Blessed Assurance

You're Not Deconstructing, You're Growing, part 7

We’ve reached the final stage of faith development. I struggled with this one because for many years I thought it was a goal only found in eastern religions and not Christianity - I suspect I’m not alone.

Many of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that venturing past stage 3 faith is leaving Christianity. Stage 4 is deconstruction and stage 5 is embracing mystery, which is the final stage for most people who go into the wilderness.

What if there is something beyond that?

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley was at a gathering and felt his heart “strangely warmed,” while listening to a reading of Martin Luther’s preface to Romans. Sometime after that, he became a firm believer in what he called, Christian perfection, and that it was attainable in this life.

Paul (of the Bible) had some kind of crazy experience on the road to Damascus. Francis of Assisi, Augustine, and many others had experiences that caused them to step out from the Christianity they were handed and into the wilderness.

Those experiences told them there was more to Christianity than what the conformity of stage 3 has to offer and gave them hope to persevere through challenges of stage 4.

Maybe that’s the treasure that Jesus said a man would sell everything he owned to pursue. Maybe they all caught a glimpse of something so extraordinary that they gave up everything to chase after it.

The final stage of faith is the Universalizing Stage. Fowler believed that very few people reach this final stage.

(This is not the “all paths lead to the same place” kind of universalism that we might be familiar with; one can inherit universalism and spend all of adulthood as a stage 3 universalist.)

Stage 6 is different. Eastern religions call it nirvana; in Christianity it is becoming one with Christ. GenX Americans, like myself, might say that it is “becoming one with the Force.”

Here’s the best way I know to explain this using language that makes sense to me.

“Heaven” is like an alternate dimension and in that alternate space, everything is good. There is no suffering, there is no injustice, there is no sickness or death.

At the end of time, God will make that the only reality. There will be a resurrection of the dead into that new heaven and new earth.

Jesus came from that other dimension and tried to explain it to people and showed them what it will look like, which caused them to change how they lived. He was like a conduit between the two dimensions.

When Jesus died, the barrier between those two dimensions cracked and his resurrection was a sign that “heaven” had begun “spilling into” earth.

Some people catch glimpses of what this will look like; they see little cracks in that which separates this world from the one that is to come. They are drawn to those places and they nurture what is growing. It always looks like rebirth, resurrection, restoration - life.

People begin this work while in the wilderness of stage 4, but the work changes us. Many people will grow weary and give up or they will let logistical concerns or having fun distract them and draw them away. But there are some who persevere and they are transformed into people of hope (stage 5).

In stage 6 is the rare person who can transcend the barrier between heaven and earth, like Jesus did.

Is that possible?

In Catholicism, people are canonized as saints because the Church finds evidence that they do just that. That evidence is miracles done in their name; they use the power of heaven to transform this world.

I understand that this might sound a little too mystical, but I wanted to go through this exercise to remind us that Christianity is more than a ticket into heaven when we die.

I also want us to see how when Christians mature into stages 4 and 5, when they see those cracks, they become awakened to the suffering in this world and they try to do something about it.

There have been times in history when Christianity shifts from emphasizing stage 3 and pushes people to grow through stages 4 and 5. When that happens, they usher in all kinds of social changes and reforms that threaten the powers of this world - money and power.

It would be so much easier for them if Christians would just go to church and believe what they’re told.

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