Article 2:
Why Start All Over
Again?
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)
«Fearing Change «Using God «Hierarchy «The Destructive Effects of Control
«Power holders and Control «Ideas Influence Behavior «God As Predator
«Taking Back Control «Everyone a God Specialist «Humanity Revealing God
Introduction
I am arguing for an entirely new approach to understanding the reality that we call God. In particular, I am arguing that we give our views of divinity a strong horizontal orientation. It is important to do this because verticalized or dominating ideas of God have provided powerful validation for abusive control of others throughout human history.
Religious people will argue that traditional views of monotheism are fundamentally sound and all that may be needed is some peripheral reform of a few distorting features. But the contemporary view of God is so contrary to truly humane reality that it is no longer a credible response to just patch it up around the edges. It is more productive to think in terms of discarding the old religious God altogether, along with the complex theological structures built over millennia to support views of this God.
The changes to views of God that are needed are so fundamental and radical that it will amount to a complete recreation of the human understanding of God. In saying these things, I am trying to set the tone for the radical nature of change that is necessary. It is time to start all over again.
I am also arguing for a fresh start because of the current stalemated nature of much discussion and thought regarding God. Traditional sources of information about God, such as holy books and abstract theological systems no longer provide the type of information needed to inform a proper understanding of divinity. These sources are often rooted in archaic mythologies that no longer make any credible sense in our modern world.
For instance, chaos or indeterminacy theory points to a free and non-determining God. God is not a Sovereign who predetermines every detail of the future, but, rather, allows chance, spontaneity, and genuine freedom to operate in life. Such a God reflects more closely the reality of life as we now know it to be.Multiple millennia have passed since god consciousness first emerged. During this time God has become inextricably tied to domination and control. These features have become the essential defining core and the major functions of the religious patriarch. I now agree with what Jacques Ellul said of the relation of Jesus to Christianity, "Christianity is on all points the exact opposite of what Jesus intended" (1). Similarly, I would also argue that the contemporary God is on all points the exact opposite of the humane reality that we now understand divinity to be.
Consequently, as is true of all useful discovery, it may be wise to disregard entirely old parameters in our search for a new God. It may be more useful to start with fresh ideas and entirely new approaches and to make use of the recently emerging information about life and the universe.
While, initially, it may seem wildly insane to even think of creating a radically new version of God, creating gods or views of God is a practice that humans have always been responsible for. This is how we arrived at our contemporary understanding of God. It is more honest for us to accept that it is indeed our work and then without apology to start all over again and begin the task of creating an entirely new view of God for a new millennium.
In setting out to create a new understanding of divinity, we need to adopt the attitude of Kathleen Armstrong who said "It would have saved me a great deal of anxiety to hear... that instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself" (2). If we do not take responsibility to shape our own understanding of divinity, then the religious authorities will do it for us. But we need not wait for the religious authorities to tell us what they think God is like. That will only lead to more of the religious enslavement, confusion, and misery that many of us are trying to escape from.
Each person needs to take personal responsibility for their own view of God in order to avoid subjection to control by others.
It can be upsetting and even frightening to think of discarding something so basic and central to life as one's view of God. It may even lead to the collapse of entire worldviews. This can be as traumatizing an experience as that endured by many of earth's inhabitants at the time of Copernicus. When Copernicus challenged the ancient view that the sun circled the earth, it shattered the faith of many of his contemporaries. Those people had tied their belief in God to woefully incorrect views of life and the universe. When new emerging information challenged basic elements of their worldviews, many began to doubt other foundational ideas and many experienced the collapse of their way of viewing reality. It resulted in a crisis of belief for many people. Some simply abandoned belief in God altogether. But the challenge to their archaic worldview was an unavoidable process to go through in order to move forward into true freedom. It was a necessary break with a mythical and misleading way of viewing reality.
Ken Woodward, referring to the Copernican Revolution, says that since Aristotle people had viewed earth and heaven as fixed, eternal realities. "Relying on Aristotle, medieval Christianity had imagined a tidy geocentric universe in which nature served man and mankind served God. 'In a certain sense, religion got burned for locking itself too deeply into a particular scientific view which was then discarded'" (How The Heavens Go", Newsweek, July 20, 1998, p.52).
