A post-modern map of faith

As the old say­ing goes, “If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, then the map is wrong.” In the world of Radha-Krishna devo­tion, truer words haven’t been said in a while. The time has finally come for cre­ation of a new map.

The world has changed and is con­stantly chang­ing. Long gone are the times of desert prophets, run­away princes seek­ing deliv­er­ance, heroes of the impos­si­ble, gods and god­desses of fables. They helped ancient humans imag­ine the world and form their belief sys­tems using metaphors and lan­guage avail­able at the time, and yet, we often ask our­selves what makes per­sons today cling to those ancient beliefs as if they were a mat­ter of life and death?

Are we unable to express our own faith today, in con­tem­po­rary lan­guage and a mod­ern under­stand­ing of the world? Do we indeed need to believe the unbe­liev­able to have faith? Incred­i­ble mir­a­cles of old have seem­ingly stepped aside to give place to incred­i­ble advances of sci­ence, but does that mean our spir­i­tu­al­ity is in con­flict with sci­ence and a pro­gres­sive world view?

They don’t have to be, and we don’t need to be torn apart between our life today and ancient beliefs. We just need to express our faith in the new con­text and lan­guage, on a new stage with some of the old actors—for human­ity still faces per­ils that ignite the core of spir­i­tu­al­ity: pro­found unhap­pi­ness, poverty, wars, exploita­tion, envi­ron­men­tal threat, the insa­tiable feel­ing we can reach more and that this world can be a bet­ter place.

Using the favorite tra­di­tional Indian fable of Radha and Krishna and its myth as a can­vas, Steve Bohlert, through Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism: A Spir­i­tu­al­ity of Lib­erty, Truth and Love, mas­ter­fully draws a rel­e­vant, con­tem­po­rary map of faith. To many a men­tion of India’s favorite God Krishna and his con­sort Radha invokes an image of yet another Bol­ly­wood spec­ta­cle, monks danc­ing in streets and air­ports, or of a guru feed­ing the audi­ence with end­less scrip­tural cita­tions and old super­sti­tions pos­ing as sci­en­tific facts.

But, the con­trary is true with Steve Bohlert. His unique life’s expe­ri­ence, as both an itin­er­ant Hindu monk and a Chris­t­ian pas­tor of con­tem­po­rary think­ing, helps today’s open-minded reader unveil pro­found mean­ing in myths where there appears to be none left, espe­cially for today’s audience.

Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism is a spir­i­tual jour­ney and a mod­ern syn­the­sis like you have sel­dom seen before, and never in this unique con­text. It’s a bridge between the East and West, past and present, old and new. Con­tin­u­ing in the tra­di­tion of pro­gres­sive, pro­lific west­ern thinkers like John Shelby Spong, Mar­cus Borg, Joseph Camp­bell, Paul Tillich, and sci­ence vision­ar­ies like David Bohm, together with India’s own lumi­nar­ies like Kedar­nath Bhak­tivin­ode Thakur, Steve Bohlert adds new acts in an ever unfold­ing play of human self-discovery and its rela­tion­ship to the divine.

“If there’s ever been a time to re-imagine the world we’re in and our faith along with it—by mak­ing them both bet­ter, more con­gru­ent, and more meaningful—it is now,” Steve would say. And, he cer­tainly shows us how to do that. The lan­guage is new, the stage is the world of today with all its threats and immense pos­si­bil­i­ties. New chap­ters are about to be writ­ten, and you’re invited to par­tic­i­pate in the play of a more mean­ing­ful and beau­ti­ful than ever Radha– Krishna.

— Zvon­imir Tosic

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