The Pious Cannot Speak to the Pious
There’s a fascinating thing that happens when someone really begins to delve into the ancient mysteries of different faiths. Where you might expect to find all other systems of belief lacking in important areas, what one usually find is the opposite - there is truth to be found almost anywhere. When we draw wisdom from many sources, we are often left only with more questions and a clearer understanding of just how unclear everything is rather than finding a single strand of eternal truth.
What we also tend to find is that those who are willing to dive deep into the mystical practices of various faiths - Sufism in Islam, Kabbalah in Judaism, Christian Mysticism (it doesn’t get it’s own name), and the overall far more mystical faiths of the East - begin to have a hard time discussing God with others, particularly those who hold to a much more traditional path of religion.
The 20th Century German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer often spoke of a “religionless Christianity”. And, while this theological framework is too complex for me to break down with any real clarity here, I do want to draw attention to a letter of his written to his close friend Eberhard Bethage in April of 1944:
The Pauline question of whether [circumcision] is a condition of justification seems to me in present-day terms to be whether religion is a condition of salvation. Freedom from [circumcision] is also freedom from religion. I often ask myself why a "Christian instinct" often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, but which I don't in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, "in brotherhood." While I'm often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people--because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it's particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable)--to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course.
I find this excerpt particularly fascinating because in it Dietrich makes clear a sensation I have felt many times in life - the feeling that discussing God with the religious is, in some form or fashion, dishonest. Bonhoeffer makes clear throughout his writing that this feeling of his does not mean that he disbelieves in God. What he means here is that when he says “God” and when a religious person says “God”, they are simply talking about different things. To speak of God with the religious was to assent to a notion he, himself, did not hold about the nature of God or the purpose of any divine plan.
Similarly, in Mirabai Star’s translation of Teresa of Avila’s mystical classic, The Interior Castle, Star takes the time to point out that Teresa was known to pray to God, “Lord, save me from pious nuns.” As with many others before her, this famous mystic toed a very dangerous line that took her to the razor’s edge between mystical insight and downright heresy. Only the Lord knows how many mystics would be remembered as saints rather than heretics had they toed that line a little more expertly.
But even Teresa, mystic and saint and reformer that she was, could not help but bump heads with the pious faithful around her. One can imagine that she would very happily agree with Bonhoeffer’s assertion that speaking with the pious simply rang hollow - bringing forth feelings of dishonesty, disconnect, and awkwardness.
What does this mean for us? Simply this: If you struggle to speak of God with the pious faithful, if your talk with them feels hollow and false, that doesn’t mean you are an atheist. Instead, it might be that you perceive God in a deeper and more intimate way than they do. Or it could be that their vision of God feels too much like a projection of themselves onto the divine rather than the other way around. In Bonhoeffer’s case, such projection led to the German Christian belief that the Nazi’s actions were sanctioned by God.
In other words, struggling to speak of piety with the pious doesn’t mean you are a heretic. It might just mean you’re a mystic.