Darwin brought a further crisis for religious faith when he demoted humanity to just another species of animal life emerging through a long and indeterminate evolutionary process. After Darwin, humans were no longer viewed as a special creation, but rather came to be seen as just another species on a crowded planet in a universe with perhaps many other inhabited planets. This evolutionary viewpoint has had a devastating impact on the faith of many who see themselves as descending from a higher stock of specially elected and created beings.
We are now going through a similar time of crisis in current world history with worldviews everywhere collapsing under the challenge of a mass of new emerging information about the human self, life, and the universe. Traditional views of God will not go unchallenged during this process.
And it may makes no sense to defend these archaic views of God or to defensively tinker with reform around the edges while the very core no longer expresses reality as we now know it to be. As traumatizing as this process may be for many people, it is time to radically rethink and recreate the greatest idea to have ever entered the human mind- the idea of God.
Hanging on to the old views out of fear of change will be far more damaging to our development and existence. That course of action will only hinder human understanding and growth. A new millennium now provides us with an excellent opportunity to formally create an entirely new approach to understanding God.
Having said this, I want to note the caution of Karen Armstrong that too sudden or radical change can leave some people disoriented and confused. Perhaps a more gradual process can be more helpful to people not used to radical change. Others may prefer some guidance in navigating the route toward new views of life and God. And some people will never in their lifetime want to change their views and that too is all right. As long as their beliefs encourage them to be tolerant, loving, and decent human beings, then there may be no need to change.
Using God
Throughout history people have manufactured and used ideas of God in a very pragmatic manner for their own needs and purposes. Karen Armstrong even suggests that "Each generation has to create the image of God that works for them" (3). She argues that people have long believed that it was more important that their idea of God work for them then that the idea be logically or scientifically correct (4)
God and gods have been created and used for a variety of reasons. People have used ideas of God to make sense of the unexplainable and tragic elements of life. They have used views of God to explain the more positive events in life. Armstrong also notes that views of God have been used in an effort to explain the mystery that people sense behind life (5). She says that mysterious forces or spirits were personalized and made into gods by early people. According to Armstrong, this is how the gods originated some 14,000 years ago (6)
People, she explains, created myths which were "metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. These dramatic and evocative stories of gods and goddesses helped people articulate their sense of the powerful but unseen forces that surrounded them" (7). She argues that creating and using gods in this manner was something that human beings have always done (8)
In trying to rediscover the reality of God as something more humane, it will help to remember this point made by Armstrong's that in every age people are responsible for making up their own views of God. And we need to remember that in the process of creating views of divinity, people have often projected the most barbaric features onto God, features that validate the most inhumane treatment of others. As Armstrong has said, forcing God to speak and think like one of us, shows the inadequacies of such anthropomorphic and personalistic conceptions of the divine. There are, she says, too many contradictions in such views of God to be either coherent or worthy of veneration (9)
But while it is possible to distort God by projecting our worst features onto him, so it is also possible to distort God by making him "impossible perfection over against our human frailty. Thus God was infinite, man finite; God almighty, man weak; God holy, man sinful" (10 ). Armstrong says, "The kind of projection which pushes God outside the human condition can result in the creation of an idol". She argues that in recent times in the West the idea of God has become increasingly externalized from the human condition and therefore contributes to a very negative conception of human nature (11). We need to realize, she says, that this hideous deity that we imagine to be the authentic God of Jews, Christians, and Muslims is in fact an unfortunate aberration (12)
Armstrong then states that the idols of fundamentalism are poor substitutes for God. It is now time to relinquish and reject such views of God which are arguably the predominant views of God throughout the Western world today. It is time to quit using such views of God to prop up our own loves and hates which we have attributed to divinity (13)
Many people will recoil at what they refer to as 'tampering' with views of God. They may hold a deep fear of questioning or challenging what they believe to be sacred and therefore final truth. But our understanding of the very fallible historical processes through which people form ideas makes it imperative that we challenge all inherited ideas. Contemporary views of God are simply the product of previous centuries and millennia of human creating and tampering. God has not passed down through the centuries some protected and infallible version of himself.
