Barry Vennard

this blog entry requires a basic understanding of Spiral Dynamics and the colors that represent vmeme stages.   

Most change occurs in response to life conditions.  The need for human beings to actively, consciously and intentionally participate in their own evolutionary process has never been greater or more possible.  The current global life conditions are urgently calling us to do exactly that.   

So, what are these life conditions?   The life conditions currently in play are created by the natural drive of organisms (human beings) to maximize their survival and reproduction capacities combined with the emergence of the orange and green SD world views that include aspects of purple, red and blue.     

The evolution of the orange stage of human conscious created a seemingly unlimited supply of human food and resulted in an exponential growth in human population.  Orange also created the capacity to further exploit natural resources enabling human beings to acquire much more of the things that provide comfort, represent stature and create a sense of security and that go far beyond what is needed for survival.  The evolution of green seeks to share that capacity on a more equal basis with all people. 

The result is a growing human global addiction to more.  The addiction has spawned a world wide economy based on expanding consumption and is fuelled by Orange and Green.  

Acknowledging that a life built on addiction will eventually collapse and that this life condition actually exists in us as individuals and as a species – overcoming denial - may be one of the most important and difficult things a church can do.  But, if that life condition is presented, not as something that is evidence of human failure, but as something that emerged through evolution (and was probably unavoidable) it seems that people can accept it.  It also helps them be open to the critical, spiritual  need for the transformation of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that dominate human consciousness enabling us to create a new set of strategies (creative responses) to address a much more complex world.  That need is becoming urgent! 

It calls for leadership that supports individuals and groups in the spirituaql recovery from - or the spiritual transcending of - the addiction to more, and at the same time calls them to play some kind of role in the evolution of consciousness for our species even if they are not completely recovered themselves.     

In a church that uses the Bible, it may require a complete re-interpretation of the Bible in an effort to see if it is still relevant…..relevant to Spiral Dynamics Integral and the evolution of consciousness.     That’s what some of us in Unity movement are doing. That’s what I tried to do with the teachings of Jesus in my book   Stepping Through the Narrow Gate   (although it was written before my exposure to SDI)