Integral Christianity

Integral Christian

Christianity and the Integral Model

We can use the integral model to gain a more complete understanding of both the Christianity as a religious tradition, and the experiences of individual Christians.

Let's being by looking at the Wilber Combs Lattice.

On the horizontal axis, many Christians experience what would be characterized as experiences of subtle states of consciousness: feeling God's presence and Spirit. On the vertical axis, individual Christians may be at a variety of stages of development, and at different stages in different lines of development. There are many different institutional Christian denominations, at various institutional stages of development. Earlier we learned that the stage an organization as a whole is at acts as a developmental magnet for the people in that organization. This developmental magnet will pull people up to the stage of development that the organization as a whole functions at – up to its "center of gravity." But if individuals try to move beyond the center of gravity of the organization, this developmental magnet will try to pull them back down to the organization's developmental level. This is true for churches.

We will now consider four fundamental aspects of the Christian faith, and how our understanding and experience of each of these may evolve as we move through the stages of development that go up the left-hand column of the Wilber Combs Lattice. These four aspects are:

Scripture
God
Sin
Jesus Christ, and the Second Coming of Christ

Scripture

At the Amber, Mythic Stage:

Amber is the concrete literal stage, which means that at amber we take every word of the Bible to be the literal word of God, received by direct revelation from God to his prophets. Because God is eternal, all-knowing, and unchanging, all of the commandments given by God in the Bible are in effect today. All events described in the scriptures, including the miraculous and supernatural events, are all taken to be literally true.

At the Orange, Rational Stage:

At orange we begin to test our beliefs about scripture against objective evidence and rational thought. We may examine scientific, historical, and archaeological evidence related to the development of scripture. This may cause us to reevaluate our amber beliefs about scripture and come to new conclusions. For example:

We may come to see scripture not as a literal history of God's interactions with humans, but rather as a history of humans' understanding of God – as a record of human beings trying to make sense of their world, or express their most profound experiences.

We may come to view scripture as a historical or literary document, rather than as the divinely authored word of God.

We may appreciate the value of the teachings found in the scriptures without having to take them literally.

We may look for symbolic, rather than literal, meaning in scripture.

We may reject the value of scripture altogether.

At the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

With its emphasis on the cultural construction of reality, at green we look to the wider cultural context in ancient history when the Bible was written to better understand the development and meaning of Judeo-Christian scripture.

With green's emphasis on equality, at this stage we may become sensitive to racist, sexist, and oppressive aspects of scripture. For example:

The idea that black skin is the result of a curse from God.

The negative things Paul and other New Testament writers say about women.

The sexist language throughout scripture that refers to God and all of humankind in exclusively male terms.

Paul's statement in the New Testament that slaves should submit to their masters because their masters' authority over them comes from God.

At green we may come to understand these troublesome aspects of scripture not as the word or will of God, but rather as a reflection of the culture in which the scripture was written or translated.

With green's emphasis on multiculturalism, at this stage we also become open to the truth and wisdom found in the scriptures of other spiritual traditions, and may look for the commonalities and unifying teachings found in all of the world's scriptures.

God or Heavenly Father

At the Amber, Mythic Stage:

At the amber stage God is understood to be the literal mythic God of the Bible – a white haired man who lives in heaven and intervenes in the lives of humans to bring about his purposes. He is the creator, ruler, and preserver of all things. He is perfect, has all power, and knows all things. He is aware of each one of us individually and he intervenes in our lives, in answer to our prayers and faithfulness, based on his love and wisdom, though we may not always understand his ways.

At the Orange, Rational Stage:

At the rational stage we begin to test our beliefs about God against objective evidence and rational thought. With the move from amber ethnocentrism to orange worldcentrism, and in light of the terrible suffering endured by millions in the world today, at orange it may become increasingly difficult to maintain belief in a loving God who knows us personally and will intervene to help us and "our people" if we ask, but who does nothing to alleviate the terrible suffering of millions of other people.

Because of this difficulty, at orange we may feel the need to revise our understanding of God, to better fit with our real life experiences. For example, we may come to understand God as the life force that permeates the physical universe, and find peace and personal power in learning to flow with this force, rather than struggling against it. Or, God may be understood as the unseen energy and force of Love itself, in all the ways Love manifests. In this view, to the extent that we love, we experience God.

Some of us may come to believe that if God does intervene in human affairs, it is only through human beings choosing to act in response to God's spirit or love within them. In the language of the integral model, there are two different aspects or faces of reality – the manifest realm of existence (the gross physical, subtle, and causal realms), and the unmanifest realm of the Absolute. The manifest realm arises from the Unmanifest realm. It is the Unmanifest made visible. In other words, everything in existence is the manifest face of God or Spirit. If this is the case, then as the manifest expressions of God in the relative world, we – human beings – are the way that God manifests and intervenes in human affairs to relieve suffering. This view is expressed in the following words from St. Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

No hands but yours, no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks out on the world;

Yours are the feet with which he goes about doing good;

Yours are the hands with which he blesses humankind now.