One of the earliest pragmatic uses for which gods were employed was that of validating the brutal social orders created by early settling humans. Those people viewed their social orders and institutions as earthly replicas of the spiritual realm. It is an old sociological/anthropological insight that people have always tried to replicate in their relationships and communities what they believe to be the divine reality. Therefore, ideas of God or gods have long been used to validate social relationships and orders.
The manner in which early people arranged their relationships with each other was oriented to a vertical arrangement of relating that people believed to be the divine order (gods as superiors, people as servants of the gods). That hierarchical order has long been viewed as the sacred order (14) and influenced human beings to create vertically oriented social orders. Even Aristotle argued in the pre-AD era that submission in hierarchy was "the individual's dutiful subordination to a God-given immutable social order" (15). This is an ancient use of God, which has continued into the present
There is therefore a long and influential history of support for the idea of sacred vertical relating. But this study will argue repeatedly that the vertical arrangement of relationships in hierarchies originated not with God but within previous animal relating and existence. Hierarchical relating is simply a carryover from our animal past and it should have been eliminated long ago from human relationships and societies because of its damaging influence on human well being and development. It is not a human form of relating but is purely animal in orientation
Vertical relating or the vertical arrangement of human relationships is known by this more common term hierarchy. And hierarchies are by their very nature systems of command and control. They are essentially forms or structures of institutionalized domination. They place people in relationships of superiors and inferiors. Positioning some people above others activates residual drives to dominate and encourages the expression of power and control by the superior. Such relationships facilitate the expression of competitive aggression with all its damaging consequences. Vertically oriented relating also activates the response of counter-coercion in those being controlled. I will deal with each of these issues in more detail in later essays.
Researchers have noted that whenever control, coercion, or power enters a relationship, which inevitably happens when relationships are vertically oriented, then hostile and destructive forms of interpersonal relationships always result (16). These relationships preclude the possibility of participants expressing genuine love or other human emotions. Truly humane relating becomes impossible in such competitive arrangements of relationships. Hierarchical relating, therefore, can never serve human relationships, human well being, or human developmentYou may feel that I am stating these issues in fairly extreme terms. But I would invite you to take a close look at the accumulating research and make your own conclusions. My own sense of things is that it is time for so-called democratic states and institutions to quit playing games with their citizens and members. The hierarchical arrangement of human relationships in any social organization is too often a direct denial and serious violation of the most fundamental values we claim to hold dear in democracies- freedom and equality.
The fact that we continue to organize and structure human groups with relationships that express a superior/inferior or dominant/subordinate orientation shows how little we understand or value genuine democracy, freedom, equality and human well being or development. I have come to the conclusions that to structure groups with dominant/subordinate relationships is to take an inhumane approach to organizing human relatingHierarchy is simply organizing and institutionalizing a strata of power positions, privileges, opportunities, and benefits among people. More specifically, in terms of the key organizational function of decision making, hierarchy violates equality and freedom in the manner in which decision making occurs. As Rothschild and Whitt have said, "Hierarchy inhibits equality of influence in decision making bodies" (17). And to the contrary, in truly democratic organization "Decisions become authoritative and binding to the extent they arise from a process in which all members have the right to full and equal participation" (18). But more on that later.
Max Weber, the father of modern sociology, argued regarding hierarchy that "the requirements of modern society would make bureaucratic authority a permanent and indispensable feature of the social landscape" (19)His acceptance of the inevitability of pyramidal bureaucracy as the only way to organize modern society led him to unquestioningly accept the authority of some people over others. He accepted such domination (his synonymous term for authority) as legitimate and necessary. And domination required an administrative structure to execute commands. Hence, the inevitable hierarchical organization of human groups.
