Why I am … Integral: Final Thoughts on a Renewed Generous Orthodoxy

It’s become a common trope on this blog for me to end a series by exploring its themes through the lens of Integral thought. (I’ve done it for at least series on: Tradition, Ephesians, Knowing God, and also made reference to it throughout my series on the history of Biblical Interpretation.) This tendency alone shows how this set of ideas has shaped how I approach the world and faith.

Today’s post will have two aims: First, to talk about why I find this approach so helpful, and second, to frame the project of this series within Integral language and concepts as a way of tying it all together.

If we remove any jargon or ideas particularly connected to its leading proponents, at its heart, Integral “refers to a [broad] emerging tradition that is seeking to integrate the best of premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews and to live out what might emerge out of postmodernism.” It had a big moment maybe fifteen years or so ago now, but seems to be less active right now. I don’t think this is because its ideas are false or unable to speak to where we’re at, but because it is all about bridge-building and bringing differing ideas and trends together — something that has become unrewarded in our echo-chambered, social-medial-based public discourse. At any rate, for me, Integral thought really boils down to four important concepts:

• It is growth-oriented, focused on how to make individuals (and the cultures they create together) as healthy and mature as possible;
• It recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of past and present ways of thinking and seeks to bring them all together for the sake of the future;
• It appreciates the value of different perspectives, inputs, and aspects of life and insists that each be given its due;
• It understands genuine growth as incorporating and accepting greater complexity, and is therefore inherently inclusive.

(For a far fuller introduction to Integral thought, please see my series Integral Basics and Growing with Intention.)

When I first encountered Integral thought, I was impressed with its explanatory power. And even if I think we have to be very careful with some of its developmental language, and have been disappointed by some of the responses coming out of it to our present political moment, I still see immense promise in its assumptions and approach.

So to answer the question of why I’m Integral, I’m Integral because I love its growth orientation, its holism, its appreciation of complexity, and desire to integrate different aspects of human wisdom and genius rather than pit them against each other.

And that really lies at the heart of what this series has been all about. The basic premise of celebrating different traditions and movements (while critiquing them largely from the strengths of other traditions and movements) is inherently integrative. The series, particularly towards the beginning, also made use of Integral thought’s dialectic (’positive-positive polarity’) approach, in pulling out strengths of historically opposed ideas (East–West, Tradition–Progress). We’ve also looked at Christian movements shaped by pre-modern (e.g., Mysticism, Eastern and Western (Catholic) Christianity), modern (e.g., the Reformation, Evangelicalism, Criticism), and postmodern (e.g., antiracist, queer, green) sensibilities. In doing this, the goal has been to bring as much from the past with us, rather than engaging in an unhealthy attempt at growth that rejects the past entirely.

This has obviously been a very personal series, talking as it has about how these different traditions have shaped me and my faith. But I hope it’s been valuable to you as well, and as spurred some thinking about what has shaped your own spiritual journey.