At orange some of us may find the idea of Deism more credible than the idea of Theism. Deism is the belief that God exists and created the physical universe, but does not intervene in its normal operation. Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God does not intervene in the affairs of human life and the natural laws of the universe. What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, most deists see as interpretations made by other humans. Deists believe that God's greatest gift to humanity is not religion, but the ability to reason.

In addition to all of these possibilities (and no doubt many more that are not listed) some of us at orange may become atheist, or agnostic, and may view the material world as ultimate reality.

At the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

At green we realize that our experiences of God are at least partially culturally constructed, as are the many different experiences of God or Ultimate Reality found in every spiritual tradition the world over. We realize that our Christian image of God as a bearded white male is culturally constructed. Someone in the Hindu tradition may have a subtle state vision of a God with 10,000 arms, which fits with their cultural understanding of the Divine. Both are experiencing the same God, but their perceptions of that God are filtered through their cultural filters.

With green's emphasis on gender equality, at this stage we may no longer be satisfied with the belief in an exclusively male God.

And with green's interest in exploring states of consciousness, at this stage we may come to understand God as a state of consciousness, or as Consciousness itself.

Sin

At the Amber, Mythic Stage:

In the amber worldview, sin is understood as a failure to obey God, as God is understood in scripture and in one's denomination. To sin is to willfully disobey God's commandments or to fail to act righteously despite a knowledge of the truth (see James 4:17). In the amber view, all of us sin, and our sin or unrighteousness separates us from God.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, [Jesus Christ] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8–9.

At the Orange, Rational Stage:

At this stage we subject our ideas about sin to rational examination. Do they make sense? Would God really exclude me from heaven forever for sin? Is there any sin that could make me forever reject my own children? Do I love my children more than God loves me?

At orange we may come to view sin as behavior that arises from ignorance, or from mental or emotional dysfunctions that are better treated with education or psychotherapy than repentance. If we have this understanding, we may revise our understanding of Satan as well. Instead of being a literal spirit personage who is at war with God, perhaps Satan is an archetype for our collective projected human shadow.

If our view of God shifts to atheism at orange, then we may come to view sin as merely unethical or illegal behavior, with no Divine involvement or repercussions.

At the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

At this stage we see that our notions of sin are partially culturally constructed. There are some act that are forbidden in all or almost all cultures, and these may have a biological basis. Other acts are seen as sinful in some cultures, but not others. At green we may realize that our notions of sin, and the behaviors that cause us to feel shame, are in part based on our cultural biases.

Because green is the stage concerned with inclusion and peace, sin at this stage may be viewed as behavior that marginalizes or excludes people, or oppresses them. Or, sin may be viewed as behavior that damages the web of life itself, which includes the natural world and all sentient beings.

Jesus Christ, and the Second Coming of Christ

For Christians, the foundational experience of our faith is the experience of Christ's atonement. This experience has the power to change our hearts and minds and make us "new creatures in Christ," as Paul explains:

14. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;

15. And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

16. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

18. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,

19. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:14-19, New King James Version.

This foundational personal experience of Christianity has traditionally consisted of:

Realizing our sinful state, or our separation from God.

Having faith that Christ's atonement can rescue us from this separation from God.

Repenting of our sins, and seeking God's forgiveness.

Receiving God's forgiveness, symbolized by baptism.

Receiving the gift of God's Spirit to guide and transform us as we become "new creatures in Christ."

Viewed through the lens of the integral model, this direct first-hand experience of God's presence, love, and forgiveness is a subtle state experience. Because of the nature of Jesus' teachings about what it means to be his disciple ("As I have loved you, love one another"), the change of heart that is at the foundation of this personal experience is also usually accompanied by transformation on the vertical axis, in the moral line of development. Specifically, we experience growth from the red egocentric stage to the amber ethnocentric stage when we submit ourselves and our lives to the Christian mythic God. This transformation takes place as we move beyond our own egoic interests and desires, and surrenders our life to a higher cause and purpose – in this case, a surrender to God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. This transformation is described in scriptures such as:

And But as many as received him, to them who put their trust in him, he gave the power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of humans, but of God. John 1:12-13.

My dear friends, let us love one another, because the source of love is God. Everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but the unloving know nothing of God, for God is love. This is how he showed his love among us: he sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him. This is what love really is: not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to atone for our sins. If God thus loved us, my dear friends, we also must love one another. God has never been seen by anyone, but if we love one another, God dwells in us; God's love is brought to perfection in us. 1 John 4:7-12.

This act of surrendering to something larger than our individual, egocentric self and moving from red to amber in the moral line can be an important initial step on the path to self-transcendence. It has the power to make us better people. The transformation from egocentric to ethnocentric may be devalued because it seems to fall relatively low on the developmental scale. But remember that we are each at different levels of development in different lines. There are many adults who are at orange or green or teal stages in the cognitive line, but who may still be at the red, egocentric stage in the moral line.

The importance of the amber level of moral development is illustrated in the movie The Constant Gardner. In the actions of the pharmaceutical company, we see orange technology in the hands of a company that lacks a basic amber moral grounding. And in the tribal raiders seen at the end of the movie we see red lawlessness and violence desperately in need of an amber moral grounding.

