Cain and Abel and the Stages of Spirituality

So, I’m a student of the Psychology of Religion.

Scholars have done studies on the developmental stages of faith—meaning there ARE stages of faith from less mature to more mature. Early stages rely on an external authority. They are very rules-based and about doing things “right” according to the authority and the rules. There is usually an innocence or naïveté because folks don’t know better, they can’t be more progressive yet, and they absolutely want to be “saved".

The hardest shift is between level 3 and level 4 spirituality (according to James Fowler) when a person shifts from an external authority to an internal authority, and from a head-based religion to a heart-based religion. (Richard Rohr simplifies it as early life—stages 1, 2, 3—and later life—stages 4 and up.) The people around them who are still in a rules- and authority-based religion are particularly threatened by their shift and do not understand it. I liken it to learning to swim. People who have not learned to swim cling to the side of the pool and call out in fear at their loved ones who are starting to let go and swim in the water.

(Does this information help in understanding the ways people do religion that can be so different?)

If you are raised by people who are in stage 4 or higher level of spiritual development, you still have to go through your own stages, but everything about the way they live encourages you to move into a thoughtful, heart-based approach to life. But if you are raised by people who are “clinging to the side of the pool” in an authoritative “you will only be safe if you stick with us” religion, it is much much harder to take the next developmental step into heart-wisdom, because most of the people around you are screaming that you are going to “die”. They don't want you to notice all the people that you’re finding who are living from their hearts and yet are not "dead".

This theory has helped me a lot in understanding why people do religion the way they do. Levels five and higher in spiritual development don’t even look like “religion”, because they are so respectful of the individual spiritual journey. They tend to be empowering, not controlling.

How is this connected to Cain and Abel? (Genesis 4)

My childhood tradition's teachings say that Cain represents “the need to be right” and Abel represents “being loving from deep wisdom.” They are brothers because they are ways of doing religion. Cain is born first (early spirituality) and Abel second (later life spirituality). Cain resents and does not understand why God favors Abel (the more mature and genuine spirituality). Cain is threatened by Abel and wants God's favor too, not understanding the shifts he still has to make in his motivations and perspective. And threatened, Cain “kills” Abel thinking that that is the way to win God's attention and favor (someone clearly isn't reading the manual). Cain-energy in life will always kill Abel-energy. Judgy, controlling, need-to-be-perfect-and-right ways of doing religion (or politics) will always attack and criticize and invalidate loving, inclusive, service-focused ways of doing religion (and politics). It’s just the way people are. There's a foundational shift that needs to happen from "I've got mine, screw you" to "We are all in this together; if you are suffering, we are all suffering".

We all have a tendency to be drawn into the need to be right and "win" arguments. We value a sense of cognitive security and don't like perspectives that threaten our foundational narrative of how life (God, "salvation") works. Arguing with someone about how they are wrong is rarely effective because they are so emotionally invested in "staying alive" (maintaining the reality they have known and trusted until this point).

If you don't know how to swim, moving into deep water means death.

Questioning religious dogma is moving into deep water. It is essential that we learn to swim so as to be much freer and to realize how life-giving swimming can be. But everything in Cain-level development screams "death!" unless you are surrounded by loving swimmers encouraging you to try swimming.

The same way you can't teach a child to read until they have reached reading readiness, you can't force a lower level spiritual seeker to be ready to think for themselves until they are ready AND feel safe enough to try. Some birds are pushed from the nest, some fly with sufficient encouragement, but some have parents telling them that flying equals death.

So just love everybody to bits.

Try not to judge because people are (possibly stuck) where they are for good reason.

Learn to draw firm boundaries with those who want to push their beliefs on you (spiritual violation) even as you stop trying to push your beliefs onto others (still a spiritual violation, no matter how "right" you are).

This is my distillation of theology and psychology. It is not to be used as a club to force others to agree. Just a balm and guide for those who need a helpful perspective.

For more scholarship on the stages of faith you might start here:

https://www.institute4learning.com/2020/06/12/the-stages-of-faith-according-to-james-w-fowler/

For counseling and empowerment on your spiritual journey, you may contact me here:

https://pastoralison.com/

I do talk therapy as well as weddings.

"Bullying" - an Easter Talk

“Bullying”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, April 5, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Genesis 37:12-24, Luke 22:1-6; TC 130:3; HS 9127

There is a long-standing tradition that says that “the Jews” crucified Jesus.  (Technically, the Romans crucified Jesus, but) what actually happened is that Jesus’s own people betrayed, abandoned, and crucified Him. But if Jesus had been a Christian, (now there is a mind-bending “if”) it would have been the Christians that crucified Him. No matter what ethnic or cultural group into which God chose to be born, that group would have betrayed and destroyed Him, because that is what the heaviest, darkest layer of humankind does to the Divine, every time, in every story.  It tries to kill it. 

