A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to a sister in the Church regarding the indispensable principle of Lex orandi, lex credendi in the Apostolic Tradition. This term often adds the third, and I would argue most important element, lex vivendi. That is to say the law of prayer (lex orandi) also called the Liturgy is the law of belief (lex credendi). The third (lex vivendi) is where the rubber meets the road. What we pray, we believe, and live-out through our actions. From the Esoteric, Gnostic Christian vantage, this means that through our participation in the Sacraments and our other spiritual work, we progress with the help of Gnosis, and thereby mature in our compassion, and service to others. We come to see ourselves in everyone – no matter how horrible that might be at first glance. This is the basis for true material and spiritual liberation. As Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement wrote in 1933: The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? (The Catholic Worker)
Service is more important to living the life of the spirit than a mere statement of belief, a personal preference, or a votive offering to political action in the name of religion. Our shared sense of diakonia – of service to others – is a core element of our own spirituality – Gnostic, Catholic and Protestant. In the Jewish tradition this is called Tikkun olam תיקון, literally to “heal” or “repair” the world. (Gittin 4, Mishnah 2) In many religions, but particularly in the Gnostic Apostolic Tradition, service to others is to live in accordance with our shared appreciation of the inherent dignity of the Divine and therefore, of all people.
This is not charity. I am not suggesting that we employ a paternalistic, top-down approach to social justice work any more than we espouse that sort of spirituality. I recently saw a poster drawn up by the Aboriginal Activists Group of Queensland, Australia which puts this concept into perspective: “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” The sense of being essentially equal is as vital to our spiritual and pastoral lives as it is to comprehending and executing our work with people. This is our work: to extend our love to everyone (cf. John 15:17) through human solidarity (cf. Luke 22:27); thus to give testimony to the common mind of Gnosis, thereby beginning to fulfill our forgotten potential as sparks of the Divine.
Admittedly this work is easier said than done. We live in a world whose lines of power, belief and authority constantly reinforce the fallacy of separation between the material and spiritual worlds. We deal with institutions and superstitions that would have us believe that the “good vs. evil” dichotomy is an excuse for ignoring and mistreating those we deem to be different, or tainted by darkness. We are all in the darkness seeking the light and how we stumble through the shadows does make a difference.
For those in the struggle against poverty and exclusion, as well as ecumenical work, it is a treacherous task to steer clear of the rock of antagonism and the shoals of oversimplification, both of persons and ideas. As a clergyman, it is as much my duty to encourage individuals to see the Divine within them as to point out and try to correct abuses of all human rights that violate that dignity. By “all human rights” I am not exclusively referring to civil and political rights, but to economic, social and cultural rights: Wholesome food, decent work, safe housing, clean water, sound education, and equal justice under law. Some believe that the status quo of western capitalism, the same structure that imposes crushing poverty on the majority of the planet’s population, is to be respected because it is the ‘right of the individual’ to enrich him/herself. The rationalization of laissez-faire economics, or worse – choosing to throw crumbs to the poor and marginalized when it is convenient – is clearly not part of the Apostolic Tradition, gnostic and catholic.
If we look to the points of convergence in the Gnostic, Christian, Hermetic and Jewish traditions, we see a definite pattern emerge. The Judaic understanding of property, ownership and social justice is made clear by the allegory of unfaithful Jerusalem recorded in the book of the Prophet Ezekiel (16:49): This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and the wretched. Notice that it was not homosexuality, but the lack of solidarity with the poor which is seen to be the collective error by Ezekiel’s community.
