Unique Revelations From God

Unique Revelations From God

 The Buddha, Krishna, Christ– each is a unique revelation of God,of the divine Mystery, and each has to be understood in its historical context in its own peculiar mode of thought.

To say that God is a person is not to deny that [he] is impersonal…The Christian concept of God often becomes so personal that it needs to be corrected by the impersonalization of Buddhism…

To insist too much on the moral character of God can narrow our conception and lose something of the spontaneous freedom, that ecstasy of joy, which is found in Krishna.

Bede Griffiths Cited in The Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox reflects on Bede’s words and adds these observations:

Bede Griffiths celebrates Buddha and Krishna– as well as Christ– as a “unique revelation of God.” The particular cultural and historical context of these revelations  help to balance the different dimensions of these incarnations.

Taken together, they help us to conceptualize what has been called divine paradoxes:  God is both personal and impersonal.

… Religions have so much to learn from one another… 

Do you experience God as personal and as impersonal? Does your spiritual journey include both ethical choices and ecstatic celebrations?

In my experience both before ministry and after, is the all too human tendency to adopt a myopic view that is then reinforced by your particular pulpit and pew.

In general, Protestants are far more comfortable with either a private theology or individual approach to God. More introverted and less demonstrative, they prefer a more intellectual and reflective style of worship service and are not all that open to a celebratory approach or a more enthusiastic and extended style that we can find in the historically black congregations.

Again, in a general way, Protestants have a cramped view of God- often confined to the hymnal and the Scriptural text that is then interpreted for them by their clergy. 

One of the reasons I chose to follow a more liberal and inclusive approach (that was not without its bias or shortcomings) was the disconnect from nature or the wider application of their ethics to society and to move God out of the pew and put the deity on Main street for everyone to learn and see! 

As for my Catholic excursions that started as a mystically curious child, only to be almost railroaded out of me by dogma and church rules, I did, on the sly, begin to read about the saints! And yes, while many of the stories and biographies are glaringly biased and pious, I was enamored of their intimacy with God, nature, and the need to strive for a more holy, reverent, and compassionate life.

When I returned to my Catholic roots- but not to the Roman church- it was through the writings of Fox, Merton, Nouwen, and Griffiths etc., where I found a sacramental approach to church that lived along the margins of the institution itself, and it was from that more inclusive, tolerant, and celebratory approach, that my sense of faith was reenlived or came back to me!