AA, these are all fascinating ideas. I've had a lot of similar thoughts over the past few years, like a "Universalist Church" of some sort that isn't a sock puppet of lib-prog platitudes and the Democrat party agenda. The UU church (which I personally can't stand) is exactly that. Otherwise, the bundle of American traditions you list is something I very much agree is due for a revival. Hopefully when the dust settles after the conclusion of our current political convulsions (whenever that might be), this can start to happen in one form or another. One thing I think is quite necessary though for a true universalism, is to fully pull away from the core Nicene Christian dogmas, which would include things like biblical inerrancy, biblical literalism. the linear historical conception, denial of reincarnation, ect. I'd take it a step further and say that a "Hermetic church" rather than an explicitly Christian one might be the way to accomplish this, otherwise the tendency to backslide into entrenched dogmatism will always end up happening, IMHO.
On getting rid of dogmas altogether though, I don't think that's a viable path forward, as we have already seen with many examples. The major problem with a strict "no dogma" approach is that it creates an intellectual and spiritual power vacuum that instantly gets filled in with pop culture nonsense and whatever political fads are currently favored by the bulk of the membership. I think there is a healthy middle-way between Rigid dogmatism and an "anything goes" freeforall; it's called having spiritual principles, and ones rooted in ancient wisdom rather than whatever collection of novelties some materialist intellectual from the last 300 years pulled out of their backside. If the religious org membership doesn't share a few core spiritual principles, then it's going to get totally infiltrated by outside ideas and the org in question will quickly become nothing more than a skinsuit for those outside influences. Hence, the story of nearly all liberal mainline Protestant churches.
On that last part, I've never myself looked deeply into the Twelve Step tradition, but I've heard about its efficacy from other people. Would be interesting if it became a platform for a broader religious tradition.
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branchandroot
Re: Hermetics, Transcendentalism and Twelve Step Groups
Date: 2025-10-01 03:07 pm (UTC)On getting rid of dogmas altogether though, I don't think that's a viable path forward, as we have already seen with many examples. The major problem with a strict "no dogma" approach is that it creates an intellectual and spiritual power vacuum that instantly gets filled in with pop culture nonsense and whatever political fads are currently favored by the bulk of the membership. I think there is a healthy middle-way between Rigid dogmatism and an "anything goes" freeforall; it's called having spiritual principles, and ones rooted in ancient wisdom rather than whatever collection of novelties some materialist intellectual from the last 300 years pulled out of their backside. If the religious org membership doesn't share a few core spiritual principles, then it's going to get totally infiltrated by outside ideas and the org in question will quickly become nothing more than a skinsuit for those outside influences. Hence, the story of nearly all liberal mainline Protestant churches.
On that last part, I've never myself looked deeply into the Twelve Step tradition, but I've heard about its efficacy from other people. Would be interesting if it became a platform for a broader religious tradition.