The surrender to God experienced in Christianity, coupled with the experience of receiving God's unconditional love and a deeply felt commitment to love others as God loves us, can lead Christians who are ready beyond amber ethnocentrism (where my religion is the only true religion), into the orange and green worldcentric stages of moral development.

Click here to listen to a clip from the Integral Spiritual Center of Ken Wilber talking about the transformative power in the practice of surrendering to God in 2nd person. In this clip Ken uses terms from Hinduism. He uses the terms Shiva (the Hindu supreme God) and Shakti (the Hindu supreme Goddess). In Christian terms, surrendering to Shiva or Shakti would be understood as surrendering to God, or to Christ. This clip blends what we have learned about states of consciousness with what we have learned about God in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person.

We experience God or Spirit in 1st person when we are the Witness of the small self. We experience God or Spirit in 2nd person (the experience of God that Christians are familiar with) when we surrender the small self to God, or to the True Self.

The main point Ken makes in this clip is that when we are identified with our "self" as the small individual egoic self (when we have not yet awakened to our true nature as I Amness or Christ Consciousness), then the path and practice in a God in 2nd person tradition such as Christianity is to surrender our small self to God (or in other words, to surrender the small self to the Self with a capital "S"). This surrender can result in the transformation that is described in the passages above from the New Testament.

Let's take a closer look at how our understanding and experience of Jesus Christ can evolve over time as we move through stages of development.

At the Amber, Mythic Stage:

At this concrete literal stage of development, Jesus is understood to be the only Son of God in the flesh. This makes Jesus the unique "Son of God" in a way the rest of us are not. Because of this dual nature, Jesus was not fully mortal or subject to death as the rest of us are, but willingly chose to lay down his mortal life for us. Somehow, his mortal death overcomes all death, so that everyone will be resurrected.

In the amber Christian view Christ atones for our sins by paying the penalty for them, thereby overcoming our separation from God that is the result of sin.
At amber the "Second Coming of Christ" means that Jesus will literally, in his resurrected, glorified body, return to earth to reign personally during a thousand year millennial period of peace on the earth.

This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" Acts 1:11.

Since Jesus' ascension into heaven, amber literal believers have looked forward to his Second Coming. When Christ comes again, he will come in power and glory to claim the earth as his kingdom. His Second Coming will mark the beginning of the Millennium. This will be a fearful, mournful time for the wicked, but it will be a time of joy and peace for the righteous.

At the Orange, Rational Stage:

For devout Christians, their understanding and experience of Christ form the bedrock of their faith. In amber, to even think about questioning this basic foundation can feel like heresy. But at orange we begin to test our beliefs about Jesus against rational thought and objective evidence. The amber understanding of Christ and his atonement is based on certain fundamental assumptions about the nature of God and human beings. In orange, these assumptions are openly subjected to rational inquiry. For example:

If Jesus is the unique Son of God in a way that I am a not, how am I ever supposed to be come fully like him? He is different than me in a fundamental way that is beyond my control. If he is a half-God and half-human, and I am 100% human, how can I ever become fully like him?

Who is it that demands "justice" in the form of someone suffering and dying in our place because we are imperfect? Why would God demand this? Didn’t God know that we would not be perfect? If so, why does God demand that either we are perfect and sinless, or else someone must die?

Why is it that God cannot tolerate having imperfect and/or "unclean" people in his presence? Isn't God bigger than that? Is the Being or perfection of God so fragile that it can't exist in the presence of an imperfect child?

Were our souls perfect before our mortal birth? If not, how did God tolerate our being in his presence then?

Why would a parent set up a system that says, in effect, "I know that all of my children except one will make mistakes and be imperfect. If the perfect one agrees to suffer punishment in place of all of the imperfect ones, then I’ll forgive the imperfect ones and let them back into my presence." Does this make sense?

How does having someone else be punished in our place teach us anything? How do we learn and grow from our mistakes if someone else suffers and pays for them?

At orange we may also become interested in evidence from academic sources about early Christianity and the historical Jesus. Examples of this include the work of The Jesus Seminar, the recently discovered Nag Hammadi texts, and Elaine Pagels' work.

As a result of this investigation, we may revise our understanding of the historical Jesus. For example:

We may conclude that many of the miraculous events in Jesus' life were added to the scriptural record by others, long after his death.

We may conclude that Jesus never claimed that he was the unique Son of God in a way the rest of us are not.

We may conclude that the whole amber version of the atonement is a human construct developed by religion to control people's behavior.

We may conclude that it's not possible, based on the evidence available at this point in time, to draw definitive conclusions about the historical Jesus.

We may conclude that it's possible Jesus may not have been a real historical figure, but rather was a synthesis of several ancient God myths. For example, Jesus as portrayed in the book The Jesus Mysteries.

We may conclude that the transforming power of Christ's atonement that we have experienced in our lives may be independent of the literal truth of the events of Jesus' life as told in Christian scripture. The Jesus story may be a transformative mythic archetype that speaks to us on a deeply intuitive level.

