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Return to Home Page Return to Book Contents & Summary LIVING BELIEF - CHAPTER 6 THE SELF, WITH AND FOR OTHERS: CHURCH In following the traveller’s
journey we have looked at the growth of the self from the womb, through
childhood and adolescence, and into early adult life, culminating in marriage.
We have said that the self is brought into being, is saved from the
dangers which would destroy it, and is grown towards fulfilment, by the love
of others. In adolescence and
early adulthood the person begins to establish his self-identity and
self-esteem in accepting what others think and feel about him.
If this is a true image of himself as essentially good, valuable and
loveable, he will then be able to commit himself to give and receive love in
the fullest way, in marriage. In
a marriage of two people who have a proper love for themselves, and are
therefore able to love each other, each can grow towards maturity, and they
will have the sound foundation of love for themselves and each other which
will allow them to extend that love to bring about the life and growth of
their children. Although the growth of the
self is a life-long process, we can see that the early stages culminate in the
establishment of selfhood, a culmination which makes possible, and is fully
expressed in, the mutual self-acceptance and self-giving of marriage.
We know that the self can still be damaged or lost after this, most
obviously as a result of marital breakdown, or perhaps through the experience
of betrayal in other relationships, or rejection and disappointment in work.
But this stage is a plateau, an end towards which the earlier years and
experiences have been building. What
is it like to be there?
One psychological study described adulthood as ‘one of the best-kept secrets in our society and probably in human history generally’ (Levinson et al 1978) We spend the major part of our lives as adults, but may not have a clear idea of what that stage of life entails or what it demands of us. Psychological studies suggest that this is the stage of ‘maturity’, when a person should have developed sound relationships and values, a proper self-image and emotional stability. The mature person should be able to deal with whatever life brings and should accept responsibility for his actions. The work of Carl Rogers has
had a very beneficial effect in the fields of psychology and psycho-therapy,
emphasising as it does the necessity for listening to people with openness and
empathy, in order to allow them to work out their problems and give them
freedom to grow. One of his most
influential books has the thought-provoking title ‘On Becoming a Person’.
In it he describes the healthy, well functioning person in the
following way: he is realistic in his views of himself; he is increasingly
like the person he wishes to be; he values himself; he is self-confident and
self-directing; he has a good understanding of himself, is open to his
experiences, he is accepting in his attitudes to others.
(p36)
The plateau we have described as ideally reached in the late twenties and thirties could be called ‘being an established self’, ‘being a person’, or simply ‘being an adult’, and we have now seen various descriptions of this state. But now that the person has got there what is he supposed to do? As has been said, this is the longest part of the life-cycle, and it is what the self has been prepared for. Now that the person is an adult, what does he do? When we were looking at adolescence we saw that Erikson suggested ‘intimacy’, in which our personal identity becomes fully realised and consolidated through sharing ourselves with another, as a criterion for having reached adulthood, after which we enter middle life, in our thirties, forties and fifties. This is the stage, Erikson tells us, of either ‘generativity’ or ‘stagnation’ (self-absorption). We either move out, creatively, into life, or we move in, destructively, into ourselves. We have referred to this achievement of intimacy as a plateau, reached when the person accepts and establishes his self-image, and have described it in terms of ‘being a self’, ‘being a person’. But Rogers would describe it as having achieved the freedom to become a person. Our first long years are taken up with the struggle to obtain that freedom. Some may gain their inner psychological freedom earlier because they have been well loved and have been able to accept that love and all that it implies about their value. But for most of us the struggle to achieve our freedom to grow on as a person can be lifelong, and for some it will never happen. Rogers talks of what can happen once the self is soundly established, in terms of the ‘good life’. But he is adamant in rejecting any idea that this is a state of virtue, or contentment, or happiness, or a condition in which the individual is adjusted, fulfilled or actualised. The good life, Rogers tells us, is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. (Rogers p.186) The person living in this process may not always feel happy or contented, but he will know his life to be enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. He says: “This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.” (p. 196) Coming from someone like Rogers, whose professional study of what human beings are like is widely respected, this is very encouraging. If we can achieve that state of true selfhood, of freedom to become, it is our nature to go on towards growth and generativity, and not towards stagnation and self-absorption. To grow oneself as a person is
an act of love. Others have loved
you into life and selfhood; now you show your appreciation of their gift by
continuing the process. You try
to become more and more of the person you are, loving yourself in order that
you may give the gift of life and true selfhood to others.
We have said that a person is a being who is self-aware, and who
thinks, feels and acts, in that self-awareness.
Therefore the process of becoming more and more a person is one of
becoming more deeply self-aware, in and through the growth of knowledge, the
development of the experiencing and expression of feelings, and involvement in
appropriate activities. Our task
in adult life is to grow to our full personhood in knowledge, feelings and
action.
3.