Weber saw the tight vertical organization of human groups and human society in relationships of domination/submission as the ultimate form of human organization. Welcome to the pinnacle of human perfection.Robert Michels, another influential sociologist, also argued for the inevitable domination of some people by others in hierarchy. He stated that there was no other possible manner in which to organize human groups. True democracy was simply impossible. In his own words, "Who says organization, says oligarchy" (20). This is known as the 'Iron Law of Oligarchy'. Rothschild has summed up Weber and Michels work in the following statement: "The Iron Law is assumed to apply to all types of organization. Mainstream organizational and management theories typically ignore or dismiss the possibility of internal organizational democracy and, following Weber or Michels, take for granted the presence of hierarchical, superior/subordinate relationships, and oligarchic control" (21)
I categorically reject such thinking as blatantly undemocratic, a violation of the basic values of freedom and equality, and simply inhumane. A hierarchical approach to organizing and relating too often makes a mockery of democracy. And to then assume that a token vote every 4-7 years fulfills the democratic values of freedom and equality, while daily people are controlled and dominated in superior/inferior organizational relationships, well, that is self-deception.
Weber's vertically oriented society and Michel's Iron Law allow little room for genuine freedom or democracy to operate. We in the West claim to value freedom and equality, but our unthinking adoption of Weber's and Michel's ideas of vertically oriented societies of domination are a denial of these core human values. The manner in which we structure our fundamental social organizations reveals our primary social values. And our organizing clearly shows that our primary values are aggressive competition and resources amassment with the consequent power and domination that such activity leads to. The institutionalization of these values has contributed to the inequality and loss of freedom that many members of our societies continue to experience even today.
The continued denial of genuine freedom and equality for the majority of people in modern societies feeds continued resentment and conflict. You can allow more public input and rearrange the furniture or walls in your organizations, but you will never solve problems of peaceful coexistence and cooperation until you deal radically with the issues of freedom and equality as in shared power over critical decision making processes and resources.
Over the domestication era, hierarchical relating has become the dominant form of relating in almost every institution and every area of our societies- in families, schools, the workplace, all levels of government, and all other social institutions. In more recent times, this vertical orientation of relationships has been validated by the ideas of men like Weber and Michels.
These vertical relationships and base drives to control others would be condemned as grossly inhumane and even evil if it were not for their long history of validation by views of a controlling God. Vertical relationships of domination/submission are still with us today because of the emergence of god consciousness and the subsequent sacralization of patriarchal rule. As the early patriarchs came to be viewed as gods, it was natural to view their domination as sacred also. In the millennia since that time, the idea of a vertical orientation in relating to gods has been employed to validate and support similar forms of relating among human populations. I believe that even though there is something fundamentally wrong about some people controlling other people, such control is still widely tolerated in human society simply because it is sanctioned by a similar pattern of relating to God and is therefore widely viewed as natural and even sacred. Vertical views of divinity are the root ideas behind the vertical approach to life.
For some people, it may be questionable if there is still a strong relationship between views of God and human social orders or arrangements of relationships. But the influence of views of God on social orders will become more evident later when I note the development of the idea of law. It will become clear that law was the historical replacement for the earlier direct control of people by gods in early social orders. Law control of behavior has now become the contemporary form of an ancient method of behavior control by patriarchs/gods.
While law as a societal authority has evolved since its origin, in many places it still embodies the commands of ancient gods and control by the gods.
Also, it needs to be remembered that while the direct relation between God and control in contemporary institutions may not be obvious, the vertical arrangement of relationships in modern institutions originated directly from the patterns formed in early domestication when humans were tightly controlled in hierarchical relationships with gods.
The Destructive Effects of Control
As I noted above, the domination experienced in hierarchical relating has devastating consequences for human well being. Institutionalized vertical relationships tend to activate and encourage a form of predatory animal-like response, which can overwhelm, supplant, and hinder the development of more humane forms of relating (22). This form of relating and the control it engenders, can cause immense damage to people in the form of alienation, depression, and other emotional disorders, as well as causing physical harm.
There appears to be a growing consensus that hierarchical relationships have been devastatingly to human well being and development. Leviatan notes this in stating that "The vast majority of the population of industrial society- those at the lowest levels in the hierarchy of social organizations- are doomed to experience alienation, and lower levels of well-being and mental health" (23). He notes in detail the damage to human well being and to human development that occurs in vertical controlling relationships.
