Avoiding Common Spiritual Traps
Appearing religious is not the same as being faithful to God
“The high spiritual skills of detachment, non-attachment, and non-judgment are attributes of humility. Humility may be developed through these attributes , but humility does not derive from them. True detachment, non-attachment, and non-judgment derive instead from humility. Humility is a chief spiritual virtue, for it knows as certain as its own birth and death that there is always something greater and deeper. I am not the master and never will be. Nor am I a slave. I am a human spirit serving God. I am not God, but the beloved, eternal child of God.”— Zeus Yiamouyiannis
We forget this…
So programmed are we, in our current stage of primitive spiritual development. So intent are we, on “being good” and appearing righteous. In this concern, we lose our direct, humble thread to God, and we lose the ability to hear God speaking in our hearts directly. Everything gets filtered through the mind’s desires and the heart’s insecurities around avoiding death and finding love. Everything gets deflected through a system of social approval and “acceptable” beliefs.
Spiritual Truth and Reality rise above the individual mind’s desires and the individual heart’s insecurities. So let us speak the spiritual truths so that we may avoid the worldly falsehoods and traps that pass themselves off as genuine spirituality. I will concentrate on three common religious “spiritual” traps and pose their genuine spiritual counterparts.
Pietism: The desire to appear holy to others, while neglecting one’s own inner spiritual character, discipline, risk, development, and virtue. This denies we are the mind of God in this world.
Quietism: The tendency to simply pray endlessly or meditate in silence without actually doing anything in the world, i.e. devoting oneself to higher service. This denies we are the heart of God in this world.
“Spiritual loafing”: The belief that God does it all, and, therefore, I need do nothing. This involves a denial that we are the hands of God in this world.
Pietism
5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.— Matthew 6:5-9
I don’t know a single person (myself included) who does not want to be SEEN as a good and holy person. As a normal human being, self-esteem DOES somewhat rely upon the good will if not outright approval of others around us. Sometimes we take an inauthentic shortcut to manipulatively extract this good will, by making public shows of our spirituality or religiosity. Spiritual privacy and modesty is its opposite.
You see pietism in grand gestures of philanthropy, a church constructed with the names of the donors on the cornerstone, for instance. It seems to confirm: “Look how much I have supported the kingdom of God and the spreading of my religion!” That reputation boost becomes the “reward in full” spoken in the above quote from the Bible. What you get is an elevated reputation. What you don’t get is an elevated soul.
Now contrast this piety to someone who donates anonymously and desires no recognition at all from the adoring public. Where is this person’s reward? It is simply in doing the will of God from the mind of God. The reward lies in ensuring the good thing is done, not exalting the doer behind the deed. This is based in a deep spiritual recognition and appreciation for the reality that we are given EVERYTHING we have, including life itself, as a gift and without merit.
So why should we posture? We are EACH of us bequeathed an incomparable gift. Our life and all its possibilities and joys stem from utter, un-self-conscious benevolence. Therefore, our giving back should be stripped of anything that seeks to gain something for ourselves over and above the joy of the loving, creative act of giving itself.
Quietism
It is easy to call it meditative prayer, but meditation is only attained in actual life by the strenuous discipline of brooding in the centre of a subject. God gives of His abundant grace and the Divine fire of instinctive inspiration, but we must acquire the technical skill of expressing that genius of God in our life.— Oswald Chambers, p. 307, The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers
It is true that our primary task, above all others is to listen to God first in deep prayer and concentration. We must be led by the silent voice of God if we are to be wise and good in this life. But mere listening is not our only task. We must also open and allow ourselves to be transformed, reborn, and be broken OPEN to neighbor and God. The temptation to simply sit on a mountain forever in heart-ful prayer (for all but a select few), would leave us in a state of ingratitude and abandonment of our spiritual responsibilities. We are meant to meet each other and not simply be by ourselves. We are meant to act in the world and not simply contemplate the heavens.
