One is the process of long term psychotherapy and psychoanalysis and the other is the charism of spiritual direction, also long term.
I have recently been writing about my contemplative practice and what happens in the twenty-five minutes or so of silent awareness each morning that is for me an encounter with presence of God. My presence is very embodied, emotionally and physically aware. Given all the claims Christianity makes about God, the potential for deep, creative change should be even more present in Christian life and prayer. But this experience people seem to find elusive. Why? Why isn’t the church very good at knowing from experience the presence of God? Why is it not very good at acknowledging our bodies as integral to spiritual life?
Last weekend I attended the Heart of Silence conference organised by the Association of Core Process Psychotherapists at Regent’s University in the heart of Regent’s Park. The website said the conference was not just for psychotherapists but for anyone wanting to explore and experience the value of Silence. “Through Silence we are able to deeply listen to ourselves, one another and our Planet and from this place we can act.”
