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I could not understand how we could possibly learn about religion and Spirituality without discussing God and monotheism, especially in this community. How did God and monotheism become passé, politically incorrect while deep breathing and meditating on the poetry of Rumi, a thirteenth century, Persian, Muslim, Sufi mystic poet became the gateway to one’s soul? When did reciting Rumi become a replacement for and/or an improvement on prayer? How did the poetry of Rumi become an alternative to Psalm 23 of King David, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” or the 22nd Psalm, attributed to Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” How do we talk about Spirituality without the language of the soul; words like forgiveness, repentance, grace, sacredness and gratitude? When did the music of Eastern religions and practices, like yoga, usurp ecclesiastical music from Gregorian Chant to Handel’s Messiah, Mozart, Beethoven and Leonard Cohen?
So, I spoke to the male facilitator about his background. I have been taught by people from many faith backgrounds but I could not discern his background. He had returned to school as an adult and had chosen to obtain his divinity degree in Wisdom Spirituality from Wisdom University, an on-line university. This university provides graduate degrees that “honour the integrity and uniqueness of each and every student.” One of its aims is to “catalyze the spiritual and personal transformation” of its students so that they can become more authentic selves. A major portion of each day is spent on Transformational Art which includes developing intuitive and artistic expressions through mask-making and drumming. He was proud of the fact that his studies in spirituality excluded all aspects of monotheism. His concept of spirituality was totally foreign to me. It was, I suppose meant to be an inclusive ephemeral spirituality, all feeling based. And then I learned that the school from which he had received his degree has no standing in any country and no national government acknowledges his credentials. I truly was at a loss.
It appears that Wisdom University is catering to an emerging cultural group, Cultural Creatives, for whom there are “dramatic and urgent political, religious, economic and social implications for both the existence of this group and the values they hold.” Dr. Paul Ray is the director of the Institute for the Emerging Wisdom Culture that is taught as Wisdom University. The Institute promotes the belief that we are living in a time of duress. “Economic disruption, ecological instability, social alienation, our political incompetence are converging to produce an almost universal sense of unease about whether our systems of government can maintain any sense of institutional normalcy or moral integrity.”Dr. Ray describes these Cultural Creatives as representing a “dramatic departure from the traditional value system of religious fundamentalists.” He describes them as “the emerging wisdom culture.” Dr. Ray wrote that “the old world is indeed dying but not as some think, at the hands of an angry God. The old is dying because something newer, more fundamentally humane is arising in its place. This is the emerging wisdom culture…”(From the website 2011) This is the culture of the facilitator. He brought these beliefs into the room when they should have been left at the door.
This philosophy that he espouses is not new. It is a disturbing echo from the past. Go back and reread the paragraphs about early 20th century Europe’s fear of the future, the rise of Romanticism and the backlash against God and religion for alienating us from nature. The time of The Enlightenment (The Age of Reason) that took place in 18th century Europe changed the way of thinking amongst the new educated elite. For centuries people had lived on the land at the mercy of nature. But Western Europe was modernizing. The culture was moving beyond the constraints of nature, from pastoral to industrial. And with this shift came a change in the understanding of God. Just as one was no longer attached to the ground, to the perfidies of nature, one would no longer be in need of an immutable and divine God.
These were heady times where progress was the new idol, and reason, science and art were undermining religion. An objective reality of God was pursued. Hume, Descartes, Voltaire, Locke, Diderot, Mendelssohn and Kant questioned the traditional beliefs and prejudices of the time, especially those of religion, and emphasized the primacy of reason and strict scientific method. Voltaire proclaimed that the decline in religion would reduce hatred, fanaticism and savagery. “With the decline in the strength of religious creeds… there would follow a concomitant decline in human hatreds, in the urge to destroy another man” because of his religious beliefs. Over time, one would become indifferent to religion and this indifference would lead to tolerance.
There was a pursuit of a new, rational human being, rather than one who only believed. Deism made its debut and was later followed by atheism. According to some, like the Marquis of Condorcet of France (1743-1794), man was infinitely capable of perfecting himself without the assistance of a deity. The Scottish philosopher David Hume believed that reality can be explained by science and there was no philosophical reason to believe in anything that could not be physically experienced Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’Holbach wrote in the early 19th century; “If the ignorance of nations gave birth to the Gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.” By the late 19th century, early 20th century, the theories of Freud, Nietzsche and Marx were devoid of God.