It is questionable how much real freedom or genuine equality is experienced by the majority of those who exist at the lower levels of the hierarchical institutions of our societies. In many social situations, such as the workplace, the vast majority of people still suffer the dehumanizing effects of control exercised by relatively small elite groups of powerholders.
The control exercised by managing powerholders effectively removes free choice and personal responsibility from people and leaves them powerless in regard to critically important areas of their lives. It is a debilitating condition that most of the human race still suffers under.
The negative effects of domination and control as experienced in hierarchy are well documented in organizational theory studies on hierarchy and alienation (24) and in psychological studies on control (25) and power (26). The organizational theory studies tend to focus on the workplace and the alienation caused by hierarchical structures in that context. But the principles operating there apply to all areas of life.
I find everywhere abundant evidence of the mental and emotional damage, the depression, the humiliation and resentment, the confusion and conflict, the physical illness and even early death that results from existence in vertical hierarchical relationships of domination/submission. While I will treat this in more detail later, let me present a brief overview of some key ideas.
David Kipnis, in particular, has done some very insightful research on power or control relationships and the damage these relationships cause to people and to the development of truly humane forms of relating. He has argued that whenever people relate vertically to others, with any element of power or control, then generally the dominant person in the relationship suffers the dehumanizing impact that arises out of exercising drives that are not genuinely humane.
He notes one research study which has shown that when organizational supervisors had a choice between using personal influence to persuade people or using institutional resources (rewards, sanctions, punishment) to control people's behavior, the supervisors overwhelmingly choose to use institutional powers (27). Once they started using coercion, it was difficult and rare for them to switch back to persuasion.
Kipnis concludes that when people are given the opportunity to control others they will inevitably do so. They will "become more demanding and less willing to compromise" (28). According to Kipnis, power seems to unleash in most people cruel motives to manipulate others, motives that people had not believed existed before their control of power occurred.
These 'dark forces' to control are usually manifested when the person in the controlling position loses the usual restraints produced by an awareness of their identity as a human person. It appears that vertical power relationships tend to cause people to lose the awareness of themselves as human and what it means to relate as a human being (29).
The loss of a sense of humanity occurs very commonly when people take on institutional hierarchical roles. People in such positions then begin to coerce others in ways that society would normally condemn if they were employed outside of an organizational context. Hierarchical institutions, however, legitimize and encourage people to express and act on these primitive aggressive drives to dominate by placing people in so-called 'legitimate' positions of authority and control over others. In this manner, the vertical relationships of hierarchical organizations bring out the very worst residual drives in people.
The dehumanizing impact of authority relationships is also visible in the inevitable refusal of powerholders to treat subordinates as fully human persons with equal rights and privileges.
And how often have we seen powerholders, from popes to politicians, occupying positions of power and privilege while at the same time speaking eloquently of social values such as equality and human rights and seemingly unaware of the contradiction between what they say and their positions. To hold a position of power, with its associated control of important decision making processes that affect the lives of others, denies others their freedom and equality. This is extremely damaging to the well being of the subordinate parties in such relationships.
This evidence set forth by Kipnis and others is profoundly disturbing and needs to be brought before a wider audience to starkly show the damage caused to human well being by vertical relating. Just as awareness of the dangers of such things as smoking now brings widespread public outcry to ban smoking, so the awareness of the damage of control in vertical relationships must bring widespread public outcry to abolish all vertical relationships of domination from human organizations and societies.
It is a straightforward correlation to note- if views of God are in some measure responsible for inspiring the shape of human social orders, then why is there such brutal, intimidating, and widespread domination and control of people in our societies and institutions? The answer, in brief, is that human societies have often been brutally dominating arrangements of relationships simply because the God that humans have created and believed in has been a brutally dominating and controlling God. That God has long been used to validate the very worst of animal drives and behavior among people. We noted earlier Armstrong's point that we tend to project our features (often our worst ones) onto God.
Brinsmead has stated that as long as people believe in an oppressing hierarchical God, then they will imitate him in creating oppressing, hierarchical systems. He argues that it is impossible to be fully human and to have human societies until we have a view of God which is fully human. There must be a view of God as the foundation of all existence, he says, and this view must be human.