The transforming power of Christ that we have experienced in our lives may be the power of unconditional love to transform hearts and lives, rather than the power to meet God's demands for justice or perfection.

Christ's "at-one-ment" may be the ongoing working of God's Spirit within us to make us at-one with God, not by overcoming some refusal on God's part to allow imperfect beings in his presence, but rather by transforming our hearts with his love, so that we can love as God loves. Jesus said, "As I have loved you, love one another. By this shall all people know you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." John 13:34-35.

Orange brings the cognitive ability to take "as if" and third person perspectives, so another possibility at orange is that we may begin to look at accounts of Jesus' life symbolically, rather than literally.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talk about the Jesus story as a symbolic, mythic archetype. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.

A mythic archetype of the death of the separate egoic self-sense.

A mythic archetype of awakening to our true nature
as Christ Consciousness, which is at-one with God.

Looking at the Jesus story symbolically rather than literally can yield a wealth of new meaning and depth. For example, let's reconsider the passage above from 2 Corinthians:

14. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;

15. And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

16. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

18. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,

19. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:14-19, New King James Version.

Read symbolically, this passage could be understood as saying that we become new creatures "in Christ" when we die to our exclusive sense of identity as individual beings of flesh and bones, and awaken to our own deepest and eternal nature as Christ Consciousness, as Jesus did. We are freed of the transgression that results from our ignorance of our true nature, and reconciled to or made at-one with God, through the recognition of Christ Consciousness. All things then become new.

Recently discovered Gnostic texts from early Christianity suggest that one group of early Christians may have had a similar symbolic understanding of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. The word gnosis comes from the Greek word for knowledge, and refers to the direct, first-hand knowledge of spiritual realities experienced by an enlightened or awakened person.

"...the image of the resurrected Christ represents the realization of Gnosis. ...In the Greek language, the word for resurrection, anastasis, also means 'awakening,' so the idea that resurrection represents spiritual awakening was obvious. 'The resurrection of Christ' symbolically represents 'awakening the Christ within." Jesus and the Lost Goddess, by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, pg. 76.

"The Jesus we relate to...is a mythic 'archetype' through which we can reach the 'Christ Consciousness' within ourselves...However, we have to be spiritually ready before we can hear this message as positive rather than negative, as giving us what we have really been looking for rather than taking something away.

"Many people desperately want to believe in a miraculous saviour who has literally incarnated to rescue them. There is nothing wrong with this. The miracle worker is a stock character of ancient myths, used to inspire hope for something more than the mundane in those unable to see that the whole of life is a staggering miracle. The image of the divine Godman was deliberately designed to appeal to spiritual beginners who have yet to discover that this mythical figure represents their own true identity.

"The message is not, 'Look out, you are clinging to an illusion.' The message is:
Relax. You are not drowning. You can let go, because life is actually completely safe. Just experience Gnosis and...your ignorance will be dispelled. Just know who you really are and you will have absolutely no fear... Discover the Christ within yourself and you will always be One with God." Jesus and the Lost Goddess, by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, pg. 57.

In this symbolic view, the incarnation of Christ can be understood as the incarnation of the Divine I Am in each one of us – as Christ Consciousness descending or falling into sleep in human form. Like Jesus, we are each fully human and fully divine. In this view, humanity's "sin" (including any "original sin") is our ignorance of our true nature, and sinful behavior is behavior that results from lack of awareness of our true identity as Christ Consciousness and our oneness with everything in existence. Human beings are reconciled to the Divine when we awaken to our true nature, which is already and always at-one with God.

If we understand the Jesus story symbolically rather than literally, we no longer look for the "Second Coming of Christ" to take place in an amber, literal way. Instead, we realize that this Second Coming takes place within each one of us, when we awaken to our own true nature as Christ Consciousness.

At the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

At green we may continue the exploration that began in orange by examining the various cultural contexts in which beliefs and doctrines about Jesus have developed over time. For example, how did the political realities of the ancient Roman Empire shape the doctrines about Jesus that came to be viewed as orthodox "truth" only centuries after his death?

Because this is the multicultural stage, at green we may explore commonalities between the transformation we experience through Christ, and the transformative experiences of those in other faiths.

We may also have an interest in exploring the stories of the founding figures of other spiritual traditions, and seeing how they relate to our stories about Jesus. When we compare the miraculous events of Jesus' life with miraculous stories told about the founding figures of other faiths, it can be problematic to view the miraculous stories told about our founding figure as literally true, while viewing the miraculous stories told about the founders of other religions as obviously not literally true, or even possible. For example:

The story that the Buddha was born out of his mother's right side, took seven steps, and announced that this was his last birth.

The story that Dionysus, also called the Son of God, was born of a mortal virgin woman, who was impregnated by one of Zeus' lightning bolts.

The stories of Osiris and Attis, human/divine God-men who died and were resurrected on the third day.

The story of the birth of the Hindu God, Shiva: Brahma and Vishnu were arguing about which of them was the more powerful God. Their argument was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a great blazing pillar whose roots and branches extended beyond view into the earth and sky. Brahma became a goose and flew up to find the top of the pillar, while Vishnu turned into a boar and dug into the earth to look for its roots. Unsuccessful in their search, the two gods returned and saw Shiva emerge from an opening in the pillar. Recognizing Shiva's great power, they accepted him as the third ruler of the universe.

