Higher Education: Far from Christianized

How might universities that are affiliated with a Christian organization, or “Church,” apply the values enunciated and illustrated in the gospels in ways that distinguish such schools as specifically Christian? Do academic administrators at colleges and universities that are formally affiliated with Christianity apply the preachments by Jesus in the New Testament, let alone ask the question? At most, the question, when asked, is usually answered in terms of increasing financial aid, but in the gospels Jesus is not oriented to programs, but instead to interpersonal relations, specially as bear on the marginalized or outsiders in general—the proverbial last being first and most people who regard themselves as first, as last. How might faculty members who delimit their application of academic colleagues to scholar who are on the same faculty, hence at the same college or university? An unlikely example of a Christian values being applied by a professor at Yale, a university whose privileging of exclusivity and thus exclusion is well ensconced (and known) can be contrasted with the organizational culture at the Roman Catholic Church’s official university in the United States. Any cleric administrators at the Vatican who regard the Protestant denominations, or sects, as instances of compromised Christianity might want to take note of the contrast between the Catholic University of America and Yale.

The full essay is at "Higher Education."

Religion Overreaching: Euthanasia

The Nazi program of inflicting euthanasia on the severely mentally ill in the twentieth century can be distinguished from cases in which suffering people with incurable diseases desire to die voluntarily sooner rather than later. In cases in which such people are mentally ill, the question is more complex, especially if the cause of the suffering is mental. In 2026, the Roman Catholic Church castigated a court ruling allowing the euthanasia of a mentally-ill person whose suffering stemmed in part from severe bodily pain and an incurable diagnosis other than that of the mental illness. Ironically, the Church discounted the element of compassion in putting someone out of one’s misery that would only get worse, and instead focused on “the culture of death” even though Jesus is silent on that issue, as well as homosexuality and abortion, in the Gospels. This is a case, I contend, of religion overstepping onto another domains—ethics and medicine in particular—while shirking its native fauna.  

On March 27, 2026, 25-year-old Noelia Castillo died by euthanasia in the E.U. city of Barcelona. A court had sided with her decision to end her life voluntarily “because she suffered from a serious and incurable condition, with severe and chronic suffering.”[1] By this description, I assume that the condition was not that of mental illness even though the latter played a role in how she came to have the condition of such physical pain. So even though Noelia had “struggled with psychiatric illness since she was a teenager, and tried taking her life twice,” the second time (after she had been sexually assaulted) leaving her unable to use her legs, the severe and chronic suffering can be distinguished from her psychiatric suffering.[2] So even though her judgment may have been clouded by her psychiatric illness, the court could use a reasonable-person basis to assess whether the suffering from the non-psychiatric condition was enough to justify euthanasia. To be sure, if the incurable aspect refers to not being able to use her legs rather than a mortal illness, the court’s ruling could be criticized because future advances in medical science could potentially relieve her suffering and even restore the use of her legs, especially given her young age and the advances that would be possible in her lifetime. On the other hand, the combination of psychiatric and physical pain and suffering could be sufficient to justify Noelia’s early death out of sheer compassion. In this respect, the Church’s reaction can be criticized by drawing on the salient of compassion associated with Jesus in the Gospels.

Luis Arguello, president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, said, “A doctor cannot act as the executioner for a death sentence, however legal, empowering or compassionate it may appear.”[3] The hyperbolic language of executioner and death sentence aside, the bishop’s claim that the compassion motivating euthanasia is merely apparent rather than actual can be countered by the fact that compassion does apply to relieving especially severe, unrelenting physical pain that is expected to continue for the rest of a person’s life. That advances in medical science could mean that the continuance-assumption can be questioned does not nullify my claim that compassion to relieve suffering, whether one’s own or that of another person, is authentic rather than merely apparent.

Also problematic, the organization Christian Lawyers put out the following statement: “If deliberately caused death is the solution to problems, then anything goes.”[4] It does not follow, however, that if euthanasia is the solution to some but not any problem, then anything goes ethically. In other words, euthanasia, which follows prescribed guidelines, does not imply nor lead to ethical relativism. The latter holds that if a cultural norm exists in a society, then that is enough to validate the norm ethically.

The reference to relativism, moreover, exemplifies the tendency of religion to overreach into another domain, in this case ethics. At the very least, relating euthanasia to relativism requires some study of ethical theory, which is an academic field distinct from theology. Nor does theology include societal analysis (which in turn is distinct from the field of ethics because norms are not ethical principles). So in making the claim, “we have all failed as a society,” regarding the euthanasia case, Bishop Perez was overreaching from the domain of religion and thus can be reckoned as a dilatant.[5]

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1. Jesus Maturana and Cristian Caraballo, “Catholic Church Criticises Noelia Castillo’s Death by Euthanasia, Saying Society Failed,” Euronews.com, 27 March, 2026.
2 Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Sexual Abuse in Churches: A Turn to Healing

When Sarah Mullally was formally installed in a historic ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25, 2026, a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her vocational background highlights the importance of healing, which was appropriate because her predecessor, Justin Welby, had stepped down because he had failed to address a serial sexual-abuse scandal. It had been important most of all to the victims—boys at a church camp who were sexually molested by a gay man volunteering at the camp—that Welby go. Close to the day of the ceremony, Mullally promised explicitly to attend to such victims, as is fitting and proper for a Christian cleric to do. It is what Jesus Christ would do, whereas he would not recognize the sexual predators or their enablers in the hierarchies of Christian denominations. The contrast itself bears witness to just how far some denominations had fallen from being justified in claiming to follow the principles preached by Jesus in the Gospels. That those sects had been able to do so even while representing themselves as distinctly Christian institutions shows just how power clerics have in beguiling laity.

Mullally emphasized her commitment to “do all I can to ensure that the Church becomes safer and also responds well to victims and survivors of abuse.”[1] Being safer refers to the Church proactively policing its own, whereas responding to victims is a reaction to past abuse. Regarding the latter, she said the Church was “seeking to become more trauma informed, listening to survivors and victims of abuse.”[2] As a former nurse, she could have gone further by saying that she would make her Church into a facilitator of victims getting connected to therapists so the healing process could really begin, for being listened to is just a first step in the help that victims of sexual abuse need in order to heal.

Psychology not being my field, I can only surmise that victims of sexual abuse avoid commitment and instead may engage in anti-commitment behavior, such as having sex with friends and anonymous men or women. Of course, this is not to say that every man or woman who is sexually promiscuous has been sexually abused. Using rampant sex to push commitment away is a defense mechanism that only needs a fear of emotional intimacy to be able to control a person’s life and serially thwart genuine (i.e., intimate) romantic relationships. For some victims, sex itself may just be too painful.

It is precisely because sexual abuse can scar its victims so deeply that Welby’s abject failure to properly handle the case of John Smyth, “who sexually and physically abused young men at Christian camps in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades,” is so damning, especially as Welby was a Christian priest (and Archbishop).[3] This is not to say that such enabling and lack of accountability on such a crime only occurs in religious institutions. Penn State University’s athletic director and football coach looked the other way as an older men molested student football-players in the showers for decades. Even so, it is more shocking when older men molest younger men under a Christian flag.

