I practiced psychiatry for 41 years in Birmingham, Alabama and incorporated some spirituality focused on conscience. Most of my patients were Christians. This article is based on my impressions from my practice.
Most Christians believed Jesus as their personal savior, but it was less common that they were regular churchgoers. Hardly anyone had a good understanding of conscience. Since Birmingham was a crucial center of the civil rights movement, it was surprising to me that very few patients understood how Martin Luther King appealed to the consciences of the segregationists by his nonviolent activism.
People were quite impressed when I used to tell them the word “conscience” is used 30 times in the New Testament, St. Paul had cautioned people that some individuals had destroyed their faith by rejecting conscience, and that Mahatma Gandhi and M.L. King succeeded in creating social reform by stimulating people’s consciences by nonviolent activities.
Fortunately, I found a story in the Bible that exemplifies conscience and “superego” (judgment of right and wrong we pick up from external sources like society and the media).
It is a story in the Gospel of John 8:2-11. A group of men caught a woman committing adultery and brought her to Jesus. They reminded Jesus that she should be stoned to death according to the law of Moses, and they asked Jesus’ opinion on what should be done to her. Jesus bent down silently and wrote something on the ground. I believe this was a calming technique Jesus used because one can listen to the still small voice of conscience better if one is calm. Then Jesus stood up and said: ”He among you who is without sin cast the first stone.” Thus, Jesus challenged them to reflect individually using reason and the Golden Rule. The men left one by one silently convicted by their own conscience as per King James’ Bible.
In the above story, the men came to Jesus using their superego judgment, Jesus stimulated their consciences by using reason and the Golden Rule, and they left functioning at the level of conscience. After the men left, Jesus asked the woman whether they had condemned her and she said no. Jesus told her: ”I don’t condemn you either. Go and sin no more.” This is an example of Jesus applying moderation between condemnation and letting her go scot-free. Reason, the Golden Rule, and moderation are the features of conscience.
Over the years, I noticed that Christians who lived by their consciences produced more fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. They were much less into the culture wars and political polarizations. Christians who were well informed about human ethical progress and cultural evolution gave great importance to conscience and the fruit of the spirit.
In my recently published book, Conscience, Spirituality, and Religion, I explore and explain the great benefits of living by conscience and many of the problems from people not using conscience. Religion with conscience tends to promote very constructive institutions but religion without conscience tends to cause more or less harm. In the book, I discuss the wonderful time in history called the ‘Axial Age” by German psychiatrist and historian Karl Jaspers in 1949. During this period between 800 and 200 BCE in different parts of the world, humanity made tremendous progress spiritually, ethically and psychologically. The transitional sage Zoroaster in Persia promoted good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. In China, Confucius emphasized the Golden Rule and virtues and Lao Tzu promoted calmness, deep thinking, balance, and fairness. In India, the Buddha championed dharma, karma, meditation, and detachment. Also, the authors of the Upanishads expressed the secrets of death and our deepest identity with the ultimate being. God told the prophet Jeremiah that he would write his laws on the human heart, and he told the prophet Ezekiel that he would change stony hearts to fleshy hearts. The great philosophers and tragedians of Greece promoted virtues and rational living. Even two of the greatest rulers in history were connected to the Axial Age: King Cyrus, a Zoroastrian, and emperor Ashoka, a Buddhist. King Cyrus’ writings giving freedom of worship for his different communities is considered the first bill of rights. Historian H.G. Wells called Ashoka, aptly, the greatest king in history.
In this critical time in history, we have a magnificent opportunity to learn the great benefits of living by conscience, real conscience, and to, once and for all, handle far better the problems in our world that exist as a result of people not using their consciences. We were given this innate gift. We must as a society learn to use it. It is my fervent hope that the teachings and themes in my book, centering around the fruits of the spirit, will help in planting the seeds of revival of the spirit of the Axial Age, where religion was not a tool of control, but where religion, melded and practice with conscience, brought about a flourishing within society, within individuals and within institutions and the very fabric of society itself.
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