THE THREE ASPECTS OF THE ADULT’S GROWTH AS A PERSON The person who is in the adult process of becoming will never stop learning. He will read what he can, being open to new ideas and ready to study and discuss them. He will try to know and understand the past, learning all that is valuable in his tradition and culture. He will take a proper interest in his present world, and will try to see what the events mean for his time and for the future. He will take time to think at depth, considering his experiences and looking for what is true in all that he learns and in all that happens to him. As he matures, he will share his knowledge and understanding, with his children, with younger people for whom he has responsibility, and with anyone who is following him on the journey of becoming. The adult must become increasingly in touch with his feelings and increasingly able to give them appropriate expression. He should learn to recognise and accept in himself the grief, anger, joy, anxiety, affection he feels and have the ability to show others what he feels in a way that will help him and them to gain and grow from the experiences which cause such feelings. Women may find this easier, but now men are being encouraged to accept and show what they feel; we all need to do it to the best of our ability, and in accordance with our temperament. Our appreciation of nature and of art and of all that is beautiful comes within this area of our development as persons, as do the family and public expressions and celebrations of all those things which are important in our lives. The adult should seek to extend his spirit towards what is beautiful, and he should celebrate with care everything which marks the importance of the individual, the family, and society. Birth, marriage, coming of age, death, birthdays, holidays, national events, great human moments; in adult life we should give them their proper celebration, taking care never to trivialise or sentimentalise them, or to allow them to be perverted by commercial interests. In doing this the adult does not only develop his own sensitivity and his appreciation of the events of human lives; he also shows his children, and others younger than himself, that it is good to have feelings and express them, that beauty is important for us, and that we need such things as the birthday present, the bride’s dress, the funeral wreath, the national flag, in order to give symbolic and effective expression to our feelings. The field of appropriate action, whereby an individual can grow more and more as the person he should be, is of course immense and varied. In general, however, we can say that it may include the raising of a family, work which supports them and benefits the community, leisure and friendships, and help given to others in the wider society. We have said that Erikson describes ‘generativity’ as the ideal state in adult life. By this he means that the adult begins to extend his care beyond his own family and towards others of every kind and generation, and to the world in which he and they must live. And it is not only parents who display generativity but all those who are concerned to help the next generation to grow, and to build a good world for them and for all who will follow them. The years between the thirties
and sixties are the time when life is at full flood. Having established a good self-image we have the freedom to
grow as a person. If in the first
decades of our life we were inward-looking, trying to find ourselves, now in
the prime of life we look outwards, extending ourselves into our world and
trying to make a difference for the better in that world.
Our growth must be in all three of the aspects of our personhood.
If we think and act without feeling we become insensitive.
If we act and feel without thought or understanding we make a mess of
our own lives and the lives of those who depend on us.
If we feel and think but never act we are useless dreamers, making no
contribution, building nothing, helping no one.
If we are not continually growing, and passing on what we have gained
to the next generation to help them towards growth, then we can only wither,
stagnate and retreat into self-absorption.
Self-absorption kills the self: generativity creates new areas in which
the self can grow in giving. This
is the challenge of adult life.
4.
THE DOCTRINE OF 'CHURCH': We have suggested that the doctrines of Creation, Salvation, Incarnation and Trinity can frequently be misinterpreted. The doctrine of the Church is not only equally subject to misunderstanding: it can also give rise to resistance and resentment, especially among young people. They may be quite willing to accept belief in God and Jesus, sin and love, yet may rebel against the idea of Church, seeing it as referring to an authoritarian organisation. We have said that it is normal for young people to pass through a stage of separating themselves from the various forms of authority in order to establish their independence, on their way to the inter-dependence of adulthood; it is not surprising if they find institutional religion unattractive at that time and wish to distance themselves from it. But it is not only the young who may react to the Church in
this way. In the last fifty years many
have become critical of authority and institutions to an extent that has never
happened before, as they have been led through disastrous wars and have gained
increasing access to information about how cynically those in authority can
act to protect their own power and interests.
In our days fewer people are willing to give unquestioning obedience to
any regime or system, having seen what destruction such loyalty can bring upon
the world. People would apply
this same critical attitude to the Church, even if that institution were
perfect in all that it said and did. But
since it is a human community of as yet unfulfilled persons, we know that this
cannot be the case. We have said that all
doctrines must derive from and fit with a religion’s belief about God.
Is the doctrine of the Church really a necessary result of the doctrine
of the Trinity? And in what way can we say that a belief which appears to
endorse an authoritarian system is appropriate to the adult stage of life?
5.