So blaming “the Jews” for the crucifixion is just ignorant and makes things worse.

“The Jews” didn't crucify Jesus.  WE did.  Humanity did.  The unenlightened human response to anything going wrong is to find someone “out there” to blame, then to punish them, cut them off, or kill them.  We think we eliminate the problem that way.  We don’t.  But we like to think we do. 

This is the process called scapegoating.  We externalize, heap responsibility for all our problems on some thing or person outside ourselves, and then think we get rid of the problem by getting rid of the thing or person.

I am sure you have seen this in your life in various versions.  Perhaps you have been someone else’s scapegoat.  Perhaps you know someone who blames every bad thing that happens to them on other people or on circumstances.  It is so much easier for you and me to see this when someone else does it.  But if we are honest, each one of us has passed the blame unfairly.  Not one of us gets to cast the first stone. 

There is no cultural trait that makes one ethnicity more prone to scapegoating than another, no matter how good it might feel believe that. Contempt and superiority, (which underlie the tendency to blame others) are equal opportunity attitudes, be you Muslim or Jew, Christian or Buddhist, Republican or Democrat, American or Canadian or something else. In fact, believing that some group out there is more prone to scapegoating than we are is … scapegoating.  Don’t kid yourself.  Don’t blame yourself either.  Just realize it.  Stop.  And start finding a more helpful solution.

There is an antidote to the human tendency to shift blame and responsibility onto some other group.   We see it reflected in certain martial arts in the way some practitioners can engage an attacker and redirect the energy of their attack. They have disciplined themselves to such a degree that they can engage, redirect, or disarm, violent energy, and do so in such a way that harm is prevented and transformed into something benign.  Jesus did this with his words again and again when His opponents tried to trap Him.  We also can learn to do something similar given time, intention, and practice.

We see the ultimate example of this sort of unexpected, non-violent response when Jesus allowed His betrayal and torture, and suffered such an agonizing death. Jesus at any second could have overthrown the guards and forced His own plan on us.  But instead He allowed all of our abuse to fall on Him, because it was the best way to accomplish what was necessary. He was as docile as a lamb.  He did not blame, or recriminate, or punish us in response. Instead He engaged with all of the venom and violence and hideous darkness that humankind could throw at him, and in doing so neutralized it. He even used it to transform Himself into a more powerful reflection of His Love.

This heroic and lonely act is the great and resonant underlying message in the Easter story.  We find this theme in many of the world’s favorite stories, because it is OUR story.  It the story of how good stands against evil.  It is the account of the best aspects of humankind in relationship with the very worst. You can find blamelessness and kindness up against malicious intent in nearly every story if you just look.  It is in Harry Potter, in the Lord of the Rings, in Star Wars, in To Kill a Mockingbird, in the Chronicles of Narnia, and so many more. And it is living memory, not just metaphor in World War Two, and in every genocide and social injustice in every corner of the world.  And it is on every playground in every school.

We have all been crucified more than once in this life.  We have all experienced injustice and cruelty, betrayal and abandonment.  It is harder to admit sometimes that we have all also been the crucifiers—the betrayers, the gossips, the back-stabbers, and the blamers.  But this is in all of us too.  Every face within the Easter story is within each of us. 

But we don’t have to be afraid.  Though this life can crucify us, we are created to be transformed by each crucifixion.  In the same way we revisit the story of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection every Easter, we revisit it every time we live some aspect of it.  We suffer betrayal, excruciating loss, and profound transformation; and (God forgive us!) sometimes we realize that we have betrayed a friend and done the crucifying ourselves.  Each lived encounter with a dynamic in the story teaches us another layer of humility, another layer of compassion and self-awareness, and gives us another shot at transformation.  May you find hope in this fact this year, realizing that all of the faces in the story are in you, are loved and forgiven, and are called to greater things.

Remember that you cannot blame someone and love them at the same time.  When blame is pushed aside, love and compassion rush in.  May we continue this year to push back against fear and blame, so that with God’s help we make a bigger space for love to rush in and transform all our suffering into joy.

Amen.

The Readings

True Christianity 130:3 Paraphrased and condensed

The Lord’s betrayal by Judas signifies his betrayal by the Church at that day, meaning the religious leaders and teachers who had control of the Word. Their punching the Lord repeatedly, spitting in his face, whipping him, and beating his head with a cane symbolized how they treated the truths that pointed to a life of love in the Word. Their putting a crown of thorns on him symbolized all the ways they had abused and corrupted those truths. Their tearing up his clothes and casting lots for his undergarment meant that they had torn apart all the outer truths of the Word, but they did not split apart its inner meaning, which was symbolized by the Lord's undergarment. Their crucifying him meant that they had violated and ruined the entire Word. Their offering him vinegar to drink symbolized that everything that church leadership offered him had been completely corrupted; therefore he did not drink it. Their piercing his side symbolized that they utterly annihilated everything true and everything good in the Word.

