Review: Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles' Creed, by Brother David Steindl-Rast

There is something a bit jarring about seeing the words “Apostles’ Creed” and “Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama” printed on the cover of a book, but the name of the author reassures us that somehow it will end up making a great deal of sense.

That’s because the author is Brother David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian-born Benedictine monk, who is one of the great teachers in our Church. He has been a leading figure in the Church’s dialog with Buddhism, a tradition for which he has developed considerable sympathies. He describes in the introduction how he came to write this book at the urging of the Dalai Lama, and why he chose the Apostles’ Creed, of all things:

In interreligious dialogue we tend to quote from our respective traditions those passages that the others are most likely to find acceptable. But increasingly this had begun to seem a bit superficial to me. I had come to feel that for genuine agreement we would have to go deeper; we would have to test whether even the least likely texts—say, a creed—could help deepen interreligious understanding. Wars have been fought even among co-religionists over these succinct summaries of essential beliefs. A creed would thus make the perfect touchstone for the possibility of interreligious agreement on that deep level where it matters. That's why I chose the Apostles' Creed—the oldest of the Christian creeds—and thus this book came about.

The Creed basically provides Brother David with his Table of Contents: there are twenty four chapters, each devoted to one line (or in a couple of cases, part of a line) of the Creed.

Each chapter is divided into four sections. Referring to the line in the Creed that serves as the title of the chapter, he asks, “What does this really mean?” and he offers an interpretation of the line. Then he asks, “How do we know this is so?” and explains his answer to the first question. He then asks, “Why make such a point of this?” which he answers by explaining why this matters to us today. Finally, he ends each chapter with his personal reflections.

There wasn’t a single chapter in this book that I didn’t find deeply thought provoking. Brother David takes the familiar words of the Creed—words that for many people have become stale and lifeless, if the droning recitation one hears in Church is any indication—and reveals unfamiliar depths of meaning, reading the Creed as a faith proclamation in poetry, rather than a prosaic checklist of beliefs.

His non-literal interpretation of the Creed will probably not endear him to the mythic membership crowd. Anyone looking for a reflection on a literal virgin birth or ascension into heaven will be disappointed. But even the events Brother David acknowledges as historical—suffering under Pontius Pilate, crucifixion, death and burial, etc.—are here interpreted as having a deep and enduring significance, well beyond their historical facticity.

Readers of Brother David’s previous works will not be surprised to find frequent quotations of poetry. He quotes from Gerard Manley Hopkins, Theodore Roethke, Jessica Powers, Mary Oliver, Kabir, and Patricia Campbell Carlson, among others. I often get a little impatient when writers quote poetry, but in Brother David’s work poetry is never used as mere ornamentation or for showing off.

After reading the introduction (and the foreword by the Dalai Lama) I expected there would be more frequent references to Buddhism than there actually were. But this is quite thoroughly a Christian book, in a very catholic, which is to say “all-embracing,” way. Indeed, his rather generous interpretations of the Creed’s “Holy Catholic Church” and “Communion of Saints” will leave exclusivists shaking their heads in indignation. (This is not a criticism, just an observation.)

So how, then, does Brother David further the cause of interreligious understanding? He does not do this by suggesting that the Christian beliefs expressed in the Apostles’ Creed are the same as those expressed by Buddhists or Hindus. Rather, he shows that the essential Christian message is a universal message of faith and love, of belonging and sharing, that transcends the boundary lines we draw around ourselves in the name of religion.

The great scholar of religion Huston Smith wrote of this book:

I have always felt that in endorsing a book I was honoring the book and its author. Brother David’s Deeper Than Words, however, brought a new and startling sensation: I found myself sensing that the book was honoring me by allowing me to endorse it. Never before have I felt this way about a book.

I feel much the same way. This is truly a very special book.

Br. David Steindl-Rast

With so much of my free time lately being devoted to reading about the crisis in the Church, I decided I needed to take a break and reconnect with some of the worthier things in the Catholic tradition.

So last night I watched this documentary about one of my spiritual heroes, Br. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. If you aren't familiar with Br. David, this is an excellent introduction.



I can't quite explain why, but I was strangely moved by the sight of "St. Peter's Barn."

This is part 2, about his encounter with Buddhist monasticism:



And part 3, about dishwashing, among other things:



Finally, an article about Br. David on the subject of authority, containing an important insight that Christianity desperately needs to reclaim: "A Revolution of Authority."

What Good Is the Church?

I recently re-discovered this video featuring two pretty famous Catholic monks, Br. David Steindl-Rast, OSB, and Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, discussing the role of the institution of the Church.

Br. David makes the good point that the hierarchy is not the place to look for leadership in the Church (which doesn't mean official leaders don't serve an important function). They also talk about the role of tradition, among other things. Fr. Thomas tells an amusing anecdote about Pope John XXIII. His joke at the beginning won't make sense to anyone unfamiliar with the colour-coded stages of Spiral Dynamics, but it's worth watching.

