The Evolution of the Integral Church

Part One

Moving Beyond Traditional Christianity and into the Integral Framework

The image above is a pictorial for the evolution of the church today. Starting on the left, traditional church is self-explanatory. Traditional religion, for many, has been replaced by the modern search for meaning in secular pursuits such as entertainment, sports, science, consumerism, social interests, and gatherings. Postmodern churches are making a valiant try at progressive theology and inclusivity but, in general, along with traditional churches, are often struggling and disappearing at increasing rate. Integral church is represented as a circled community without walls, centered on the tree of life.

In Integral Christian Network, we find some who are very active in their local church, some who just attend a church, while others have given up on church. An increasing number tell us that we are their church. We encourage everyone to do what fits for them.

During a WeSpace meeting, one of our friends asked, "Where did all of this come from?" Good question! So Luke and I decided to describe how we arrived at "all of this" in this series. As with all integral movements, we try to do three things: First, we bring the best of our past while transcending its worst. Then, we research what's going on in the present, what's missing, and how we might integrate the most resonant. And finally, as we evolve, we learn from what is newly emerging for us in our own mystical experience and with others on the emerging frontier. This means we also learn from the beautiful people in our WeSpace groups, where it all unfurls and blossoms. 

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

What we did with our Evangelical background

Luke and I both come from an evangelical, conservative background. We are grateful for the introduction to the primacy of Jesus' life, teaching, and presence with us now that such an upbringing provided. However, we both experienced its many limitations, blind spots, and harmful messaging. We had to move beyond all that, while still carrying and appreciating the gifts it gave us.

We now interpret the Bible and Christianity from an integral perspective and not a traditional understanding. This means we understand the Bible in the same way Jesus understood his Bible, the Torah. He embraced parts of it. He ignored parts of it. And he rejected parts of it.

We take the Old Testament and New Testament seriously as a record of the spiritual evolution of the early Israelites up to the time of Jesus and then the beginning of the early church. That means we see their understanding evolving as they moved from one stage to another. They began in the tribal stage, moved to the traditional stage of law and order with Moses. Then, the prophets leaped ahead and issued calls that foretold what we would call the postmodern stage of inclusivity, rejection of religious forms that are not loving, and concern for the poor and outcast, as well as the earth.

Then Comes Jesus

I find that Jesus began to usher in a stage that was so advanced we don't have a name for it yet.  We best understand what he taught by understanding what he meant in the context of his culture, not ours. Hence the need for good biblical studies. He vigorously criticized his own religion. He rejected the idea that God punishes anyone for anything. Instead, he pointed to God as a lover who includes everyone. He rejected the idea that God acted with a mixture of love and hate, as found in the Hebrew scriptures and some parts of the New Testament. Instead, he proclaimed that God is unconditional love—and only love.

I understand that Paul wrote seven of the thirteen books in the New Testament attributed to him. These are Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. The other letters traditionally credited to him did not come from his radically liberating pen but from conservative writers who advocated slaves obeying their masters and women their husbands.

At each stage, the writers of the Bible shaped everything through the stage or worldview they inhabited. When we know that, it means we don't accept anything in the Bible as true or helpful for today without filtering it through our own integral worldview. So we end up, like Jesus, embracing parts of it, ignoring parts of it, and rejecting parts of it.

Jesus modeled what an intimate relationship with God looked like and transmitted his spirit, his expanded consciousness, to his friends. He predicted that awakened and transcendent awareness would be available to all, starting at Pentecost. He was crucified as a result of challenging the religious and political leaders of his day, sacrificing his life as a result. We understand his death not as a payment to God for our sins, but as a supreme act of love for us. As a model for us to die to our own separate self so that we might awaken to the depths of our being, our Divine Self. The Living Jesus is now present with us in his spiritual body and available for friendship and guidance.

We reject any idea of God sending anyone to an eternal hell. We believe both Jesus and Paul taught that everyone is already reconciled or one with God and destined for heaven, both in the now and the hereafter.

The primacy of spiritual experience over religious belief

As detailed in my books, I believe Jesus arrived at what he taught based on his spiritual experience and living relationship with the God he called Abba. Likewise, the Apostle Paul came to what he taught from his personal experience with God and also the Living Jesus. We perceive a major problem today in Christianity in that it tends to begin and end up with what Jesus and Paul taught, rather than first following their example in what they experienced. Experiencing the same awakened and transcendent mysticism that Jesus, Paul, and the early Christians did, gives us the "mind of Christ" with which to come to our beliefs. What we believe is important, but is secondary to what we experience spiritually. Of course, we test and discern our own spiritual experiences with those of Jesus and Paul, as well as the mystics of the church and other traditions down through the ages and today.

We follow this same interpretive method in understanding the church leaders, teachers, and mystics down through the centuries. We take the most evolved of what they wrote and transcend the worst. We often find the mystics to be the most helpful. 

Learning from contemporary sources

We have found a number of resources among today's most evolved thinkers and spiritual practitioners whose insights we have often incorporated into our understanding and practice at ICN. This includes such luminaries as Ken Wilber, Jorge Ferrer, Raimon Panikkar, and Teilhard de Chardin. This week, let's talk about my friend Ken.

Paul Smith and Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is a practicing Buddhist whose vast framework approaches what may be a theory of everything. I have found his stages of understanding especially helpful, reframing them as tribal, warrior, traditional, modern, postmodern, integral, and beyond. My book, Integral Christianity, goes into great detail about how those stages look in Christian history and today. Ken was radically influential in my spiritual development over twenty years ago and is now a friend. Our recorded conversations of several hours' length about my last two books are available on the Integral Life website. He wrote the Afterword to my most recent book (Is Your God Enough? Close Enough? You Enough? Jesus and the Three Faces of God).

The Three Faces of God

Wilber points out that we see everything from three different perspectives, which he calls the Big Three. A first-person perspective is our subjective point of view as ourselves – an I. A second-person viewpoint is a relational or intersubjective perspective where we connect to others – a We. A third-person viewpoint is an objective one, reflecting or talking about someone or something – an It. In Christian understanding, this forms the basis of the Three Faces of God. Jesus, at times, talked as God being him, to God beside him, and about God beyond him. Amazingly, he encouraged us to do the same!

Wilber also posits a multi-leveled system of altered states of consciousness consisting of gross, psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual states. He believes those states are then shaped and interpreted by the stage of understanding or worldview one holds. Each succeeding stage is move evolved than the previous one. He writes, "The reason worldcentric is better, is more right than ethnocentric, is that it's bigger, it's more encompassing, it includes--it's bigger care, it's bigger consciousness, its bigger compassion." We agree.

He also sees states, in Eastern fashion, as progressing from lower to higher. We differ from him and see them all as important and valuable in our lives. We also tend to shorten the list to three, which we label as ordinary (gross), awakened (subtle), and unified/transcendent (causal and nondual).

Ken once said, "We don't need a new religion—just a more evolved version of our old one!"

In this way, we are not ashamed of our Christian name. We won't let it or Jesus be defined by the worst of those who use his name, nor only from the stages of consciousness that are simply seeing only what they can see.

Seeing Jesus and Christianity from the integral perspective allows us to embrace and come home to our spiritual roots, speaking in our native tongues. While also leaving behind that which no longer serves us and the world.

We can dig deep in our own tradition, while honoring and learning from the best of other religious and spiritual traditions, and move beyond the previous forms, continually evolving an Integral church into the Christianity of tomorrow.

Next week we'll discuss the influence of Jorge Ferrer, Ramon Panikkar, and Teilhard de Chardin. Make sure you’re signed up to the mailing list to be notified!