Beyond Religion: The Dawn of a New Reformation

By Byron Dawson

Beyond Religion is a thought provoking and critical look at religion and spirituality as concepts inherently embedded in the fabric of our society. Among others, one of the key impetuses of Beyond Religion is the author's view that faith, spirituality and even perspectives of God is due for a bit of reform. Religion and certain traditions must be updated to align contemporary social systems. The author leverages his deep fascination with the concepts of religion and spirituality, and more importantly how these concepts play out in our everyday life and our interaction with others to discuss relevant issues.
Additionally, Beyond Religion explores influences of religion and spirituality within our culture, relationships, mental health, economy, and other social dynamics. The author masterfully and artfully uses the concept of Beyond Religion as the basis to engage key historical and cultural dynamics to discuss how the relationship, or lack thereof, between religion and spirituality influence our perspectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781665756662

Byron Dawson

Byron Dawson is a passionate author, speaker and self-proclaimed personal growth enthusiast. He is a devoted and proud husband married to his wife Nicole Dawson and father to their five children Raven, Justin, Chariti, Dalton and Christian. His greatest fulfillment comes through helping others discover and achieve their unique sense of purpose and meaning. Byron has an academic background in business and management, and considers himself a life-long learner and student of all things and subjects that make the world a better place for all. Having scaled the walls of corporate America and leveraged his experiences in the non-profit sector, Byron leads and operates both a non-profit organization, a leadership development and consulting practice, as well as real estate development ventures. He has dedicated his life to engaging with individuals, groups and business organizations around the spiritual, social and economic themes that resonate with us all to contribute to the greater good. Byron enjoys research and learning about new and exciting topics that impact the world. For fun Byron enjoys spending time with his wife Nicole, friends and family, traveling, keeping on track with his fitness and workout routines, and is an avid sports fan. You can engage with him on any of his social media platforms and website as listed.

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BEYOND

RELIGION

THE

DAWN

OF A NEW

REFORMATION

BYRON DAWSON

Copyright © 2024 Byron Dawson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked as (KJV) are taken from King James version of the Bible, public domain.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5665-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5664-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5666-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024902850

Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/16/2024

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 The Influence of Religion

2 Beyond Religion

3 From Misery to Mission

4 Evolution of Faith

◊ Impervious to Change?

5 Righteous Rebellion

◊ The Birth of a Rebel

◊ Faith on Trial

◊ Revelationship

6 Beyond Culture!

◊ Exposure

◊ Living beyond Your Existence

◊ Extreme Focus

7 Beyond Belief

◊ Discipline over Distractions

◊ Help My Unbelief

8 Authentic Growth

◊ The Challenge of Being You!

◊ The Courage to Be You!

◊ Free to Be You!

◊ The Rewards of Being You!

9 Beyond the Limits

◊ Breaking Through

10 Spiritual Discipline

◊ The Sacrifice of Faith

11 The Mindset of Faith: Resetting Our Mental Algorithms

12 Faith and Success

◊ Deep Calleth

◊ Siamese Twins

13 Empowered

◊ Beyond Hope

◊ Beyond Prayer

14 Faith and Mental Health

◊ Controlling the Controllables

◊ Peace

◊ Lay Hands on the Sick

15 The Meditative State

◊ Getting Focused

◊ Surviving the Noise

◊ The Power of Peace

◊ Quiet Time

◊ Peace! Be Still!

16 Beyond Service

◊ Peace and Purpose

17 A Community of Faith

◊ Unity

◊ Faith and Community

◊ Accountability

18 Beyond Generations

◊ Next Generation Loading

19 Visionary Leadership

◊ Courage and Leadership

◊ Leading with Vision

◊ The Evolution of Leadership

◊ The Pivot

20 The Economic Gospel

21 The Dichotomy of the Black Church

◊ Hope Deferred

◊ Echo Chamber

22 Dirty Rags

◊ Same Sin, Same Grace

◊ Fallen

◊ Total Grace

23 Love beyond Fear

◊ The Courage to Love

◊ Trust Love

◊ Choose Love

◊ Love Never Fails!

