Spiritual Conversations: Understanding the Cultural Language

by Ron Martoia

In Genesis one and two we actually have grounds for God conversations that start in a different place. In Genesis 1, we have God creating humanity imago dei (in the image of God). Here is a picture of God breathing into humanity his Spirit. What shape might a conversation take that has the imago dei, which is present in every human, as the starting place? In other words, what would a conversation look like that said you have god-stuff in you? This is what we might call the 1st person conversation about God. And what is quite obvious is culture seems to be having the conversation all around us, but not with us.

Further, as God breathes into humanity, God’s charge to humanity was to selflessly serve and oversee the created order, that includes the animals they named, the flora they cultivated, the birds they sang with and the fish that introduced them to the aquatic world below. Creation may provide yet another conversation entry point. Every time we “see God in the sunset”, acknowledge “God in nature”, recognize God’s presence in the complexity and wonder of the oceanic ecosystem we are seeing God “out there” as 3rd person, as creation personified so to speak. More on this later.

START AT THE VERY BEGINNING

When we start with creation and Genesis 1 we instantly enter into a world where every person has been invested with the image of God, with God-like authority and qualities and mandates. Notice, it is everybody, not just Christians filled with God’s Spirit. In the Genesis account all humanity has the very breath of God. Everyone finds resonance here because these are things deep within the human psyche that are incontrovertible. They are intuitive soundings that “I am somehow made to be god, or divine or connected to the divine.” The benefit of this starting point for spiritual conversations is it is as universal as the Fall conversation, but it holds one huge advantage; it is the beginning of the story and it is a positive starting point. Is it any wonder people don’t gravitate toward the “You are heading to hell in a handbasket” conversation but do resonate with a “You have been made as the crowning glory of creation (Psalm 8)” conversation?

For some of us what I’m about to suggest may be a foray into unknown waters. But my guess is that most of us have read material or been influenced by other flavors of the Christian tradition, and maybe at times not even knowing it. I want to suggest we may be able to learn from others that fall outside of our small tribe, denomination or fellowship, and realize heaven will be populated by people of all stripes of the Christian tradition. With this in mind, our brothers and sisters from the Eastern Tradition of Christianity may be able to substantially help us along in understanding the 1st person conversation about God. In the West, the journey toward God is a journey out to the Other, a journey out there, outward. In the East, the journey toward God can be an inward journey to the quiet place where God has placed his image and spirit.

The idea here is connection to imago dei, the image of God in every single human. It is a connection to the original breath of God in us, and it is that which animates our very existence. I want to be quick to note I am not suggesting that a journey inward will somehow enable a complete and biblical understanding of the Christian God. Nor am I suggesting that humanity being made in the image of God implies humans have the same power or attributes of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I am suggesting, however, we may have missed a valuable and universal starting point.

GOD IN US

In our Protestant church tradition we don’t have many categories for understanding this first person, God-within pursuit. But Scripture teaches this first person perspective. Consider these passages in light of this 1st person conversation. (Emphasis added.)

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col 1:27)

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own… (1 Cor. 6:19)

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? (John 10:33-36)

Of course, there is no way for us to do full commentary on these passages. But we do need to note these passages are read in other Christian traditions in ways that make it sound as if a journey inward toward God, first person, is just as legitimate as a journey outward toward God, second person. For many of us in evangelical Protestant Christianity we have no room for these sorts of alternative readings, but I would suggest this is one of the precise reasons we are at a massive impasse on the spiritual conversation front within our culture.

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