“Tribal Church: Fantasy and Family”
Samuel Palmer, Coming from Evening Church (1830)
Paul Smith begins his chapter on “tribal church” with the following parable:
Whenever we find ourselves bargaining with God, Smith argues, we are living out our faith from a “tribal” level of consciousness. Historically, the “tribal era” is very old, beginning 50,000 years ago according to integral theorists. Psychologically, it said to be characterized by fear-based fantasy and strong kinship loyalties, as found in tightly knit family groups, clans, and early tribes:
The world was filled with gods, demons, ghosts, and other beings that might be vengeful and attack you. Tribal members needed to bargain and cajole these beings in order to protect themselves and get what they wanted. (2)
Although a young and immature stage of consciousness, tribal thinking dominated my interior prayer life for many years. For all of my childhood, and well into my young adulthood, my bedtime prayers were essentially fear-based and superstitious in quality. I would pray for my loved ones, or those beings whom I depended on emotionally and physically for survival, to be kept safe the next day, to be preserved from sudden illness, road accident, violence, etc. I would also thank God for keeping them safe this past day, and pray for my own safety, and thank God for protecting me from bad things in this world so far (even if this wasn’t fully true).
These bedtime prayers would be rattled through in a boring, robotic fashion, without any deeper opening to God than basic fear (which is, nevertheless, a legitimate and common human experience), and certainly without a space to hear from God, or wait upon and listen to the Spirit within. Of course, this repetitious, thanking-pleading, spiritually-closed way of praying is what we often experience in church, too, especially in petitionary prayer. And the God to whom these prayers are addressed - omnipotent, capricious, distant - is often the reigning deity of many of our churches, scriptures, and theologies.
The tribal God is one that needs constant sacrifices (of dead animals or humans, animal or human blood, specific prayers and liturgies, small or large parts of our life-force, sums of money etc) to be appeased from doing terrible things to us, or to protect us from terrible things that the natural world or spiritual world or other tribal groups may otherwise inflict on us.
One day, I saw these bedtime prayers for what they were - anxiety - and decided to give them up. Initially, it felt a little dangerous: if I stop praying this way, maybe God will stop keeping me and my loved ones safe. Maybe bad things will happen, or happen again, or worse things will begin to happen a lot. Perhaps I will lose His (it’s always His) favour.
Then a higher order of consciousness within me replied: Is a being that needs constant bargaining with, thanking, being praised, and being pleaded with, in order to save me from their indifference or special protection or even wrath, actually ‘God’ in a bigger, more loving, truly God-like sense? It sounds more like an insecure, egotistical, narcissistic monarch, gang boss, or local tribal chief. Such local deities can be incredibly cruel, but they are powerful and have their good sides, too. If we manage to stay on their good side (bow down before them, cross their palm with silver, etc.), they will protect us and life will be relatively peaceful.
I stopped praying this way and nothing much changed, except my bedtimes became a little more relaxed and less wordy. Maybe having less anxiety in my life, or addressing anxiety more effectively in other ways, gave me more firm support to give up such praying. Anxiety tends to work like this: in superstitious, sneaky thinking. If I say all these prayers at night then my husband will drive safely on the roads tomorrow and be kept safe from death or major harm (because it works, that’s what always happens, I must continue thinking and coping this way). If I check the doors three times every night, just to be sure, then I never get invaded by burglars.
The logic/causality is quite irrational, of course. We think it’s the anxious action that is keeping us safe. We think we can control/appease reality or God in such and such a way. It’s better than experiencing the anxiety without any form of defence or self-protection, but it just keeps us fundamentally stuck in fear and magical thinking, keeping (or making) ourselves small and helpless in order to appease the local gods.
Magical thinking increases with feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness and decreases when we begin to own our own spiritual power.(3)
Our fantasies and superstitions can be negative and positive. Cross my heart and hope to die. Wish upon a star. Friday the 13th. Never step under a ladder. A fantail indoors portends death. A white feather means an angel is around.
This is the childhood home of the magical worldview as young children see the world through a lens of imagination. Impulsiveness and fantasy are unrestrained by logic in a world where anything is possible. (4)
We can, perhaps quite easily, see the unhealthy or immature aspects of tribal consciousness. But developing one’s imagination, opening to the more-than-rational world, experiencing a deep sense of belonging within a family, group, or church, being part of a “We”, beginning to experience the terror of a world where bad things do suddenly happen (or, for many of us, have already occurred) and where our lives and loved ones are vulnerable to harm and death, and developing psychological defences (however immature) to contain and protect against this fear/anxiety/terror/memory/trauma/partial or complete reality, are all very significant, healthy parts of growing up and journeying in the world.