INTRODUCTION

Like the rising of the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in this modern era we have embarked upon a new reformation that requires rethinking many of our philosophical constructs. Like all transformative periods in history, this is an exciting time to be alive and participate in the changing and updating of our world. We are each faced with the challenge of reconsidering our perspectives and approaches as we experience a new wave of information and knowledge designed to transform our world for the next frontier. Change is always a bit of a challenge as it causes personal internal conflict or even confrontation. We live in a world in which the speed of change is even more rapid, requiring each of us to confront the need to shift and adapt our paradigms. These changes are particularly challenging when they encroach upon our most fundamental philosophical foundations. These types of changes require that we not only change how we think but subsequently change our behaviors.

By virtue of the nature of religion and all philosophical constructs, religion and faith are one of the more difficult social constructs to embrace change. However, because of the influence of religion on our societies, we are inevitably faced with the challenge of rethinking even our approaches to our religion. As we embark upon the journey of Beyond Religion together, it is my hope to inspire the courage in each of us to challenge our spiritual and religious paradigms to explore the intersections of spirituality, faith, science, and human faculty for even greater manifestations of God’s will and purpose. The subsequent chapters will challenge our religious and spiritual paradigms as well as perhaps new considerations and perspectives by which we can discover greater courage and collaboration toward the common good.

Religion and spirituality are concepts inherently embedded in the fabric of our societies, whether we like it or not. Among others, one of the key reasons I decided to write Beyond Religion was because I believe faith, spirituality, and even perspectives of God are due for a bit of reconsideration and reform. Similar to the Renaissance period, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Reformation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we are at an inflection point in history in which we’re all faced with inevitable philosophical changes. The systems of the world as we know it are being updated as we speak based on these philosophical changes. Consequently, our religious paradigms and certain other traditions must be updated to align with more contemporary social systems. I am deeply fascinated by the concepts of religion and spirituality, but more importantly how these concepts play out in our everyday life as well as our interaction with others. Additionally, it is important that we discuss the distinct roles that spirituality, religion, and faith play in our lives. I understand that we tend to use these terms interchangeably. But they in fact have distinct meanings and purposes. For example, our spirituality represents our access beyond our natural and present existence into new possibilities not yet manifested. Our spiritual existence enables us to imagine new possibilities. As spiritual beings, we have been gifted with the ability to see and hear beyond our current natural physical existence.

Faith is the medium or tool by which we are able to bring our imagination to reality to continue reproducing, replenishing, and evolving the world. Faith is not merely a religious concept, although it is most often equated to religion. Faith is a spiritual concept. Faith is the connective tissue between the spiritual and the natural. It is the medium by which we manifest our spirituality and creativity.

Religion, on the other hand, is the set of practices and traditions by which we seek to frame our spirituality to fit our culture. From our spirituality, we determine what we will practice and create doctrine and even ceremonial activities as a matter of keeping to the practices that appear to be most effective during a given period or generation. The challenge that religious traditions present is that we tend to be unopened to evolve and change.

Beyond Religion explores personal and social influences of religion and spirituality within our culture, relationships, mental health, economy, and other social dynamics. Throughout the book, I use the concept of beyond religion as the basis to engage key historical and cultural dynamics to discuss how the relationship, or lack thereof, between religion and spirituality influence our perspectives. In an effort to be transparent and relatable, I made the risky decision to include some of my own personal experiences influenced by the effects of religion and spirituality. For example, I remember at one point in my life and development being extremely confused about my faith in God, or what I would call my spirituality versus my religion. When the two started to show signs of conflict, I was even more confused. There were certain things that just weren’t adding up. It was as if my religious traditions and my practical life experiences were not quite aligned. As I would talk to other fellow believers, friends, and colleagues, I discovered that I was not alone in the notion that there were certain conundrums about spirituality and religion with which many people have been grappling. Because religion is so sensitive and polarizing, these conundrums and conflicts are not widely addressed, at least not publicly. I consider myself spiritual and a person of faith. So it’s important to me that my internal compass and values are aligned with how things play out in my life and the world around me. When there are significant conflicts, I’m willing to question my perspectives and assumptions to perhaps regain some sense of alignment.