‘CHURCH’ AND THE OTHER DOCTRINES The doctrine of the Trinity
tells us that we can be ourselves only in and through our relationships with
others. ‘Creation’ says that God
made man to grow in a material world of things and facts, time and space, acts
and events, and not in some disembodied or abstract dimension. ‘Salvation’ tells us that
we cannot save ourselves: we are saved by God’s love, and save each other in
showing that love. The Incarnation showed us that if we want to see God and our true selves we must see Jesus in our fellow men and women. It is not difficult to see how
‘Church’ follows from these doctrines: ‘Trinity’ indicates that no one
can be a Christian alone, any more than he can be a person alone, but only in
relationship with others. The
Church is the community of those who are growing together in Christ. Creation: in this actual world the Church provides places for
people to be together, teachings and rituals, activities, prayers, schools,
feasts, and all the things which help a person to work out and live his life
religiously in a real world. Salvation: the Church, in each
of its members, is the vehicle chosen by God to bring his saving love to every
human being. Incarnation: the Church should
be an incarnation of God’s Spirit in the world; it should make it possible
for people in every time and place to meet Jesus, in the proclamation of the
Good News, in the sacraments of his presence, and in the love of every
Christian.
6. DOES THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH FIT THE ADULT STAGE OF LIFE? The doctrine of ‘Church’ may fit in with other Christian beliefs, but does it also illuminate some element of human life, as they do? If we are proposing that it has something to say about the adult stage of life, will there not be many who may feel that such an institution is in direct conflict with adulthood? They may argue that a system which keeps people dependent on rules and guidance must inhibit proper adult autonomy. In order to see whether this doctrine can represent some truth about adulthood we will go back to our account of the growth of the human race as it appears from the scriptures. In the earlier chapters of this work we set out a picture of God creating the human race and continually offering the people his saving love. At the end of the Old Testament we saw that they had not yet been able to accept that love and that they still had no true image of themselves. That image was seen at last, and for all of us, in Jesus. Anyone who can believe in him as the fullness of God and the true image of man is now able to accept himself as truly loved and to see himself as he really is. He would then have the freedom to grow as a person. In Jesus, the human race has reached adulthood and is ready to face the tasks of that state. In Christian tradition the first to experience this revelation of God and of themselves were the disciples hiding in an upper room on the day of Pentecost. They had seen the love of God in the face of Jesus while he was with them, and this was the beginning of their belief that they were loveable, good and valuable. But it was only when the Spirit of God came to them and they felt themselves to be filled with his love, that they would commit themselves, in a relationship of absolute faith and love, to God in Jesus. This was the ‘marriage’ between them. In it they established their full and true self-image, and they received the freedom to grow as persons to their ultimate potential. Jesus was the first of our race to achieve the adult stage, and his Spirit teaches others how to reach maturity. The Church came into being at
Pentecost, and we are told in the Acts of the Apostles that these first adult
members of God’s people rushed out from the house in which they had hidden,
to begin the tasks of adulthood through which they would continue to grow as
persons and would help others to do the same. Before we look at the tasks of the Church and their connection with the adult stage of human life, we should perhaps remind ourselves of the relationship in general between the ‘religious’ and the’human’. In looking at the doctrine of the Assumption we said that it reflected the Christian rejection of an essential separation between the material and the spiritual. The spiritual is the transcendent aspect of the physical. The ordinary world is the domain of the Spirit; it is the Kingdom of God. We are essentially spiritual beings. In every aspect of our lives we reach and extend beyond what we can see or comprehend. In the Incarnation we saw the ultimate expression of this when we saw in the actions of a man like ourselves the actions of God himself. His thoughts and teachings were from the mind of God; his feelings came from the heart of God; his healing actions came from the hands of God. Our own thoughts, feelings and actions are meant to be like that. Throughout this work we have
emphasised that religion is not something we do in addition to our ordinary
human proceedings; it is not a ‘Sunday’ activity, separate from the
reality of our weekday lives. Religion
is the expression of the transcendent value of everything real in human life.
It lights up the eternal meaning of all the mundane moments and events
of which our lives are made. The
Church does not teach people to say and do spiritual things: it shows them how
the Spirit of God is in their words and actions.
The Church does not teach people to be adult: it shows them how their
adulthood reflects the maturity of Christ.
7.
THE TASKS OF ADULTS IN THE CHURCH If the Church represents the adult stage of human life, then its tasks should be those of the human adult, but raised towards their full significance. We have said that an adult must grow, and encourage others to grow, in the three aspects of personhood: knowledge, feelings, and actions. If we look to that time when the Church began, we can see these three aspects set out as its life and structure, and we can then look at them in the work of the Church today. “And they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers….And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. (Acts 2: 42-45) Here are the three tasks of
adulthood – knowing, loving, serving – set out from the very beginning as
the tasks of the Church.