In the Hermetic texts the good we do, our actions in the here-and-now are valued as the manifestation of the Divine-in-the-world. When we ask if our actions are meaningful, Hermes Trismegistus replies: Mind sees itself in thinking, God in making. (Corpus Hermeticum, “Mind Unto Hermes”, 22) Likewise, the Gnostic community of St. Thomas the Apostle echoes other apostles when they recorded: “If you have money, don’t lend it at interest. Rather, give it to someone from whom you won't get it back.” Indeed if we read many ancient Church writings, private property itself is seen as a slap in the face to the new commandment to love. But this sense of serving others does not stop with scriptures or apostles. It begins with Christ and the Saints John, Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, Ambrose, and Francis of Assisi. In just as many ways, service and communitarian values stretch from the monastic orders, including the Templars, to the Johannite and other French Gnostic leaders, many of whom were members of the egalitarian Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise and the Grand Orient de France, (also see: Grand Orient de France site in French). Every one of these groups would have condemned any ideology or government system based on selfishness, deceit and usury in the name of ‘individual liberty.’ From French Freemasonry, which held the Johannite Tradition within itself for at least a century, we see the following statement:
For the Grand Orient de France, the project of progress has always been an engine for our reflections and for our actions, to the point that this principle is an integral part our Tradition of obedience. We are the heirs of men and of women that all, in their own manner, worked for the improvement of Humanity: Voltaire, La Fayette, Garibaldi, Louis-Auguste Blanqui, Victor Schoelcher, the emir Abd el-kader, Louise Michel, Bakunin, Jean Zay, Félix Eboué, Pierre Brossolette, and so many others who entrusted us with their knowledge which enriched our Lodges by their presence. This is the reason why the Grand Orient de France is a vigilant defender of the principles of its motto that is also the motto of the Republic: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." This is the reason why the Grand Orient de France is bound to the absolute liberty of conscience that is guaranteed by secular institutions. This is the reason why the Grand Orient de France is opposed to racism and to the enemies of the democracy. (Grand Orient de France, “Our Values” - Nos Valeurs French Only)
It is worth mentioning that the Scottish Rite Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise was also among the first and only lodges of Freemasonry to welcome women among their ranks under the name Le Droit Humain (The Human Right) in 1893. So too, in the esoteric strain it was a Gnostic bishop, Martinist and famous esotericist – none other than the Most Reverend Constant Chevillion (Tau Harmonious) - who instituted and insisted upon the initiation of women in the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm, among others. But his social activism did not stop with equality for women. The April 1937 issue of «Le Gallican» journal contains an article written by Chevillion while he was Patriarch of L’Église Gnostique Universelle. Under the heading Réflexions sur le Temple social, he wrote:
The material goods of this world, given by nature and transformed by labour, with the help of capital, are the communal property of all mankind…But the owners of industry, commerce and agriculture have forgotten their role. As instruments of God in the redistribution of the fruits of labour, they have carved out the lion’s share, and almost always consider themselves to be the exclusive beneficiaries. All have forgotten the great maxim of the Christ: To each according to his works and needs. (Cf. Rev. 2:23; Matt 16:27). And the world rolls indefinitely towards the same error. They debate within a materialism from which they refuse to escape. Men do not think on their spiritual origin, or on their final end. They have been, are, and will be the game of instincts, passions, and appetites; in one word, of egotism.
Several years after he wrote this article, Tau Harmonious was shot by agents of the Gestapo. He has since been venerated as a Gnostic saint and martyr by several jurisdictions, including the Johannite Church.
Although there are vivid references to social justice and human rights spanning from the Hebrew Bible to Gnostic Christian scriptures and writings, as well as the rich history of solidarity and progress from our French forbears, as a Johannite I do not have to rely on history to see that embracing all human beings as equals demands my attention, respect, love and therefore, action. I need only to listen to our Liturgy and ask: when are material things to be placed above people? Furthermore: what happens as a consequence? Doesn’t this play out in government and policy decisions every day? People still starve or freeze to death, and yet our cities use public funds to build sports arenas. Critics rail against public spending, but rarely look at the severely unbalanced priorities with which we deploy the public treasury. Older members of our society, the weak and disabled – not to mention those who live in extreme poverty outside of our borders – all of these people make up the Mystical Body. When we complain about taxation, perhaps the value-added would be to place a moral emphasis on how our governments make sweeping decisions about prioritizing our tax revenue. That means that we have to look at what politicians are saying to get elected, and determine which one will do the most for those who really need help. Right now, the trend in North America and Europe is to give to those programmes that give back to the businesses that claim they will bring profits to us, and that this will trickle down to the masses. That is what Ronald Reagan said in the 1980s. Now, 30 years later, after radical privatization, deregulation and globalization, the gap between rich and poor is approaching very dangerous benchmarks in so-called wealthy countries like the US. Is that the locus of what has been transmitted to us by any of our traditions, be they Catholic, Jewish, or Esoteric? Pay-for-play politics panders to the egotism that Tau Harmonious mentioned. This is a cover for excusing ourselves to spend public revenue on projects that will titillate and make our lives easier, while leaving the rest of our citizenry, and indeed three-quarters of humanity without the very basics of survival.
Even in the presence of such disgusting injustice, our dealings with the institutions and governments which are responsible for neglecting or abusing human rights must be extremely prudent. As a person in Holy Orders, I need to be ever mindful of my task to bring opposites together, leaving room at the shared table of humanity for rational and even loving discourse.
But this does not mean that moral imperatives should be left aside. Poverty is violence, and ignorance or willful aversion of the needs of other people is a feeble excuse for inaction. I think Ezekiel put a rather sharp point on that idea. If the Sacraments are to effect positive change toward a more loving and just society, then we must be willing to embrace service to others as the outpouring of grace and the fulfillment of human rights for each person imbued with the Divine.