As I continued my spiritual growth journey, I came across the startling discovery that my religion was actually in some ways my bondage. What was supposed to make me free taught me bondage, limitation, and powerlessness. This was indeed startling to me because God was supposed to be my Savior, not my warden. At a young age, I turned to Christianity and religion for understanding, freedom, and empowerment. What I received was in some ways the exact opposite. I also later learned that the fear, bondage, and psychological oppression I received were more a result of my religion and culture than spirituality itself. The plot thickened as I progressively discovered that instead of the religious notion of sinlessness setting me free, it was the realization of how sinful and deeply flawed we are without grace that actually set me free. Realizing my flaws and sinfulness, along with their impact on my life and living, sent me on a journey of personal growth to overcome these deep, inherited scars and wounds embedded in my life. The more freedom I experienced on this journey, the more obsessed I became with continued personal growth. It was on this journey that I realized the true concept and need for faith and relationship with God. I began to rediscover my faith and spirituality apart from the cultural and historical traditions passed down to me and my generation. Through stages of ignorance, blind loyalty, education, and rebellion, I began to learn who God was beyond the lens of religion and how an intimate relationship with him could lead me to my destiny. Beyond Religion represents a bit of my sharing of this process of questioning and investigating my assumptions and some of my most deeply held philosophies and traditions. As you might guess, this journey and process didn’t take place over night. The questioning of my religion and the evolution of my faith occurred over time.

As you may have likely gathered, I was born and raised a Christian. I’ve been a follower of Christian teaching my whole life. But for various reasons, my religious culture and upbringing did not fully incorporate certain practical realities and daily life application. While I don’t expect churches and institutions of faith to be purely academic or educational, I do think it’s important to provide a relevant basis for life application for members and parishioners as we teach and engage spiritual principles and faith. I didn’t necessarily see much of the religious teaching and influences directly correspond with how to live, progress, and succeed in practice. So it was difficult for me in some ways to reconcile my reality with my faith and religion. I’ve always felt there was a bit of a missing link between religion and reality. In my particular culture of religion and practice of faith, there appeared to be an either-or scenario. You could be considered either religious or realistic. That just didn’t set well with me as I continued my growth journey to better understand how my spirituality could be integrated in my daily life and enable success in life. There had always seemed to be this unnecessary gap between what I was learning about God from my religion and what was actually applicable in life. This perceived gap initially influenced my quest to align my faith and my life. I understand that a part of the concept of faith is having a hope and belief beyond our reality. Where my confusion lay was in the seeming disjointed relationship between my reality and my faith, meaning faith that is properly and effectively applied should at some point yield tangible results. Otherwise, there’s no real point.

As I continued the exploration of my spirituality and relationship with God through the prism of religion while endeavoring to make practical application in my daily life, I discovered that one of the challenges is that many people separate faith, spirituality, and our human faculties. It’s as if our human faculties are not associated with or relevant to our spiritual existence if we are to consider ourselves spiritual or faith filled. Consequently, there is a bit of a rift between the proponents of faith and the proponents of humanism. This too struck me as a bit of a conundrum. Humanism is a philosophical and ethical position that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence over acceptance of dogma or superstition. I get that the sticking point is the notion of human faculty or critical thinking over the acceptance of dogma or superstition, which in this context would be considered faith and spirituality. Some faith and religious pundits believe it’s important to ensure the concept and application of faith be presented as superior to human faculty and critical thinking. Full disclosure: I too disagree with the specific ideology of human faculty and critical thinking over faith and spirituality. I disagree with this ideology because the two concepts should not be considered to be in competition. Instead, God created us with our human faculties, physiological and biological functions in support of being created in his image as opposed to in conflict. We’ll discuss the relationship between humanism and spirituality more broadly along with the inherent integration between the two to more effectively explore and realize all of our human potential.

