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Contemplation
We are living in an eclectic time, one in which blending is not a dilution of faith (as some would have us believe) but rather an enrichment of it. (Shutterstock Photo)
Special to United Methodist Insight | July 26, 2025
Archetypes are essential if we are to live abundantly. They save us from falling prey to the notion that conditions us to think the best we can hope for is guesswork, which can easily deteriorate into believing life is a crap shoot. Archetypes liberate us from the prison cell of subjectivism.
For those of us who are Christian, Christ is our archetype. This is why Christology is the core of our theology and the model for our living. But when we look around, we see that almost everybody has an archetype through whom/which they live meaningfully and with purpose. Some of these are capital-A archetypes (e.g. the Buddha) while others are little-a archetypes (e.g. parents). Either way, they are those who live in ways that inspire us to “go and do likewise.”
harper ident 2024
We fail to appreciate God’s provision of archetypes for everyone when we believe ours is the only valid one, treating all the others as less-than substitutes for the Real thing. This is to turn conviction (which is important for living) into another form of supremacy that feeds the ego, not the soul.
One of my joys in retirement (now passing the twelve-year mark) has been simultaneously to go deeper into the Christ-archetype to whom I am committed, and to go wider into archetypes that others commit to. My main ones so far are the Perennial Tradition, Taoism, Buddhism, and Stoicism. In each I have found an enrichment of wisdom and the incarnation of it in friendly and fascinating people. God has arranged wonderful ways to live. We are not called to live them all, but we are called to appreciate the splendor of expressions.
We are living in an eclectic time, one in which blending is not a dilution of faith (as some would have us believe) but rather an enrichment of it. [1] And given the people-and-planet destruction occurring these day because of toxic egotism/ethnocentrism, it is through our willingness to see the constellation of lights in the heavens and on the earth that God will lead us away from evil into the common good. Archetypes are the lights God has made to lead us home.
[1] The August 2025 issue of The Christian Century magazine looks at the blended-faith reality that’s increasing in our time, pp.40-45.