An Easter challenge: resurrecting religion

But what would a Christian spirituality resurrected from unnecessary dogma and institutional baggage look like ?

Fairly simple I suggest. For a start it would be inclusive (not exclusive) recognising that there are many spiritual pathways, different ways to approach what is ultimately an unspeakable mystery.

Consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ, this spirituality would affirm Love as the essence of life’s meaning and purpose. It would therefore nurture an awe or reverence for life, expressed through an ethic of compassion and justice, which is most sensitive to the most vulnerable. It is an ethic which can no longer be handed down from above but which must be determined in the context of our communities.

One major new emphasis of this spirituality would be informed by a contemporary cosmology and ecology which stresses the interconnectedness of all life. As one of the gurus of this Christian spirituality, Thomas Berry, puts it: "We have no inner spiritual life if we don’t have the outer experience of a beautiful world. The more we destroy the world, the less a sense of God is possible".

This is the heart of the matter, though working out its implications and finding appropriate ways for human communities to gather and celebrate it remains, in this new millennium, a challenge, as it has always been.