Heavenly Secrets 9127 Condensed “Shedding blood” in the Word symbolizes doing violence to … Love itself.  Anyone who does violence to God’s Word does violence to the Love within, since the truth in the Word is wedded so closely to Love that the one does not exist without the other. Therefore if violence is done to the one it is also done also to the other.

[2] A person who has no awareness of the internal meaning of the Word can only think that ‘blood’ in the Word means blood, and that ‘shedding blood’ simply means killing someone. But the internal meaning of the Bible does not teach about the life of a person’s physical body, but about a person’s spiritual life.

Genesis 37: 12-24

Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word.” So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a man found him wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.  Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Luke 22:1-6

It was almost time for the Jewish Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover.  The leading priests and teachers of the law wanted to kill Jesus. But they were trying to find a quiet way to do it, because they were afraid of what the people would do.

One of Jesus’ twelve apostles was named Judas Iscariot. Satan entered him, and he went and talked with the leading priests and some of the soldiers who guarded the Temple. He talked to them about a way to hand Jesus over to them.  The priests were very happy about this. They promised to give Judas money for doing this.  He agreed. Then he waited for the best time to hand him over to them. He wanted to do it when no one was around to see it.

Do We Choose Fear or Love As Our Starting Point?

As the new warmth slowly relaxes and opens the soil, the buds, the hearts, and the faces around me, I am reflecting on two basic approaches to life: fear-based, and love-based.

Right away I can hear the fearful voices clamouring for why the fear-based approach is the needed, necessary, and only way to stay safe in life---the only way to protect ourselves from "other,"  "bad" people, so we can survive.

I want to give a nice, juicy, sedative-laden fly to that protective lizard-part of my brain, and put it back in its cage with a, "thank you for wanting to protect me." ("But shut-up. You're not helping").


It has long been known that anxiety and fear reduce our ability to think rationally and calmly.  To the extent that fear and anxiety are running in our beings, we regress to more primitive coping mechanisms.  We become younger, smaller, dumber, and more impulsive.  This is a deeply built-in evolutionary mechanism that is there to insure our physical survival.  It is literally our "lizard-brain" stepping up to keep us alive.

But so many situations today that may trigger our lizard brain are not about physical survival.  Something we love may feel threatened, but rarely is it a matter of life or death.

We MUST become more self-aware, so we can stay consciously present and non-reactive when something feels threatened, so that we can make (more ) rational choices.  We MUST cultivate an attitude of love, so that our hearts can remain open.

This lizard-brain perspective currently seems to have a strong emotional lobby group on the planet just now, especially in north America.  Just look at the NRA and their message of what is needed, and how emotional it is.  Just at a glance, would you say their insistence on guns and MORE guns is fear-based, or love-based?  Would you say their perspective makes the planet a better, kinder, more reasonable place; or a more segregated, fortress mentality, fearful place?

And which planet do I want to live on?  Which one do you want to live on?

For those who admire and follow Jesus, with his choice to stand and be crucified in his message for love, rather than going to war, where do we imagine Jesus would stand?  What message might he stand behind?

(Can you IMAGINE the United States turning the other cheek after 911 rather than going straight to war?  No.  I can't either.  But I can wish the possibility was even on the table.)

Have the good guys won yet?  Is war solving the problem?  When will we learn from Jesus' and Ghandi's (and Obi-wan Kenobi's, etc. etc.) examples?  Perhaps death of the body is not the worst thing?  Perhaps being personally attacked is not the worst thing?

As I try and try to understand the fearful rhetoric and divisive language, the shouting and blaming and stonewalling in the US AND the Canadian governments, I wonder what is at play in the world just now.  WHY are we so afraid?  And what can I do to make a difference toward DE-escalating the anxiety?


 In spiritual evolutionary theory, we must progress from a black/white, good/evil, linear and hierarchical (fear-based) model to an inclusive, cooperative, growth and healing (love-based) model --- so as to enter into greater wisdom, enlightenment, perspective and the ability to love wisely.  This is a progression, and the black/white model cannot imagine or fathom the inclusive model any more than a caterpillar can imagine being a butterfly.  It also feels threatened by the inclusive model.  It cannot imagine how the inclusive model will include it too.  But it will.  With love.

In any case I am choosing to stand for peace for one more day.  I am willing to be crucified (gossip, blame, hatred, contempt, character assassination) for one more day --- alongside so many other wise and loving souls.  

We are not alone in our stand for love.

We will never stop standing for love.

love always wins.
Rev Alison