Prophetic Spirituality

Most of us have heard of “spiritual but not religious” people. This group has been expanding in recent decades, along with the “nones,” those without religious identity. Another group has been shrinking during this same period. It is the “spiritual but not political.”

This used to be the self-designation of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. They were intent on saving souls, not saving the culture. But in the late 1970’s and 1980’s a shift occurred. The Religious Right was born, and the “culture wars” began. Conservative Christianity became increasingly identified with conservative politics. Now it is difficult to separate the two.

I have gone through various phases in my spiritual journey, as I explored the religious and political spectrum. Throughout it all there has been a mystical streak that has come to fruition in the last decade. My life has opened to a spiritual realm that was outside of my awareness previously.

I have called it transtheism, borrowing that term from the Christian philosopher Paul Tillich. It transcends theism to the same degree that theism surpasses atheism. I have also called it Christian nonduality, focusing on our union with God. Some would label this monism, pantheism or panentheism, but it is not an “ism” at all. It transcends religious and philosophical systems. It is direct awareness of the Divine.  

As this new way of seeing has integrated into my human existence, I am once again aware of the tension between the spiritual and the political. Most mystics are nonpolitical. They are concerned with spiritual things, not worldly matters. They are more likely to retreat from the world into a solitary or monastic lifestyle rather than be involved with the affairs of government and society.

Yet there has always been mystics who were active in social causes.  There are numerous modern examples. The most influential in my life have been the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the Hindu mahatma Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi in turn influenced the Baptist preacher Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I have come to see that spiritual union with the Divine does not mean divorcing oneself from cause of justice in the world. This world and its sufferings are part of the Oneness of Reality. This is evident in Jesus’ description of his ministry in the first sermon that he preached at his hometown synagogue. He said his ministry fulfilled this prophetic scripture:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach good news to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

The spiritual involves the political. It cannot avoid it. Not political in a partisan sense. To identify any nation, political party, ideology or religion with the Kingdom of God is idolatry. That is the sin of Christian nationalism today. 

To be spiritual is to be prophetic. Not prophetic in the sense of predicting the future, but in the sense of “speaking truth to power,” standing “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,” as Ephesians says.

To be spiritually prophetic is to be deeply biblical and Christian. It is to identify with the suffering of people in this world. It is to stand with the powerless against the power-hungry. 

As we treat the “least of these” his brothers and sister, so we treat Christ in our midst today. It means to embrace the presence of God not just in silence and solitude, but in the messy world of imperfect men and women. It is to take up the cross of Christ and follow him.