Authority

This is what we hear at the end of today's gospel reading:

"When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes." (Matt 7.28-29)

I find that really interesting: "he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes." It's more curious when you consider that the scribes actually were recognised authorities, whereas Jesus was a simple "layman."

"Having authority," in this case, clearly does not mean having "official" authority, as in an ordained position. So what is this "authority"?

Br. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, gave a terrific answer to this question in an interview that was published in What Is Enlightenment? magazine a while back. He said:

Jesus placed the authority of God, which was always seen as external, in the very hearts of his hearers. The core teaching of Jesus is not, "I am going to tell you all," or anything like that. No, he presupposes you know it all. "Don't you know it? I'll remind you of it. You know it all." This is his typical voice. This question opens many of the parables, "Who of you doesn't know this already?" It's not sufficiently emphasized nowadays in Christian teaching, but the moment you are alerted to it you see it.

In other words, Jesus was seen as having authority because the truth of what he was saying did not depend on some external source of validation. He didn't require blind faith, and he didn't ask anyone to just take his word for it. He persuaded people to the truth of his teachings by appealing to what they already knew.

I think this accords well with the notion, found in some forms of Mahayana Buddhism (like Zen, for instance), that we are already enlightened, but most of us don't know it yet.

By the way, you can read Br. David's interview here.

Questions About Authority

In my last post I sort of discussed the theoretical possibility of determining if a person is englightened or not. The problem is different, of course, depending on whether or not we are enlightened ourselves.

There was a passage from Anthony de Mello’s book Awareness that I wanted to quote, but couldn’t at the time because my copy was on loan to a friend. But I got it back and found the passage, and realised that what I wrote last week was really quite irrelevant.

Here is the passage:

Somebody came up to me with a question… He asked me, “Are you enlightened?” What do you think my answer was? What does it matter!

You want a better answer? My answer would be: “How would I know? How would you know? What does it matter?” (34)

If I were enlightened and you listened to me because I was enlightened, then you’re in big trouble. Are you ready to be brainwashed by someone who’s enlightened? You can be brainwashed by anybody, you know. What does it matter whether someone’s enlightened or not? But see, we want to lean on someone, don’t we? We want to lean on anybody we think has arrived. (35)

We’re used to relying on authorities in our day to life. It’s unavoidable. I lack the competence to diagnose my own illnesses, so I rely on a doctor. When I need legal advice, I go to a lawyer. Etc. But these people can be held accountable. Religious authorities, not so much.

Some people are quite content to confer authority on someone for no reason other than the fact that they hold a particular office – i.e., the pope, bishops, etc.[1]

We find very different models of authority in the New Testament, however. John P. Meier writes,

One aspect of Jesus’ family background was so obvious to his Jewish contemporaries that, as far as we know, neither he nor they ever commented on it during his lifetime. Yet this aspect has been so overlooked or misunderstood by later Christians that it needs to be emphasized. It is the simple fact that Jesus was born a Jewish layman, conducted his ministry as a Jewish layman, and died a Jewish layman. (Marginal 1.345)

Jesus had no “official” authority. And yet in the Gospel of Mark, we find a story about Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. The people were “astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1.22). The scribes did have “official” authority, in a sense, since they were professional religious teachers.

With Paul we find the same thing. He strongly insists that his authority does not come from the "official" leaders of the church.

Br. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, wrote this in a fascinating article about Jesus entitled “A Revolution of Authority”:

Jesus Christ brought a complete revolution of the understanding of authority. This is, I think, the Christian tradition’s most central insight and potentially its greatest contribution to spirituality in the world. It occurred in two ways. First, Jesus placed the authority of God, which was always seen as external, in the very hearts of his hearers. The core teaching of Jesus is not, “I am going to tell you all,” or anything like that. No, he presupposes you know it all. “Don't you know it? I'll remind you of it. You know it all.” This is his typical voice. This question opens many of the parables, “Who of you doesn't know this already?” It's not sufficiently emphasized nowadays in Christian teaching, but the moment you are alerted to it you see it. (online)

Jesus had authority precisely because he was persuasive. He understood that the ultimate norm by which we make judgments is always and unavoidably our self. Authentic authority does that.

As a religion teacher, I know that I have a lot more credibility with my students – and therefore greater authority – if I let them voice their doubts and challenge what I have to say, instead of insisting that they simply take my word for it. I also have more credibility if I admit when I’m wrong, or that I don’t know something (which I’ve had to do). And it seems to me to be self-evident that this is true for religious authority as well. So why does the Vatican act in exactly the opposite way, and why do so many people play along?

Notes

[1] I discussed the inevitably circular arguments used to support this model of authority in a previous post.

Works Cited