The human being in his adult growth must try to learn and understand all that he can of what is true and valuable, and must do what he can to pass this on to the generations after him. Adults in the Church believe that in Christ they have received a revelation which offers man the most profound knowledge of himself and his world. They believe that this revelation has been set out in the scriptures, and has been interpreted in the creeds, doctrines and teachings of the tradition. An adult Christian tries to know, understand and hand on the implications of that revelation. This knowledge and understanding cannot be separate from or opposed to that which is sought by all of us through the sciences, arts and humanities; it is ‘superior’ only in the sense that it draws our understanding on to reach towards ultimate meaning. All adult Christians are part of the teaching Church, studying, interpreting and sharing together the tradition which expresses their faith. There are of course those who are qualified to lead and guide others in this, and who have the authority of the members of the Church to do so. Priests and theologians have the training and skills which enable them to help others in their search for understanding, and the bishops have the authority, in the Holy Spirit, to guard the tradition from untruthful interpretation. But it would be a travesty to see the Church, in connection with this aspect of human life, as an authoritative hierarchy possessing all knowledge of the truth and handing it out to lay people to hold it unexamined and then pass it on to their children. Unhappily, that is a picture of the teaching Church which has too often been promoted and accepted. The work of studying, questioning and understanding the knowledge offered in the tradition is one half of that task for adult Christians; they also have to pass it on to the following generation. How are they to do this? What is certain is that they must not try to impose beliefs on children and expect them to accept them. This is not only wrong, it is also, fortunately, more or less impossible. We saw earlier in this work that belief can be seen to have two components, faith and beliefs. Faith, we said, is a deep attitude of trust in people and life, in the world, and in ultimate goodness. Every adult bringing up his child with real and effective love will be developing in him this trusting, hopeful attitude. The Christian parent will do the same, but in all that he says and does he will be showing his child that the love he has comes from God, encouraging in the child a belief in his own absolute value and preparing him to place a deep faith in God. A child who has this attitude
of faith and hope can then learn how it is expressed in the beliefs of his
family's tradition. This will
prepare him for the time when he is able to see his self-image in Jesus, and
can commit himself in faith and love to God and to other people.
At whatever age this might happen, he would then have become an adult
member of the Church. Without the
basic attitude of trust the beliefs can make no sense for a child, and he will
not be able to commit himself to them or pass them on.
Of course it is difficult to separate knowledge from feeling; we are unlikely to have any real understanding of something if we have no feeling for it. But we need to distinguish the three aspects of an adult Christian’s growth in order to study them, while accepting that they are inextricably entwined. Every person needs to develop
in himself the proper range of human emotions; he needs to be able to be in
touch with his own feelings, and to be able to relate to what others feel; he
needs to express his feelings effectively.
These are perhaps the most difficult tasks of adult growth, and the
ones most likely to be pushed aside while the person gets on with the
development of his knowledge and activities.
This can be particularly true in someone's spiritual life, but here as
in every dimension of our lives, if we allow the head and hand to stifle the
heart, our thoughts and actions can become sterile and mechanical. Prayer Worship and prayer, in their many forms, are at the heart of the life of an adult Christian and of the Church. In them the person develops, recognises and expresses the feelings he experiences in his life-journey and in his relationship with God and his fellow man. They are in one sense of course inseparable; we pray when we worship and worship when we pray. But it is possible to distinguish worship as public and communal, prayer as private and individual, and we can examine them separately in that way. Psychologists have stressed endlessly that we need to ‘get in touch’ with our emotions. We need to recognise that we are feeling angry or resentful, guilty, uncertain, contented, joyful. We need to take time to think about our feelings, and about how they are influencing our actions. Then we will be able to deal with them, and to talk about them with those whom they affect. Again and again when a relationship breaks down we can see that the people concerned have not been able to tell each other how they are feeling, or hear what the other was trying to say. We are told that good communication is the single most important ingredient in a relationship. If it is good, everything else can work: if it is bad, nothing else can work. If a person were to give himself at least a quarter of an hour each day to sit quietly and consider his feelings and relationships he would have time to recognise and deal with the fear he has about his health, or the worry about a situation in the family or at work. He would have time to savour and be thankful for the pleasure of a recent holiday, the comfort of his home, the good company of his friends, his love for his wife and his children. He could work out quietly what he should do about the trouble between himself and a colleague, recognising his anger but able to put it into perspective. He can let out feelings of grief or embarrassment or tenderness, and will be better able to express them when he needs to do so. A psychologist would suggest
that such a regular period of quiet reflection would be of benefit to anyone,
and the religious person would feel it appropriate to make these reflections
in the presence of God. Not only
would he be able to develop an awareness of his feelings; he could pour them
out to someone who is wholly involved in everything that matters to him.
Anyone who has read the Psalms will know that we can rage at God, or
strike out at him in despair, cling to him in hope or overwhelm him with
thanks. And those who spend this
time of reflection in the presence of God very often find that, becoming
still, they feel his presence and hear his voice within them.
In that daily meeting we can grow in the feeling of being cared for,
and can learn to care for ourselves and others.
