Spiritual Coalition

The Pew organization has found that approximately:

• 20% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Born-Again or Evangelical Protestants.
• 38% of the adult U.S. population consider themselves members of some other form of organized religion.
• 22% of U.S. adults view themselves as spiritual but not religious.
• Leaving 20% of U.S. adults who are secular and do not recognize the existence of a spiritual dimension.

Let’s explore how we can weave these groups together to form a spiritual majority coalition to support democracy.

The Christians: Many Evangelical Protestants probably won’t be very receptive to the philosophy I’m presenting in this essay. They believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God connected directly to us through his Son, Jesus, who has a plan for them, listens to their prayers, and gives them personal guidance to help them realize the plan in their lives.

Evangelical Protestants take personal comfort in this Faith, but profound contradictions are buried within it. If God and Jesus are all powerful, know everything, exhibit justice, and love everyone and, based on this reality, have a plan for everyone and everything, then they are responsible for everything. Our world today certainly doesn’t look like a reality caused by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-just, all-loving deity.

In the Evangelical Protestant theology, Satan is a power opposing the will of Jesus. Satan can be seen as a morphic field operating without the guidance of God – a fallen Angel if you will.

By anyone’s estimation, much of the world right now is characterized by vast evil. Just look at the wars, the tens of thousands of children starving every day, the devastation of the natural world, and on and on. Within this frame, if God is all powerful and all-knowing, then God either causes great evil or voluntarily acquiesces in it. In particular, if God is all-powerful why does he continue to let Satan exist and do his evil. That’s not really an all-just, all-loving God. Yet essentially everyone agrees that the heart of Jesus’s message to humanity is a message of love.

Many Non-Evangelical Christians resolve these seeming contradictions by accepting that God created a world with a radical freedom at its core. Those of us with this Faith recognize a God that did not create a world that would slavishly obey his will with no choice on our parts. Humanity has a choice as to how we evolve and what we evolve into. Even the morphic fields manifesting as Angels have some degrees of freedom and can make a choice to oppose the Will of God (vis. Satan).

We are at a very troubled moment in our evolution, but the Faith of those of us with this perspective says that we have the opportunity to create a world worthy of our vision of an all-just all-loving God by manifesting that love and that justice in our individual and our joint actions. In fact, from this perspective, trying to impose a narrow hostile version of the supposed Will of God on humanity is antithetical to the true Will of God.

Looking at our current moment from this vantage point, we can come to recognize and celebrate that the true Spirit of Jesus can actually be a powerful ally of the Spirit of Democracy. Through such an alliance, we can all work together for the positive transformation of our world.

According to the surveys, some Evangelical Christians already recognize that the Spirit of Jesus is incompatible with Christian Nationalism and are not fighting for it and not contributing to the Prayer Gap. Perhaps, those in this camp can be convinced to join in a Prayer Campaign on behalf of the Spirit of Democracy.

The significant majority of Christians are not of the Evangelical persuasion and not supporters of Christian Nationalism. Those of us in this camp recognize that the message of Jesus is a call to creative action and an offer of solace for the pain we are suffering during this time of transition and transformation. We can recognize that, at its deepest level, the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of Democracy resonate together with the same aspiration to a loving justice. Hopefully, those of us of this persuasion will embrace the fact that the time has come to put our Faith into spiritual action by aggressively Praying for Democracy.

Those of Other Faiths: Christian Nationalism certainly is not in the interest of those of us of other Faiths. Whether we are Jewish or Muslim or Native American or Hindu or Buddhist or another Faith, we all can recognize the profound value of living in a Democratic country that gives us the freedom to manifest the Faith of our choice in our own communities and in our own Houses of Worship.

Let us pray together with our own Prayers for Democracy in the unique idioms of our unique Faiths. The Spirit of Democracy becomes stronger with each different spiritual thread that is woven into its fabric.

The Spiritual But Not Religious: Those of us who are spiritual but not religious may find that the philosophy presented in this essay helps explicitly explain what we may have previously felt but not necessarily fully understood.

For those of us of this persuasion, it will likely make sense to recognize that the Spiritual Domain is a real realm, vibrating at speeds faster-than-the-speed-of-light, which helps guide the evolution of what happens in the material world that we experience with our senses. Accepting this paradigm can lead to the decision to take actions to affect the Spiritual Domain in ways that impact the physical domain.

However, since there are few established Prayers for Democracy or other related rituals that already exist, those of us who are religious and those of us who are spiritual but not religious confront the same reality and need to formulate the prayers and, perhaps, the rituals to enact on behalf of Democracy. These two groups of us may find common ground in doing so, leading to deeper mutual understanding and more powerful forms of joint spiritual action.

The Secular: Those of us who are secular may not find the logic presented in this essay to be persuasive and may continue to be committed to live and act according to the belief that the material world of the physical senses is all there is.

However, it is certainly the case that a majority of us who are the believers in an exclusively secular reality support Democracy and a separation of church and state, oppose authoritarianism, and take action to address climate change, among other values. Some of us of this persuasion can hopefully see our way clearly to recognize the value of joining together in coalition with those of us who recognize the need to Pray for Democracy.

At least it’s possible for this aspect of us to acknowledge that Praying for Democracy can be the vehicle for engaging a large number of us. Building a significant group of us who are Praying for Democracy prevents the Christian Nationalists crowd from maintaining that they have a corner on engagement with the spiritual.

Additionally, some of us of this persuasion may actually turn out to be intrigued to consider an expansion of the scientific mindset to include an exploration of the realms of reality vibrating at speeds faster-than-the-speed-of-light. At the least, it’s possible for this aspect of us to acknowledge that Praying for Democracy can’t hurt and may very well help.