Reimagining God and Religion: Essays for the Psychologically Minded

by Jerry R. Wright

With the necessary demise and death of antique cosmologies and traditional religious paradigms dependent on external deities and devils, the modern religious challenge involves two simultaneous sacred to eulogize, bury, and grieve the theistic and monotheistic god-images and the religions dependent on them; and, secondly, to bring fresh imagination to the meanings of god and religion, which will satisfy both the modern mind and ancient soul. Drawing on the insights of Jungian or analytical psychology, Dr. Wright offers depth psychological analysis of our contemporary religious and political dilemmas, as well as invites readers to be midwives for the emerging religious myth that many believe to be on our collective horizon -- a myth that will be more inclusive, intellectually and scientifically honest, and soul satisfying. The invitation is made urgent by his psychological As long as our deities and devils are perceived to be beyond the physical domain and outside the human psyche, our species will continue to do great harm to each other and to our global nest. Combining personal testament and psychological commentary, the author explores heretofore taboo topics and reframes many traditional theological and Christological dogmas, making them more relevant to religious and non-religious alike. Jerry R. Wright, D.Min is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and a training analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. An experienced conference and retreat leader, he has led pilgrimages to sacred sites in Iona, Scotland, Ireland, Peru, and India. Reimagining God and Religion continues his primary interest in bringing the insights of Jungian or analytical psychology to experiences deemed religious or spiritual. This interest inspired Dr. Wright's doctoral dissertation , Symbols for the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Archetypal Self in the Psychology of C.G. Jung , and his Jungian thesis, Archetypal Thin Experiencing The Numinosum. Contents : Chapter 1: FROM THE BACK PORCH OF THE CHURCH Chapter 2: BEYOND THE BACK PORCH OF THE CHURCH Chapter 3: MONOTHEISTIC MADNESS Chapter 4: REIMAGINING GOD AND RELIGION Chapter 5: PROJECTION AND REVELATION Chapter 6: REIMAGINING JESUS AND CHRIST (1) Chapter 7: REIMAGINING JESUS AND CHRIST (2) Chapter 8: THIN PLACES AND THIN TIMES Chapter 9: STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT Chapter 10: THE UNIVERSE AS MIRROR AND ICON Jerry Wright's Reimagining God and Religion is a personally honest, courageous, and insightful re-examination of our contemporary religious dilemma. He steps outside the fundamentalist's need for security and employs the insights of depth psychology to reappropriate received wisdom in forms which respect the intellectual integrity of the modern, thus rescuing the timeless insights of the tradition, thus making them available anew. One cannot read this book without learning something important, without being confronted in one's fixed positions. This book is a gift for those who care about the life of the spirit, whatever their traditions, or lack thereof, may be. - James Hollis , Ph. D., Jungian Analyst and author of fifteen books, most recently Living an Examined Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey.

204 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2018

Reviews

[Joe Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

On page one of the first essay in the book, Wright says, "After more than a half century within the walls of the institutional Church, half of those as an ordained Presbyterian minister, I now find myself on the back porch of the Church." He's got my attention. Maybe that's where I am.

Essay #2 is entitled, "Beyond the Back Porch of the Church," and on page 1 of that essay he says, "After several years of being not too close yet not too far from ecclesial life, I fell off the back porch of the Church." He quotes Thomas Wolfe: "Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep going. You can't go home again." He quotes Rainer Maria Rilke: "Let everything happen to you; Beauty and terror Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me." That resonates. Sometimes I recognize that "why am I still in the church?" is a good question to ask myself. At a funeral not long ago, a retired minister said to me (in a one-on-one conversation) that for him at this point being in church is more about the music and the feeling of community than it is about theology. I hear that. In any case, I know now I will keep going with this read.

This book takes me back 50-60 years to the days of J.B. Philips's book, Your God is Too Small and then the "God is Dead" theologians/authors. The thing that struck me, however, is that Wright looks at all the Abrahamic traditions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--as suffering the same malady. He calls it "Monotheistic Madness," title of Essay #3. To explain the problem, he quotes John Shelby Spong: "For our purposes, theism may be described as the belief in a being (or beings as in polytheism) supernatural in power, dwelling outside of beyond the physical world, who invades the physical world periodically to accomplish its purposes." (A New Christianity for a New World )

Wright continues: "In its three major forms, monotheism is the belief in a one and only being who is supernatural in power, who resides in a metaphysical domain, and who intervenes from time to time to accomplish his divine will, including choosing a particular human tribe to carryout that will; his will is revealed in exclusive sacred texts that are applicable to all time and all people. While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam purportedly worship the same divinity, the God of Abraham, each claims to be the chosen ones--Jews the first chosen, Christians the next chose, and Muslims the last and final chosen. All three purport that its sacred texts, which cannot be challenged, support its divinely chosen status.
"The narcissistic notion of being the chosen tribe of a supernatural one and only god, along with the dualistic split between natural/supernatural, earth/heaven, physical/spiritual, constitute the core problems of monotheism that can no longer be entertained by many in the modern and post-modern world. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--the three major theistic/monotheistic religions that have informed and deformed the Western psyche, culture, and institutions--have long claimed to be the solution to what ails the human heart. Such claims are no longer believable to a growing number of disenchanted religious."

When one expresses something that rings so true you cannot imagine saying it better and clearer, I think of that as classic. This is a classic expression of where I think I am right now--as odd as that may sound. So where do we go from there?

Wright found/finds promising the insights of Carl Gustav Jung. To cut to the chase, Wright's view is that the monotheistic expressions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have run their course. That "God image" is dead--doesn't work for so many. Leaning on Jung, who took some cues from Rudolf Otto, Wright does hold that there is a numinous which man seeks and that his "God image" comes from the human collective unconscious. (Makes me feel like I need to go to reading Jung.) Anyway, the big question for me is when is this going to happen.