The forms people choose for their prayer may differ, some preferring to
use formal prayers, some to speak in their own words, some to reach out in
silence. But without some time
for quiet thought our lives will become more brittle, and as in all
relationships, if we do not communicate ourselves and our feelings to God, our
relationship with him must suffer. Worship As prayer, the ‘raising of the heart and mind to God’, is the basis of worship, so also worship, ‘worth-ship’, the acknowledgement of all that God is, is an essential element of prayer. But as we have suggested, ‘worship’ is more generally used to denote the public, shared, ritual actions by which we raise the different aspects and events of our lives to God. From the beginning of man’s history he has marked what is important to him with rituals and public celebrations. The most obvious of these are the great moments of birth, attaining adulthood, marriage and death. In every society and culture people have emphasised these events with rituals shared by the family and the wider community. Such celebrations affirm that each individual is important in the community, and that the community is the foundation and support of the individual’s life. Someone who has no one to celebrate his birthday with him or to acknowledge the important moments of his life is not only lonely but also is in danger of losing his sense of identity. Life-event celebrations are times for saying to a person ‘We notice you and value you’. In the Christian sacraments not only does the community take part in the significant moments of our lives: God himself takes part in them. At the baptism, the wedding, the funeral, he brings about the transformation of that person’s life to its new state, and he is at the heart of the community as it shares in the happiness or grief of the family. The most important aspect of our lives to be celebrated is life itself, the daily, weekly, yearly living of it in relationship with each other. It is good for people to be aware of the changing of the seasons, and to remember great moments in their nation’s history, because it gives a rhythm to their lives and supports their sense of who they are. For Christians the yearly celebration of the events of Christ’s life and of the life of the Church helps them to follow him more nearly, and to know that they do so among a great company. But even more important than this celebration of the seasons and of history is the celebration of the wholly ordinary and everyday. The Incarnation shows us that the glory of God is to be seen in the work we do, in our play, in the making of our homes and, above all, in our relationships with each other. And now we are being told that in our frantic modern age our relationships will suffer if we don’t take time to nurture them. In a family where the members hardly meet each other as they come and go, eating separately or in silence in front of the television, the individuals are going to lose contact with each other’s lives, plans and needs. It has been suggested that we should try to sit together regularly for a meal, daily if possible but at least weekly, giving each other time and attention, listening to one another and sharing what we are doing and what is important to us. This vital act of
communication is emphasised at the heart of the Christian Church, in the
Eucharist. Here the people of God’s
family sit down together to share the food and drink which is life for us, to
acknowledge the loving sacrifice which God made to give us that life, to thank
him for this and for all that we have been given, to share our hopes and
sorrows in our prayers with each other. In
the Eucharist we express the ultimate significance of the family meal. Ritual and Symbol Some who would agree that we should mark the importance and meaning of our lives in these many ways might yet feel that we should do so simply and naturally, without the expense and artificiality of rituals. In the secular sphere they might ask whether we need pomp and ceremony in government, or magnificent buildings and displays, or white weddings, funeral wreaths and festive glitter. Of course these things can be overdone, becoming a waste of money which could be better used, a set of empty and meaningless formalities. But they are not always like that. We have said before that there are things too profoundly important to be conveyed in ordinary language or plain gestures. We need great buildings and stirring music to express our national pride, and we need accepted ritual ways of saying what our own words would not express to the new bride, or to the bereaved parents. Symbols, from the national flag to the eternal circle of the wedding ring, have a meaning which can focus our feelings and enable us to share them with others. The same kind of objections
have been made by religious people, protesting that richly decorated buildings
are offensive in a world where there is poverty, and that ancient ornate
ceremonies are out of step with the modern age.
But here the argument for ritual and symbol is even more pressing.
Certainly money should not be spent on ceremony in place of caring for
the poor, but it may be spent, in proper proportion with that caring, to give
people a way of experiencing the glory and goodness of God, and the demand
this implies about looking after each other.
But when we look at the symbols people use to experience and convey
meaning we find that those used in religion are among the most powerful.
The water of life, the fire of the spirit, the light of glory, move the
emotions and touch a profound chord in people of many faiths and of every
class and kind. A well prepared
liturgy in a beautiful setting, using powerful symbols, gestures, rituals,
with good music and readings carefully selected and presented, can help people
to feel and express their faith at a depth beyond their ordinary reach, and in
community with others. Prayer and worship for
children We have been describing how an adult would try to grow in the acknowledgement and expression of his feelings through prayer and worship. Adults also have a responsibility to help the next generation to develop in this aspect of their lives, as in every other. It might be best to think of this happening in two ways. In their everyday lives children need to learn how to handle their emotions so that they don’t hurt themselves or other people, but let their feelings help them to grow. As part of this process they need contact with what is beautiful and inspiring to them in books and pictures and music, and they should be encouraged to create such things to express their own feelings. (It hardly needs to be said that frequent contact with the kind of ugly, violent and horrific images offered in many books and films must develop children’s feelings in a way that is surely harmful to them.) But not only do children learn about their feelings in the things they do at their own level: at the same time they watch adults as they express their emotions and conduct their relationships, and they grow up seeing the things that their parents find moving and beautiful. It would seem natural that children should learn about prayer and worship in the same two-fold way. They need to learn how to pray at their own level, and should be encouraged to prepare and take part in worship which develops their feelings and understanding. But it is very important that they should also see adults at prayer, so that they know it is not something just for children but an essential element of mature life. And whenever appropriate they should share in the full formal beauty of the adult Church at worship. It is a great mistake to keep young children from this in the belief that they will be restless or will get nothing from it. Many of us can remember sitting with our parents as very young children, awe-struck by the wonder of the Christmas and Easter ceremonies, or comforted by the little-understood but familiar rituals of the weekly service. In this context, it is
particularly important not to underestimate what young people in their teens
may accept. Certainly they need
to be encouraged to develop their own ways of praying and the forms of worship
which will express their feelings and ideas.
