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| image from gracechurch.org |
By: Julius-Kei Kato, PhD
I acknowledge my debt to the many thinker-teachers who have taught me precious lessons about the topics I write about here, particularly, Ken Wilber and his iteration of “the Integral Theory.” A full list of references for sources of the content here as well as for further study is found at the end of the article.
Part
I
Worldviews and Religion-as-a-Worldview – Attaining a Worldview that Can Help Build a Just and Peaceful World
This essay is principally about the importance of worldviews, especially religious and spiritual worldviews. It describes what worldviews are and how they can impede or contribute to the building of a world in which true justice and peace are present.
[1] Building a Just and Peaceful World | One of the most important keys to building a just and peaceful world today is to bring people (as individuals and as groups) to truly want to be “global citizens,” in other words, willing participants of—what we shall call here—a “global community.” Let us define “global community” along the lines of the concept of “global citizenship” as a movement of many people throughout our increasingly globalized and interconnected world who value the well-being of others: one’s own insider group of course but, equally, also those outside one’s groups of affiliation (extending this concern to the whole world even). A particularly urgent matter at this juncture in history is for members of this global community to become deeply aware of the precarious ecological situation of our common earth-home and act to improve the situation.
Global citizens (the members of this envisioned global community) commit themselves, first, to refrain from things that harm others and, second, to act in order to realize better the vision of a more peaceful and just world not only for themselves and their in-group members (aka, one’s “tribe”) but for everyone in the world, particularly, those who have been considered “others” by one’s tribe.
[2] What We Mean by “Tribe" | We will use the word "tribe" or “tribal” frequently here. It is proper, therefore, to describe it further. “My tribe” can mean many things. It’s basically the human group that I consider “my own people” or my “in-group.” Hence, “my tribe” can refer to: my family and extended family, my clan, my village. It can also refer to: my race, my culture, my social and economic class, my gender and gender-orientation. More specifically for our purposes here, we should be aware that “my tribe” has also meant “my religion and my religious community” for many people in past history and continues to mean so in the present.
Note that it is of course natural and good to value one's "tribe." We affirm that. However, we should also remember that if we uncritically overvalue our tribe in a way that excludes others, that unfortunately results in neglecting other groups or, worse yet, it can make us marginalize, discriminate against, and even cause harm to others not included in our tribe.
[3] Worldview and Its Pervasive Character | Our aim in this reflection is to understand better the potential contribution that spiritual-religious traditions can make to the building of a truly just and peaceful global world. To reach that aim, it is important first to recognize the importance of “worldview” and how that is a key to humans becoming active and committed global citizens.
A worldview is, literally speaking, the way by which one views and understands the world. It is a combination of all the influences one has had in one’s life up to this point. One is largely unconscious of it but it informs practically all the areas—big and small—in life: what one believes; what one holds as true or false; how one approaches life; how one relates to others, and so forth. It is like the pond someone is swimming in if they were a fish.
Another useful analogy to understand worldview is this: It’s like someone’s mother language and all the complex grammatical rules that make up that language. One is largely unconscious of this process, but people speak their mother language perfectly, without being aware that they’re actually following all the complex grammatical rules of the language flawlessly as they speak. We only experience how actually complex any language is when we learn a foreign language and, as if for the first time, marvel at how effortlessly native speakers can speak a language that, for us, seems so difficult to learn. Thus, our mother language is an accurate image of the all-pervasive, total character of our keyword here—worldview, in the life of individuals as well as groups of people.
[4] Religion is a Worldview | It is obvious that religion (or any spiritual tradition for that matter) is definitely a worldview. It is a way of viewing the world which usually involves some “ultimate reality” that is meant to pervade the whole existence of believers, influencing how they understand the world and informing them how they should live their lives if they want to reach the particular religion’s ultimate goal. That goal may be the Christian union with God, Buddhism’s Nirvana, Islam’s total surrender to God or Judaism’s fidelity to the covenant, and so forth. Moreover, it is good to be aware that a religious worldview has an arguably stronger hold on the psyches of those who are living entirely within it because they believe that this particular worldview has been somehow “revealed” and gifted to them by an ultimate or divine Being or Entity, hence, carries with it some kind of absolute character.
[5] How Worldviews Develop | There is a basic and foundational principle about worldviews: Worldviews can and do undergo a process of evolution/development from: earlier, basic, (arguably) immature and more selfish stages – to: more advanced, more inclusive, (arguably) more mature stages. Since religions are worldviews, that principle is equally true about religions.
Up until now, the various spiritual-religious traditions of the world have not given much attention to the process of how spiritual-religious worldviews evolve and develop in individuals (as well as in whole groups of people). And this is perhaps one of the major things that religions lack which must definitely be rectified: a lack of knowledge and awareness of developmental processes as explicitly applied to religious faith.
To elaborate on this, various developmental studies have pointed out that humans (across different cultures and historical eras) go through a predictable general pattern of growth or development in their worldviews.
The pattern usually begins with a first level (Stage #1), a stage at the start of life that can be described as Egocentric. This is a stage in which one’s worldview is focused on oneself. Babies and young children are clear evidence of this. From that stage though, if humans would develop properly, they should grow and transcend their natural egocentric worldview and move on to being (2) Ethnocentric, a stage in which the person goes beyond and overcomes the “natural self-centered focus” of life’s initial stages. Instead, the person advances to a stage in which they can include the people closest to them (one's "tribe" or "in-group") as valuable for themselves. In short, the circle of one’s concern is getting bigger as one grows. That is a sign of good human development.
[6] Moving Beyond Ethnocentricity in a Global Community | Today, in our more interconnected, diverse, and globalized world, it is more urgent that one should not stop at the ethnocentric stage unlike in the past. From an exclusive focus on one's "tribe" or “in-group” (ethnocentric stage), people in a globalized, interdependent world, as an ideal, should grow further into higher worldview stages, that is, (Stage #3) Worldcentric, a stage in which we acknowledge that those who, up to this point, were considered "Others" (by our “in-group”) are deserving of the following things: at the basic level, a just and humane treatment and, if possible, also friendship and care. The highest level of development would be becoming more (4) Cosmocentric, a stage in which we consider not only humans but also other living and non-living things (our whole cosmos even!) as the objects of our concern and care. This cosmocentric dimension is in the forefront today in our globalized world as we become more aware of the precarious situation in which the ecological order of our earth finds itself.