Sexual abuse by an older man can be tacit, or subtly legitimated because it is camouflaged by a relationship arrangement that gives the younger man the go-ahead to be sexually promiscuity that keeps emotional intimacy away. There is, in other words, a cost to the younger man in being what is known as a trophy. An older man having such a “trophy” younger man bears no cost, as the older man can even be living with another man romantically. That the trophy is being kept from having an emotionally intimate partner of his own is of no concern to the older man who gets to have his cake and eat it too. The trophy may even be deluded into thinking that the older man is his partner. In short, this is sadly very unfair to the younger man, and thus I contend that the arrangement is a subtle form of abuse.

A fear of emotional intimacy, such as motivates a person to push people away when they get too close (such as by using sexual promiscuity), fits well with being in a trophy role. It can be caused by sexual abuse or from having witnessed abusive relationships, or even simply a low self-esteem. Such fear is, I suspect, very difficult for therapists to heal because people who don’t think they are worthy of emotional intimacy will lash out to thwart it in its tracks. This is precisely why Christian institutions could play such an important role in connecting victims of sexual abuse with psychological clinics, rather than merely be good at listening. The damage done mentally is surely very deep. That a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury is a good indication of where Christian Churches could go in emphasizing healing in such cases. After all, Jesus heals in the Gospels.  

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Sarah Mullally Makes History as First Woman Enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Euronews.com, 25 March, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Oman Al Yahyai, “Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby Resigns amid Sexual Abuse Scandal,” Euronews.com, 12 November, 2024.

The Mephisto Waltz

In a retelling of the proverbial Faustian deal with the devil, The Mephisto Waltz (1971) plays out with the deal paying off, as Duncan Ely is able to live on in the body of Myles Clarkson. It doesn’t hurt that Ely is a master pianist and Clarkson has long, spry fingers (and that he has a beautiful wife, Paula). Even so, both Paula and the Clarkson’s daughter stand in the way of Duncan being able to get back to his own wife, and the film ends with Paula making her own deal with the devil so she can live on even though Duncan (and his wife) have already set about her demise. Because Duncan’s “after-life” transition is successful and even Paula, who has been opposing Duncan’s possession of Myles, ends up turning to the devil, the lesson of the film, Faust (1926) is effectively debunked. Besides The Mephisto Waltz, that God does not smite every case of injustice in the world—the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in the 2020s being a vivid and blatant example—may even further instigate interest in Faustian deals with the devil, even though that entity is known to be deceiver and thus not to be trusted. The allure of selfish gain can be worthwhile nonetheless for some people. For Duncan Ely, being able to go on living and gain even more fame as a performing pianist is worth the gamble, and it pays off. The medium of film is an excellent means of presenting the religious level, which is distinct yet interacts with the ordinary world that anchors the film.

The full essay is at "The Mephisto Waltz."

The Vatican Tapes

After The Omen (1976), which was released just two years after the sardonic U.S. President, Richard Nixon, had resigned in utter disgrace from the presidency amid much economic and political pessimism in the 1970s generally, moviemakers got busy on stories involving demon-possession. The 2015 film, The Vatican Tapes, begins as an apparent demon-possession case and thus seems not to stand out among other such films, but towards the end of the film, when the demon-possessed young woman suddenly breaches the bounds of the sort of supernatural feats of which demons are capable, the true significance of her case emerges with stunning clarity. For that which possesses and kills the young woman is none other than the Anti-Christ, and that figure is in a wholly different league than demons.

The full essay is at "The Vatican Tapes."

Pope Leo on the Cinema: A Distinctively Religious Role?

As “part of the Vatican’s efforts to reach out beyond the Catholic Church to engage with the secular world,” Pope Leo spoke with actors and directors on November 15, 2025 about the ability of film “to inspire and unite.”[1] He spoke to the filmmakers about film itself as an art, and what it can do socially. What it can do in a distinctively religious sense was oddly left out. I submit that leaving out how film can contribute to spirituality wherein a transcendent is explicitly included, while instead discussing the social functions of film not only limits the potential of film, but also ironically marginalizes a significant potential of film ironically in the pope’s own field.

Speaking generically about the medium of film, Pope Leo stated that it “articulates the questions that dwell within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we didn’t know we needed to shed.”[2] There is nothing distinctively religious or spiritual about these features of movies. Two of the pope’s favorite movies, “Ordinary People” (1980), which was filmed in the pope’s hometown, Chicago, and “Life is Beautiful” (1997) are known for their psychological aspects: a family dealing with one son’s suicide and another family dealing with the Nazis in Europe. In fact, neither film includes anything religious or spiritual. Admittedly, since the works of Sigmund Freud were published, it has been tempting in Western culture to reduce religion to psychology, or to conflate the two distinct domains if they were the same. The increasing secularizing of North America and Europe in the twentieth century no doubt played a role in reconfiguring religion as it were isomorphic with another domain. Had the faculty and librarians at Harvard, including Larry Summers and Ben Friedman (both economists), not been so rude and even brazenly passive aggressive toward me while I was conducting research there on the category mistake by pulling the weeds out of the religious garden to find what lies underneath as the native fauna distinct to religion, I might have written a treatise on religion sui generis. At a certain age, however, a person can simply ask oneself, do I really want to contribute to the American academic academy? But I digress.

In his talk, the pope went so far as to make a political or cultural statement regarding the ability of film to not merely console, but also challenge people by including marginal voices. In its “noblest sense,” he said, the “popular art” of motion pictures is “intended for and accessible to all.”[3] Rather than urging theater-owners to charge poor people less, the pope was advocating that different points of view, presumably on social, economic, and even political matters, be included in screenplays. To be sure, such a function of film—to widen popular debates to include more perspectives—would be of great value to a society, given the phenomenon of “group-think,” which George Orwell discusses in his book, “1984,” and the self-interested strategies of business and political elites to artificially narrow what is debated to keep truly challenging perspectives from being aired.

Nevertheless, a religious leader overreaches in putting such an emphasis on secular, ideological concerns, including “affirming the social and cultural value” of people watching movies together in a movie theater without mentioning that high ticket prices keep out the poor and so they should instead be watching movies alone, assuming they have laptops and wifi. That the advent of computer technology has made an expensive ticket at a movie theater optional suggests that the pope’s nostalgia in addressing filmmakers in 2025 was partial, as is the case with any ideology. That he inadvertently put unneeded pressure on poor and even lower middle-class people to pay steep ticket-prices so they can be included in “uniting” with other people merely in being in a dark room together reacting similarly to scenes in a movie, supports my point that he should have stayed with his knitting, which is a saying in the book, In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman, whose main point is that companies should stick to what they are good at, rather than wander off in a Zhuangzian fashion into other lines of business to get more in profits as a Mohist would.  

The pope’s focus on matters that were not directly in his forte not only rendered him subject to correction, but also came with an opportunity cost in terms of the foregone benefit that a talk on the potential of film in theology or spirituality would have had instead. Even in saying that “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) and “The Sound of Music” (1964) were two of his other favorite films, the pope did not mention films among his favorites that are centered on religion, and even more surprisingly absent, on the Gospels in particular, such as “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965), “The Passion of the Christ” (2004), “Jesus” (1999), “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), “King of Kings” (1961), and even “The Nativity Story” (2006), "Mary" (2024), and “Ben-Hur” (1959). “Jesus of Nazareth” (1977), albeit a television mini-series though with an astounding cast, was undoubtedly formative for the pope, as he was a college student when the show first aired. I remember well watching that limited series as a boy. As a college student then, the pope would not have missed such a series.  I remember what the very religious college students in the years soon after the pope had graduated; they were very focused on their religious faith. One Baptist student curiously in ROTC used to come (uninvited) sometimes into my dorm room while I was studying at night to pray for me because my roommate was an evangelical Christian. This was nothing compared to the Calvinist cult I would encounter at Yale’s divinity school and then the “woke” cult at Harvard’s divinity school. But I digress (again).