The culture of religion in which I grew up didn’t exactly convey that there was in fact a correlation between faith and reality that must be acknowledged and reconciled. For example, the situations of our reality contain very powerful lessons and principles that are critical to our personal growth and development as well as the achievement of our goals and aspirations. Any effort to skip, ignore, or evade the process of these lessons is a form of self-deception. We not only have to acknowledge our reality, but we have to also diligently discover and extract the meaning and lessons from each experience to realize our hopes and dreams that are beyond our present reality. In many ways, religion has imprisoned possibilities of faith and the life force that is spirituality. Furthermore, religion has had a negative impact on our opportunity to form true relationship with God. It has in some ways stifled the many powerful effects of our spiritual nature and developing relationship with God through faith. Religion and denominationalism are man’s ideas and concepts of how we are to interact with God. While this is fair to some degree since God is revealed and interpreted by man, the challenge is our human-derived ideas must evolve in order to keep up with the revelation of God. In fact, the evolution of humankind is in direct correlation with our revelation and understanding of God’s will and purpose in the earth. Our approach and understanding of God can be no more static than human growth and development itself.

One of the critical issues of religion is it doesn’t invite skepticism and critical thought. Instead, religion seeks to apply traditional and historical ideas and approaches to spirituality, faith, and relationship with God. This approach inhibits new growth, new knowledge, and understanding by which believers may evolve into higher purpose through increased relationship with God. Like all frameworks and industries that are not open to the challenge of skepticism, investigation, and critical thought, the reason behind the resistance is fear of the unknown and loss of control. However, the knowledge of God can’t be captured or contained within any period or generation. Therefore, while history provides great insight and direction, it is not all inclusive. This is the reason we have periods of evolution, such as the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Reformation. Each of these periods marks expansions and increases in knowledge and understanding that sparked change.

We are all quite frankly vacillating among three existences: our past, our present, and the future reality in which we hope to live one day. We are responsible for managing the experiences and emotions from our past, making it make sense in our present, and leveraging these valuable lessons to create a better and brighter future. Neither existence can be ignored in order to realize what our past means to our present and what our present means for our future. To try to build toward a meaningful future while ignoring our past and present situations not only goes against the laws of growth and development but is also quite frankly not possible.

While I don’t attempt to exhaust these subject matters in Beyond Religion, other concepts I’ve always be keenly interested in reconciling on some level are the relationships between spirituality and scientific concepts that are quite frankly inherent to existence, such as psychology, physiology, biology, sociology, and economics.

Wait! Before you draw the conclusion this book is not for you, Beyond Religion is not some overly academic study of technical concepts and scientific jargon that are unrelated to practical daily life. Instead, one of its central goals is to weave in certain scientific principle in a manner that is not only relatable but also helps to make sense of our deeper spiritual self. In many instances, we’ve either kept these concepts totally separate from spirituality, concluding there’s no relationship, or simply decided science and faith are better kept separate regardless of inherent relationship. I proposed that there is an immense amount of unlocked growth in realizing and reconciling our spiritual existence with our physiological, biological, and sociological existence. We may even realize they are one and the same. In the book, I refer to each of these concepts on some level as it relates to our spiritual life and how we live out our daily life experiences. There are key intersections and connections that can help us realize and successfully live our purpose.

Lastly, I do think it’s important to speak to religion and spirituality from a cultural perspective since the application of spirituality differs based on our cultural experience and upbringing. I think it’s important to highlight that Beyond Religion is largely based on certain Westernized religion and cultural dynamics, although there is significant relevance and commonalities with other religious cultures. My hope is that Beyond Religion would empower those dealing with a similar conundrum to overcome the limitations of religion to harness the power of our inherent spirituality.

