religion should evolve too

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This is the time of year that changes occur in the earth, The Pagans have Festival on February 1st called Imbolc, which recognises that life is returning to the soil. Seeds are germinating, the green shoots of snowdrops are appearing, buds appear on some of the trees and this is the time when the birds begin to search for a mate and build their nests. Traditionally that is said to happen on Valentines Day.

It is a time when we are aware of the mystery of the earth - how the seasons change. What force makes the seed crack open and what makes the shoot seek upwards for the light and the root go deep. And when they grow, how the leaves and flowers grow into in perfect symmetrical shapes.

Life itself is full of mysteries - how a child learns to talk and then you discover that they have this huge vocabulary. The words must have been going into the heads almost from the moment they were born. There is the mystery of all the strange clocks in our bodies - clocks that switch on life, puberty; that switch on old age; that switch off growing and in the end switch off life.

Perhaps we reach an age in our own lives when we become more aware of the mysteries. We notice the changes in our lives more and more. We can look around and wonder and become aware of the mystery of life itself.

Then perhaps it is easy to turn to religion and ask the questions why. Once it was enough to accept everything and simply say it was God’s will or God’s purpose - but now there comes an age and a time when we simply wonder why. Why is it God’s will that while the flowers grow and the trees burst into leaf, human beings are suffering and dying.

And now the world is becoming so small that we know about so many other cultures and countries and their religions - that the God we were brought up with is not the only God in the world. Is our God the proper God or is someone else’s God the proper one? Maybe all the Gods are the proper Gods. That maybe there is a mystery in that too. That God appears to us in the form we expect to see - except we never see God!.

The world is changing all the time. We as individuals are changing all the time. We only have to look back at ourselves just a few years ago. Who is that person? Will the person we are in ten years time be anything like the one we are now? What experiences will we have had that could change us. How will the world have changed around us? When you renew your passport, is that old photograph really only ten years old?

In religion however there is an expectation that nothing should change. That it will always be the same. There is an expectation that Christianity should never change - that its rules are inviolate.

There is an expectation in Islam too that the literal word of the Koran should always be followed. Never changed.

It is the same with other religions - that nothing should change. What was laid down at first is what should always be.

But the world is changing. Evolving, all the time. Each generation is different from the last in outlook and attitude. Sometimes the differences are small - sometimes large. We can all say how different the world is now to what is what like when we were children.

So why should religions not change also? Religion should not be a prison for the spirit; followers of religions should not be put into a spiritual straightjacket and forbidden to look out at the world they live in.
I found a book on my shelf by Oliffe Richmond, remember him? I bought it second hand and it has been part of my library for years, moving house four times - and of course I never read it until it fell off the bookshelf while I was looking for something else.

This little book deals with change and evolution - and religion, quite beautifully I thought.

He begins with a meditation from the top of a cathedral and is surveying the countryside all around. When the cathedral was being built that countryside was the life and sometimes death of the people living round about but now years later, it stands in the same countryside but the economy of that place is completely different.

And when the cathedral was being built, it was built on the foundation of an older church and that was built on a house of worship before that. Even buildings evolve - why shouldn’t faith?

And what is faith, he asks, but a soaring of the spirit in people after better purer things. It is the essence of human nature but human nature is also rooted in nature itself. Religion has tried to separate human nature from nature by judging it and saying what was acceptable and what was not. The white magic of healing, the equality of the sexes, the freedom to explore science were all condemned - and became sinful. They wanted to separate the spirit from nature. They wanted the evolution of knowledge to go through the filters of theology - and not much did.

Religion and its priests, said the writer, were always behind the leading edge of evolution. He said it was as if they kept an old shop in which nearly everything was out of date - they never took new stock in and they never threw old stock out - but they were always open!
When did religion begin? At the dawn of time - as soon as people were aware of more than simple animal needs of shelter and food. As soon as they began to realise that some things in life were predictable - like the seasons and the flood of the Nile and to realise that somethings were unpredictable - like earthquakes and droughts.

Then they reasoned there was a power higher than themselves at work in the world. If they appeased it with sacrifices, it would favour them. If things were going badly, perhaps they had offended it.

And these basic religions evolved and branched out and evolved again. Sometimes the myths of an old religion become the symbols of the new - Some say that the Egyptian religious myths of Osiris and Isis were transferred into the story of Jesus - that Mary, Mother of God, was a symbol of that much older faith and yet transferred easily - and necessarily into the new religion.

Every human who is born has a spirit - has the higher self within that wants to explore what is happening in the world around them; has dreams of what could be better and fears of what could be worse.

There will always be those whose spirit never wakes - as if no light has touched it and brought it to life. And there will always be those whose spirit is awake but never looks up at the stars or at the changing world but happily finds contentment in the old religious shop where everything is familiar.

Human instinct is no different from the instinct of the animal or the plant to better itself. We do have the selfish gene that wants to make our children better able to deal with the world than we are; that wants us and our children to make the world better for our survival. We are part of evolution - but our reason can be terrible warped - because the one thing we can’t do is work together to make a heaven on earth.

We want to make heaven for ourselves at someone else’s expense.

The Unitarians have evolved. The old Christianity is not for all of them. They look to the spirit of their faith - to be spiritual people in an evolving world ;

Faith and genes know that a better world for all is a better world for the self.

Therefore there are those whose living is for the good of the whole world rather than simply for their own material gain. As the poet in my book says:

‘Faith from ancients faith still catches illumination, catches fire and kindles.’

They are the ones whose spirits are not constrained by old religion. They face the ethical issues of today with the realities of today and the needs of today.

They are part of that spirit force that has a vision to build a better world across the whole world - they drive the ambulances in Iraq and they are the doctors working in hospitals where there is little medicine and no electricity. They are the builders of tented cities in Darfur and they drive the relief convoys in Pakistan. They take the gap years in Africa and bring help, education and hope to places where hope is dying and rekindle the flames there. They will not quietly acquiesce in a world that is becoming unfair and uncaring.

Faith is part of life. All have a spirit within. Life evolves. May our spirits be at the front of the line looking to the future. We do not want to be at the front driving people back to the old shops.

Build new purpose on the foundations of the old, let nature and spirit fo forward together. As my poet writes,
Man must be born again, must find a heaven within him, own the brotherhood of mankind (nature his mother), and from the city of God, kingdom of heaven, must build love’s commonwealth.