Disorganized Religion

Charleston notes that this is the rung where we put to work the insights that we’ve gained so far, and he focuses on how to do this in the context of spiritual systems. Key to this, for Charleston, is the concept and practice of “disorganized religion,” a spiritual community that allows its members to hold their own beliefs, expecting them only to participate in the communal celebrations and work together toward a shared hope. He writes, “Celebrating what we hope for together is better than fighting over what we believe separately.” And it's hard to disagree with that insofar as celebrating is better than fighting quite generally. But I’m still confused about what’s confused me so far.

“Organized religion,” Charleston writes, “has told us that we must first agree before we can cooperate. And because these religions have competing truth claims, the chances for agreement are small. Actions grind to a halt.” This helps to crystalize my confusion a bit, because although I agree with Charleston that we don’t need to agree about everything to cooperate about anything, it seems to me that we do need to agree about some things to cooperate about anything. At the very least, we must agree about the goals worth pursuing and about the best means to achieve them. Charleston acknowledges this when he writes, “If we want to overcome the darkness between people of faith, we must be intentional about helping them recognize that they have more in common that what they imagine separates them.” It’s important, he notes, that something is held to be in common. And he encourages intentional, informal, interfaith gatherings as a way to experience this commonality.

Such interfaith gatherings seem like a good idea, but I must confess that I feel some resistance to them. I recently left the Catholic Church because of its position on women’s ordination and everything that position says about the nature, role, and capacity of people like me. Obviously, not all Catholics accept this doctrine, but if I’m in conversation with any particular Catholic, I don’t know they don’t. It’s possible that the person I’m chatting with thinks that I’m less able than a man to represent Christ, or that I have “complementary” gifts despite my own self-understanding, and that possibility hurts. I find it silencing. If I were gay, or transgender, I’d have additional concerns about being accepted or taken seriously. It seems to me that it might be easier to accept the positions of people who disagree with us about “external” matters, like the Trinity, than it is to accept the positions of people who disagree with us about our very selves. So as supportive as I am of interfaith conversations, I’m wondering if we need to bear that distinction in mind.