Love in the Age of Apocalypse
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Love in the Age of Apocalypse: How to Spiritually Awaken and Transform Trauma for the Liberation of the World through the Power of Nonbinary Consciousness, Intersectionality, and the Fluidity of Identity A dissertation submitted to the Theological School In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry Advisor: J. Terry Todd Mitchell J. Wood Drew University Madison, New Jersey August 2021 ii Abstract Love in the Age of Apocalypse: How to Spiritually Awaken and Transform Trauma for the Liberation of the World through the Power of Nonbinary Consciousness, Intersectionality, and the Fluidity of Identity by Mitchell J. Wood We live in an apocalyptic age of mutually accelerating mega-crises that threaten the collapse of multiple global systems all at once due to the climate crisis, mass migration, escalating inequality, and so much more. In the United States, we’re also witnessing the intensification of “culture wars” over our national identity due to growing challenges to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant worldviews that have formed the predominant moral and cultural framework of American society from its inception. To shape a new national identity and effectively respond to the globality of threats, I contend we must develop comprehensive and integrative worldviews that promote the holistic transformation of ourselves, society, and world. To that end, I focus on “consciousness” as a useful integrative concept that may be equally applied to the psychospiritual, sociopolitical, and ecological dimensions of our lives. I also examine the interaction between consciousness and identity, and how they both apply to the promotion of spiritual awakening, psychological transformation, and sociopolitical liberation. The interrelationship between consciousness and identity is the primary theme of this paper. This study identifies four modes of consciousness that are especially relevant to the renewal of our personal and collective identities. They are awakened consciousness, critical iii consciousness, prophetic consciousness, and apocalyptic consciousness. I explore these modes of consciousness from conceptual, historical, methodological, experiential, and biblical perspectives and consider how they might be practically applied. I give special attention to Pauline apocalyptic theology. I conclude that all four modes of consciousness are integral to the cultivation of a nonbinary/nondual mode of consciousness that promotes multiplicity, intersectionality, and fluidity of identity, all of which help to repair and heal the fragmentation and polarization of our times and to promote the co-creation of a more whole, just, and loving world. Keywords: Consciousness, spiritual awakening, spiritual enlightenment, nonduality, spirituality, apocalypticism, eschatology, prophetic, psychotherapy, psychology, trauma, nonbinary, intersectionality, fluidity of identity, multiplicity of identity, society, politics, Internal Family Systems, Self, no self, Pauline apocalyptic eschatology iv To Adyashanti who shows me no self To Dick Schwartz who shows me Self To Christopher Morse who shows me Christ v To Change the World Enough By Alice Walker To change the world enough you must cease to be afraid of the poor. We experience your fear as the least pardonable of humiliations; in the past it has sent us scurrying off daunted and ashamed into the shadows. Now, the world ending the only one all of us have known we seek the same fresh light you do: the same high place and ample table. The poor always believe there is room enough for all of us; the very rich never seem to have heard of this. In us there is wisdom of how to share loaves and fishes however few; we do this everyday. Learn from us, we ask you. We enter now the dreaded location of Earth’s reckoning; no longer far off or hidden in books that claim to disclose revelations; it is here. We must walk together without fear. There is no path without us. vi Contents Introduction .....................................................................................................................................1 Part 1 Awakened Consciousness ................................................................................................................5 Overview of Awakening ..............................................................................................................5 What is Awakening? .............................................................................................................5 Brief History of Awakening................................................................................................ 14 Stages of Awakening ......................................................................................................... 17 How to Awaken ................................................................................................................. 22 Awakening and Personal Transformation ................................................................................ 24 Awakening and Collective Transformation .............................................................................. 29 Internal Family Systems and Legacy Burdens ................................................................... 29 Terry Patten’s Republic of the Heart ................................................................................. 32 Michael Lerner’s Revolutionary Love ................................................................................ 37 Part 2 Prophetic Consciousness .............................................................................................................. 43 Heschel Abraham’s Prophetic Consciousness.......................................................................... 43 Walter Breuggemann’s Prophetic Imagination ....................................................................... 44 angel Kyodo william’s Prophetic Wisdom ................................................................................ 46 Part 3 Critical Consciousness and Awakening ......................................................................................... 49 vii The Three Eyes of Being ........................................................................................................... 49 Small Self ........................................................................................................................... 55 Big Self ............................................................................................................................... 58 No Self ............................................................................................................................... 61 How the Three of Eyes are Interrelated................................................................................... 65 Polymorphism and Identity Dynamics ..................................................................................... 68 A Nonhegemonic Metanarrative and Self-Deconstructing System ......................................... 70 Postlude.................................................................................................................................... 72 Applications .............................................................................................................................. 73 Part 4 Apocalyptic Consciousness ........................................................................................................... 76 The Apocalyptic Mood ............................................................................................................. 76 Pauline Apocalypticism ............................................................................................................ 80 The Final Submission ................................................................................................................ 81 God is All in All.......................................................................................................................... 83 Christ Fills All in All ................................................................................................................... 85 Christ is All and in All ................................................................................................................ 86 All the Fullness of God ............................................................................................................. 88 Far Above all the Heavens........................................................................................................ 90 Divinization of All through Submission of All ........................................................................... 92 Mutual Submission ................................................................................................................... 95 The Apocalypse of a New Ontology ......................................................................................... 99 viii The Apocalypse of the Imago Dei .......................................................................................... 102 The Infinite Plurality of Supreme Being ................................................................................. 105 The Apocalypse of Love.......................................................................................................... 106 Implications and Applications ................................................................................................ 108 Anti-Supremacism ..........................................................................................................