Copernicus and Galileo are among the world’s most famous heretics. Both incurred the wrath of the church because they dared to challenge the prevailing wisdom of their times.

In a small work written in 1514, Copernicus introduced seven axioms about the order of the physical universe. Perhaps the most revolutionary and incendiary of the ideas was his declaration that the “earth’s center is not the center of the universe.” In fact, Copernicus was so afraid of being brought to trial on charges of heresy that he refrained from publishing the work until many years later. He died shortly after its publication in 1543.

It was Galileo’s defense of Copernicus’ theories that ultimately led to his own trial for heresy. In addition, Copernicus’ book was placed on the list of banned materials—a ban, incidentally, that was not lifted by the Catholic Church until 1835. To the end, Galileo argued that Copernicus was right in spite of the accepted view of the day.

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For years, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe. It had been the predominant view for so long that it became dogma. Eventually, an entire worldview formed around it. If the earth was the center of the universe, then the earth was the center of all worlds. And if the earth was the center of all worlds, then the church was at the center of all human affairs.

Before Copernicus, no one had considered that forces beyond the boundaries of the earth might sustain it. Copernicus proclaimed that the sun gave life and energy to the earth, not vice versa. But he didn’t stop there. He went on to suggest that the earth was in a state of perpetual motion. Again, this was a radical idea. Medieval cosmology often depicted the earth as a static center with heaven above and earth below.

Not surprisingly, Copernicus had many detractors. Although he was personally committed to God and saw his work as a way of glorifying God, the powers that be were quick to tell him he was threatening the faith. Tolosani, a Dominican monk, wrote that Copernicus “seems to be unfamiliar with the Holy Scriptures since he contradicts some of its principles, not without risk to himself and to the readers of his book of straying from the faith.”

What does Copernicus have to do with religion in today’s context? A lot. For the bulk of world history, religion has been viewed as the center of all things—the “earth,” if you will. Until recently, it didn’t occur to anyone to look beyond it. Religion was the light that seemed to give energy to the divine impulses. Even now, it is hard for many people to think beyond the dominant idea that religion is the answer to society’s need to experience the divine.

Throughout history, the church has put up creeds and doctrines to ensure that all things related to Jesus rotate around the axis of religion. The institutional church has become the center of the Christian universe. The challenge, I believe, is to reorder that universe. Jesus put it another way. Challenging the Pharisees on a point of law, he asked them whether the Sabbath was made for man or man for the Sabbath.

I believe that the next phase of faith is to move beyond religion. Nowhere does Jesus call his followers to start a religion. Jesus’ invitation to his first disciples was to follow him. It was a call to journey, a process that leads us away from some things and towards others. It wasn’t a call to adhere to a set of rules for all time. In fact, one of the most commonly heard critiques of the Christian message is that it is out of touch with what is really going on in the world around us.

“The purpose of theology,” writes the theologian Sallie McFague, “is to make it possible for the gospel to be heard in our time.” For the gospel to be heard in our time requires a commitment to spiritual growth and maturity. It involves being willing to break out of the boxes that have served us well in the past but no longer suffice today. While it’s possible to preserve and pass on a centuries-old understanding of the nature of society, ethics, and even morality, we have to realize that these constructs are often powerless to speak into today’s world.

Faithfulness to the message of Jesus does not mean that we must simply imitate our forbears in the Christian tradition. To do so might help preserve their formulas, but it will freeze us in history. I believe that we must attempt to recontextualize the story—to find equivalents for our world today. Jesus’ message was a wake-up call to his people. In the Bible, in the second chapter of Mark, Jesus says, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”

Here Jesus cautions the movement he is calling into being against appearing new or even progressive when it is in fact “old,” meaning fundamentally connected to the dominant symbolic order. To do such a thing would jeopardize Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God. The old order was not sufficient to contain Jesus’ radical message, and that is just as true today.

This tendency to hold on to the familiar remains a problem for many followers of God today. Religion becomes a place we retreat to, where we hear the old stories, lovingly preserved but frightfully disconnected from the realities of life. The rise of interest in fundamentalism is evidence of the desire for reassurance—for ways of fitting a complex world into manageable categories. But religions don’t function at their highest and best when they attempt to provide simple answers to life’s biggest questions.

The answer is not a retreat into the past. We must look instead at the “beliefs and ideas that stunt holiness today,” as one writer put it. I believe we must resist our Israelite-like impulse to look back longingly at Egypt.

Undoubtedly, some people will see this call to reposition questions of faith beyond religion as dangerous and unscriptural. Many who come from a religious point of view may be threatened by the challenge to consider Jesus beyond religion. But as I see it, religion finds its gravity in the light of the sun. It finds sustainability and life through its relationship to the sun.

Embracing the Journey

As we enter this brave new world of the spirit, we can come with fear or arrogance or armed to the teeth with dogmatism. But that is not my desire. I venture into this world to conquer no one, to plant no flags and claim no territory, but to share what I hold dear from my tradition and offer my story about the grace of God as a gift to all who journey beyond religion.

Throughout this book, I want to explore what it means to move beyond religion—particularly Christianity. After all, that’s the tradition I know best. But I believe that you will find value in these pages regardless of your spiritual background. I believe that the message of Jesus, once loosed from its religious confines, has the potential to contribute to the global yearning for the sacred and the divine. I believe that there is hope for the heretic, for God’s grace is a much bigger gift than we’ve ever imagined.

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This is an excerpt for “ A Heretic's Guide to Eternity ” by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor published by Jossey-Bass August 2006. Order your advance copy today.