At green we may realize how problematic it is to immediately dismiss these supernatural stories from other traditions as obviously metaphoric and not literally possible, while maintaining that ours alone are literally true.

Having considered these core aspects of the Christian faith, we will now consider what is most essential in the Christian faith and experience.

The Heart of Christianity

At the rational and pluralistic stages of development many of our amber core beliefs about God, Jesus, and religion are called into question and revised. It’s easy to wonder, "With all of this questioning and revising, is there any core element of Christianity that remains constant throughout these stages of development?" What really lies at the heart of Christianity? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?

Jesus identified his disciples in the following verses found in John 13:34-35:

34. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

35. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

What have we learned from the integral model that might have an effect on our ability to love others? One thing we’ve learned is that when we make the move to 2nd tier, we are able to unconditionally accept, rather than judge and condemn, all of the previous value structures and the people who hold them.

We also learned that the more stages we move through on the vertical axis of the Wilber Combs Lattice, the more perspectives we can take, and the more our circle of care and compassion expands – from egocentric to ethnicentric to worldcentric to kosmocentric.

This means that moving through stages of development can make us better able to follow Christ's core teaching to love one another.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talking about the our increasing ability to love as we move through stages of development. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.

Being Transformed In the Image of Christ

We might also define the ultimate purpose of Christian discipleship as being transformed in the image of Christ, and manifesting that transformation in our daily lives. This, too, will mean different things at different stages of development.

At the Amber, Mythic Stage:

At this stage being transformed in the image of Christ means coming to a realization of our sinful nature and our need for Christ’s atonement, repenting of our sins, being baptized, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, or the Spirit, then acts as a guide, helping us keep the commandments and live as Jesus and our religious leaders teach we should.

Being transformed in the image of Christ at amber means following Jesus' example and working to become the kind of person he is: honest, kind, loving, forgiving, etc. This is an important first step on the path to self transcendence.

In the integral model, the litmus test for whether or not an individual or an organization has moved beyond amber is this: Is my path (or faith, or religion) the only one that can lead to complete or perfect salvation? If I believe that it is, then in terms of my faith, I am at amber.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talk about the amber litmus test. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.

At the Orange, Rational Stage:

Orange is the first worldcentric stage, so at this stage being transformed in the image of Christ means expanding the circle of those we seek to fully love and include so that it includes all of humankind, not just those of our faith. And because we have moved beyond amber ethnocentrism, loving others no longer means trying to get them to convert to our religion.

At orange working to become the kind of person Jesus was may take on a different meaning. For example, if we revise our understanding of who the historical Jesus was, then what it means to become like him may change.

If, for example, we conclude that Jesus was a human teacher (but the best human teacher we know of), then our focus may shift from trying to become pure and free of sin before God, to trying to be the kind of human being Jesus was: a revolutionary, unafraid to speak out against corrupt authority, not a hypocrite, someone who didn’t exclude "sinners" from his company, and someone who cared more about what’s on the inside of a person than what's on the outside.

At the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

At multicultural green, being transformed in the image of Christ continues to evolve. At this stage we may see Jesus as one among several of the world’s great spiritual teachers, along with Patanjali, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Moses, Mohammad, and others. To better understand what it means to become like Jesus, we may compare his teachings with the teachings of these other great spiritual teachers. This can give us new insights into the possible meanings of Jesus’ teachings, and what it means to become like him.

Because green is concerned with equality and justice on all fronts, at green being transformed in Christ’s image also means being radically inclusive the way Jesus was, regardless of gender, race, socio-economic status, politics, nationality, or any of the other divisions between human beings. It also means extending that same inclusive love to all of God’s creations, including the natural world.

At the Teal, Integral Stage:

At teal Jesus becomes an enlightened master who realized his own Christ nature, and being transformed in the image of Christ means making this same realization – realizing our own essential identity as Christ Consciousness, or I Am-ness, or the Witness.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talking about different understandings of Jesus at different stages of development. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.

To purchase the book this picture is from (The Integral Vision), click here.

A 2nd Tier Christianity:
Contributions from Every Stage

Having considered how Christians evolve through the 1st tier stages, and what it might mean to be transformed in the image of Christ at each of these stages, we arrive now at 2nd tier. What might a 2nd tier Christianity look like?

Each 1st tier stage of development contributes something to our evolutionary development. At 2nd tier we have the ability to activate healthy 1st tier resources in a deliberate way when they are needed, without being controlled by an of them. This means that each 1st tier stage can bring valuable resources to the table to incorporate into a 2nd tier Christianity. Here are some of the possibilities:

From the Magenta, Magic Stage:

A sense of community, family, and belonging.

A sense of the sacredness of the natural world as an expression of the Divine.

Seasonal and nature community celebrations.

Sacred spaces for contemplation.

Shared rituals understood as a symbolic expression of deeper truths.

