What’s so "Intelligent" about Spirituality?
Apr 10th, 2008 by ljkim
My personal mantra for this church goes something like this: intelligent, relevant, spiritual community. To me that describes what we are and what we aspire to be… And from time to time I’ve told people about it and received mixed reactions. So far, no one has a problem with “relevant” or “spiritual” or even “community” but the word that people usually get stuck on is “intelligent.” “Why intelligent?” they ask. Are dumb people not allowed? And I always play it off by saying, “no, no, of course that’s not what I mean…” And it’s not. Boneheads are more than welcome in the church – especially since I’ve been known to play for that team myself! But there is some truth to the suggestion!
Of course you do not need a high IQ to get to God, but you do need to be willing to question your assumptions about things like “You,” “Life,” and “the World…” God says His ways are higher than our ways, and therefore they will often come as a surprise to us. In the Bible, just when people began to think it was a story about the good guys vs. bad guys, God argues that His people have just as much blood on their hands as the other nations. So that not only do the nations need to repent, but His people need to repent even more…if they are to continue being His people… Surprise! I bet none of Israel’s politicians saw that one coming. And of course, they fought against it so that vocal believers like Jeremiah were marginalized and persecuted and eventually left at the bottom of a well to die…
Part of human nature is that we (as a human race) tend to take good things (like nationalism, or sex or power or material possessions) and bend it…so that it winds up hurting us or others. Therefore, unless a person is willing to question his assumptions, to self-critique and consider different viewpoints, he or she will be unable to learn from God…there’s just no way.
Now what do you call a person (regardless of IQ) who reflects on different viewpoints, questions his or her assumptions about life and self and God…then lives accordingly? Anyone who persists in doing this will be pretty darn intelligent in the long run…regardless of how much education he has or the number of books he’s read. Anyway… So INTELLIGENT, relevant, spiritual community is what we aspire to be… But if you still don’t like the word, we don’t have to mention it ever again.
[About the photo: I hope this is "fair use"! Found a pic of Einstein and managed to write in some text on the chalk board... So... no, Einstein didn't come up with intelligent relevant spiritual community - nor did he really write church2.0=mc2. Sorry.]
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