"To the extent that our view of God is non-human, to that extent our (social order) will be dehumanizing. Many people, because their inhuman God comes first, then, in the name of God and from allegiance to God they do inhuman things to each other" (30). In saying this, Brinsmead is simply recognizing the powerful force of ideas, especially ideas of God and the sacred, to influence how people relate to and treat each other. And we have only to remember the crusades and the recent colonial period to find examples of people treating others brutally in the name of God.
During the colonial period European powers went forth to exploit the resources and wealth of other nations, often under the guise of going forth to civilize or convert the unworthy 'pagans' that inhabited non-European parts of the earth. God, during this period, was blatantly used to support the domination and abuse of other human beings. We still suffer the bitter after-taste from that dehumanizing period.
This study is arguing that the God of contemporary world religions, such as Christianity, has far too long been an inhumane dominating ruler who has been used to validate the domination of others and to control every aspect of human existence. This view of God has been used to justify the most inhumane treatment of others in the name of God (31). All kinds of dominating movements and organizations have been created and claimed this God as their divine sponsor. Again, we only need to remember the crusades and the colonial period to find examples of people treating each other brutally in the name of God. More recently, in countries such as Afghanistan, we saw the most horrific examples of brutality toward other human beings under the guise of loyalty to God. It has been argued that Western religion has been responsible for more bloodshed and misery than anything else in human history (32). This ought to serve as a warning regarding the views of God that we hold.
People relate vertically to the old dominating God as inferiors to a superior. Vertical relating is predatory in nature and, as I noted earlier, has its origin in animal existence. In plain language this renders the contemporary monotheistic God more animal-like than human. This controlling male patriarch has become the supreme animal.
I am aware that to declare that such a view of God has distinctly animal features or that God is more animal-like than human is a serious charge to make and it will offend many people. It will seem downright blasphemous to others. But emerging evidence on many fronts forces us to this inescapable conclusion. The God of contemporary world religions (Western in particular) is very much an animal-like God and the adoption of this view of God has always promoted vertical animal-like existence. This old view of God and the controlling practices it has been used to validate have brought great misery to the human race.
As I noted earlier, according to Julian Jaynes, the origin of vertically oriented views of divinity occurred when early patriarchs were viewed as gods during early human domestication (33). With the transforming of those early patriarchs into gods, the earliest and most profound ideas of God were then rooted in control and domination, not in the concepts of human freedom or equality. Emerging god consciousness, which should have supported egalitarian humanity, was used instead to validate and support the continuance of animal-like control in emerging human society. It was a tragic historical detour that humanity has never fully recovered from.
The controlling gods created by those early peoples eventually evolved to become the ruling sovereign we know today as the monotheistic God. This God now determines and controls all history and all life, leaving nothing of critical importance for human choice. The divine pattern of sovereign control is replicated in most modern societies and institutions where centralized governments and their leaders make the critical choices determining the future in oppressive detail for their citizens and members.
History is replete with the efforts of brave humans to break free of the tyranny of hierarchical domination and control. The earliest efforts were slave and then peasant revolts (34). Later efforts were expressed in nationalist movements. More recent history has experienced a wide variety of liberation movements.
Perhaps the most common expression of the desire to be free of inhuman domination is the contemporary grassroots dissatisfaction with all levels of government (and other social institutions) which control life and make often-resented decisions for the average citizen.
This growing dissatisfaction with centralized systems of organization may be viewed as a growing human intolerance of the vertical relating that is embodied in the hierarchies of these institutions. Emerging humanity is simply growing less tolerant of vertically oriented relationships of control. It is a reaction to the dehumanization experienced in hierarchical relationships.
People are sick and tired of feeling powerless to influence or control their own lives and destinies. They are tired of their powerlessness to change things that affect them in important ways. They are also tired of the lack of freedom to express themselves as the unique humans that they are. As one person simply stated, "I am tired of being told what to do by others". This statement captures the widespread sense that something is seriously wrong with control in human relationships.
Stating that you do not like being told what to do may sound petulant, but it is a profoundly human reaction to dehumanizing control.
