Spirituality Unites. Doctrine Divides.
There is a place in all of us where we can be aware of the divine. Not all people make an effort to develop their spirituality, but most of us have an inkling of a spiritual reality of some sort. And once in a while most of us will have a “spiritual experience.” In those moments we may feel a strong sense of peace or joy or feel a sense of purpose. Life suddenly makes sense and we can trust that things will work out somehow. When we are in those moments, it doesn’t matter what our beliefs are; there is a universal quality to these experiences. People of all faith traditions have spiritual experiences and sharing these experiences can lead to greater understanding of each other.
When Jesus was transfigured on the mountaintop his disciples had a spiritual experience. Those who were present were awestruck. It was like nothing they had ever seen or felt. They wanted to build a monument to the experience. Jesus told them “no.”
It’s human to want to save those profound experiences. It’s human to want to be able to repeat them, and it’s human to want to let others know about those experiences. So we build entire doctrines to make sure that people know how to get to those mountaintops. Our experiences become stories that we tell over and over again. Our stories become codified into doctrine, and our doctrines become creeds. Pretty soon we have taken a kind of experience that is universal among humans and made it into a thing that is exclusive to “our” faith.
Stories and doctrine are not inherently bad things. They are maps that can lead us to experience God. But they are not God. God will always be bigger than the monuments we want to build.