I always admired this recording by a Protestant and a Catholic singer for building bridges between sometimes adversarial religious groups. The song identifies the faith, hope, and work of the Spirit as the basis of fellowship rather than human traditions or doctrines. Now the question for me is how far this basis of fellowship can be expanded. It seems to me that apart from extremism, the major religions have acceptance and tolerance built in for those who believe differently. For example, Jesus said do not judge, do not pull up the tares and the wheat, be in the world but not of the world, win the respect of outsiders, do good to all people (not just the family of believers), and receive every tribe, people, and language.
However, logically, if every identity or group is defined by its borders, a hard universalism seems difficult to maintain. Because laws and conscience always arise to help us discern right from wrong and love from hate, exclusion seems to ever have its place. Rene Guenon dissects this difficulty a bit by drawing a line between exoteric approaches (below the line) and esoteric approaches (above the line): An infant once he can identify his mother, equates her initially with her tactile or visual presence; if she leaves the room she ceases to exist and the infant cries. Everyone agrees that it is an advance in understanding when "Mother" acquires for the child a reference more extended than "a certain X in my visual or tactile field." But when we continue up the scale of extended meanings to "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me," men divide. For esoterics "me" will designate the Logos. For exoterics, less supple in their capacity for "spiritual abstraction," in precise proportion as the word relaxes its hold on the concrete historical personage of Jesus of Nazareth, the assertion forfeits its saving power. Another way to indicate the distinction is to say that for the exoteric form and content are less distinguishable. As they present themselves to him as welded together or fused in a homogeneous alloy, he sees no way of having one with- out the other. By this alternate route we arrive at the same conclusion: forms for exoterics are relatively non-negotiable. Esoterics ride them more loosely, knowing that because they are finite they are, at best limited keys to the lock, restricted doors to the mystery.
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Alan>Performing magician, >English teacher, Archives
March 2021
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