Consequently, the demand for more humane forms of relating and existence continues to grow. This demand expresses itself in the struggle for more control over personal and community life. In the words of one politician "All over the world ordinary people are trying to take back control of their own government and more of the things affecting their own lives that have been relinquished to the state" (35). Recent people power movements testify to this demand for more personal control.
At heart, this demand for freedom and power is a demand for freedom to be fully and truly human (36). It expresses the desire of people to relate and exist as fully human. It is a desire that springs from the fundamental nature of humanity as free and equal.
But to fully realize this demand of emerging humanity will require more than just the regaining of control over vital decisions affecting one's life. It will require more than the decentralization of governing authority and decision making to lower levels (i.e. to communities). It will also mean more than simply efforts to humanize the workplace.
Regaining full control of our lives will require some radical alterations to the most fundamental ideas in our worldviews. It will involve the change from vertically oriented views of life and the universe to horizontally oriented views of life. Such change means shifting away from viewing life as an animal-like reality- governed by vertical and dominating relationships- to viewing life as a human reality, with relationships that are truly horizontal and egalitarian.
These vertical/horizontal categories are not magical or indispensable labels. They are simply a useful means of expressing some of the basic points I am trying to make about the difference between animal forms of relating and human relating.
But if we are ever to move toward a truly humane existence, then at the very heart of all must be views of the divine as a truly humane reality. Views of divinity have always validated other important elements of human worldviews. This makes the change from a vertically oriented God to a horizontally oriented God to be one of critical importance.
It is time to end the millennia long tyranny of the old God. The rule of this all-determining, dominating male patriarch must end if truly humane forms of relating are to emerge and develop.
In his place we will need a more humane God. We need a God who relates horizontally to all humanity and to all life as an equal, not as a superior. Only with a horizontally oriented God and in horizontal relationship to this God can we find a new basis for humane forms of relating and true human freedom. Only a genuinely humane God is worthy of validating more genuinely humane social orders.
It is not only a matter of humanizing the workplace. It is the far more radical need to humanize God, to transform God from an animal-like entity to a more genuinely humane entity. In reality, God has always been supremely humane. It is our responsibility to recognize this fact and its implications and then bring our views more in line with this reality.
The endeavor to create a new view of God must be removed decisively from the hands of elites and religious experts. Creating a new view of God is a task that requires the input of everyone. It is a job for average people, especially the non-religious. We have seen the God that religious elites, priests, and theologians have created- an institutional God who represents domination, a God who is such a distortion of humane reality that, arguably, he is more animal-like than human.
And the practice of religious authorities using their God to control the lives of others must also end. This control is commonly presented in complex teaching on the 'will of God' which too often represents only the will of religious elites and religious organizations.
These same authorities have long tried to retain exclusive rights to God. Understanding of God has been mystified and presented as too esoteric for ordinary minds. God has been surrounded with complex and confusing systems of theology, making him inaccessible to all except the experts holding the keys to interpreting the secrets. God has been made an inaccessible reality to all except the few who can understand the meanderings and gobbledygook of religious theology. The knowledge of God has then been mediated to only the select few willing to submit themselves to the domination of the religious authorities and pay the religious taxes.
It is time for those of us at the bottom to declare that we are as mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore.
Every person has the right and the responsibility to define and to access all there is of God. No one can mediate God to others. Every person also has equal access to everything that can be known about God for God is equally present with everyone and easily accessible in the ordinary of everyday life. No one has more of God or better access to God than anyone else does.
And we need to remember that everyone holds the right and the responsibility to define God for themselves...
Armstrong has made the point that all human beings were created in God's image and therefore reflect God. She says, "It follows that each human being is a unique epiphany of the Hidden God, manifesting him in a particular and unrepeatable manner...God cannot be summed up in one human expression since the divine reality is inexhaustible. It also follows that the revelation that God has made in each one of us is unique, different from the God known by other innumerable men and women...We will only know our own 'God' since we cannot experience him objectively, it is impossible to know him in the same way as other people" (37). This point argues for the unique contribution that every person has to make regarding the understanding of God.