Much good work has been done with young people in schools and parishes
in devising imaginative liturgies for our times. But in the effort to attract young people, and keep them in
the Church beyond childhood, ‘relevance’ has sometimes been allowed to
take over from meaning. When
worship leaves the tradition behind, the participants are no longer
experiencing and expressing the faith embodied in that tradition.
And as with children, if young people are not encouraged to share in
the full traditional worship of the Church, they are denied much of what is
most powerful and beautiful in the expression of the human spirit.
We have noted earlier Erikson’s statement that in middle adulthood the person either develops generativity or he declines into self-absorption, stagnation, and that generativity means that the person begins to be concerned with others beyond the immediate family, with future generations and the nature of the society and world in which those generations will live. The Christian who has seen himself mirrored in the face of Christ knows that his true self-image is the image of God. He is meant to be as God is, and to love as God loves. This may be a daunting thought, but to the extent that we restrict our love, to that extent will we be diminished as persons, because we will be less than the Persons whose image we are. We are to give love without limits: we are to be the love God has for each person, given through us. This is what is asked of us if we are to be really and fully human. That love cannot be just for our family or extended family, or our friends, but for all our ‘neighbours’. We know how Jesus answered when someone asked him “And who is my neighbour?” The questioner wanted to know, presumably, where he could draw the line, and he may have had as much difficulty as we have in accepting the reply Jesus gave in the story of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10: 25-37) There is no line. Everyone is your neighbour, especially those whom we might think of as ‘enemies’. Those who have opposite views from ours; those of a different race, nation or religion; those who are sick, poor, unattractive, criminal; these are our neighbours. But the list doesn’t even stop there, because we have a duty to love all, not just those who happen to be on earth when we are. We have a bond of love with all those who have gone before and have given us the world we have and our genetic inheritance, a bond which finds expression in the Church’s teaching on the ‘Communion of Saints’, and in its prayers for the dead. Then we have a duty of love to all those who will come after us, a duty recognised in the passing on of the Good News for future generations, but also in the movements within and outside of the Church for just societies, and for the preservation of the earth and its creatures and resources. As separate individuals it would seem impossible to give love across all these dimensions, to the farthest corners of the earth and to all times, to those we know and to those we will never know. But as a member of the community proclaiming and offering God’s love we can share in the work of all its individuals and groups, whether they are caring for the poor and the sick, or teaching, or fighting injustice, or promoting better social policies. We do this in doing our own part of it, however large or small that part may be, in prayer, in giving time or money, in supporting the efforts of others. The adult Christian will also
help the next generation, wherever he can, to give and to share, first within
their own families, then among friends, and then out towards the wider
community. Many young people in
their later years in Secondary school have grown in their spiritual life, and
have seen the Church in a more positive light, as a result of work they have
done through Christian organisations for those in need.
It is often easier for them to see Christ in the faces of a poor
family, and in the help given to them, than in any course of teaching or
discussion, or in any religious service.
From its very beginning the Church has promoted the three tasks of adulthood in their ultimate dimension as the tasks of adults who recognise in themselves the image of God. In the area of knowledge, the Church proclaims the Good News of Jesus that we are all loved, and shows people how to live in that love; in the area of the feelings the Church offers us the experience of ourselves in God’s presence in prayer, and in the sacraments which mark the significant events of our lives, and gives us the liturgy and rituals in which we can express our experiences; in the area of action the Church assists and organises the loving actions of the community towards all their neighbours. These are the activities of the Church, but what is it as an institution? We have said that many people, especially the young, may see the Church as an authoritarian, perhaps repressive, body. They may be able to accept the functions of the Church as valuable, and proper to followers of Christ, yet may have questions about what the Church has come to be as it carried out those functions. Nobody doubts there have been abuses and periods of corruption, or that the Church even to this day can sometimes be linked with political regimes which are not beyond reproach. The power of Rome and the hierarchical pyramid of authority in the Catholic Church have been subjected to questions and criticism. Throughout its history, the Christian Church has been rocked by breakaway movements, and today there are countless Churches, all acting in the name of Christ, ranging from those whose teaching and practice is highly regulated to those which are virtually structureless and creedless. It is obvious that there are difficulties, and that the Church, being a community of human beings, must be imperfect. Yet it must be argued that structure, organisation and, most importantly, tradition, are essential in human living. We have to form ourselves into companies, cities, nations, in order to conduct our day-to-day business and to pass on what we have gained and learned. In the same way the simple band of Jesus’ followers, once they had spread and multiplied, found that they had to establish local structures and leaders, which then extended into national and international structures and leadership. Once this had happened it was possible for mistakes to be made, and power to be pursued and abused. When we asked whether the
Church is related to the adult stage of life we said that some have seen it as
inhibiting rather than encouraging human growth to adult autonomy.