From the Red, Power Gods Stage:

Individual empowerment and authenticity. The freedom, strength, and courage to speak our own truth.

The courage to face and overcome obstacles and fears.

Openness to new spiritual adventures.

Being willing to explore new spiritual territory and understanding, even if it means leaving or remaking the tradition we grew up in.

From the Amber, Mythic Stage:

A strong moral grounding for our lives. In today's modern world most adults are at least at orange (or green or even teal) in the cognitive line of development, but some may still be at red in the moral line. In this respect, the amber moral aspects of Christianity can serve an important function in the lives of its individual members and in the larger society. Amber Christianity can help people take an important first step toward self-transcendence, which is to submit one's individual, egoic self and one's life to something greater than the individual self. This submission is often prompted and/or accompanied by subtle state experiences of God in 2nd person, which is a valuable first step in our evolution on the horizontal scale of the Wilber Combs Lattice.

The desire and commitment to become a better person, and the experience of "dying" to our old self and being "born again" many times, into increasingly higher states of consciousness and stages of development, until we are ultimately "born again" as our True Self.

A commitment to principles of honesty and integrity, and the discipline and responsibility to keep our commitments. (The integrity and discipline developed in Amber can help us handle Orange's greater behavioral freedom in mature and responsible ways.)

Openness to new sources of truth and wisdom.

The creation of new sacred texts, born of today's spiritual understanding and experiences.

Dedication to a cause greater than ourselves, and the willingness to make conscious sacrifices for it.

A sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Finding joy in service to others.

Amber Spiritual Experiences:

At the amber stage of development many Christians have experiences of God's Spirit, love, and forgiveness. We feel the affects of Christ's atonement in our lives. We accept Christ's teachings and begin the process of being born again, as a new creature in Christ. And this makes us better people.
Sometimes in the move from amber to orange, these experiences are dismissed. At orange, we may reinterpret them as mere "emotional" experiences, and conclude that a temporary emotional experience is not a good compass for discerning ultimate truth. At green, we may consider these "emotional" experiences to be culturally learned responses.

But at 2nd tier, and in the context of the integral model, these foundational amber experiences can be reclaimed, and re-interpreted through the integral lens.

For example: If the four quadrants, and the "I, we, and it" perspectives inherent in the quadrants are inherent aspects of reality on the manifest or relative side of the street, and if the Witness or I Amness or Christ Consciousness is the inherent nature of reality on the unmanifest or Absolute side of the street, then human experiences of God or Spirit in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person are experiences of actual realities.

If this is the case, then our amber experiences of God, and of Christ's atonement, may be authentic experiences of spiritual realities. The experiences may be real, even if the amber interpretation of those experiences turn out not to hold up over time.

For example, many Christians have the experience of feeling God's love and forgiveness when they repent of their sins and seek forgiveness. The experience is real. But the transcendent reality behind that experience may not be a bearded, white-haired God in the sky forgiving us, because Jesus suffered in our place and thus satisfied this God's demand for justice. Rather, the transcendent reality behind this experience of love and acceptance may be an encounter with the 2nd person aspect of God or Spirit, out of which everything in existence arises, including each one of us and our many sins. This is an experience common to all of the world's spiritual traditions, though it may be interpreted differently in each tradition.

Many Christians also have experiences of personal transformation that enable us to better live Christ's teachings, to become more Christlike in our daily lives. Our hearts may be softened, so that we are more patient, and feel more love toward others. We may become less selfish and more giving. At amber, we may understand this transformational force to be God's Spirit helping us to better live the commandments. But the reality behind this experience may be what happens, in any tradition, when we surrender our individual desires and interests to a higher purpose or cause, and move up one or more stages on the vertical axis of the Wilber Combs Lattice. We become what we surrender to. So when we surrender ourselves and our lives to Christ as we understand him, the result is that we become more Christlike.

In the integral model, experiences of God are a subtle state phenomenon. God is an aspect of our own transcendent nature that appears as other in gross and subtle state experiences. So the ideal of Christ that we surrender to at amber, and thus become more like, may be what our own deepest I Amness or Christ Consciousness looks like when it is projected outward, onto the historical person of the awakened Master, Jesus.

Thus a 2nd tier integral view can allow us to reclaim our deepest and most transformational experiences in amber Christianity, experiences that made us genuinely better people. At 2nd tier, we are able understand those experiences in a wider context, and build on them.

From the Orange, Rational Stage:

A commitment to discovering spiritual truth through our own direct experiences.

A willingness to put new ideas to the test, in order to discover new truths and new spiritual practices.

The desire to be involved in bringing about progress, and creating new and innovative spiritual pathways and practices that are the most effective available at the present time.

Openness to discussion and willingness to revise principles as new evidence comes to light.

A belief in our ability to awaken spiritually, and acceptance of personal spiritual responsibility for oneself.

A sense of personal empowerment, and the conviction that each one of us can have a positive impact in the world.

A commitment to make life in the manifest world the best it can be for all people.

From the Green, Pluralistic Stage:

Openness to diversity, and the willingness to explore spiritual understandings and practices from other traditions, and to use them to enhance our own spiritual development and community.