I contend that Pope Leo missed an opportunity in 2025 to address filmmakers about how film can address theology, as well as related though distinct things like metaphysics, the supernatural, science, and morality. For example, theology in terms of two different interpretations of the Kingdom of God is salient in the film, “Mary Magdalene” (2018), especially when Mary and Peter debate two very different yet valid interpretations of what the Kingdom of God is. The question of the woman’s place among the disciples is an element of the film, but as Mary and Jesus are not romantically or sexually but only spiritually close, the feminist angle between Mary and the rest of the disciples is kept secondary. For the pope to have highlighted that angle, his take on contemporary culture could have eclipsed distinctly theological questions regarding the Kingdom of God. Even the Catholic Church’s stance against women becoming priests is not theological, and the closeness of Mary to Jesus in the film, plus The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, can inform that Church’s stance on that issue. But I digress (again).

Besides theology in and through film, how a character’s experience of distinctly religious (or spiritual) transcendence can be acted and depicted in a film visually would have been an excellent topic for the pope’s talk. That films have effectively portrayed two different realms, even simultaneously as in the film, “The Others" (2001), in a secular, otherworldly context, means that the medium of film could do a lot more when it comes to visually and verbally hinting at a distinctively religious or spiritual transcendent, which can be grasped (to a point) as something that is inherently beyond the limits of human cognition, perspective, and emotion.[4] Ironically, religious leaders may be most useful in speaking to a secular audience by highlighting how the domain of religion is distinct, rather than in trying to be influential in secular, ideological terms. Pope Leo should have stuck to his knitting, for the potential of the art and medium of film in depicting spiritual and institutionally-religious matters is great, and on this point I most certainly do not digress.

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1. Nicole Winfield, “Pope Leo XIV Celebrates Cinema with Hollywood Stars and Urges Inclusion of Marginal Voices,” APNews.com, November 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. I am drawing here on the work of Pseudo-Dionysus, a late 6^th century Christian theologian who stressed the ineffability of God.

Integrating Our Humanity and Divinity

Dayal Gauranga spoke at Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga conference in 2025 on how spirituality can complement psychology in the healing of past traumas. He explicitly related religion/spirituality and psychology; my question is whether he succeeded, and if so, what put him past the finishing line. I contend that even though at times his use of spirituality lapsed into psychology (i.e., conflating the two domains by psychologizing spirituality), at the end of his talk he related spirituality to truth, which is not within the purview of psychology. By truth, I mean religious truth, rather than, for example, 2+2=4.  I contend, moreover, that disentangling religion from other domains by plucking out weeds from other gardens so to be able to uncover and thereby recognize the native fauna in the religious garden, as well as pulling the religious weeds that have been allowed to spread other gardens is much needed, especially in a secular context. It is with this in mind that I turn to analyzing Gauranga’s spiritual-psychological theory of healing oneself of traumatic wounds.

Gauranga began his lecture by discussing two patterns that inhibit spiritual development. One is struggling with everyday human experience because of childhood conditioning, ego, and unresolved wounds.  The second is engaging in spiritual bypassing by using spiritual practice to avoid pain rather than transform it. Transforming hurt into a sense of wholeness requires a person to integrate one’s spiritual dimension with one’s embodied (i.e.,, materialist) daily experience.

The process of overcoming the obstacles begins with identifying unresolved psychological pain, even if it is due to a wound from long ago in childhood. Gauranga’s main point is that spirituality can be used in the healing process; it is not only psychological. What, then, is spirituality? One view is that it is the understanding of, connecting to, and living as our authentic self, which is not material. I believe he had Advaita Vedanta in mind here. A person is not one’ bank balance, one’s insecurities, one’s job title, etc. Rather than leave these things behind, the task is to integrate them with one’s spiritual dimension. In Vedanta meditation, the key lies in getting in touch with one’s self not as ego and definitely not as the id, but, instead, as a one’s seat of consciousness. I contend that the seat goes beyond being conscious of things, including one’s own personality and desires. By a person getting in touch with one’s seat from which one is conscious of even oneself as an embodied creature, Gauranga claims that it is possible to turn inward in compassion to heal the wounded parts of oneself, such that the person can be restored to wholeness, which includes being spiritually connected to other people. Gauranga cleverly brought up the notion of a cybernetic system, such as a thermostat in a house that regulates heating and cooling, that responds to external stimuli and returns to a homeostatic state of equilibrium. If the temperature in a house gets too high, the thermostat is triggered to bring the temperature back down to the temperature-setting. Human beings have such a system internally; we can return from unalignment to spiritual wholeness.

It seems to me that by drawing on the theory of Gregory Bateson in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind, our species can, if it has the will, enable the planet’s carbon dioxide thermostat to function to being the atmosphere and oceans back to equilibrium. Whether that includes our species may depend on how long until, or even if, we will it collectively, as a species, and back up our will with political power. Bateson theorizes the maximizing, schizogenic forces, such as our species is described by Agent Smith in the film, The Matrix, can piece ecologizing forces that are oriented to equilibrium. Perhaps in terms of psychology, the human psyche has both types of forces instinctually. Gauranga’s point can be interpreted as adding that the ecologizing forces that are part of a person’s mind can involve spiritual wholeness, which the schizogenic self-maximizing force of the mind as ego can, unfortunately, knock off kilter, and thus off from equilibrium.

Gauranga applies his notion of spiritual wholeness both to a person and to one’s interpersonal relations. In both respect, compassion plays a key role. It is precisely in being compassionate to one’s wounds from past trauma that one self-heals. I contend that this does no obviate the need for psychoanalysis by a trained psychologist. In fact the defense mechanisms that can even come to be imbedded in one’s personality can become so engrained that therapy is needed for a person to be able to recognize them. A person could then apply compassion to those internal distorted mechanisms too. Once psychologically and spiritually healed, and thus rendered mentally and spiritually whole, a person is freer internally to be compassionate in one’s interpersonal relationships and external spiritual connections.  

In short, we can discover and reconnect to our inherent sense of self, and thus compassionately relate to the parts of us that have been wounded by past traumas. In other words, a person can integrate one’s body, psyche, and spirit and thus be whole. Krishna’s first and final advice to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita is to surrender and fear not. From a standpoint of less fear, a person can approach one’s spiritual connections in the world with broader compassion, as in Augustine’s notion of benevolentia universalis.

Recognition of one’s own spirituality and materiality/biology includes reconnecting with one’s body in the present moment, rather than in recalling past trauma. Spirituality does not lie in forgetting that we are embodied, which includes the brain. Then can come recognition of the mentally and spiritually wounded parts of oneself and the related psychologically protective defense mechanisms, relating to those parts of oneself with compassion and curiosity. By this means, a person can release and repair those burdens so to be able to return to the deeper self and free up one’s connection to the sacred. That is, a person’s spirituality can be a means by which recurrent pain from past trauma can be healed. Having sketched Gauranga’s theory of healing, I now turn to the question of whether his theory adequately distinguishes spirituality, and thus religion, from psychology. From the standpoint of the religious “garden,” I want to pluck out weeds from other gardens to be able to find what is distinctly and uniquely religious in the theory.

