Transcendent ExperiencesChristian DoctrineMonths 3, 4 and 5 of my intense time of Calling on The Name happened during the summer of 1977, between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I had a work study program at Concordia University to help pay the costs of tuition my scholarship did not cover. My "job" was to help move, organize, and categorize the thousands of books that were being donated to the college's new library. They came from old church libraries, estates, and private donations. And they came by the truckload. Day after day...books everywhere...in the halls...in the storage...in my dreams...And I opened the boxes, put all the books on shelves, and begin to classify them according to fiction, religion, science and so on, just to see what we had here. And inevitably I would find a book interesting enough to glance through, or maybe read the jacket notes, or table of contents, or whatever. But during that entire summer I only took one book home with me. It was called Christian Doctrine, by an author I shall not name. I was drawn to it because it was the most closed-mined, petty, and blatantly ignorant piece of so-called writing I had ever come across. And, with a train-wreck fascination I just had to take it home and read it. To be fair, I know that there are millions of people who are touched and inspired by such writings. The basic problem was that this book was entirely the polar opposite of my religious pathway. For me, experiencing the Divine was all that mattered. Everything else was supplemental, an aid toward that direction. For Christian Doctrine, however, experience was evil and not to be trusted. The one and only root and ground of the religious life, it said, was the belief that the Bible was mathematically, literally, scientifically and historically fact. Now, I'm not going to expound at length on philosophies of Biblical interpretation, nor its inerrancy. You can find my pertinent comments in The Revealing Science of God. When I graduated from high school my parents gave me a leather-bound New American Standard Bible. It sits on my desk as I write this. And I had written this little quote about the Bible on the inside page. (Regrettably I did not write the author's name.)
Well, for Christian Doctrine that was sacrilegious. That was the devil talking. For me it was intuitively obvious, the Gospel truth. So I guess you could say we had a difference of opinion. And can you guess the punch line? The first day of my sophomore year the professor in my religion class hands out our textbook...Christian Doctrine. Yup. And it happened...just...like...that. The one-and-only book I took from the library that entire summer turned out to be the textbook for the fall religion class at Concordia University. Coincidences?Folks, I cannot explain this. I had never seen the book before. I did not know the prof would be using this text. I must have touched nearly (over?!?) 10,000 books that summer. Yet it was this one, this one and only... What to make of such events? I would have many in my life. At what point does the mathematics of a situation add-up to more than coincidence? Are we guided somehow from beyond, or is it all chance? You know, it is easy to believe we are being supernaturally and Divinely guided when good things happen. But when your beautiful daughter becomes involved in a vehicular manslaughter investigation, what then? Where's the Divine guidance when your wife is having an affair with her first high school boyfriend? Of course I cannot answer these questions for you. I can only give you my answer. And my answer is best expressed in a lyric from the song Close to the Edge by the rock group Yes:
The song is the Song of God, composed and orchestrated by the Divine. Chance, too, exists. From the roll of the dice to the car's tire suddenly driving over a nail and exploding to an asteroid crashing to the earth, stuff happens. I am convinced, between free-will and physics, that we live in a non-deterministic world. The song of God and chance are the 2 forces (the axes of the cosmic matrix, for you mathematicians) that develop time. The lost social temperance is God, the ever-present person and force seeking to love and heal. No matter how bad it gets, no matter the pain inflicted through free-will and physics, God is always love, working to cause all things to eventually work out for good. That's how I view the world. That's the best explanation I can give you. And if you have a better, please let me know. Orthodoxy and MeI took the Christian Doctrine episode as a definite sign from God that my path did not lie with Lutheran Orthodoxy. It was too late to change things for the fall '77 quarter, and I sat (somewhat) patiently through the rest of that indoctrination session. You see, the Christian Doctrine book was the "good news". It could have been the springboard for some lively debates and investigations. I've never had a problem with opposing views, and have VERY, VERY OFTEN found them to be catalysts for great enlightenment. You can fill-in the lesson for yourself. The