Why Are There So Many Different Kinds of Churches in the World?
Growing Up in the Jesus Path Series – Part One
Introducing the Tribal Magical Worldview
Stages of spiritual development
The global body of more than 2 billion Christians is separated into 45,000 different denominations. Pentecostal. Presbyterian. Lutheran. Baptist. Apostolic. Methodist — the list goes on and on. Why are there so many different kinds of churches? The most profound reason churches and their versions of Christianity are at multiple places is that our understanding and experience of God develop in unfolding levels. We all find a place that fits us in those various stages. Looking at churches in an evolutionary way opens up possibilities for a greater understanding of one another.
People with differing worldviews tend to gravitate to and create different kinds of churches. There is a church for just about every stage and worldview.
Much of what I wrote about stages in my book, Integral Christianity, and repeat here is based on Ken Wilber’s stages of development. He has offered other descriptions of levels of development, but I am using the simplest ones in this primer. You can read my book if you want more. I have recently benefitted from cultural historian and phenomenologist of consciousness Jean Gebser’s enhancement of Wilber’s Integral philosophy and favor a more identifiable flavor of Gebser in my descriptions. I have borrowed from many recent sources to present this, hopefully, understandable primer.
I use the stages or stations in life explored by Wilber and mostly his color code, which he says matches the actual energies at these various levels of development. I use Steve McIntosh’s names for the stages in his book Integral Consciousness and Gebser’s namings (in italics) from his Ever-Present Origin.
Rather than stages, Gebser sees structures of consciousness that come about as mutations rather than a slow evolutionary process. This results in tribal magic (magenta), warrior magic (red), traditional mythic (amber), modern mental (orange), postmodern (green), integral integrative (teal), and integral holistic (turquoise). It looks like the image below for those who like initially puzzling diagrams. If that’s not you, don’t even look! Otherwise, start at the bottom and move up to see how cleverly David Goebal depicts each structure stage. If it remains puzzling, you will see it all by the end of this series!
GROWING UP — from Spiral Dynamics by David Goebal
All of these different layers of development are represented in churches today except the fully integral. I will describe them by using eight common areas of belief and practice among Christians through the centuries: the Bible, God, Jesus, prayer, sin and salvation, heaven and hell, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the mystical.
The Archaic Structure of Consciousness
Although not a religious or church worldview in the sense we are talking about, the archaic is our originating state of survival, dominated by biological impulsiveness beginning some 200,000 years ago. It was eat, breathe, and sex. There was no awareness of a god or gods, only a diffuse connection with nature and its fields. All attention was focused on survival. Human beings were immersed in the world, unable to extricate themselves from that world. The individual’s consciousness was barely distinct from its environment. This occurs today in newborn babies and older people who have advanced dementia.
Goebal’s Tribal Magic Stage
Notice the three tribal circles and the magical star. Tribal includes the Archaic.
Tribal Magical Worldview
Around 50,000 years ago, in the late middle period of the Stone Age, the tribal stage and magical structure of consciousness emerged from the primordial mist of archaic consciousness. It was focused on a dangerous world, alive with mystery. To be safe, one must follow and appease the ancestors.
In this structure, Gebser explains, one’s sense of self is inextricably linked with one’s tribe or clan. Tribes formed around blood relatives and families. We were impulsive in this tribal magic stage, with faith in superheroes, ancestral stories, and superstitious beliefs. We made sacrifices to ancestral spirits in a world of good and evil magical spirits that haunt the earth. Ghosts dictated what happened in the world.
From up to 30,000 years ago, these beautiful Paleolithic art images are among the world’s oldest paintings. Found in a cave in Chauvet, France, they are of aurochs, horses, and rhinoceroses. According to some researchers, this type of art is spiritual, relating to visions experienced during ritualistic trance-dancing. This is an insight into the authentic mysticism of our tribal stage.
Mysticism versus magical thinking
Mysticism is different from magical or superstitious thinking, which believes that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link. Magical thinking believes that just thinking about something by itself can affect the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it. These beliefs can cause a person to experience an irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because of an assumed correlation between doing so and threatening calamities.
Magical thinking is visible today in young children, some gang members, and isolated tribal societies. All of us have come from the tribal cultures of our past. Despite our sometimes overly romanticizing these early tribes, fear-based fantasy was prevalent. The world was filled with gods, demons, ghosts, and other beings that might be vengeful and attack you. Tribal members needed to bargain with and persuade these beings to protect themselves and get what they wanted.
Today’s superstitions are holdovers from tribal magical thinking, little pieces of fear-based fantasy. Folklorists say that the most widespread superstition in our culture today is the idea of misfortune occurring on Friday the 13th. Avoiding walking under a ladder can be common sense, or it can carry some of the superstitious forebodings of its origin. The very meaning of the term from which we get our word superstition, supersisto, means “to stand in terror of the deity.”
Young children see the world through the lens of imagination. Impulsiveness and fantasy are unrestrained by logic in a world where anything is possible. Today, tribal consciousness is found in superstitions, and comic book and television heroes like Superman and Captain America. Tribal level adults feel secure within their group or family clan where parents and leaders are God-like, providing everything needed in an ego-centered existence. Today, we can observe tribal consciousness in those who over-identify with their race, nationality, politics, religion, or other ethnocentric groups.
Religious cults are an example of tribal church. Extreme examples are the 909 people that died at Jonestown in 1998 in a mass murder/suicide. In 1992 in Waco, Texas, the Branch Davidians were attacked by law enforcement, resulting in seventy-seven deaths in a fire that erupted during the siege.