Inherent spiritual being, which is one’s own self below all the crap, is not reachable by a cognitive process, which, Gauranga claimed, is psychology. This may be a reductionistic claim, however, as psychology involves emotion. The pain from past traumas is itself emotional rather than cognitive. Presumably psychotherapy includes a patient feeling unpleasant emotions rather than merely thinking about or analyzing them. Reducing psychology to cognition is thus problematic. Gauranga’s claim that psychology is limited to the mind is more fitting, if the mind is understood to include the biology of the brain. Cartesian mind-body duality can by the twenty-first century be shown the door thanks to natural science. Gauranga asserted that a person’s authentic self (atman) goes beyond the reach of a person’s mind. Certainly atman lies beyond the stench of ego, but Gauranga was saying something else: using the mind to cognitively know one’s self at its very foundation or ground falls short. To be sure, because the mind (i.e., concentration) is used in meditation, which is oriented in Vedanta Hinduism to realizing one’s ultimate self as identical to brahman, distinguishing psychology from spirituality is not so clear. However, experiencing “pure” consciousness as being itself as a person’s real self can be said to transcend the mind because thoughts are arrested as the person is just aware of one’s being. To be aware does not mean that the mind is aware of anything other than awareness itself. Having focused on a repetitive mantra, prayer, scriptural passage, or divine attribute in a bhukti (i.e., lovingly devotional) way, the human mind can suddenly just stop, and just be aware. A person is then simply part of awareness, which as universalized is brahman. The person is not thinking about lunch, Krishna, Jesus, or even oneself, for thinking itself has stopped. Even the passage of time is not noticed. In this respect, spiritual experience does not reduce to, or even include, psychology because both thoughts and emotions have stopped.

Gauranga is on less firm ground in asserting that compassion towards a person’s own psychological wounds is spiritual in nature. Compassion is a virtue in philosophical ethics. Furthermore, David Hume asserts that sympathy, which can give rise to compassion, is involved in making a moral judgment regarding other people’s motives and acts. Lastly, Freud posits the psychological existence of not only the the id and ego, but also the superego, the latter of which is in a mind saying what the person (or another person) should think, feel or do. Freud’s concept of the superego, which is psychological in classification, is very close to compassion. To wit, I should be compassionate, and you should be compassionate.

Therefore, compassion itself cannot be claimed to be distinctly spiritual even if it is a byproduct of the realization experientially and cognitively that one’s real self is identical to brahman, which is infinite being that is conscious, powerful, and, according to Ramanuja, blissful as well. To be sure, compassion is no stranger to religion, as the personifications as Krishna and Jesus illustrate. Compassion is part of what Gauranga called “spiritual connection.” I’m sure he would agree that such connection is not the same as what is described in social psychology textbooks. In this respect, it is crucial that he brought in the notion of (a) higher being as being foundational to spiritual connection. Whether as one’s real self as being realized as identical to the transcendent, inherently unmanifest brahman, or as a deity such as Krishna, including a transcendent extratextual referent distinguishes spirituality as qualitatively different from psychology, and even as unique, as sui generis.

Interestingly, religions in which religious belief is important have a harder job in claiming that spirituality is distinct from Gauranga’s cognition-delimited notion of psychology. Spirituality can be distinct even from a more expansive definition of psychology. A “straw-man” is not needed for religion to survive the modern onslaught of psychology. Neither must psychology set up a merely “straw” definition of spirituality to resist its encroachments! The saying of politicians that everything is political also gets at the maximizing (schizogenic) nature of human domains. In claiming sovereignty or rights to wholeness, religion too can be understood to schizogenic rather than ecologizing. From the standpoint of other domains, the hyper-extended right of sovereignty that religion claims stops at its borders. This does not invalidate the distinctly religious meaning, which would represent an overreach onto the territory of religion by schizogenic forces in another domain.

The key, I submit, to Gauranga’s claim that spirituality is distinct from psychology lies in the type of referent that anchors a person’s spirituality. In asserting that “any real healing includes the spiritual self as a healing agent” as distinct from the psychological self (i.e., the mind), Gauranga added that “reconnecting to the truth of what we are is spiritual” rather than psychological in nature. Truth. In including that word, Gauranga successfully supported his claim that spirituality is distinct from psychology, for the latter domain does not include making truth claims, just as history too cannot. Faith narratives are not historical accounts, whether in authorial intent or written content, for drawing on historical events (and adapting others rather than merely adopting them) is not the same as writing a historical account.

In being oriented to one’s true self (atman), and as being identical to brahman, or to loving Krishna or Jesus compassionately, especially in extratextual experience that goes beyond thinking over specifical scriptural passages, a person’s yearning for distinctly religious truth is not within the realm of psychology. Crucially, religious truth is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotion), according to the sixth-century Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius. In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-gita, the vision that Krishna provides for Arjuna of Krishna transcends Arjuna’s cognitions of Krishna’s divine attributes. As Gauranga noted in concluding his talk, Krishna’s last advice to Arjuna is not to be afraid. The vision in the Gita overwhelms and perplexes Arjuna’s mind.

Therefore, the incorporation of truth, as in a person’s true self, or as a transcendent being (i.e., a deity) that is believed to be the Supreme Person and thus ultimately real renders spiritual connection distinctly religious and not just the quality of garden-variety compassion. Even revelation must travel into our realm as through a smoky stained-glass window, according to Augustine. Rather than arriving untouched through inert human nature as pristine, Augustine’s view can be put in terms of the recognition that what we know, perceive, and feel regarding religious truth inevitably must pass through our biochemical processes, which include even our use of reason (i.e., ratiocination). Simply put, even though religious truth is eternal, not material, and infallible, no person alive as embodied qualifies (i.e., not counting souls in heaven or liberated individual selves) for these divine attributes. Even so, a human instinctual (even genetic) urge to yearn for a reference-point that is transcendent may exist even though the referent transcends instinct. Rather than bypassing the psychological work that must be done to heal trauma, acting on such an urge by meditation, bhukti, ritual, or prayer can provide a transcendent sense of grounding that can fortify distinctly psychological therapy and self-healing. Spirituality and psychology can work together without falling into each other, or one conquering the other. 

Interreligious Learning

Jess Navarette, speaking at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga conference in 2025, defined comparative theology as “the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, especially the study of God and of God’s relation to the world.” Because the capitalized word, “God,” is used and usually identified with the deity of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Navarette undoubtedly used the term as a general placeholder for divinity, whether in the form of a deity or impersonal, as in brahman in Hinduism. This begs the questions: what is divinity and could a definition apply to every religion? Answers to these questions can be fruitfully informed by what Navarette calls “interreligious learning” in theology, which in turn is not exclusively applicable to Christianity. Rather than presuming that I have answers, I want to explore how such learning can be fruitful in advancing knowledge of religion as an arguably sui generis domain.  

Navarette, like Geertz, advocates “putting (one’s own religion’s) doctrines and belief systems aside” when exploring what we “can learn about God together”. Geertz uses word, epoché, which means “bracketed,” as applying to what a person should do methodologically concerning one’s own religion, while studying what Eliade called “the otherness of the other.” The stance of an Apologetic in supposing that one’s own religion “is better, more complete, or superior to others” is antipodal, and thus not conducive to such a project as involves the study of comparative theology. This is not to deny that religions make such claims of exclusivity or superiority as regards themselves relative to other religions; rather, Navarette’s point is that insisting in the course of study that such claims be recognized as valid upon other religions is not consistent with interreligious study itself.

