CR spoke with Dr Roger Bretherton about experimenting to find God

Dr Roger Bretherton

A global survey has found that in most Western countries except the US, religion is viewed negatively. When asked whether they believe religion 'provides the common values and ethical foundations that diverse societies need to thrive in the 21st century', just 29% of people in the UK said yes, the sixth lowest result.

In response to his experience as a psychologist, talking to people who have had spiritual experiences, but haven't wanted to make a traditionally religious response to those experiences, Dr Roger Bretherton has written The God Lab; changing the framework of introduction to Christian spirituality for a generation turned off by religion.

The book presents eight sayings of Jesus as experiments open to anyone; whether searching for spiritual connection or just vaguely intrigued by Jesus. Rebecca Duffett spoke with him to find out more.

Rebecca: When you're talking about the God Lab, is that a place? What are you referring to?

Roger: A good question. I've been asked that question a lot by different people. I think for me, the God Lab is a metaphor. Effectively it's saying that this is the place where our culture is at; so lots of the people I know, for example, will say that they are spiritual but not religious. They might have experiences of answered prayer or a presence in nature. They might do a bit of Tai Chi. Most people who I know seem to be quite unsure about whether they believe in God or not. The idea for the book was to say, let's imagine that all of us in our culture, right now, are in the place of trying to work that out together and that's what the God Lab means.

Rebecca: The book says it is eight spiritual experiments. What are we experimenting with? Are we experimenting with God?

Roger: That's an interesting thing isn't it, because I think most people who I know, who have a religious faith, and I'd be one of those people, have faith not because they sat back and looked at arguments or drew some diagrams on a white board; they have it because they did something. They explored something; they said a prayer, or they met somebody who talked about God and they got involved in some way.

The experiments are unusual in the sense that they are not like a lab experiment where you sit back and you watch what happens somewhere else. In these experiments you are the subject and the object of the experiment. I guess one of the ways I look at it is its like if you went to a restaurant and saw something on the menu you'd never had before and you thought, I wonder what that is like; I'll experiment and try it. In a sense you have decided to try something out and then from that you will decide, was it nice, and did I like it? I think in spiritual terms, quite often, what we're asking is, is this me? Did I connect to something? Was there some kind of presence, or someone that I met through doing the experiment? The element is its other people experimenting with reality, trying to find out if I pray or if I meditate, what's that like?

Rebecca: They are based biblically on the eight beatitudes. Can you tell us about the process?

Roger: Yes, sure. The beatitudes are the eight blessing statements that Jesus uses at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount which some people would say was his first public declaration of what he stood for. They are about what kind of life he expected from people and it was his guide to life. The beatitudes have been really meaningful to me. They have inspired me. They're things like 'blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God'; 'blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God'. It's quite exciting stuff. They have inspired loads of people from Leo Tolstoy to Ghandi and the Dalai Llama has even written some commentaries on it. It has inspired loads of people.

What I found when I talked to friends and colleagues about them, who perhaps don't go to church that often, is that usually they're pretty meaningless for them. What I wanted to do in the book was make them do-able somehow; kind of re-translate them and say what do these mean?

I broke down each of the eight beatitudes into a tiny phrase and the phrase turns up in the book, but it's not actually a chapter title. The first beatitude is opening us to God; the second one is about sharing ourselves with God in some ways like praying to him. The third one is about grounding ourselves in the here and now so that you can be here with people around you; be here with God who is present all the time. The fourth experiment I've called thought. It's really about imagining that better version of yourself and talking to God about that and seeing if you can move towards it. The fifth one I've called free because it's about blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. That's really about, are there grudges or aspects of people you have been annoyed with; perhaps you can let that one go. The sixth one is blessed are the pure in heart. I've called that focus, because our heart is the place where our initiative and our decision comes from and purity of heart really means to be focussed and getting clear about what we are about in the world. The seventh I've called engage, because it's blessed are the peacemakers, which really is about getting out into life and parachuting into situations of conflict and sorting them out. It could be personal situations with your next door neighbours or friends, or it could be where some people become involved with politics or they get involved in international justice in some way and they start doing things to make peace in the world. The final beatitude I've called commit. I've called it commit because it's blessed are the persecuted for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I've called it commit because my idea behind that is that we are committed to something when no matter what happens to us we stand by our experience or we stand by what we are committed to. A friend of mine would sometimes say your commitment is who you remain in spite of the circumstances.

Rebecca: A word that keeps coming up is blessing and that can be quite a confusing word; how would you define that in everyday language?

Roger: I think quite often it's a weak word, in the sense that you think of childhood prayers and you think of people going, 'ah bless', which is quite a patronising way of putting it. My view of blessing, particularly when you think of Jesus saying, 'you're blessed', is that he's in that culture, accessing the huge history of God blessing people. In Middle Eastern countries it wasn't unusual for legal contracts to be written in terms of, 'this is how you will be blessed'; in other words these are the good things that will come your way if you keep the contract. This sometimes included cursing; this is what's going to happen to you if you don't do whatever.