Meta-Christianity

Finding Faith in Modernity

This presentation was prepared for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fairfield, CT, for Sunday, May 4, 2025.

I hope the term meta-Christianity catches your interest. Don’t worry about what it means just yet. From my presentation and the handout I will distribute at the end, the meaning will hopefully become clear.

A couple of years ago I self-published a book titled Honest to God: Christianity at the Convergence of Tradition, Reason, and Mystery.

What I am going to do today is (1) give you a very high-level overview of the core ideas that drive the book and then (2) leave you with a handout based on a chapter near the end of the book that summarizes how I think honest, modern Christianity—what I propose calling Meta-Christianity—should differ from traditional Christianity. That means I will be leaving out almost all of the details of how I reached my conclusions and the nuances of what they mean. So, if my presentation sparks your interest, the book is where you will find the missing middle and the flesh that fills out the bones. I have tried to price it to be affordable.

The book is a product of my life-long interest to find whatever might be valid in Christianity when viewed from within the modern, scientific, evolutionary worldview that I share with most well-educated people today. It is an attempt to share the faith I have come to in my own spiritual quest and the perspectives and practices that have led me to that faith.

Early in my quest I realized that the same issues that concern me personally are central to the crises that have assailed the Church in the Modern period. I truly believe that, if the Church is to survive meaningfully, it must come to terms with the issues I address in the book and that I hope, as I said, to give you a very high-level overview of today.

My spiritual seeking and the crises that assail the church today arise from profound cultural changes that began to erupt in Europe at the beginning of what we call the Modern Period about 500 years ago. This eruption was all about a shift in the relationship between two types of human intelligence—social intelligence and rational intelligence. It is not usually framed this way, but this framing is crucial if you really want to understand what has been going on with Christianity and the culture wars. It’s not just about new theology competing with old theology. It is about new patterns of mental process clashing with old patterns of mental process. It is about a change in how we use our brains.

Social intelligence is about relationship. It consists of the instincts, emotions, and thinking abilities that enable us to live in groups. These include instincts of social hierarchy, loyalty, commitment, competition and cooperation, affection, fairness and justice, compassion, revenge, and the abilities to interpret and respond to the behaviors of others. These instincts, emotions, and thought processes determine how our social groups cohere and function, including who leads and who follows. We see most or all of these behaviors in other mammals who live in groups.

Rational intelligence is about what psychologists and neurologists call higher-order cognition. Rational intelligence is the capacity to think abstractly and critically, as in basic problem solving, mathematics, science, philosophy, and self-reflection.

Social intelligence thinks in terms of human relationships. It anthropomorphizes everything, which means it attributes human-like thinking and motivation to non-human things and sees reality, as a whole, to be moved by the willful choices of personal beings such as gods, nature spirits, demons, and angels.

Rational intelligence thinks in terms of facts, evidence, and logical propositions.

Additional contrasts are listed here.

An example: If I say, “My car hates me. It refused to start this morning,” I am regarding it as a person-like being with emotions and the capacity to make willful choices. That perspective comes from my social intelligence. Using my rational intelligence I would say, “My car didn’t start this morning. I think there must be ice in the fuel line.” In the first case I am attributing social motivation to my car; in the second, I am proposing a physical, cause-and-effect explanation.

Again, I cannot over-emphasize that I am not simply talking about differences in the content of thought; I am talking about big differences in the processes of thought that stand behind the content. I am talking about understanding and relating to reality using different balances of brain function.

Another example: Today’s cultural-political divide is rooted substantially in this difference. Authoritarian leaders and their followers operate almost exclusively from social intelligence. With them it’s all about dominance behaviors, loyalty to leader and tribe, and emotional manipulation. That’s why such movements are so unaffected by facts and logic and so accepting of misinformation and conspiracy theories: they avoid using the rational part of their brains with critical discipline. Supporters of democracy operate much more with rational intelligence as evidenced by their concern for facts and their respect for law, which is a system based on ideals of reason and impartiality.

Tradition is a product of social intelligence and is socially transmitted. Tradition is the cultural framework we inherit from and share within our social context. In premodern societies, religion was central to tradition.

In Premodernity, religious tradition held sway over reason. Tradition was the important thing, and reason played a supporting role. Reason was used to organize, to support, and to understand tradition, and, sometimes, to adjust established tradition, but never to overturn tradition. Reason was always secondary to religious tradition.

This began to change in the broad culture of Europe just over 500 years ago with Luther and the Protestant Reformation, which was followed in short order by the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the emergence of popular democracy, the Industrial/technological revolutions, and so on.