A “worse-case scenario” would be for a scholar or practitioner of religion to interlard one’s own religious beliefs into the interreligious-learning process in order to stop interreligious learning from occurring at all; worse still, of course, would be such a person castigating or even killing people who are engaged in the project for “insulting the religion” from the outside or “being a heretic” from within.

Just weeks before Navarette spoke at the online conference, I had been accused by an evangelical Christian student at Yale’s divinity school of being a heretic even though we were discussing Christian theology in what I assumed was an academic discussion at lunch. That my interlocutor assumed that the content of my ratiocination (i.e., reasoning) consisted of my personal religious beliefs stunned me. I was citing scholars, after all, whether or not their theories coincided with my own religios beliefs. Following the logic of reasoning is distinct from having one's own religious beliefs as an anchor. That even my academic knowledge was suddenly being questioned and doubted, and even at times dismissed, stunned me, for I had not encountered anything but great respect for my ideas by students of religion at Harvard.

To be sure, “faith seeking understanding” is an intellectually and theologically valid enterprise even at a secular university, but even such an orientation, which, by the way, I had in part when I was a student at Yale because I was considering the ministry, should not be hyperextended to the extent that the boundary between preaching and studying is pierced or even dissolved. Because Harvard’s divinity school is not dominated by the study of a particular religion, that boundary is safe there even as students do not (and should not) always bracket their own religious beliefs and assumptions in studying religion. This is not to say that Princeton Theological Seminary and Yale’s de facto seminary should not focus on Christianity, for there is value in an organization having a distinct niche. Much would be lost were either school to mimic the conduciveness to comparative study that is at both the Chicago and Harvard divinity schools, neither of which is unipolar. My point is merely to point to a risk attendant to studying religion by studying one religion, mostly or exclusively, where many of the students and faculty are apologists, and are thus susceptible to blurring the line.

My own study of religion began with the assumption that I needed to understand more than one religion to grasp the phenomenon of religion, so I began with South Asian religions, after which I studied Christian theology (and philosophy of religion). I must admit that both my studies and my scholarly output in the academic field of religion have been delimited not so much by the judgments of evangelical Christians who do not recognize any boundary between personal belief and academic knowledge, as by something much more troubling. That some practitioners of one religion in particular, who interlope their respective personal religious beliefs onto the academic knowledge of scholars of whatever stripe—not even recognizing the existence of knowledge as anything but personal religious beliefs—would attempt to kill me even for “insulting the religion” has kept me from doing much with that religion academically. Even non-religious ideologies, such as the “woke” ideology in North America, can have a censoring effect on scholars, by means of intentionally using verbal or written hostility as a dogmatic enforcer having the force of law—a law unto themselves.

The value in there being a boundary between personal religiosity and the study of academic knowledge on religion, wherein the latter is protected from encroachments (or being overwhelmed) by the former, applies to scholars themselves in studying religion. The investigator’s attitude while studying is indeed part of the methodology that is fitting to interreligious learning. The methodology in turn should not be conflated with the subject-matter being studied. The output of interreligious dialogue and learning would be incomplete—and with a subtle bias—if the parts of religions that claim superiority over other religions are simply ignored and thus excluded. That a religion’s claims of superiority should not be allowed to get in the way of the dialogue of interreligious dialogue, whether oral or written, is not to say that that those claims should be excluded from being studied.

In other words, toleration is implicit in the project of interreligious learning, but this does not mean that only the tolerant belief-claims of religions can or should be admitted and subject to analysis. A useful example of such analysis is asking whether Jesus’ statement, “No one gets to the Father except through me,” in the New Testament of Christianity is a claim that is limited to that religion, as the claim’s anchor is the Father, or does the claim mean that everyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior goes to hell (even though hell is an Abrahamic religious concept and is not in every religion)? Ignoring the passage altogether because it might make some people engaged in interreligious learning uncomfortable conflates methodology and the subject-matter being studied, and renders the results of interreligious study partial (and biased). 

As a scholar of religion, I should not exclude the stances of the evangelical Christian at Yale from the content of Christianity as a religion just because he bothered me, but this does not mean that such an attitude should be allowed to eclipse the process of interreligious knowledge. As for the possibility that a religionist of another religion might kill me were I to include a critique of that religion in my analysis of religion, a scholar should indeed be realistic rather than foolish. Even this text is incomplete as a result of prudence, for I have not even named the religion. Reaching completeness of knowledge is a fool’s goal, as we are human, all too human, but even so, we can and should work to obviate the obstacles as much as we can.

Religion, Ethics, and Psychology: Three Distinct Domains

Compassion is so salient in so many religions that it is natural to assume that religious conduct is moral, which is to say that it issues in ethical conduct. Yet, as Kierkegaard emphasizes in Fear and Trembling, the divine decree that Abraham receives in the Book of Genesis translates into murder on the (universally accessible) level of ethics. In being almost going through with sacrificing his only son, Isaac, Abraham is guilty of attempted murder, which is unethical. Abraham’s faith in the validity of the divine decree can thus be distinguished from morality. Unlike ethics, religion is sourced beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions, and is the domain is thus transcendent even as it is also immanent in the world. Even though ethical principles and faith can dovetail, as in five of the Ten Commandments, it is important that the two domains—morality and religion—are regarded as distinct, and thus with their own distinctive bases and criteria owing to the respective natures of each domain. In his book, A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber attempts a mega-synthesis of many fields of knowledge. Such a broad project carries with it the pitfall of making conjectures that draw on or involve domains of knowledge outside of one’s own. I think the risk of such over-stepping is significant coming from both vantage-points in morality and religion (i.e., ethics and theology) when the two domains are mingled or intertwined without due recognition of how they are sui generis, of their own genus (type). Wilber even conflates a third domain, that of psychology, with those of ethics and religion. I begin by looking at morals and religion in general, holding off psychology until I address Wilber’s theory specifically.

In Christianity, it seems at first glance that it would be more difficult to differentiate the two domains, for God, which both Paul and Augustine wrote is love itself, lies in neighbor-love, which presumably includes compassion and thus results in ethical conduct. However, both in theory and practice, unethical conduct may (and has) stemmed from defending the faith, such as in the Crusades. It has been too easy for Christian leaders to relegate or dismiss outright the love-thy-enemy preachment in the Gospels to defend Christ (or His Church) from internal and external threats. Nevertheless, it is difficult to square of love of neighbor, which especially includes (or is epitomized by) love of enemies, with (verbally or physically) attacking and even killing detractors instead of helping them at a human level. Even if Christian faith is ever characterized explicitly and foremost in terms of compassion especially to people who insult or even go after us, faith and morality can still be distinguished as being in two distinct domains whose respective foundations and criteria differ qualitatively (i.e., fundamentally). Most crucially, distinctly religious faith has a transcendent reference point, or source, that is beyond the limits of our realm, whereas ethical theories do not; they pertain only within our earthly realm to personal and interpersonal conduct. Put another way, only God is wholly other, even as God is immanent in Creation; that which is in the created realm does not exhaust God. Otherwise, God could simply be a creation of human understanding, using stuff of this world such as ethical theories to furnish the content of that which is held to be divine.

