[MF] faith, hope and love

[Muzikhed at aol.com]

Kevin Wrote:

For a more eloquent explanation I would refer you to a book by 
James W.  Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human
Development  (HapperCollins).  The following are taken from the 
opening  pages.

- What are you spending  and being spent for?  What commands
and  receives your best time, your best energy?
- What  causes, dreams, goals or institutions are you pouring out
your life for?
- As you live your life,  what power or powers do you fear or dread? 
What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
- To  what or whom are you committed in life?  In death?
- With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and
private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you  love?
- What are those most sacred hopes, those most  compelling
goals and purposed in your  life?

These are questions of  faith.  They aim to help us get in touch
with the  dynamic, patterned process by which we find life
meaningful.  They aim to help us reflect on the centers of  value
and power that sustain our lives.  The  persons, causes and
institutions we really love and  trust, the images of good and evil,
of possibility and  probability to which we are committed - these
form the  pattern of our faith.

--------------------------------------------
David had (previously written):
After looking for a little while I realized that they were 
all  Christian sites of one sort of another and that Kevin's terms are mostly 
 
theological or merely sentimental and not particularly philosophical. So it  
seems to me that what's missing from the MOQ is Kevin's favorite sentiments  
and religious beliefs. Its easy to understand that Kevin might not like that  
too much but, philosophically speaking, I see no problem with that. I mean,  
as an anti-theistic system, the MOQ isn't supposed to be compatible with  
theological concepts.

"God is gentleman through and through. And in  all probability Episcopal  
too."

Thanks.
dmb


Ted responds:        (whew, here I go  again!)
 
    First, thanks David for the input.  
 Thanks, Kevin, too, for the adding depth to your meaning.  It's  shifted 
from some relationship quality over to 'questions of faith'.    In your prior 
post with the story of Bill & Henri, I noticed the Christian  source, obviously.  
It reminded me of a book my sister sent me in  1975, which I read, called 
'The Cross and the Switchblade".   I didn't  want to say it, but once I started 
trying to 'listen' more, to draw you out,  it started to feel like I was being 
led into a more  Christian context.   
 
 Those questions of faith you listed above sound just exactly like the  
reasons my sister joined the Word of God community in Ann Arbor in the mid  70's.  
Maybe you've heard of the group.   It was an  energetic community full of 
Christian zeal - and Christian faith to the  max.   
A lively example of that charismatic, fundamentalist Christian movement in  
America.   I went a prayer meeting / recruitment session in the  mid 70's - 
healing, speaking in tongues..  A whole lot of faith on  fire.   For those 
unfamiliar, this "Christian Community" was not a  separatist type group, rather, it 
integrated fully into the broader secular  community, in this case Ann Arbor, 
Michigan & surrounds.  Made up of  hundreds of families and individual, they 
were constantly having prayer  meetings, seminars, social functions, and 
helping each other personally and  professionally.  It was sort of 
cross-denominational, I  thought at first - but they stamped it so hard with their own thing 
that  it didn't matter much where anyone came from. 
 
 In 1991 the group disintegrated, after a rebellion of truth from  within. 
Things didn't really go the way the leaders had said.   The kids didn't grow up 
right - the marriages didn't work out right - They  had all that faith in God, 
they really did, but something - lots of things -  went terribly wrong!   I 
hate to say it, but I think 'faith' was  involved in things going so wrong.
People trusting too much, when they should have been thinking for  
themselves.  I saw it happen to my sister... she was searching for a way to  plug in to 
something positive - for God, for other people - for all the right  reasons, 
she thought.  But I saw one more thing:  she wanted to  stop making decisions 
for herself, she was tired of struggling to find the truth  herself, she wanted 
help with that.  So, she made one choice, one day, one  time, and then, no 
more tough decisions - because after that, Jesus was in  control - and the 
"Community Heads" could guide her in her channeling her effort  toward God. 
 
 I'd like to give an excerpt from a grass-roots initiative report by  some 
Word of God members written at the time of the group's  break-up.  
 
