Spiritual Immaturity and the Ego-centric Self

 (Facebook post - 7/11/2023)

More of Rohr's wisdom along with some thoughts his wisdom stirred:

If our egos are still in charge, we will find a “disposable” person or group on which to project our problems. People who haven’t come to at least a minimal awareness of their own shadow side will always find someone else to hate, fear, and exclude. Hatred holds a group together much more quickly and easily than love and inclusivity.

Sadly, the history of violence and the history of religion are almost the same history. When religion remains at an immature level, it tends to create very violent people who ensconce themselves on the side of the good, the worthy, the pure, the saved. They project all their evil somewhere else and attack it over there. Someone has to be blamed, attacked, tortured, imprisoned, or killed. Sacrificial systems create religions and governments of exclusion and violence. Yet Jesus taught and modeled inclusivity and forgiveness!

As long as we try to deal with evil by some other means than forgiveness, we will keep projecting, fearing, and attacking it over there, instead of “gazing” on it within ourselves and weeping over it. The longer we gaze, the more we will see our own complicity in and profitability from the sin of others, even if it’s the satisfaction of feeling we are on higher moral ground.

ASL: Rohr's thinking stirs a couple of thoughts for me.

The spiritual journey involves recognizing and dying to the ego-centric self - that self we constructed, using what the world said we needed to do and be, in order to be accepted and valued by the world in which we live.

Our spiritual immaturity is evident in how we judge and condemn, reject and exclude others - any other. Our criticalness and exclusion are expressions of the ego-centric self's effort to prop itself up by comparing itself with others it deems wrong and thereby less significant. Their "wrong" translates into "I'm right" and "I'm better than."

The polarization within our country and within The UMC reflects this pattern of condemning and rejecting - indicators of emotional-relational-spiritual immaturity and a defended ego-centric self. In an era needing the best thinking of our mature selves, we are functioning out of immaturity. Immaturity is always evident in reactivity and anger, condemnation and judgement of others, rejection and exclusion, rigid positions supported by black-and-white, right-or-wrong thinking.

We have all experienced emotional wounds - generally in our formative years. Unrecognized, these wounds remain unaddressed. Unaddressed, they remain unresolved (unhealed). Unresolved, they shape our lives today, outside of our conscious awareness. They get projected onto others in the form of judging and criticizing, rejecting and excluding.

We constructed our ego-centric self in order to escape the pain of these deep emotional wounds - pain which we pushed deep inside beyond our conscious awareness. These wounds and their pain and the messages we attached to them are all dimensions of what Jung called our shadow.

The ego-centric self is fragile - a constructed self rather than an authentic self. It lives with strong defenses designed to protect its fragile identity, particularly its shadow. Criticizing and judging, rejecting and excluding others are some of its classic defense mechanisms. The ego-centric self lives by appearances - those things that project success and value: achievements, wealth, material things that wealth provides, the right circle of friends, the right groups, etc. The ego-centric self reacts to anything that gets too close to exposing its shadow. Thus, it is threatened by authentic spirituality. That's a major reason the religious leaders of Jesus's culture sought to have him killed. His teachings and actions undermined their merit-based world and its hierarchy, threatening their status and standing which they used to validate their ego-centric selves.

Healthy spiritual formation always leads us to address the shadow - those old wounds, their pain, the messages they produced, and the ego-centric self we constructed to deal with them. In other words, healthy spirituality involves healing - emotional-relational-spiritual healing. Sadly, in reaction to the Pentecostal movements and faith healers, the Western Church has abandoned the healing ministry. In its place, it has created an environment in which the ego-centric self can grow and flourish - a world centered on right beliefs, right behavior, right worship.

Immature spirituality - the realm of the ego-centric self - always produces positions that criticize and judge, reject and exclude those that are viewed as "other." It functions out of merit-based thinking. People are criticized and judged, rejected and excluded because they fail to measure up to some standard of expectations. Healthy spirituality always leads to inclusiveness that views and values, accepts and embraces every person as a beloved child of God. It functions out of grace-based thinking.

Before we are willing to deal with the ego-centric self, some kind of failure and pain are generally required. Such experiences strip away our self-deception, leading us to face our brokenness and need. That's where the grace of God becomes real and transformative.

This era in which the institutional church is dying could well be God's invitation for the Church to rediscover true discipleship - discipleship that involves dying to the ego-centric self. (See my latest book - Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark.)