Armstrong also warns of the danger of creating one final version of God for all people such as is done by the main world religions. These gods are considered by the religious adherents to be identical to God himself. In Armstrong's words "This (has) only bred intolerance and fanaticism" (38).In our own consciousness and sense of humane reality we have the main source of knowledge of God, for this sense of humane reality inspires the image of God in us. We are not yet fully humane and often our humanity is clouded and buried by residual animal drives and behavior. But what we are becoming as human provides us with valuable insight into the nature of the humane God.
Fortunately, for all of us who find religion an insufferable experience, the humane God is not a religious reality. Neither is this God institutionally or organizationally oriented. As Ellul argued regarding Jesus, that he was on all points the opposite of Christianity (39), so I would argue that on all points God is the opposite to religion or any form of institutionalized spirituality. God is, instead, the free God of life, of all life. This humane God is easily and equally accessible to all through the medium of ordinary life.
And equally helpful in the effort to define God is the information that is emerging on the human self or human personhood (40). This information on what it means to be truly human will help in the effort to shape a new emerging view of truly humane reality. It will also help to shape new more humane social orders.
It is the responsibility of every human being to be involved in this great venture of creating a new understanding of God for a new millennium. Ideas of God in the hands of religious authorities and others have far too long been exploited to support the inhumane control of others. In doing so, people have made God into a dominating monster. We can do much better and we must now take personal responsibility to create our own views of a more humane God.
This effort to create a new understanding of divinity has great potential to unite humanity around a common denominator- that of being human. It can provide fresh impetus to move us together as we realize that we are all moving toward the same goal, that of becoming more humane.
It may seem extremely offensive to some people that I appear to be attacking something as sacred as God. But in reality I am only questioning what is becoming more widely recognized as a severely distorted view of God. At the core of my argument, I am attacking control and domination which have been made sacred in the idea of God. Control is a base animal drive and practice which has no place in human relationships and existence.
But we will never deal thoroughly with control, until we deal radically with ideas of a controlling God.
From the series "Taking The Vertical Out Of God" by W. Krossa, copyrighted material. For information contact wkrossa@istar.ca
Works Cited
Ellul, Jacques. 1986. The Subversion of Christianity, p.3.
Armstrong, Karen. 1993. A History of God, p.4.
Ibid, p.5.
Ibid, p.5.
Ibid, p.9.
Ibid, p.9.
Ibid, p.11.
Ibid, p.10.
Ibid, p.309.
Ibid, p.354.
Ibid, p.354.
Ibid, p.378.
Ibid, p.399, 392.
Iannello, Kathy. 1992. Decisions Without Hierarchy, p.15.
Cohen, Ronald and Elman Service. 1978. Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution.
Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders, p.33.
Rothschild, Joyce and Allen Whitt. 1989. The Cooperative Workplace: Potentials and dilemmas of organizational democracy and participation, p.51.
Ibid, p.51.
Ibid, p.22.
Ibid, p.23.
Ibid, p.23.
Zwemer, Jack. 1994. "The New World Order" in Forum, No. 33, p.4.
Leviatan, Uriel. 1991. "Hierarchical Differentiation and Alienation" in Alienation, Community and Work, p.160.
Oldenquist, Andrew and Menachem Rosner. Eds. 1991. Alienation, Community, and Work.
Langer, Ellen. 1983. The Psychology of Control.
Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders.
Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders, p.24.
Ibid, p.44.
Ibid, p.133.
Brinsmead, Robert. 1991. "Jesus and a Post-Modern Worldview" in Quest, No. 9, p.6.
Ibid. 1989. "Dare to Blaspheme and Dare to be Free" in Quest, Essay 1, p.7.
Buhlman, Walbert. God's Chosen Peoples.
Jaynes, Julian. 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, p.143.
Patterson, Orlando. 1991. Freedom, Vol.1: Freedom In The Making of Western Culture.
Manning, Preston. 1995. Interview on CNN.
Brinsmead, Robert.
Armstrong, Karen. 1993. A History Of God, p.237-238.
Ibid, p.239.
Ellul, Jacques. 1986. The Subversion of Christianity, p.3.
Zwemer, Jack. 1991. "The Nature of the Human Self" in Quest, No. 12. Ibid. 1994. "The Openness of Man" in Forum, No. 29, p.4.
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