Paul Smith writes:
Historically, tribal [consciousness] is the very stable stage found at the beginning of the Old Testament, which included the Israelite and Canaanite cultures, among others. This stability and loyalty of kinship and clan ties is one of the enduring aspects of the tribal level which can be included in future stages along with the experience of enchantment, imagination, and being touched by something bigger than ourselves. Ceremonies, symbols, and special rites can inspire us, reminding us of spiritual matters. Deeply connecting with nature and sensing a situation intuitively rather than by intellectual analysis are also elements of the tribal level that we can build on. (5)
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We have touched on what a tribal deity might look like, and what prayer might look like centred at a tribal level. Tribal consciousness is present in all human beings and churches. Nevertheless, Smith believes it is the dominant centre of consciousness in only a few actual churches these days, that is, in the more ultraconservative churches we find in our society (such as, it has been insightfully suggested to me, Destiny Church in Aotearoa New Zealand).
In dominantly tribal churches, or in the tribal level within all churches, “the Bible is held in great reverence and studied closely, since it is seen as God’s Word without error.” (6). Further:
The Bible itself may appear to be treated as a book of magic because it, as a book, possesses supernatural qualities. You swear on it. You give it a place of honour. You never place another book on top of it. You can find guidance by letting it fall open and whatever page it opens to contains the answer to your particular problem. There is a verse for every situation and some verses are repeated like an incantation to provide protection and send what you need down from heaven. The Bible can, of course, be treated with respect, and processing down the church aisle with Bible held aloft can be a mark of beautiful pageantry. However, at the tribal level, it may look like holding aloft a powerful charm that possesses magical qualities for everyone to behold with proper awe. (7)
In my childhood, we were spared (by our modern, educated Catholic father, and our modern, educated, Protestant mother) from the more extreme end of Roman Catholic tribal consciousness. There was no pilgrimage or devotion to saint’s relics, the shattered ankle bone of Saint so and so. We had no vials of holy water brought back from Lourdes for special healing to be found on our fireplaces or on other ledges throughout the house (though we probably thought such vials looked pretty cool).
We certainly didn’t wear special charms or scapulars around our necks, never prayed to St Anthony when we needed to find a car-park, and saw indulgences - performing certain (Church created) practices to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for the forgiveness of one’s sins - as terribly medieval and theologically corrupt.
The Life and Miracles of Saint Denis (c.1317)
Nevertheless, at some level, when I was young and even now, medieval Christianity was shot through with an attractive, mystical, other wordly quality. Smith writes: “Mystical beliefs abound at this level of consciousness but are confused with magic. Mysticism that represents actual spiritual realities transcends the rational whereas magical fantasies are pre-rational and do not represent actual spiritual realities.” (8)
I don’t think I ever was a true believer in ‘magical Catholicism’, but its objects and practices exuded much charm and sense of a protected, enchanted home. Dousing my head with holy water on entering a church. Taking a saint’s name when undergoing the sacrament of confirmation (mine was Columba, the ‘dove’ of the Celtic Church). Being surrounded by saints and Mother Mary as we worshipped…
Statue of Mary, St Luke’s church interior, Christchurch
…The liturgical year as pilgrimage. The Eternal Year. Watching over the Sacrament at two in the morning (taking turns with other parishioners in the vigil time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday), and experiencing it glow and gaze back at me, and begin to move across the room towards me. Belonging to an ancient, mystical family. All these aspects fed me as a child (and onwards as a young and middle adult, as well) much more deeply than the dry, wordy ‘Protestant’ services we also attended.
The Christian with elements of this level may genuinely experience the Spirit of God and have a vital relationship with Jesus. They may actually be more open to spiritual experience in altered states than those in the traditional and modern stages because they have not yet discounted inspired states [or enchanted rites and places]. (9)
My Catholic tribal church (feelings, memories, longings, kinship ties) lives on powerfully inside me, and is easily triggered by sensory experiences and emotional needs (the scent of frankincense in a cold, vaulted space, a plaintive Kyrie Eleison, the need to be part of an enveloping spiritual family, a place where I can express my communal love). I could almost put my rational brain to one side and sink into such membership again. And yet, do I really believe its ‘truths’? Does it lead me on in the Spirit?
Do I really believe that something magical happens when the priest blesses the bread and wine, or that my ongoing salvation/sanctification depends on me regularly participating in this ritual? Do I really believe it contains the Presence of Christ, is Christ, when the Sacrament is so guarded, controlled, and owned?
Unknown artist, Mermaid Receiving Eucharist from a Monk
What special powers does a priest possess in such a sacred rite? How is it that a layperson can’t have these special, magical powers, too? Is the practice of (outward, ritual) sacraments truly congruent with the life and teachings of Jesus? In relation to the Last Supper, only the Gospel of Luke records Jesus as saying “do this to remember me”. What does it mean when I can’t find the carpenter’s son in formal, priest-centred communions?
