REV ELATION - Part 2.

The role of the church in determining whether or not a particular experience of revelation is valid also has to be raised. Through the centuries Christian church authorities have been somewhat rigid in allowing solo voices to depart from the creeds established by church councils. Creeds have been used as a means of controlling what is a true and what is a false revelation. The church has often denied that particular individuals have received a prophetic revelation.

For instance, since the 4th century CE the Christian church has insisted that God is to be understood as a Trinity of three personae but one divine being. Anyone who disagreed with this doctrine has been pushed to the fringes, expelled from the church as heretics, or at times cruelly executed. On a number of occasions in church history these people have created new movements that became sects or denominations that prospered as competing rivals. Unfortunately, this divisive process is still going on.

Not all revelation occurs in a religious context. The discovery that energy is the basis of all life is a scientific revelation. So is the discovery that all animal species have remarkably common genomes. For instance, fruit flies and humans share 60% of the same genes. Another revelation states that all living things have a common descent stretching back over the 3.5 billion years that there has been life on the planet Earth. The religious person interprets such discoveries as experiences of God’s unfolding purposes.

A children’s book I read to my children many years ago had these words: “God speaks to me in my mind and says, ‘Be good; be kind.’” Those words and the influence of people of faith in their lives helped to shape their character and their faith. Many other parents have had similar experiences. This is both a mental, moral and religious process. Physiological and neurological research is beginning to discover the means by which this takes place within our neurological system.

“The mind is the locus of revelation,” wrote Bruce Chilton in his latest book, The Way of Jesus to Repair and Renew the World. (Abingdon, 2010.) “What if whole communities, formed by people inclined to Mindful discipline, treated prophecy as a human gift, conveyed by the Spirit, rather than an unusual and random occurrence? St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Pursue love, be zealous for spiritual things, and above all that you prophesy.” (1 Corinthians 14:1). To him it seemed obvious that an awareness of God active among us should bring prophecy to the leading role in the guidance of communities. What is obvious to see, of course, is not always easy to do. To move from possibility to action will be the achievement of Mindful practice.” (Capital letters for Mindful were Chilton’s.)

In 2010 the Tony Blair Faith Foundation launched the Religion and Globalization initiative at the Centre of Research on Religion (CREOR) at the Faculty of Religious Studies of McGill University, Montreal, Canada. This year a series of leectures on "Religion and the Brain." These lectures will likely be published at a later date. I wait with anticipation to read them.

I am convinced that further research will bring to light how God uses the basic elements of our bodies and minds to reveal to us the nature of faith. Whatever the technical details may be, it is not likely to take us beyond the biblical revelation that the true nature of God is love, a love that embraces all humanity and wills that all humanity embrace each other.

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