It has to be said that the Church has not always been seen as helping
people grow in self-esteem. Rather
it has been regarded as their moral guide, or even their judge, undermining
their already frail self-confidence with feelings of inappropriate guilt.
As both the psychologist and our own common sense will tell us, it is
right to feel guilty about doing something wrong, but it is harmful to feel
burdened with a sense of guilt, no matter what we do. It is true that the Church helps people to see their way
through the ethical tangles of their lives, especially in the complexities of
the present age, but it is well to remember what was said at the beginning of
this work: in any tradition the central message can be obscured under a mass
of moral exhortation, substituting the ‘Highway Code’ for the direction
and purpose of the journey. It is
also obvious that people’s self-worth can be undermined if they are
persuaded that they are mere subjects of authorities ruling above them; the
history of human societies has provided examples of power hierarchies which
cannot be suitable as models for the Church as bearer of the message that each
of us is of supreme value. The
Church is part of God’s real world, and as such it has to have structure and
organisation. It is the community’s
constant duty to see that these never replace or obscure its message and
purpose. Each member of the
Church has the responsibility of watching over the community, supporting its
teaching, worship and works, but ready to resist any lack of love, any untruth
or distortion, which might arise within the Church itself and prevent it from
carrying out those functions.
For most of the Church’s history the majority of Christians have lived out their lives within the community of a parish, cared for and guided by their priest and by the bishop of their diocese, and supported by their fellow parishioners at every stage and through each event of birth, growth, marriage and death. But how many people still experience life in a parish like that? How many more are barely involved in the life of the Church, or hardly have the Church involved in their lives? For many, the Church now occupies a very marginal area in lives driven by the increasing pressures of the modern world. It is not difficult to see how this change has come about; as family and social communities in general have become more and more fragmented it is not surprising that people no longer feel closely attached to a community in their religious lives. Will people then have to
accept that the whole idea of the parish community is a thing of the past?
If we do that we might find ourselves saying the same about the family,
and about any form of local community, and that cannot be right.
People are beginning to realise that we have gone too far in the
glorification of the individual with his freedom and rights, and they are
remembering that human beings need to grow in families, and to live within
communities of manageable size where they are known and cared about, in a
state which is the properly respected agent of its people.
We should not be persuaded to take the period of independence, when a
young person moves temporarily away from a community, as the model for
children, adults and the elderly. If
the individual person is not to be abandoned to alienation, neglect and
anarchy, then we must bring to life renewed forms of the family, the local
community and the state, suited to the world and the people of the new
millennium. And in the same way a
new mode of living in the Church must develop, one which accepts the dignity
and freedom of the individual while offering him the support and
responsibilities he needs in his growth for others.
13. THE CHURCH AS THE MEANS OF SALVATION ‘To be saved you need to
believe in God and Christ’. Is
that true? ‘To be saved you
must be a member of the Church’. Is
no one saved who is not a practising member of the Christian Church, or indeed
of a particular tradition within that Church?
Everything we have seen in this work indicates that this cannot be the
case. ‘To be saved you need to believe in God’. Yes, that is true, if we accept that ‘God is love’. To be saved you need to believe in love: we have seen that over and over again. So everyone, whether a Christian who believes that God is love, or a member of the other religions which acknowledge love as of supreme value, or a non-religious person who believes that love is the essence of life, all of these can be saved by their belief in love, which the Christians would call belief in God. And what of belief in Christ? Is that necessary? Does the fact that salvation comes from a belief in love mean that all religions are the same? That Christ is not needed? That indeed no religion is needed? Once again, everything we have said in this work declares that this is not so. Most of us know that we need love, that it is essential to us. But the Christian belief is that in Christ we have the unique revelation that we are loved. Christ revealed in his life and death the Father’s love for us, and in his Resurrection we received at last and forever into our world the fullness of that saving love, the Holy Spirit. ‘To be saved you must be a member of the Church’. Surely not. Everyone is saved who believes that they have the love they need to be fully themselves, fully human. But we have said that such absolute love can only be God’s love, seen in the face of Christ. Anyone can be saved who has experienced God’s love for them in Christ – and we do not know who has experienced this. There may be a person who, knowing nothing of Christianity, has felt the presence of Christ in prayer, or in another person; there may be someone who, having spent all his life in the Christian Church, has never felt God’s love for him. Yet we can believe that the
surest way to encounter Christ is by hearing the Word of God in the
Scriptures, by making ourselves open to his presence in prayer, worship and
the sacraments, and by working with his Spirit in the community of his
followers so that others can see him in their love.