What, then, of water baptism? (10). Notably, John (the Baptist) baptized with water but pointedly declared that the one coming after him would baptise in a different way - not with water but “with” (or “in”) “the Holy Spirit” (see Mark 1:8). In the Gospels, there is no record of Jesus baptizing with water, though some references to his disciples possibly doing this (see John 4:1-2). The most extensive teaching we have from Jesus on baptism (or has been traditionally attributed with Jesus) is his dialogue with Nicodemus in chapter three of the Gospel of John. In it, Jesus says:
‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” (John 3: 5-7)
I used to read “water” in this passage as the water of (outward, ritual) baptism. But now I read it as the amniotic fluid that cradles a baby in their mother’s womb (as in the baptism of “flesh”/ being “born of the flesh”). Either way, Jesus clearly emphasizes a spiritual event, an inner, life-changing event, in which God is solely in charge. Such baptism decisively transforms our consciousness.
In my life, I have certainly experienced such a baptism or baptismal process (of entering into a radically Spirit-centred, Inner Christianity or Way), but this did not occur at my actual water baptism (to the best of my knowledge), nor have I witnessed this occurring to someone else at an outward, ‘church baptism’ (to the best of my knowledge). Although such a possibility certainly exists (for who can limit God), the power and presence of the Spirit, in my experience, rarely turns up in its humanly allotted time:
‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (John 3: 8).
A drawing from my meditation journal
Yet Jesus is also radical in insisting this is the received, ancient tradition. The new Spirit-centred stage or plane of consciousness “includes and transcends” (as integral theory would say) previous levels of faith:
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’ (John 3: 9-10).
Exploring the faith of my childhood this way, I have also come to doubt the validity of a separate, humanly ordained priesthood (as opposed to the priesthood of all believers). More recently, as we worked on a project to “reorder” the Anglican church have been a member of, I came to (once again) question and reject the typical way of ordering church interiors and liturgies (God and the clergy ‘up there and out there’, the rest of the people seated passively in rows like good boys and girls, walled off from greater interaction with each other). I observed how much resistance there is to changing - anything really, from hard, uncomfortable seating to worn-out kneelers that haven’t been used for over seven years, to the priests and clergy on a higher level or actual physical stage, to the people watching the whole thing like a show.
From my (brief) time of being a churchwarden, I have witnessed how much time, energy, and financial resources are devoted to preserving and maintaining (sometimes very beautiful) aging church buildings, and, conversely, how much energy, resources, and consciousness is diverted away from core spiritual business or ministry in the process. I can see no justification for this in terms of the life and teachings of Jesus and the early church.
Rather depressingly, reviewing my last fifteen years of Anglican parish life, as a committed member of three liberal catholic/progressive parishes in this time, I observed that my wife and I have never met any other parishioner at our age and stage. Finally, all my significant spiritual experiences of the last five years (and there have been many) have taken place outside of ‘traditional church’.
After forty-eight years of traditional church going and membership, I am at the end of the Anglican (and Catholic) part of my journey.
What’s left when you can no longer go along with medieval ceremonies and objects (however enchanting), ‘sacraments’, ‘priests’, conventional church layouts, traditional church buildings (however beautiful and sheltering), putting energy into other people’s ages and stages (and sometimes cleaning up their messes), God always ‘up there and out there’? What’s left if you can’t switch lanes for an even less believable (and emotionally appealing) conservative form of Christian life with others?
What’s left is the leaving, and then a big, churny burn in my belly. Feeling unexpectedly alone and vulnerable.
I am outside my original tribe now. I am looking once again at the Quaker tribe. I already affirm many Quaker beliefs and practices. But they don’t look or sound like me, yet. And they don’t burn frankincense or light candles in the void.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…
I miss my tribe, but no longer really believe in them anymore. In a sense, I now see that they don’t believe in me, either. My quest to rediscover a spiritual home in the church of my childhood, including the Catholic Church of the English Protestant tribe, or somehow reform or update that church, has been a fantasy.
References
(1) Paul R. Smith, Integral Christianity: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve (2011), pp.15-25.
(2) Smith, p.16.
(3) Smith, pp.23-34.
(4) Smith, p.17.
(5) Smith, pp.17-18.
(6) Smith, p.18
(7) Smith, p.18.
(8) Smith, p.22.
(9) Smith, p.23.
(10) That is, the other sacrament (along with communion) that the Anglican Church treats as “dominical” or “sacraments of the Gospel” (as distinct from the other five Catholic and Orthodox sacraments that the Anglican Church calls “sacramental rites”, or “sacraments of the church”).
