In preparation for a presentation at an upcoming conference I have been reading a book on the science of awe. It is by Dacher Keltner and it follows a study of different cultures and the experience of awe, or astonishment or similar.
My motivating interest in the book was primed by hearing the author interviewed on the On Being podcast. In the interview Keltner outlines what he calls the 8 Wonders of Life. These are things, incidents or contexts in which awe is generated. I was particularly drawn to what was identified as being the most common instigator of awe across cultures and demographics. Can you guess what it is? The list includes nature, religion, collective movement and participation, music, birth and death, and epiphany. In first place, though, was not nature or religious ecstasy, but rather what Keltner calls “moral beauty”. Far and away the most common generator of awe that people reported was other people. More specifically, “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming”.
Keltner and others involved in this particular study of awe, define it as:
“The feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”
It is enlivening, for faith and for life in general, that it turns out that what we find most awe inspiring is other people. This goes against many of the ways that we think and speak. Certainly in religious contexts, we can often hear that people are basically terrible. This negative projection can become amplified when speaking about “those others”. Sometimes even ways of thinking that deem themselves to be loving betray this depressing way of seeing the world. You may have heard church leaders speak about everyone outside of the church as “the lost”.
As it turns out, we are inspired by people, we are drawn to people, we even see something transcendent in the behaviour of people at times. Sure, not ALL the time, but apparently often enough that it is the primary catalyst for awe.
In terms of hopeful Christian theology this makes sense. Hopeful theology works from goodness and beauty, not fear and division. To put it in theological terms, we start not with humanity’s disorder, but with God’s design. A key foundational aspect is that every person is called to reflect goodness and love. Vocational call is beyond some kind of mission for a particular church or denomination or religious understanding. With this kind of perspective you stop looking for the particular mention of your belief, your group or your religion, and you become open to see the remarkable beauty and compassion of all people, sometimes especially those who are different than you in culture or belief. This openness can be seen as an act of faith within the framework of hopeful theology.
My interest, in preparation for the conference paper is to consider the power of awe in bridging various manifestations of the heightened polarization within our society today. Can we be open to seeing the transcendent in the moral beauty of those who we might otherwise cast as opponents?
Another quick note, in Keltner’s taxonomy of awe, religious experience and encounter was on the list but only in sixth place. I suppose some people would surmise from this another instance of “secularization”, of a lack of interest in church. Leaving aside that consideration I note personally that even as someone who has spent decades in pastoral church work, most of the occasions of awe that I have experienced have come outside of church. I think that church at its best can help us be ready for awe in many aspects of our lives. That can be a great blessing.
When church tries to generate awe, however, it feels to me more like a show or a product, or the building of an empire.
As I learn about and articulate and hear from others a hopeful theological perspective in various church meetings or religious settings, I become more able to see the goodness of God in all the world, the moral beauty of people far beyond the walls of the church.