An estimated ten percent of the world’s population operates primarily from the tribal stage.
The Bible
In the worldview of tribal Christianity, the Bible contains the answer to all problems and is physically treated with respect. It is placed in a treasured place in the front of the sanctuary and often held aloft by the preacher. However, at the tribal level, it may look like holding up a potent charm that possesses magical powers for everyone to behold with proper awe.
Today’s fear-filled religious beliefs in traditional Christianity come from the tribal stage of the Israelites as recorded in the Bible throughout the Old Testament. Significant elements of this have become enshrined in beliefs about God sending disasters and other punishments in this life and eternal torment in hell in the next. Every thinking Christian at the modern level and beyond must wrestle with what parts of the Bible resemble tribal level stories that seem more like fanciful legends than historical facts. Did God really create the world in seven literal days? Did Methuselah really live 969 years? Did God really wipe out the entire human race in a worldwide flood except for Noah and his family? Did God really order the Israelites to kill all those people?
Seeing these written events as expressions of understanding from a stage frees us from having to take an all-or-nothing view of the Bible.
God
Most Americans say that they believe in God. But this “God” is seen in different ways in the various worldviews. In the Christian tribal church, God is seen as an awe-inspiring, often erratic, superhero wizard who lives up there in the sky. God is responsible for everything and is to be feared and appeased at all costs. Like the mythical gods of Rome and Greece, God intervenes at times in our life with miracles and punishments.
Jesus
Jesus is uniquely God come down from heaven, a magician who has come from the spirit world to save their group from harm. Jesus answers prayers, sometimes performs miracles when requested, and intervenes in the world by working wonders among believers.
Prayer
Tribal prayer is talking with God from an unworthy, fearful place, with repeated confessions of sins and accepting forgiveness. These sincere prayers are usually concluded with the phrase “in Jesus’ name.” At the modern level, the phrase “in Jesus’ name” can be a meaningful reminder to pray in the character and spirit of Jesus. At the tribal level, this phrase may appear to be a magical incantation that assures maximum impact of the prayer.
Saying, “God bless you,” when someone sneezes can be just a nice thought, or it may carry some of its beginnings as religious superstition. In ancient times, people thought their breath was also their soul. A sneeze was the same as expelling life from one’s body, leaving a vacuum in the head through which evil spirits could enter. The phrase “God bless you” then came about as a prayer to shield sneezers from ill effects.
The tribal level may believe that God directly controls the weather from up in heaven above the clouds. If there is a hurricane, it is because God sent it. If the sun comes out, it is because God caused it to happen that very minute. A prayer sent toward the Big Weather Maker in the sky may magically change the weather toward your preference, rain or sunshine. When a disaster like a hurricane or a tornado causes destruction, insurance companies still call it “an act of God.”
In the tribal worldview, one may be more likely to pray for a parking space than for grace to handle however far away one must park.
Heaven and Hell
Hell is a place of demons, literal fire, eternal punishment, separation from God, and the Christian clan. Heaven is a place of eternal safety with others like your church family. We are sent to one or the other on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ or certain rituals such as baptism.
Sin and Salvation
Sin is doing things that are not pleasing to God, who can be pleased or displeased. Salvation is being rescued from certain eternal punishment in a literal hell by believing Jesus died for your sins.
The Kingdom of Heaven
The Kingdom of Heaven in the magical tribal worldview is the place Christians go after death. This is in contrast to the integral view of Jim Marion in Putting on the Mind of Christ, who points out that the Kingdom of Heaven is the vision of no separation between God and us.
The Mystical
Mystical beliefs abound in this structure of consciousness but are confused with magical thinking. Magical thinking differs from the magical enchanted reality of authentic mysticism. Mysticism that represents actual spiritual realities includes and transcends the magic, mythic, and mental rational structure stages. Magical fantasies are pre-rational and may not represent true spiritual realities.
The magical tribal level confuses the symbol with what it represents. Things like trees, animals, and even objects such as statues or carvings may be understood to contain evil spirits.
The Christian with elements of this level may genuinely experience God and have a vital relationship with Jesus. They may be more open to spiritual experience in altered states than those in the traditional and modern stages because they do not dismiss the reality of mysticism and inspired states!
Limitations and Strengths of the Tribal Magical Worldview
Tribal Christianity is limiting in mistaking superstition for spirituality and rejecting God’s inclusive love. Today, fear-based spirituality comes from the remnants of this ancient stage thousands of years ago. Jesus rejected the worry that an angry God will punish you. One does not need to toss out the authentic mystical consciousness of the tribal stage to transcend its fearful and magical-thinking elements.
The tribal level also demands conformity as a trade-off for the safety and security of the tribe. This shuts down creativity, leadership, wisdom, and progress. This is natural to any group and is called “groupthink.”
The enduring strengths of the tribal church are healthy family, group loyalty, and authentic mysticism.
When Jesus wanted to change the world, the first thing he did was to gather a few others around him in a new, mystical tribe.
He affirmed this new spiritual family, saying it took precedence over one’s birth family. The first tribe of Jesus people consisted of a dozen men together with a small group of women who didn’t get as much formal recognition but, interestingly, paid the bills.
Later on, the house churches of the New Testament served as tribal clans of mystical spirituality in the rapidly spreading Christianity of the first two hundred years. Connecting to a “tribe” or network of others seeking God-consciousness is crucial to our spiritual growth. ICN’s WeSpace groups themselves are a place to find just such a tribal family. This contains the integral Christian values of deep God-consciousness, creativity, individual uniqueness, and mystical evolutionary progress, all in the context of authentic community.