The Double Refuge 🍷 Prologue

Syncretism

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In The Double Refuge I argue that there's nothing wrong with doubt. Even in terms of religion I think doubt is both inevitable and beneficial. Why else would a popular Christian like Peter Enns write a book called The Sin of Certainty? While I go further into doubt than Enns does, we both assume that the only God worth worshipping is benevolent and reasonable. Such a God isn’t likely to punish us for exercising rationale thought, or for wanting things to be experienced before we believe them. Like Khayyam, I suspect that it’s entirely natural to both doubt and believe:

From doubt to clear assurance is a breath,
A breath from infidelity to faith;
Oh, precious breath, enjoy it while you may,
'Tis all that life can give, and then comes death.

I can’t imagine that God would want to strike from human record the lessons of astronomy, geology, archaeology, philology, comparative religion, and Assyriology. Assyriology is the study of the Mesopotamian civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria. These civilizations are largely condemned or condescended to in the Bible, and yet they predate and influence the Bible, even though we may not be aware of it: the Akkadian language is the basis for Hebrew; the story of Noah and the Flood dates back to the Sumerians; the complex legal codes of Ur-Nammu’s Sumer and Hammurabi’s Babylon are approximately 4000 years old; letters and numbers themselves were developed over 4000 years ago in Sumer; etc. (I look at these influences, and at Enns’ view of Mesopotamian religion, in ♒️ The Currents of Sumer, starting with Introduction & Overview.)

It seems to me that God would want us to understand as much of our religious tradition as possible, even if it challenges our cherished exclusivities. I imagine that God would want us to question all of the historical, cultural, and geographical definitions which limit Him / She / It, even if this questioning leads to 1. radically altering our present views, or 2. syncretism.

Purists see a great danger in syncretism, the fusion of different religious traditions. Yet do those who believe in God really believe that there is one universal omniscient God for one group of people in one place, and then also one universal omniscient God for a different group of people in another place? In the cloud-banks of Heaven, do the angels and saints refuse to stand next to the gods and bodhisattvas? Would Michael not still fight evil, side by side with Shiva and Rama? Would Christ not combine his love and compassion with that of Krishna and Guanyin? Is God too weak to hold together such an alliance?

Purists often condemn syncretism and doubt, yet I suspect that God would take an interest in 🔺 whoever looks for Universal Meaning, 🔺 whoever can’t quite find It, and 🔺 whoever is still willing to consider that God has hidden It well. By the same token of Love & Mercy, God isn’t likely to punish believers who question their faith, and who struggle with things like evolution or comparative religion — as my Parisian novice does in 🇫🇷 The Priest’s Dilemma, starting with Rivers of God.

This is where The Double Refuge comes in: it focuses on the close relationship between agnostics who are open to belief (often referred to as open agnostics) and theists who are open to doubt. I call these latter open theists, although they might also be called critically-minded, liberal, universalist, non-denominational, ecumenical, or mystical, depending on the type of doubt they entertain. For instance, many mystics believe in God yet doubt all definitions and doctrines that try to define God. 

Personally, I go back and forth between open agnosticism and open theism. I have great respect for all traditions of critical thinking, and I make consistent reference to Christianity, Hinduism, Daoism, Judaism, and Islam. For instance, the poets I cited above — Khayyam and Rumi — reflect the mystical Islamic tradition of Sufism. In 🇮🇳 The Fiction of Doubt, starting with Rise of the Simurg, I foreground the relation between Khayyam’s science and the poetic mysticism shared by Rumi and Farid ud-Din Attar. I explain how Attar’s 12th-century long poem Conference of the Birds provides the dominant extended metaphor (a flight of birds to the king of birds, the Simurg) in Rushdie’s first five novels. I also illustrate how Rushdie uses this metaphor to argue for critical thinking and for a free and open society.

And in terms of syncretism, Rushdie is one of the great world writers: in his first novel Grimus he fuses Norse, Hindu, Sufi, and Dantean superstructures; in Midnight’s Children he brings together the variety of religions in India in the microcosm of his protagonists’s head; and in Haroun and the Sea of Stories the Sufi flight of birds fuses with the Hindu metaphor of an ocean of stories, suggesting that Islamic and Hindu notions benefit from admixture.

In terms of Christianity, my aim is to loosen it from the compulsion that has often dragged it down and made it into a doctrine of belief rather than an exploration of love and truth. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the old Jewish Law (Matthew 5:17). Yet in ‘fulfilling’ it he changed it radically — from a focus on judgment and mercy to a focus on forgiveness and Grace. The message of Jesus is complementary to the Law of Moses, but more so in the way that parole and rehabilitation is complimentary to verdicts and incarceration. They’re complementary, but so is yin to yang.

The God of Moses displayed mercy on occasion, but He also displayed a great deal of justice and punishment, much of which was based on an exclusive cultural and historical code of rules and customs, as well as an exclusive contract which favoured one particular people (I supply a humorous take on Moses and his covenant in 🍎 The Apple-Merchant of Babylon, starting with The Genealogy of Mortals). Jesus steered this Jewish tradition from exclusion to inclusion, and suggested a liberation from compulsion and fear.

While fire-and-brimstone preachers still tell the Old Testament stories about evil-doers and divine vengeance, we see today a movement toward a more forgiving and inclusive Christianity, a global faith that’s open to all religions and mysticisms. Yet this is also a very old tradition, spanning centuries and continents. For instance, an open version of Christianity was urged by Transcendentalists in the 19th century, most notably by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. It was also current in India and China, as I explain in 💫 Believing in the Mystery, starting with Introduction: Daoism & Whitman’s Transcendentalism. In this chapter I highlight the similarities between the cosmic mysticism of Whitman and that of the Daoists Laozi and Zhuangzi.

In the 20th century, open versions of Christianity have been promoted by the likes of Thomas Merton, Raimundo Panikkar, and Richard Rohr. Rohr’s idea of the universal Christ is particularly interesting in the context of inclusive religion. Rohr argues for a cosmic Christ of love, forgiveness, and Grace, one that has existed since at least the Big Bang. This cosmic force of Love flowers in the historical Jesus yet also in any being who acts with charity, compassion, and love. This Jesus operates within a framework of either/and, not either/or. I imagine this Jesus as a sort of bodhisattva on the Jordan.

In 🌎 Many Tribes: (starting with Overview & Six Versions of Infinity) I explore the history of exclusive vs. inclusive Christianity, and in ⏯ Systems (starting with Christianity 2.0) I argue for an inclusive Christianity, even for a Jesus 2.0. This Jesus isn’t burdened with being the only way to God, but is unfettered in the encouragement of love, truth, inclusion, compassion, forgiveness, sacrifice, and redemption. This Jesus honours this religion or that religion, as long as it advocates peace, love, and understanding.

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My hope is that the more the agnostic and the theist remain open, the more likely they are to understand each other, to get along, perhaps even to merge in the infinity that both see as the dominant feature of reality.

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Next: 🍷 Refuge and Absinthe

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