I contend that religion, or faith, and ethics are two distinct domains even they obviously can influence each other. I am not contending that people of religious faith should treat other people unethically or engage in vices. The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac can be read as the claim that faith in (or, more crudely, obedience to) a divine decree (or revelation, moreover) is not subject or confined to human morality. The divine decree that Abraham sacrifice his only son even though Yahweh has also promised the old man that his seed would populate the land is known only to him, whereas the ethical principle that killing someone is murder is universally accessible to anyone’s knowledge. The Ten Commandments have yet to arrive in the story, so there is no tension within faith between the immorality of murder—Thou shalt not kill—and Abraham’s sacrifice; the tension there is that Yahweh both demands that Abraham sacrifice his only son and promises that Abraham’s descendants will multiply throughout the land. Even in its internal tension, which Yahweh of course resolves in calling off the sacrifice at the last minute, faith is quite another thing than morality, and can even legitimately violate its strictures. The legitimacy if faith as a domain (and a human phenomenon) is not based on an ethical theory or principle; nor, for that matter, is the legitimacy of an ethical theory necessarily based on faith. Even if faith is a factor, something more—something native to ethics—is necessary. The assumption that it is wrong that the innocent suffer is ethical in nature. The qualitatively different assumption that Abraham holds that it is really Yahweh that is commanding the sacrifice is distinctly theological in nature. Only the latter assumption is based on a metaphysic that includes a transcendent (and immanent) deity. Even if the innocent should not be harmed because there exists a transcendent deity, the latter can legitimately nullify this ethical claim, as is the case with Abraham.

When the content of a divine decree is moral, as is the case for half of the Ten Commandments, and in the case of Jesus’ preaching on neighbor-love as compassion towards others (even and especially assholes), the two domains dovetail. This does not mean that the content of faith is exhausted or sourced in ethical conduct; rather, the latter can manifest from faith. Intense, repeated prayer or meditation that transcends the world, for example, may, upon return to daily existence in the world, cause a person to have an enhanced sensitivity in terms of empirical senses and thus to other people, which in turn may trigger compassion, and the resulting conduct may be termed ethical in nature, but the prayer or meditation oriented metaphysically is not itself in the ethical domain and is thus not justified by ethical principles or theory. 

Is it true that a person doesn’t have to be moral to believe in God, by which I mean that of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Whether or not a person unjustifiably harms another person is separate from whether a person has a cognitive belief that an intelligent being exists not only within, but also outside of Creation. Where the substance of that being is believed to be love, including in neighbor-love as expressed in compassionate acts towards other people, and here I have Christianity in mind, then it is contradictory to not believe in such acts while believing in God; failing to do such acts, or doing the opposite, can occur even if the person believes in neighbor-love; this does not involve two beliefs in contradiction. So a Christian cannot hold both that one’s enemies should not in principle be treated with compassion, but rather, with vengeance, and believe in the Christian conception of God. Such a belief, and the related faith in being saved, is for naught, Paul wrote, if there is not love. To be sure, it is possible to hold that enemies should not be loved and still believe that an intelligent being exists outside of Creation, as the first claim involves moral conduct (as well as love) whereas the second claim is metaphysical (or metaphysical-experiential). Looked at from this standpoint, the moral and theological domains can be seen to be very different, and thus distinct, indeed.  

To sum up the argument thus far, even in cases in which the content of a divine decree has ethical meaning or significance, the deity itself transcends the ethical domain because the latter, being that it concerns conduct, is only in our realm (i.e., no transcendent extension). Put another way, the divine reaching into the human domain does not limit the divine to be within the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion.[1] The Creator extends beyond its Creation.

To claim that spirituality (or religious development) is simply a more advanced or higher level of moral development is thus a flawed assertion that conflates two distinct domains. Faith, which can include a metaphysical belief (i.e., that God exists), is not a “super” moral principle, as if religion were the cherry atop an ethical sundae. To put both theology and ethics as intervals on a linear line as if one were a development from or of the other is to conflate two different types of things. This is precisely the error that Ken Wilber commits in his desire to come up with a theory of everything. To understand why, it is necessary to briefly discuss Kohlberg’s theory of moral development because Wilber bases his own theory of stages of consciousness in transpersonal psychology on that theory.

On a macro level of generalization, I contend that psychology, ethics, and religion or spirituality are  different and distinct domains, even though they often interrelate. Wilber, however, treats them almost as synonymous, or at least as de facto species of the same domain. He thus jumps between them in terms of stages of development, such that developing in one domain is necessary before a stage of development in another domain can be reached. His focus is on the incremental nature of growth. He writes, “We don’t go from an acorn to a forest in a quantum leap. There are stages in all growth, including human.”[2] That a given growth is of just one thing, such as moral development, while growth in something else is another growth, is missing from his theory as he conflates growths in different things together.

In his theory of moral development, Lawrence Kohlberg posts six stages, grouped into three levels: preconventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Individual rights and principles of conscience characterize the highest level of moral development. Wilber situates Abraham Maslow’s notion of self-actualization at this level even though self-actualization is in the domain of ethics. Wilber does not provide an explanation for how the ethical contents of individual rights and conscience necessarily correspond with self-actualized people. Doing so is necessary because ethical principles and psychology are two different academic disciplines and domains. Even if the sentiment of disapprobation is ethical judgment itself, as Hume contends, it is not the psychology itself, but what it points to in the ethical domain (e.g., a cognition that something wrong happened from seeing someone lying on the sidewalk stabbed in the back). Applying Hume’s notion of the naturalistic fallacy, an emotion itself merely is, and is thus not an ought. One must make moves to the ethical domain in terms of ethical justification before one can make an ought statement. Wilber merely states that self-actualization is at Kohlberg’s highest stage of moral development, as if the description of psychological self-actualization implied an ought.

Wilber also joins Kohlberg in positing a spiritual stage on top of the moral stages, defying the contention that spirituality (or religion) is distinct from psychology and morality. Kohlberg suggests that a higher level, called universal spiritual, is above his sixth moral stage. For both Kohlberg and Wilber, a person must develop morally through the successive moral stages before being able to reach a state of sustained spirituality rather than just occasionally having peak experiences. According to Wilber, the “genuinely spiritual or transpersonal stages of development (Kohlberg’s stage 7 and beyond) depend on their development upon all of the previous developments in stages 6, 5, 4, 3, and so on. Each of those stages contributes something absolutely essential for the manifestation of stage 7.”[3] But I submit that a spiritual experience, unlike psychological and moral ones, is capable of the sort of “intense interior illumination” that Wilber claims “can profoundly change a person’s life and open [a person] to new worlds, new dimensions, new modes of awareness.”[4] Such paradigmatic perceptual changes may be accompanied by psychological emotions but to reduce the former to the latter ignores the non-emotional aspects of being oriented to a reference point that transcends the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion. Also, having such an orientation in an experience is not in itself moral or immoral; rather, both are transcended as they pertain to our realm, which is within our limits.

Furthermore, there are several specific problems with the claim that a person must pass through stages of moral development before universal spirituality (as distinct from psychological peak experiences, which Wilber conflates with episodic spirituality) can take hold. Firstly, Maslow’s claim that lower physiological needs must be satisfied before a person can self-actualize has been nullified by empirical studies. Someone who is hungry or homeless can attend to the higher need for self-actualization. While this does not necessarily mean that a person can be both at a high and low stage of moral development, as morality is another domain, that the “all lower stages must first be reached” assumption has been invalidated in one domain suggests that it may be invalid in other domains, pending research in those domains. Even if spirituality sits on top of moral development, the stages of the latter may not have to be reached in order to be a spiritual person.

