THE NOTION OF PUNISHMENT
by bell hooks
Growing up was a time of intense contemplation for me. It was during that time of my life that I learned to build an inner life that could sustain me. I felt even then that I was on a spiritual journey. In my church, we often sang the words: "Is it well with your soul? Are you free and made whole?" As a seeker on the Path, I was searching for a way to be well in my soul.
Although I considered myself living a life in the spirit, I went away to college knowing that I would no longer participate fully in the organized church, which over the years had come to seem full of folks who really did not believe what they taught or live those beliefs. During my undergraduate years, I began to look at other religious traditions in search of new and different spiritual paths. I was seeking to flee a fundamentalist religious tradition that was firmly rooted in the notion of punishment. I could no longer accept Western metaphysical dualism: the assumption that the world was divided into good and bad, white and black, superior and inferior. In Original Blessing (1983), Matthew Fox best expresses the dilemma I felt as a young
woman raised in the southern black Baptist tradition when he writes of the pitfalls of a model of spirituality exclusively structured around the drama of fall and redemption: It is a dualistic model and a patriarchal one; it begins its theology with sin and original sin, and it generally ends with redemption. Fall/redemption spirituality does not teach believers about the New Creation or creativity, about justice-making and social transformation, or about Eros, play, pleasure and the God of delight. It fails to teach love of the Earth or care for the cosmos, and it is so frightened of passion that it fails to listen to the
impassioned pleas of the anawim, the little ones of human history.... (p.11)
As a young adult woman able to be critical of Christianity, I searched for a spiritual path that would offer an alternative to the fall/redemption model. That search led me to teachings and to spiritual leaders and guides who taught me about other paths. I learned about the mystical dimensions of Islam, studied about Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religious traditions. My
current spiritual practice grows out of a combination of various traditions. Drawn to the teachings of Buddha, I practice yoga and meditation. That aspect of Christian faith I most cling to is the emphasis on prayer. And from the teachings of Sufi mystics, I learned how to understand Love as divine energy in the universe.
Growing up was a time of intense contemplation for me. It was during that time of my life that I learned to build an inner life that could sustain me. I felt even then that I was on a spiritual journey. In my church, we often sang the words: "Is it well with your soul? Are you free and made whole?" As a seeker on the Path, I was searching for a way to be well in my soul.
Although I considered myself living a life in the spirit, I went away to college knowing that I would no longer participate fully in the organized church, which over the years had come to seem full of folks who really did not believe what they taught or live those beliefs. During my undergraduate years, I began to look at other religious traditions in search of new and different spiritual paths. I was seeking to flee a fundamentalist religious tradition that was firmly rooted in the notion of punishment. I could no longer accept Western metaphysical dualism: the assumption that the world was divided into good and bad, white and black, superior and inferior. In Original Blessing (1983), Matthew Fox best expresses the dilemma I felt as a young
woman raised in the southern black Baptist tradition when he writes of the pitfalls of a model of spirituality exclusively structured around the drama of fall and redemption: It is a dualistic model and a patriarchal one; it begins its theology with sin and original sin, and it generally ends with redemption. Fall/redemption spirituality does not teach believers about the New Creation or creativity, about justice-making and social transformation, or about Eros, play, pleasure and the God of delight. It fails to teach love of the Earth or care for the cosmos, and it is so frightened of passion that it fails to listen to the
impassioned pleas of the anawim, the little ones of human history.... (p.11)
As a young adult woman able to be critical of Christianity, I searched for a spiritual path that would offer an alternative to the fall/redemption model. That search led me to teachings and to spiritual leaders and guides who taught me about other paths. I learned about the mystical dimensions of Islam, studied about Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religious traditions. My
current spiritual practice grows out of a combination of various traditions. Drawn to the teachings of Buddha, I practice yoga and meditation. That aspect of Christian faith I most cling to is the emphasis on prayer. And from the teachings of Sufi mystics, I learned how to understand Love as divine energy in the universe.