Care for humanity, nature, and creation, like Jesus’ admonition to care for “the least of these” is actual and real (culminates in results), and not merely theoretical and performative (relying upon sincere but unfulfilled intention).
Many, truly devoted religions and sects have been unfairly accused of “quietism” (i.e. Anabaptists, Quakers, etc.) simply because they were committed pacifists or refused civil service. That is not what I am talking about. Quietism involves a false belief that prayerful relationship with God is ALL that is required for the human on earth.
Prayer IS required and should be the go-to for spiritual consultation on any wise action in the world, but it is NOT a replacement for that action. In fact, it was the Anabaptists who were slaughtered by the thousands by Catholics and Lutherans in the early 1500’s when they refused war and civil service. Non-violent civil disobedience can sometimes be the most extreme and devoted form of action.
It was the early martyrs of the Christian church, who “quietly” refused to deny their faith that evidenced some of greatest courage and “action” imaginable. This is not simply a thing of the past. In fact, one of the most heartrending videos I have seen lately is the account of 20 Coptic Christians and 1 converted Christian, called “the 21", who were executed by religious extremists in 2015 for refusing to deny their faith. This video makes me weep each time I watch it.
“Spiritual loafing”
“Be the hands of grace in this world.”— Zeus Yiamouyiannis
There are spiritual loafers who are painfully impressionable about ‘tones’ and ‘moods’ and ‘places’, and they remind one of the aesthetic affectation of many persons who have not enough of the artist in them to work arduously and overcome technical difficulties, so they live a life of self-indulgent sentimental artistic indolence. An artist is never consciously artistic, and a saint is never consciously a praying one. A saint endeavours consciously and strenuously to master the technical means of expressing God’s life in himself.— Oswald Chambers, p. 307, The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers
The miracle that we, has spiritual humans, have a moral conscience at all, points to the working out of that conscience in the world. This is not about image or aesthetics, “looking like” a Christian and hoping mere image carries us into the heavens. Opening to God is hard work, but perhaps even harder is devoting yourself by “hand” to the messages sent to your heart.
See someone who is being bullied? Spiritual courage and initiative (vs. loafing) demands that you stick up for that person. See someone who is starving? Spiritual concern demands you feed them, but more than that, calls you to change the worldly system that would have ANY person starving.
This is not the corporatized, false moral concerns of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). This is REAL diversity, equity, and inclusion: I desire and will fight for your unique expression and honoring as God’s creation, even if you are from a put down social group. I will not hold myself above you and will extend my privilege and resources on your behalf. I will always call you neighbor and seek your health and sanctity even amid your fallenness and depravity, for I too have sinned and been redeemed by grace.
Conclusion: The real reward
Earnestness is not by any means everything; it is often a subtle form of pious self-idolatry, because it is obsessed with the methods and not with the Master— Oswald Chambers, p. 309, The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers
Let us, in the context above, confront a prejudice about “reward”. So many confessing and professing Christians think about their own redemption and salvation FAR too much, as if merely “owning” “Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior” is adequate to heavenly ascension and everlasting life. That IDEA and the peace that comes with it becomes your reward, NOT the actual and real spirit of being reborn ON EARTH of the heavens by spirit.
This is true not just in Christianity, but in all religious practice and aspiration. Buddha himself invited the ascetics (people who intentionally starved themselves of food and comforts for religious elevation) to “eat” and “drink” AFTER he was enlightened. There is no performance or mentality that will bring you to God or Spirit, other than God and Spirit itself. We need to follow God’s lead directly, NOT our IDEAS of what God is asking. No “known” reward will do. We must devote ourselves to the “rewards” and skills that go beyond our imagination and into the unknown. Our small, isolated, and covetous minds, cowering hearts, and quaking hands will produce nothing but vanities— pietism, quietism, or spiritual loafing.
But when we place our minds, hearts, and hands into the humble service of God and God only, and a different reward will be offered. We grow beyond “being a good person” or a “saved person” toward being a re-united, beloved, and joyous child of God.
All blessings, Zeus