Wilber does not say that all moral stages must be reached before a person can have a temporary spiritual experience. In fact, he claims that a spiritual experience can cause a person to shift one’s moral basis from the approval of other people to law and order. He contends that “a person at moral stage 3 who has a profound spiritual experience might be motivated to move to the next stage—in this case, to stage 4. They do not, under any circumstances, go from stage 3 to stage 7,” which is the spiritual stage.[5] It does not follow, however, that yearning for a transcendent dimension in meditation or for union with God (i.e., having a transcendent experience) in prayer would necessarily make a person feel the need to obey local laws, for example, because doing so is ethical or results in ethical conduct. Also, why can’t a person whose moral campus is set to obeying laws be a spiritual person? Obeying laws is salient in Judaism, for example. Half of the Decalogue is divine laws that have moral content yet the point is to obey God to demonstrate fidelity rather than to behave morally.

Therefore, a spiritual person can have a law-obeying orientation to morality and still not reduce religion to morality. If faith and morality are two distinct (albeit interrelated) domains, then it does not follow that only people who are highly developed morally can have a religious faith or sustained experience. Tapping into universal spirituality in terms of access to another dimension—one that is transcendent—or having an expanded awareness (also with a transcendent aspect), which is how Wilber describes the spiritual stage, need not depend on a person’s recognition of individual rights and principles of conscience.

I am not suggesting that people of faith should behave unethically, or that they should get a pass for doing so. Rather, I am challenging the claim that spirituality is simply a higher-order level of development on top of moral stages. Were this the case, then the content of spirituality could simply be the purest expression of someone’s ethical ideal, which, although of great value, is still a human artifact, or construction. That which has a transcendent “beyondness” (i.e., going beyond our realm, and thus being inherently beyond our reaches) cannot by definition be limited to anything that is within our realm. In Christian terms, this notion has been argued by pointing out that God’s divine power, or omnipotence, being unlimited or full, cannot be constrained or limited by an ethical theory devised by us, for God goes beyond our earthly realm and thus cannot possibly be constrained or limited by it or anything within it. That a divine command can have ethical content, such as Thou shalt not kill, is not to say that God is limited by a human ethic, for the ethical content comes from God in revelation. When we add to such ethical conduct our own ethical principles and theories, it would be impious to assume that God is thereby constrained.

It follows that a person may be spiritual and behave ethically to avoid punishment or for approval from other people; Kohlberg’s highest moral level of development need not be reached. To be spiritual often issues out in ethical, compassionate treatment of other people (and even salient beings, as in Jainism), and this is of course a good thing. People who hurt other people for religious reasons are justifiably condemned, and this is possible because people with normally-functioning brains have access to the ethical dimension of human existence. Divine decrees, and faith, moreover, go beyond such existence to reach its source, or very condition. Being oriented to it is not of ethical content unless a divine decree is itself ethical (i.e., a command how to treat other people). Even then, yearning for union with God in an experience of transcendence cannot be exhausted in one’s conduct in this world because transcendent experience goes beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and feelings. Put another way, if union sought with the divine transcends the self, then how the self behaves in the world cannot possibility reach far enough to match the inner experience. This is not to say that faith and experience that is transcendent cannot naturally issue out in compassionate conduct, but such faith is not a “super” kind of conduct.

Therefore, Ken Wilber is incorrect in A Brief History of Everything in claiming that the “genuinely spiritual or transpersonal stages of development (Kohlberg’s stage 7 and beyond) depend for their development upon all of the previous developments,” or stages of moral development.[6] The term spiritual is not synonymous with transpersonal, as if spirituality were inconsistent with the human ideology of individual and consistent with collectivism. Confining the transcendently-sourced by a human ideology is to place a higher good below a lower one, which Aristotle calls misordered concupiscence. Subjecting spirituality, for faith that has a transcendent aspect, to an ethical theory or principle is better than placing an ideology in the driver’s seat, but the underlying problem is the same: placing a lower above a higher, or a smaller above a larger. The distinction between human ideology and an ethical principle is not as clear as we might suppose, and may even be in part illusionary, as ideological agendas can be adept at clothing themselves in ethical ideals. Wilber’s spiritual cherry atop of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development is anti-individualist, yet union with God need not exclude the individual soul as such. Selfishness and greed are indeed sordid, and they often exclude ethical conduct, but this does not mean that spirituality is therefore transpersonal in the sense that it is necessary first for a soul to transcend or even lose itself. In short, the temptation that comes with placing spirituality atop morality may be to furnish the content from one’s own ideology. So even though we should expect spiritual people to behave ethically, the religious and ethical domains are distinct, and thus have their own respective foundations and criteria. Furthermore, neither should be reduced to psychology, for that domain does not include the logical justification of ethical positions (and principles) and transcendence beyond the limits of not only human conception and perception, but also emotion. In Wilber’s terms, spirituality as awareness of another dimension or reality is not in itself a psychological state.  

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1. I am drawing here on the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.
2. Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Boston: Shambhala, 1996), p. 151.
3. Ibid., p. 150.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Contending Christianities

The films Agora (2009) and Fatima (2020) contain very different depictions of Christianity. By depictions, I mean ways in which Christianity can be interpreted and lived. This is not to say that all of the interpretations are equally valid, for only those that contain internal contradictions evince hypocrisy. The sheer extent of the distance between the depictions shown in the two films demonstrates not only the huge extent of latitude that religious interpretation can have, but also just how easy it is even for self-identifying Christians, whether of the clergy or the laity, not only to fail to grasp Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, but also to violate the two commandments even while believing that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., the Son of God). The human mind, or brain, can have such stunning blind spots (or cognitive dissidence) when it comes to religion that even awareness of this systemic vulnerability and efforts to counter it are typically conveniently ignored or dismissed outright. This is nearly universal, in spite of claims of humility and fallibility more generally, so I contend that the human mind is blind to its own weakness or vulnerability in the religious sphere of thought, sentiment, and action. Augustine’s contention that revelation must pass through a smoky stained window before reaching us is lost on the religious among us who insist that their religious beliefs constitute knowledge. I contend that this fallacy as well as the larger vulnerability to hypocrisy should be a salient part both of Sunday School and adult religious education. For the vulnerability is correctable, but this probably requires ongoing vigilance. That is, the problem is not that the divine goes beyond the limits of human cognition (as well as perception and emotion) as Pseudodionysus pointed out to deaf ears in the 6^th century; the human brain is fully capable of spotting and countering its own lapses in the religious domain. In other words, the problem here is not that of the human mind being able to understand the contents of revelation because must travel through a darkened window before reaching us; rather, the problem lies in grasping what Jesus preaches in the Gospels and putting the spiritual principles into practice, rather than doing the opposite and being completely oblivious to the contradiction, which is otherwise known as cognitive dissidence. The two films provide us with the means both to grasp this problem and realize how much it differs from a healthy faith that has the innocence of a child’s wonder.

The full essay is at "Agora vs. Fatima."

Boy Erased

The film, Boy Erased (2018), is a drama that deals in a serious  way with the question of whether homosexuality is a choice, and thus whether conversion therapy is effective or an ideological ruse under the subterfuge of psychology and religion. Directed and adapted to the screen by Joel Edgerton, he could have dived deeper in writing the screenplay by making explicit the contending assumptions and ideas. Surprisingly, nowhere in the film do any of the biblically-oriented religionists quote the applicable verses in the Old Testament or in Paul's letters, or engage in a theological debate. The film could have gone further intellectually than the relatively superficial emphasis on the dramatic narrative. 

The full essay is at "Boy Erased."