"                                                April , 1991
Dear Brother and Sisters,  
    Many opinions about the exact nature and cause of  the current situation 
of The Word of God are readily available.  And while  there is much variety, 
there is also notable overlap.  This is apparent  when we all look at our 
experience of "the early days."  They were days of  zeal, hope, and renewal kindled 
by new and life-changing encounters with a God  more great and glorious and 
more personal and relevant than any of us would have  dared to imagine.  We 
were full of love for our God and wanted to share  that with any and everyone, 
especially those who wanted to do this in an  explicitly committed and "radical" 
way.  To those of us looking for that  something more than we had yet seen, 
the promises of "community" were strongly  appealing and of the sort that made 
us eager and willing to pay any price, for  we had found the pearl of great 
price!
    Yet from the beginning many noteworthy leaders and  onlookers outside 
expressed and re-expressed serious concerns - not for our zeal  or for the 
clearly divine work God was doing - but for how much of that was  being controlled, 
directed, and interpreted.  It is also true that from the  beginning we did 
not give much attention to those who questioned us, choosing  rather to see them 
as unenlightened, or as sources of persecution.  And  though we are somewhat 
late, it does appear that the Lord is challenging us to  actually stop and 
seriously, humbly, and fearlessly consider what those critics  have had to say. 
 
... In learning about the dynamics of intense closed (totalist) groups we  
were surprised to find a multitude of similarities. ...
 
    At this point may we simply present to you those  cult-like traits which, 
shall we say, "sounded familiar":
Elitism
Required re-education/indoctrination (thought reform)
Emphasis on a doctrine/teaching over the individual group members
Mistrust of others outside the group
Not reality testing outside group
Extreme privacy of information
Use of layers of truth
Hidden agendas
Much emphasis on behavior modification using group leaders as primary  models
Great difficulty moving out of group
Pyramid-shaped operation - leaders at top
Top leaders have absolute control and authority
Those in charge have verbal ways of never losing
Special or elitist knowledge
Use of loaded language
Members feel guilt for having questions / disagreements
Little time lest for self and even dissuasion from using time for  self
Controlled source of doctrine
Presence of guilt, shame, manipulation, some verbal abuse
Loss of privacy
Rejection of old self, values, goals, dreams
Replacement of relationships
Reforming of identity and, potentially, of personality
Childlike dependence
Use of selective recruitment process
 
We want to underline that our report is a grassroots initiative and is not  
an official statement of The Word of God.  We found our discussions  healing.  
We hope and pray that brothers and sisters who feel in need of  healing, too, 
will find this report helpful.  May we yet become like the  Lord himself - 
full of grace and truth! "
 
--------------------
Ted continues:
   An awesome listing of manipulative methods, by any standard  !  This 
report was written by the brave individuals that rebelled  against the status quo.  
Examples were given in the full report for each  topic listed above.
 
 
By odd coincidence, my own personal truth rebellion against my  personal 
relationship guilt trap came in July 1991, the same  year.  Something about the 
Chinese student movement in  89 Tienneman Square (the guy in front of the tank! 
) got it going  ...and the falling of the Berlin Wall.  Freedom erupted !   
Did  shake-up type world events have subtle effects on personal stuck  patterns? 
 
 

    So part of my life's experience has been  to see this whole Christian 
Community thing fail -  or splintered  severely in 1991....  I remember arguing 
with my sister in the 80's... she  said then that she thought all Buddhists 
were misled by an evil  man.  Interestingly, now she denies saying that, but I 
remember  better.  I actually was thinking about the question, she was  just 
thinking up answers that equaled Jesus.  Jesus/God was her  only answer.   Now, 
she's a struggling mom, looking for help &  answers, but Jesus is not the only 
answer in the same way.  She can see  other people might be doing parallel 
things - there's not one answer quite in  the same way as before - she's having 
to make more decisions for herself.
 
Another part of my life experience was going to Christian Sunday school as  a 
young child, and taking Jesus's teachings very seriously into my  
personality, to the point where I thought 'turn the other cheek' means 'let  them beat 
you up'   ---  a personality trait that unfortunately  lasted well into 
adulthood.   
 
-- Thus, my particular interest in McWatt's quote of Rahula about the  
balance between compassion and wisdom.  Emotions and Thought.  Social  and 
Intellectual.  I see Pirsig's MoQ fits this very well.  By my  MoQ analysis, 
Intellectual and Social (and biological) should be balanced in an  individual for the 
individual to be balanced, but some individuals will deviate:  some be more 
social, some more intellectual, (and many, many, more  biological!) in the whole 
order of evolution, that is a good thing for the  group, if not for the 
individual. 
 
Kevin - in response to your asking if I wanted to take the discussion  toward 
Lila, that's a good idea, but I was going to recommend that we take a  break 
to let other people and other topics emerge. Also, I can't probably  keep up 
this current level of effort.   Again, I'm relatively new here  on the [MF], 
and I feel I've jumped in way, way more  that I expected. 
 
I need to develop my lurking capacity.
Peace,
 
Ted
 
 
"What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
                                                                              
        - Elvis Costello