So what happened with Luther? In medieval Europe, religious authority was anchored in Roman Catholic tradition as mediated by the church hierarchy. For a variety of reasons that we don’t need to go into, Luther felt that things needed to change. He found a way to challenge tradition and the hierarchy by turning to a different authority: scripture. He insisted that Christians did not have to simply accept the proclamations of the church, but that, instead, they could refer to the Bible and decide for themselves. This was authority based on objective evidence rather than subjective trust of powerful leaders. This was using critical reason to override systems rooted in social conformity and hierarchical authority. Do you see the shift? Subjective authority to objective evidence! Unquestioning obedience to personal discernment!

The difference between Premodernity and Modernity lies not in which of these two forms of intelligence is present but in which of them we trust when they are in conflict. Do we trust the witch doctor or the medical doctor? Do we believe our creation myths literally, or do we accept the theory of evolution? Do we accept tradition as authoritative, or do we reserve the right to question and think for ourselves? Modernity is the first time when broad segments of human culture have chosen reason over tradition.

This change was especially hard for religion because religion was so deeply embedded in the premodern worldview and understood God and reality so anthropomorphically and so much in terms of hierarchical authority. Even now, 500 years into Modernity, the tension within our culture remains excruciating.

There have been three main ways to deal with this tension:

1. Cling to the old worldview. This leads to anti-scientific fundamentalism.
2. Abandon religion. The problem is that this gives up the benefits of religion, which I think are substantial. All societies have had religion, so it must address deep needs in us.
3. Compartmentalize, keeping religion mostly in the premodern worldview and everything else mostly in the modern worldview. This doesn’t resolve anything and means living uncomfortably with tension, confusion, and doubt (cognitive dissonance).

There is, however, a fourth option:

4. Grow Christianity to be compatible with the modern worldview. This has the potential to resolve the tension, keep the benefits of religion, and see reality (God) more clearly.

But is this possible?

I think it is. It requires big changes that will sometimes be uncomfortable, but the guiding principle is simple: Be honest! God is found in the truth! This is the only guiding principle we need.

God is found in the truth. In fact, I would say that God is truth. God is the ultimate and only reality. If we can trust this, it will carry us through to a faith that is more honest and true than the old one. This may mean giving up cherished beliefs, but it will bring us closer to ultimate reality. Change can be hard, so this is not for cowards, but I have experienced it to be an awesome and wonderful, if sometimes difficult, spiritual adventure.

Traditional Christianity is the foundation of the adventure. We are not simply rejecting it. To use postmodern terminology, we are deconstructing and reconstructing it. That means breaking it open, digging into it, and examining it until we find true meaning—meaning we can deeply embrace—and putting it back together in ways that are as honest for our time as we can make them. There is a lot of bath water that needs to be thrown out, but we need to find and keep the baby.

The fear, of course, arises that the deep meaning we seek will not be found. I am here to tell you that I have pursued the adventure for most of my life, and—while there were times when I deeply doubted—I have indeed found it to lead to deep meaning and insight and to a lasting experience of divine presence and deep faith. By no means do I pretend to have completed the adventure, but I absolutely trust it.

Let me restate all this concisely and somewhat differently:

Furthermore, we must do this in a forthright and outspoken manner. There are many theologians who have ventured into these waters, but their work never really makes it into Sunday School or the Sunday morning sermon. The adventure must be opened up to the people in the pews.

Five areas of understanding that are essential for the adventure:

1. Evolution – The best theologians have long ago accepted the evolutionary nature of reality, but that acceptance has not penetrated very far into the theological perception of ordinary Christians. Fundamentalists, of course, reject evolutionary thought. Among more liberal denominations there is mostly tepid acceptance, but also hesitation about where evolutionary thinking, if fully accepted, might lead. We need to turn tepid acceptance into red-hot, loudly and joyfully proclaimed embrace. Reality evolves! This is the greatest revelation of Modernity, and it is a divine gift. Evolution is the hand of God that has shaped us and all things. We simply cannot know God well if we don’t fully see the reality of evolution.
2. Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences (Psychology, Neuroscience, Anthropology, etc.) – Religion is a deeply subjective phenomenon. Much of it is far more about us than it is about God. To see God, we must look through ourselves, but if we don’t understand ourselves well, it is easy to mistake ourselves for God. The clash between social and rational intelligence I have been trying to point out is an example of this. God is quite independent of how we think about God.
3. Critical Study of Religion – For Christianity to be honest it must understand itself. This means understanding as best we can the origins and development of the faith. This includes critical study of the Bible, the historical Jesus, and church tradition.
4. Myth – The critical study of Christianity leads, if we dare to be honest, to the conclusion that the Christian narrative is myth. That is fine. Myth is the language of all traditional religion. This is the truth that Christianity most needs to embrace to come fully into Modernity. This is also the truth Christians are most afraid of. To push through the fear, we need to understand what myth really is and how it works. Myth is the language through which human social intelligence expresses its deepest wisdom, its deepest truth. Myth is not usually literally true, but it speaks profound truth on other levels. It is a good thing. It is a divine gift. We can see those deeper truths as coming from God. Giving up literal belief actually makes it possible to find deeper, more profound truth in the tradition.
5. Spiritual Experience (Mysticism) – Mysticism is the experience of unity/oneness with and within God/Spirit/Divinity along with the concepts, practices, and disciplines that both lead to and emerge from that experience. Such spiritual experience is the source and core of all genuine religion. Christianity has a rich mystical tradition that most Christians today are little aware of. It is the most important part of the tradition around which to build a modern faith. Real faith is not a head-trip we force ourselves to believe; it is living in awareness of our deep connectedness within the source and ground of being we call God or Spirit or the Divine. It is about the deep meaning of rebirth and crucifixion and resurrection—not just for Jesus 2000 years ago—but for all of us now and always.

That’s my high-level overview.

The Christianity that is emerging from this adventure of deconstruction and reconstruction, for those who choose to pursue it, is quite different from traditional Christianity. My book gives my perspective. Others have come or are coming to perspectives that are similar in varying degrees. The website ProgressingSpirit.org, founded by the late Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, is one place to find such people and perspectives.

The time is past due for modern Christians to be outspoken about our modern perspectives on the faith. We have been gentle about it in the past, hoping to avoid conflict and softly nudge our churches forward, but it has not worked well. Modern people seeking faith have left the churches in droves because change has been too slow and the cognitive dissonance intolerable. Hence Spiritual-But-Not-Religious is the fastest growing religious identity in America.

To make the deep meaning and value of Christianity available to well-educated, modern people, it is necessary to be much more outspoken about the differences between the old religious worldview and the new one. Part of doing this is to name them so they can be easily distinguished in conversation. It is clean and easy to call the old version traditional Christianity. I propose that we call the emerging version Meta-Christianity.

Handout

See ProgressingSpirit.org for related perspectives.

This material is adapted from a chapter near the end of Honest to God. It gives an overview of where I have found the adventure of faith to lead.

Here are the relevant dictionary definitions of meta-.

meta-                prefix
1     a : occurring later than or in succession to : after
       b : situated behind or beyond
       c : later or more highly organized or specialized form of
2     : change : transformation
3     : more comprehensive : transcending —usually used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meta-

Meta-Christianity (or meta Christianity) is a later and transformed version of traditional Christianity that deals critically with the older version. It holds traditional Christianity within itself and reframes it to be more real and honest than its prior versions. It is concerned to recognize how it has arisen from the older forms and how it is both the same and different from them. Meta-Christianity is not so much self-referential as self-reflective and self-critical.

Meta-Christianity can also be seen as self-performative in the sense that its emergence is a performance or acting out of one of the deep messages of the Christian tradition. At the very core of the Christian narrative is death and resurrection. Meta-Christianity can be seen as a resurrected modern version of Christianity that emerges when the premodern traditional version is allowed to die. The resurrected form is more and different than the old form, and yet the old form is present in the resurrected form.

The following table contrasts traditional popular Christianity and meta-Christianity as I see it.

Meta-Christianity is what emerges when the best of traditional Christianity is taken seriously, when its highest values, developmental trajectory, and mystical insights are recognized and applied to understanding it and to living it. Meta-Christianity is what Christianity becomes when it has resolved to be honest with itself in the wake of the scientific revolution and centuries of sincere critical scholarship, when it is allowed to be thoroughly examined and reworked by rational intelligence informed by both science and transrational spiritual experience. This reworking makes possible the healing of the rift between heart and head that has afflicted sincere and thoughtful Christians in the modern age.

I do not claim ownership of the term meta-Christianity specifically for my own version of the faith. I hope my thinking will contribute to a robust movement of more honest and revitalized Christianity, but that result will require far more than I alone can offer. While I do feel that such a meta-Christianity—or whatever such a movement might come to be called—should largely embrace the characteristics laid out in the table above, it can become viable only if it emerges from a broad community of like-minded Christians.