In Christian history, we see the incarnational worldview most strongly in the
early Eastern Fathers, Celtic spirituality, many mystics who combined prayer
with intense social involvement, Franciscanism in general, many nature
mystics, and contemporary eco-spirituality. In general, the materialistic
worldview is held in the technocratic world and areas its adherents colonize;
the spiritual worldview is held by the whole spectrum of heady and esoteric
people; and the priestly worldview is almost all of organized religion.
Each of the four worldviews holds a piece of the cosmic puzzle of reality, and
even the incarnational worldview can be understood in glib and naïve ways,
and thus also be “wrong.” I have seen this among many progressive Catholics,
liberal mainline Protestants, and New Agers. When one too quickly and smartly
says, “All things are sacred” or “God is everywhere,” that doesn’t necessarily
mean one has really longed and made space for this awareness, nor really
integrated such an amazing realization. This is why we must balance Christ
Consciousness with the embodied Jesus. Incarnation itself cannot become
another mental belief system, glibly accepted because it is easy and trendy. Only
sincere and longtime seekers experience the deep satisfaction of an
incarnational worldview. It does not just fall into your lap. You have to know its
deep significance and seek Spirit in and through matter. You really must learn
to love matter in all its manifestations over time, I think.
The incarnational worldview grounds Christian holiness in objective and
ontological reality instead of just moral behavior. This is its big payoff. Yet, this
is the important leap that most have not yet made. Those who have can feel as
holy in a hospital bed or a tavern as in a chapel. They can see Christ in the
disfigured and broken as much as in the so-called perfect or attractive. They can
love and forgive themselves and all imperfect things, because all carry the
Imago Dei equally, even if not perfectly. Incarnational Christ Consciousness will
normally move toward direct social, practical, and immediate implications. It is
never an abstraction or a theory. It is not a mere pleasing ideology. If it is truly
incarnational Christianity, then it is always “hands-on” religion and not solely
esotericism, belief systems, or priestly mediation.
As I have studied the two-thousand-year history of Christianity, I’ve noticed
how most of our historic fights and divisions were about power or semantics:
Who holds the symbols or has the right to present the symbols? Who is using
the right words? Who is following the often arbitrary church protocols based on
Scriptures? How does one do the rituals properly? and other nonessentials. (This
will always happen when you do not know the essentials.) And all of this