Openness to each person's individual ideas and spiritual experiences, and the understanding that all of our ideas and interpretations are partial.

Tolerance for differences and alternative lifestyles and behaviors, so long as they do not harm others.

A commitment to inclusion and equality on all fronts: gender, racial, socioeconomic, etc., and to the global well-being of all people.

A commitment to the well-being of the natural environment and all sentient beings, and to live in harmony with Nature.

A commitment to physical, emotional, and psychological balance and well-being.

A commitment to peace, both within and in the world.

An exploration of higher states of consciousness.

From the Teal, Integral Stage:

An acceptance of all of the previous stages of Christianity – magic, mythic, rational, and pluralistic – without contending with any of them.

A vision of how all of the previous versions of Christianity fit together in an evolutionary pattern, and a commitment to work for the healthy coexistence of all of these versions of Christianity.

Offering pathways into 2nd tier for those who are ready, without seeing individuals at any of the previous stages as being "wrong."

The ability to integrate conflicting truths, and to tolerate and even enjoy paradoxes and uncertainties.

An understanding that different solutions work at different stages of development, and that what may be workable or useful at one stage of Christianity may not be useful at another stage.

Christian Mysticism

There have been Christian mystics who have experienced higher states of consciousness, all the way into "Godhead," or casual formlessness. One of these was the German Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart. We can look at Meister Eckhart’s teachings through the lens of the states of consciousness we learned about earlier. Eckhart's descriptions of his experiences of God and his own True Self seem to fall within the causal or witnessing state of consciousness.

Experiences in the Causal State of Consciousness:
Home of Formless Mysticism

One's sense of self merges with the unmanifest source or ground of all of the lesser levels of consciousness – the Ground of All Being.

From Eckhart*:
"Being is God...God and being are the same. ...There is nothing prior to being...in being, mere being, lies all that is."

The experience of knowing yourself as the Silent Witness that is prior to any manifestation, and exists outside the stream of time. It was never born, will never die, and never enters the temporal stream. An utter release from the material world. Nirvana. The liberation and freedom of no longer being bound to or caught in the turmoil of any of the objects witnessed, including the egoic self.

From Eckhart: "As is written in the Book of Wisdom, 'Prior to creatures, in the eternal now, I have played before the Father in an eternal stillness.'"
"...I am my own first cause, both of my eternal being and of my temporal being. To this end I was born, and by virtue of my birth being eternal, I shall never die. It is of the nature of this eternal birth that I have been eternally, that I am now, and shall be forever. What I am as a temporal creature is to die and come to nothingness, for it came with time and so with time will pass away. In my eternal birth, however, everything was begotten. I was my own first cause as well as the first cause of everything else."
"...all time is contained in the present Now-moment. ...It is the real Now-moment which...is eternity's day, on which the Father begets his only begotten Son and the soul is reborn in God. ...To talk about the world as being made by God tomorrow, yesterday, would be talking nonsense. God makes the world and all things in this present now. ...The soul who is in this present now, in her the Father bears his one-begotten Son, and in that same birth the soul is born back into God. It is one birth; as fast as she is reborn into God, the Father is begetting his only Son in her. ...God the Father and the Son have nothing to do with time."

All God-archetypes experienced in the subtle realm condense and dissolve into one final-God. In the very same step, one's own Self is here shown to be that final-God, and consciousness itself thus transforms upwards into a higher-order identity with that Divine Radiance. (For example, Christ's claim that "I and the Father are one.")

The soul no longer contemplates Divinity, it become Divinity.
From Eckhart: "In this breakthrough I find that God and I are both the same. Then I am what I was. I neither wax nor wane, for I am the motionless cause that is moving in all things."
"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one vision, one knowing, one love."
"God must be very I, I very God, so consummately one that this he and this I are one "is."...God's is-ness is my is-ness, and neither more nor less."
"What then shall I do? Thou shalt lose thy thy-ness and dissolve in his his- ness; thy thine shall be his mine, so utterly one mine that thou in him shall know eternalwise his is-ness, free from becoming; his nameless nothingness."
"In eternity, the Father begets the Son in his own likeness. ...Furthermore, I say that God has begotten him in my soul. ...The Father ceaselessly begets his Son and, what is more, he begets me, not only as his son, but as himself, and himself as myself, begetting me in his own nature, his own being. At that inmost source, I spring from the Holy Spirit and there is one life, one being, one action. All God's works are one and therefore he begets me as he does his Son and without distinction."

Formless mysticism. Experiencing yourself as an opening, a clearing, an emptiness or vast spaciousness and freedom in which all objects (the material world, individual beings, thoughts, feelings, etc.) come and go.

The experience of being pure Consciousness without an object – pure Emptiness. This does not involve any particular experience, but rather the transcendence of the experiencer itself.
From Eckhart: "There is a heavenly door for the soul into the divine nature – where somethings are reduced to nothing."
"Kill thy activities and still thy faculties if thou wouldst realize this birth in thee."
"The soul must step beyond or jump past creatures if it is to know God. ...However small it may be, if anything adheres to the soul, you cannot see God."

