Speaker: What is a healthy religious community?

Rock Schuler: A healthy religious community is one that is going to affirm, who you are as a human being. It is going to uphold your human dignity. It is going to be concerned that you have the opportunity to fully be every thing that God envisioned for you, when God first formed you in your mother s womb. God vision for you and that vision becoming a reality is the primary concern of a healthy religious community. So, there are going to be some basic teachings, like in Judaism, where we are made in God s image or in Christianity, where we learn that God became a human being, so that God s dream for all of us might be perfectly fulfilled. These are actions of God on our behalf and so there are teachings in the religious community that show us, how God is working on our behalf to bring us to the fullness of our being. A healthy religious community is going to be one that respects, who we are; that respects boundaries and yet has permeable boundaries at the same time. For instance, a healthy religious community is going to have boundaries implies to protect children from abuse. It is also going to have permeable boundaries, so that people are not forced and constrained by legalistic requirements to follow the rule of the community, the letter of the law. In other words, a healthy religious community is going to offer guidance and protection in the spiritual life. It is not going to act as a dictator in spiritual life. That is what I mean by boundaries that are permeable. So, on the whole, a healthy religious community looks to advance uphold and noble, who we are as human beings. Unfortunately, we are all familiar with the examples of unhealthy religious communities. We find them throughout history and they are usually the result of a cult personality or cultic type magnetism. In other words, there is often an individual at the center of an unhealthy religious community, who exercises great spiritual sway, even power over followers. The boundaries of an unhealthy religious community are rigid, they are not permeable; they are narrow, they are very confined. There is an expectation that people will remain within that confined narrow boundary. They are not permitted to go beyond it.

Usually the leader of an unhealthy religious community will not submit him or herself to the discipline of others, of superiors to the guidance of tradition or history. They set themselves up as a law unto themselves. And how unhealthy religious communities are more concerned to advance the well being of the leader or the leaders then they are to a noble, the dignity and worth of the followers.