The Church and its members hold the gift of Christ’s saving love, not
exclusively or as a possession, but as a gift which they have accepted for
themselves in order that they can share it with all the others.
14. THE CHURCH AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THE HOLY SPIRIT We have been looking at the Church as an institution and as a human community in which the members seek to carry out to the fullest extent their adult tasks of learning, loving and doing. These are true descriptions of the Church, but they do not fully express the truth which the doctrine of the Church conveys. The Church represents Christ
on Earth, and the members of the Church represent the People of God on earth.
And the Church is the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, and the vehicle
of his work in the world. The
love which the Christian gives flows through him from the Holy Spirit.
He is the Lord of all life and the Lord of the Church. He is the Power of God, the Love of God, sustaining all that
is in the universe, and working for its salvation in and through the Church.
The members of the Church join themselves to him, signifying that they
have done this in their Baptism and Confirmation, and affirming it constantly
in their prayer and worship. They are assured by the Spirit of love that in the end
nothing can withstand his power, and that one day, in that power, Christ will
bring all things to glory in the Father.
************************************************************ We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. ************************************************************
When a person has established
a true image of himself he has achieved the maturity of adulthood.
1.
ADULT
LIFE: WHAT IS IT? What is an adult?
Various descriptions have been offered, e.g. the stage of ‘maturity’
when a person should have developed sound relationships and values, a proper
self-image and emotional stability.
2.
WHAT
DOES AN ADULT DO? Erikson says that this is the
stage of either generativity or stagnation.
Rogers describes it as a process of stretching and growing, of becoming
more and more of a person.
3.
THE
THREE ASPECTS OF THE ADULT’S GROWTH AS A PERSON The three aspects of the adult’s
growth as a person are growth in knowledge, in feeling, in action.
4.
THE
DOCTRINE OF ‘CHURCH’: HOW
DOES IT REFLECT AND
ILLUMINATE ADULT LIFE? The Church: is it a necessary
doctrine? It has been criticised
as being authoritarian, so how does it reflect and illuminate adult life?
5.
'CHURCH’
AND THE OTHER DOCTRINES All the major doctrines
express the truth that the human person exists only in and through
relationships with others and in a world of time, space and matter. The Church as a visible community for the growth of persons
is a proper interpretation of that truth.
6.
DOES
THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH FIT THE ADULT STAGE OF LIFE? How does the Church reflect
the adult stage of life? Before
Jesus, the human race was struggling to find its true self-image. It found it in Jesus. He
was the first truly adult human being, because he knew himself uniquely in the
love of the Father. When his
followers received his Spirit they too reached maturity.
This was the beginning of the adult stage of human history, and of the
Church in which the followers of Jesus try to live as adults.
7.
THE
TASKS OF ADULTS IN THE CHURCH They are those of all human
adults, raised toward their ultimate significance.
8.
GROWING
IN KNOWLEDGE The adult Christian’s growth
in knowledge reaches towards an understanding of the ultimate truth revealed
in Jesus. As the Christian passes
on his secular knowledge to the next generation so also he passes on the
tradition which proclaims the Good News of salvation.
9.
GROWING EMOTIONALLY As part of his emotional
growth the Christian adult develops his feelings and their expression through
prayer and worship, making use of ritual and symbols for their power in
touching and expressing our deepest emotions.
He helps the next generation to grow emotionally, not only through
liturgy designed for their own level but also in observing adult prayer and
worship. 10.
GROWING
THROUGH ACTION If an adult is to grow he must
be concerned with others in all places and times, and the Christian sees in
this the demand, imposed by being in God’s image, to love without limits.
11.
THE
CHURCH AS INSTITUTION The Church is an institution,
and as such it has undergone the problems which beset all such bodies;
authoritarianism, rivalries, corruption.
But human beings need structure, especially for the transmission of all
they have gained to those who come after.
Every Christian has the duty of supporting the Church and guarding it
from abuse.
12.
THE
CHURCH AS COMMUNITY The Church has given people
local communities of parishes and dioceses in which they can support each
other in living Christian lives. But
the very idea of community, even of family, has been eroded in the modern
world. Now it is becoming clear
that we need to look for some renewed form of these, and this must also be
true of the Church communities.
13.
THE
CHURCH AS THE MEANS OF SALVATION Is salvation dependent upon
being a member of the Church? Clearly
not. But the doctrine expresses
the belief that the Church is the channel of God’s saving love, uniquely
revealed in Christ.
14.
THE
CHURCH AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THE HOLY SPIRIT The Church is a human
institution and community, but this is not essentially or ultimately what it
is. The Church represents Christ
in the world, and through the Church the Holy Spirit is fulfilling his task of
bringing all things to the Father. Return to Home Page
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