Notice how similar this sounds to what we learned about Witnessing Awareness: that we awaken to our True Self as the Witness or I Amness when we cease identifying with any object – with any "thing" – as our self, and discover our True Self to be the Witness of all of things. In other words, when all of our self objects have been reduced to nothing, or no-thing, and instead of being any object or thing, we experience our "self" as the pure Awareness that sees all things.

In subtle state spiritual experiences, we experience our "self" as a soul. But to reach the causal state, we must dis-identify with even this subtle soul object. So Eckhart says, "If anything adheres to the soul, you cannot see God."

As Christians we are often uncomfortable with the notion that at the deepest level of our being, there is no individuality, but only the one Witnessing awareness that looks out through all eyes. We don’t like the idea of any ultimate reality that would mean losing our individuality.

But what if this is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said,

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Matthew 10:39.

In other words...

"For whosoever will save his life [our life as an individual egoic self] shall lose it: [when we die, this individual egoic self is gone, and if that is all we have know ourselves to be, then at bodily death we will have lost our “self”] but whosoever will lose his life [those who lose their identity with the individual, egoic self] for my [Christ Consciousness’] sake, the same shall save it [they will awaken to the eternal life that they already are, as Christ Consciousness, which never dies]." Luke 9:24.

Click here to hear an audio clip from the Integral Spiritual Center of Father Thomas Keating talking about this scripture.

Perhaps this is also what Paul is referring to when he says:

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Galatians 2:20.

We know that Paul cannot be speaking literally in this verse, because he was still alive when he wrote it. He had not been literally crucified. But what if he is speaking of crucifixion symbolically, not literally? What if he is saying:

"I have been crucified; [I have died to my separate ego self-sense] in Christ [in the realization of Christ Consciousness] and it is no longer I who live, [I no longer experience myself as the individual “I” that I used to] but Christ lives in me [I now experience myself as a temporary vessel through which Christ Consciousness is manifest in the world]."

Let’s return now to the words of Meister Eckhart:

"Back in the Womb from which I came, I had no God and merely was, myself. I did not will or desire anything, for I was pure being, a knower of myself by divine truth. ...I existed untrammeled by God or anything else. But when I...received my created being then I had a God."
Earlier we learned that "Gods" are a subtle state phenomenon, and that when all Gods collapse into one final God and the soul becomes Divinity, then we are in the causal formless emptiness that is prior even to God. So in the quote above Eckhart says, "Back in the Womb from which I came, I had no God and merely was, myself."

In this next quote, Eckhart seems to be making the distinction between the subtle realm of Gods and the causal emptiness that is before even God, when he differentiates between what he calls God and Godhead.

"God and Godhead are as different as heaven is from earth...Everything in the Godhead is one, and of that there is nothing to be said. God works. The Godhead does no work, there is nothing to do; in it is no activity...God and Godhead are as different as active and inactive...When I go back into the ground, into the depths, into the well-spring of the Godhead, no one will ask me whence I came or whither I went...[this is] where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost have not yet made their distinctions."
Meister Eckhart also said that the only way we would understand what he was saying would be if we experienced it for ourselves:
"If anyone does not understand this discourse, let him not worry about that, for if he does not find this truth in himself he cannot understand what I have said, for it is a discovered truth which comes immediately from the heart of God."

This seems to be the same thing Paul is saying:

"...the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. "...For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ." 1 Corinthians 2:14, 16

This understanding of Christ, and of our own true nature at Christ Consciousness, is reflected in Gnostic Christian scriptures:

"Jesus said: Whoever discovers the meaning of these words will not taste death." The Gospel of Thomas, V. 1. In other words, if we discover our True Self, that True Self will never taste death, because it never enters the stream of time.

"Jesus said: If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will kill you." The Gospel of Thomas, V. 70. In other words, if we bring forth the Christ Consciousness that is within us, that will save us from death, because Christ Consciousness never dies. If we do not bring forth the Christ Consciousness that is within us, then what we know our "self" to be, the small egoic self, will die.

"If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are that poverty." The Gospel of Thomas, V. 3.

The Value of Institutional Christianity

Click here to hear an audio clip from the Integral Spiritual Center of Father Thomas Keating and Brother David Steindl-Rast talking about the value of the institutional Church.

Click here to hear an audio clip from the Integral Spiritual Center of Father Thomas Keating and Brother David Steindl-Rast talking about spiritual leadership and the institutional Church.

One of the most important points made in this clip is that a religious tradition is fulfilled when its practitioners reach a level of spirit that is common to all of the world's great religious traditions (Self-Realization or at-one-ness with God). Can this level of development happen inside Christian denominations?

Click here for an summary of one version of Gnostic Christianity. For a full presentation of this version of Gnostic Christianity, see Jesus and the Lost Goddess, by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.

* Meister Eckhart quotes are from:

Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, trans. Raymond B. Blakney, New York: Harper and Row, 1941, ISBN 0-06-130008-X.

C. de B. Evans, Meister Eckhart by Franz Pfeiffer, 2 volumes, London: Watkins, 1924 and 1931.

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