On the Pull of Religious Belief

John Blake of CNN asks, “Have you ‘walked the aisle’ to ‘pray the prayer?’ Did you ever ‘name and claim’ something and, after getting it, announce, ‘I’m highly blessed and favored?’ . . . If this is you, some Christian pastors and scholars have some bad news: You may not know what you’re talking about. They say that many contemporary Christians have become pious parrots. They constantly repeat Christian phrases that they don’t understand or distort.”[1] Making matters worse, such Christians treat their religious beliefs as if they constitute knowledge. This, as well as the presumed wherewithal to claim anything due from God, is highly impious and yet the claimers are certain that they have true belief.

For example, some Christians refer to “the rapture” without realizing that it is out of sync with historical Christian theology before 1850. Marcus Borg, a theologian, makes the point. “’People who speak Christian aren’t just mangling religious terminology’, he says. ‘They’re also inventing counterfeit Christian terms such as ‘the rapture’ as if they were a part of essential church teaching.’ The rapture, a phrase used to describe the sudden transport of true Christians to heaven while the rest of humanity is left behind to suffer, actually contradicts historic Christian teaching, Borg says. ‘The rapture is a recent invention. Nobody had thought of what is now known as the rapture until about 1850,’” Borg says.[2] Representing something as a part of essential church teaching without knowing what one is talking about evinces the “I can’t be wrong” attitude that goes with the de facto presumption, even if implicit, of infallibility. Conveniently, the Christians who evoke the rapture tend overwhelmingly to take it for granted that they will be going to heaven rather than staying around to suffer, but is not the presumption of omniscience worthy of impiety, which, along with greed, is one of the foremost sins?

Many Christians are not aware of the effect that the pull of greed has had through the centuries in decoupling greed from wealth—even from being rich and yet presumed saved. For someone to say, “I name and claim this house as mine" is really just a desire to possess it; the expression "name and claim" is simply a subterfuge for greed (i.e., an instinctual, basic desire for more).  The prosperity gospel, for example, facilitates or enables greed, rather than constraining it. According to Blake, prosperity Christians, who believe that God rewards true belief with material wealth, “don’t say ‘I want that new Mercedes.’ They say they are going to ‘believe for a new Mercedes.’ They don’t say ‘I want a promotion.’ They say I ‘name and claim’ a promotion.”[3] However, it is impious to claim anything, not to mention something as profane as a job promotion. This claim itself reflects a vaunted self-importance that does not account for the flawed nature of man.

Even rational thought, which is typically assumed to be objective, is distorted by ideology and even religious belief. The brain is weak in holding itself accountable, such as in adequately checking its own assumptions (which are subjective).

Perhaps anger (i.e., emotions) can preempt the brain from performing a check-and-balance function on its own products (i.e., assumptions), or, as I believe, the brain has a very weak self-corrective feature, though higher education can strengthen it. If nothing else, in being told, incorrect!, enough, a student can realize just how fallible the mind is. Put another way, the ideational products of the human mind are not as foolproof as we tend to assume. This holds when the mind enters the religious domain too; beliefs are almost always assumed to be facts, and thus knowledge. If this were so, what use would faith be? The religious scholar Joseph Campbell once asked a priest this question only to find the conversation instantly over.

Euthyphro suddenly realizes he had an appointment so he scurries away from Socrates, who has just demonstrated that Euthyphro’s certainty regarding the ethics of turning in his own father for killing a slave is erroneous; Euthyphro does not know what he thinks he knows. Each of us should internalize Socratic questions, as Socrates’ goal in his dialogues is to convince his interlocutors that they really don’t know what they assume they know. We can impose our respective wills on our own minds to prune off branches that claim to be alive but are actually dead, for our brains do not contain enough machinery on their own.

Unfortunately, the defense mechanisms of ideology (e.g., political and economic) and religious belief tend to block any real self-Socratic dialogue from occurring. I suppose this is similar to the denial in an addiction. Are we addicted to our political ideologies and religious beliefs? Do the beliefs we value so have too much pull in the human brain? If so, it seems to me that we could consciously recognize this and fortify checks to counter the defense mechanism. It is so very hard, admittedly, to keep in mind the faith-belief dynamic as distinct when the beliefs feel like empirical facts or facts of reason (i.e., knowledge). It is also difficult to remember to circumscribe assumptions as they are made, for we naturally tend to overestimate what we know and thus can assume.  Of course I’m going to heaven.

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[1] John Blake, “Do You Speak Christian?” CNN, July 31, 2011.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Is Scientology a Religion?

I contend that other domains have encroached on religion, or religion on them, such that the native fauna in religion’s own garden is scarcely recognizable. In this essay, I distinguish psychology from religion using Scientology as a case in which the two domains have been obfuscated. In other words, I want to remove the troublesome category mistake that allows psychological matters to be reckoned as religious. 

After living on the Divinity School quad at Yale for a year, I ventured off-campus to a small apartment. The contrast was stark; as I was unloading my mattress off the U-Haul truck, an old prostitute came over and offered to help me. “And then we can use it,” she said. I politely declined. Once I had moved in, the building’s janitor introduced himself and informed me that the building was owned by Scientologists and he was one as well. Hearing that I was a divinity student, he quickly came up with a thick book on Scientology for me to read, which I did. My reaction was that the substance of Scientology is psychological rather than religious.

The core practice in Scientology is the audit, in which one person helps another in getting rid of hurtful memories. The aim is freedom. Scientologists would say that such freedom is spiritual, but I contend that being free from the pain of certain memories is a psychological freedom because the freedom is mental—of the mind. My aim is not to be critical of Scientology; helping people to dissolve traumatic memories is highly laudatory, even though it is not religious.

Part of the problem has to do with getting carried away with wording. In advance of the launch of Scientology’s television network in March, 2018, a promotional video featured an e-meter. This piece of equipment is described in the ad as ‘the cutting edge of spiritual technology.”[1] The expression, spiritual technology, seems odd, even oxymoronic. “According to Scientology’s website, the electronic instrument is used by auditors in sessions with members to check [sic] they are addressing ‘the correct area in order to discharge the harmful energy connected with that portion of the preclear’s reactive mind.”[2] In other words, the device measures how nervous a person is while bad memories are being targeted for dissolution. Lest energy signal something spiritual, the correct categories are physiology and thermodynamics (i.e., natural science).

Even in terms of cosmology, God is believed to be the source of the universe, including its energy, rather than the energy itself (which would be pantheism). God, in other words, transcends the limits of the universe, rather than being its energy. The harmful energy being picked up by the meter is a physiological effect of a psychological state or change. Such energy, and the audit process itself, lie wholly within the created realm and thus do not satisfy the divine attribute of transcendence. Not even “getting deep” psychologically counts as transcendence theologically speaking, which involves yearning for a beyond that lies beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. The latter term includes emotional feeling. So Augustine’s very emotional erotic pining for God can be reckoned as human, all too human, rather than of a wholly other quality reflecting the transcendence that is distinctly theological. In other words, theological love is not emotional feeling. I suspect that we are so used to conflating psychology with theology that the nature of distinctly theological yearning eclipses our understanding and practice. To transcend emotion, being free of it, may be a freedom surpassing that of the emotional freedom from bad memories.

For more on weeding category mistakes out of religion, see the booklet, Spiritual Leadership in Business.

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1. Erin Jensen, “Scientology Makes Debut with Its Own TV Network,” USA Today, March 13, 2018.
2. Ibid.