bad news was that the professor proudly announced that, should any of our answers on tests, positions on papers, or contributions in class be found to be at odds with certified, approved Lutheran Christian Doctrine, then our grades and careers would suffer. Yes, that really happened. (I guess I should stop saying that, yes?) Perhaps to you that's no big deal, happens all the time. But I was in shock. I still can't believe that human beings treat others that way, though it happens millions of times every day. Dan was my teacher and "guru" if you will, and he demanded that we work on this stuff ourselves instead of just sitting around arguing about ideas. And the contrast was just way, way too much. The simple, objective fact is, that professor in particular, and orthodoxy as a whole (in whatever discipline it exists, religious, scientific, whatever), do not educate. They indoctrinate. Education encourages the student to grow into their own ability to think and grapple with life. Indoctrination force-feeds them a frame of reference, and examines the student carefully to make sure all traces of independent initiative or cognition have been entirely eliminated. And yes, I sat in the back like a good little parrot and regurgitated to the professor what I knew he wanted to hear. I got the requisite "A" rewarded to the mind-numb valued by Orthodoxy. I guess I'm none too proud of the fact, but I knew how to play the game. There was no changing these people. And there was no changing me. I knew what I knew, beyond belief. And I knew, beyond belief, that in oh so many ways these people were simply wrong. Just one example from the blessed Lutheran Indoctrination:
I knew this to be historically, linguistically, and factually a lie. But I knew there was no point in discussing it, and wasn't willing to risk my GPA and possible future on them. You have to know the battles that are worth fighting, folks. And, for the record, that's what inspired the title for God is Not God's Name. So I got out the yellow pages and started looking for a new college. RonI was led to Chapman University in Orange, California, just about 8 miles up the freeway from where I still lived with my parents in Irvine. I called the religion department, made an appointment, and met the second most influential and important person in my religious development. I met Dr. Ron Huntington. Ron was the chairman of the religion department and taught the World Religions classes. I was transferring in as a World Religions student. He had been playing the organ for decades, and was the resident classical organ instructor. I took weekly lessons from him on the glorious pipe organ Chapman had in the chapel. And he was to become my faculty advisor. So, starting in the winter semester of 1978, halfway through my sophomore year, and for the next 2 1/2 years, I worked almost daily under the guidance and challenging education of Ron Huntington. His organ playing was impeccable, and inspired me to heights I didn't even know existed, let alone hope to reach. His handwriting still sits on many of the manuscripts I play from in my ongoing Church ministry. Lutheran Church, by the way. Missouri Synod, by the way. Yup, the same folks who run Concordia. Oh, I've tried to run away many times. But the calls I get from the most interesting, lucrative and local organ positions have always (and nearly exclusively) been from Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches. For 25 years now. Go figure. "As song and chance develop time...." And 2 or 3 times a week I would have a class in the religions of the world from Dr. Huntington. Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Shinto, the Native Indian religions of the Americas, not to mention a survey of the New Age movements, and a semester dedicated to changes in science and what they are doing to the human world view. And in one of the earliest classes I ever had with him, as he gave us a term paper assignment, Ron said something that would change my life:
I was just a couple months short of my 20th birthday, and I had never been asked that question before in my entire life. I knew I was where I belonged. I graduated in May of 1980 with a Magnum Cum Laude Bachelor's Degree in The World's Religions and an unofficial minor in organ performance. Even to this day I think about what Ron would say as I play a particular organ piece. I wonder if he would be proud of The Church of Yahweh, and his role in helping to shape me and oh so many of the thoughts and insights I present here. I tried to contact him about a year ago, for just those reasons. I found out he had died a couple years ago. I think he knew I appreciated him. After I graduated from college we socialized occasionally, going to Indian restaurants and the like. Next to Dan, no one has ever inspired me or opened my eyes to the glories of God more than Ron did during those 30 months when I was his student. His guidance lives in me to this day. I hope he knew that. I just wish I had told him more. |
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