ONE

THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION

W e are all spiritual beyond religion. We were born spiritual. We are taught religion as a means of capturing spirituality within our culture as well as our ethical norms and political practices. The ability to be spiritual is our human superpower. The ability to see beyond the visible, hear beyond the audible, and have the imagination and ingenuity to bring these unseen possibilities into reality is truly extraordinary. What’s even more remarkable is the fact that we have all been blessed with these superpowers, and no one has been exempted. This is the reason I am deeply fascinated by the idea of faith and spirituality. There are varying definitions and perspectives of spirituality. For the sake of context, I define spirituality as the ability to connect intuitively and intimately beyond the sensory or physical realm. At the end of the day, it’s how we grow, create, and continue to evolve our human existence into higher purpose and contribute to the greater good. The challenge we face is not allowing our spirituality to be confined or limited by traditions and certain cultural dynamics of religion. Much like all other facets of our human existence, religion has to change and evolve with our spiritual growth. Our spiritual growth is not meant to be contained or restricted by our religion. However, the realization and manifestation of our spirituality requires faith and exercising our human faculties and practical disciplines at the highest l evel.

Spirituality, religion, and faith play distinct roles in our lives. While we tend to use these terms interchangeably, they in fact have distinct meanings and purposes. For example, our spirituality represents our access and connection to God and existence beyond our present reality into new possibilities not yet manifested. Our spiritual existence enables us to imagine new possibilities. As spiritual beings, we have been gifted with the ability to hear and see beyond our present situation and circumstances and imagine a new and higher purpose. A key part of God’s plan and design for our human existence on earth was to create and procreate. His will is for us to reproduce his love and essence in the earth. Thus, we were all designed with the ability to simultaneously exist both in our present reality as well as beyond our present reality. To manifest what we imagine for ourselves requires that we apply our faith to constantly press toward and pursue the limits of our present reality mentally, emotionally, and physically until a new reality unfolds.

Faith is the medium or tool by which we are able to bring our imagination to reality to continue reproducing, replenishing, and evolving the world. Faith is not merely a religious concept, although it is most often equated to religion. Faith is a spiritual concept. Faith is the connective tissue between the spiritual and the natural. It is the medium by which we manifest our spirituality and creativity. Faith is the learning process and work we put into bringing our visions to reality. It is the appropriate combination of belief and the associated work, energy, and effort we invest in what we believe. When we believe something and take subsequent action, our faith brings our imagination into reality. It is important to note that faith does not exist without the combination of believing and doing. Our belief and the output of the work and actions we take must be in direct alignment. In other words, faith and work are directly proportionate to each other. You can’t say you have faith with no action to reflect it. Our work is a reflection of what we believe; thus, our faith must be reflected by our work. Otherwise, faith does not exist. There is no such thing as faith that has not shown up in our actions. Therefore, it stands to reason that the more faith you have, the harder you have to work to realize the manifestation of your faith.

Religion, on the other hand, is the set of practices and traditions by which we seek to frame our spirituality to fit our culture. Religion is our way of defining our spirituality. From a religious perspective, we determine what we will practice, what doctrines are important, and perhaps what ceremonial activities are necessary to commemorate or remind us of certain historical events that best represent our corporate and cultural belief systems. The challenge that religious traditions present is that we tend to be unopened to evolve and change. The nature of religion is that it creates patterns and traditions that frame our spirituality and are also based on philosophies and approaches that were at some point effective and appropriate. The problem with applying religion to our efforts to be in relationship with God is that he’s too big to consistently fit within time-bound frameworks and cultural norms. God is to too big, and we’re too small to contain all of him in any given period or generation. At some point, in order to continue to grow in God, we have to change. One of the things that we seem to be afraid of is the fact that there are things that are true today that may not be true tomorrow, not due to God changing but due to