Consciousness as Sacred
Let me share something with you—and I’ll admit, as a Christian minister, I’m a little nervous to say it. Not because I don’t hold this myself, but because I know it might sound unfamiliar. Maybe even a little outside the version of Christianity you were handed. And I want to honor that. I want to honor you—your journey, your sincerity, your faith. I don’t take your trust lightly. But I also want you to know—I trust you. You’re thoughtful. You’re open-hearted. You wrestle, wonder, and feel deeply. So I believe you can hold this with me. You don’t have to agree. But maybe—just maybe—it will resonate.
What if even your consciousness is sacred?
Not just your thoughts or personality—but the quiet fact of your awareness. The aliveness behind your eyes. The presence that knows you’re here. The stillness after the noise fades. That capacity to notice—to be aware—might not just be neurological. It might be sacred.
This isn’t just poetic musing. A growing number of scientists, philosophers, and contemplatives are rethinking the old assumption that consciousness is merely a byproduct of brain chemistry. Neuroscientist Christof Koch and philosopher David Chalmers have long emphasized how little we understand subjective awareness. Chalmers called it "the hard problem"—because we don’t know how matter gives rise to experience.
Some, like Chalmers, suggest the brain may not produce consciousness but receive it—like a radio picking up a signal. Others, like physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, offer quantum theories of consciousness, suggesting that awareness may be embedded in the structure of the universe itself.
This is where Christian theology begins to hum.
Mystics and contemplatives have long sensed this: that we are not the sole proprietors of consciousness—we are participants in it. That the light of our awareness is a reflection of divine light. Father Richard Rohr speaks of the indwelling presence of God in all things. Philosopher Philip Goff argues from a panpsychist view that we are waves in the same ocean of Being.
If that’s true, then your ability to feel, notice, love, grieve, and wonder isn’t incidental. It’s sacred.
Scripture, too, speaks to this.
Luke 10:27 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind (diánoia).”
Diánoia means deep understanding. It’s more than logic—it’s imagination, awareness, perception. To love God with your mind is to open your conscious world to God.
Romans 12:2 “Do not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind (nous).”
Nous isn’t just intellect. It’s spiritual perception. Paul isn’t calling for better opinions. He’s inviting awakening. To see differently. That’s consciousness.
Still feel abstract? Enter Dr. Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist and former Oxford fellow. His research shows we misunderstand consciousness because we misunderstand attention. Our left brain narrows, grasps. But our right brain receives, beholds, and lets the world be. That kind of attention shapes how we experience reality.
If our attention is sacred, maybe spirituality isn’t about achieving—but about tuning in.
Maybe the sacred is already here. Not something to manufacture, but something to wake up to.
Maybe God and our spiritual lives aren’t summoned by effort—but revealed through presence. Through noticing. Through tuning in.
In a world obsessed with spectacle, maybe our quiet awareness is the deeper light. The one that says: You were never separate from the sacred to begin with.
And now a bigger picture comes into view.
More and more, a sacred conversation is happening—among neuroscientists, theologians, philosophers, mystics—and they’re circling a provocative idea: what if consciousness is not just in us, but around us? What if we don’t possess it, but participate in it? A field of sacred awareness shimmering through everything that is.
This isn’t just poetic speculation. It’s a reawakening to truths the early Christian mystics knew. From union with the Divine to Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of God as the luminous ground of becoming, Christian wisdom has long imagined consciousness as sacred space—shared, not private.
And now, in this moment of Metamodern Christian spirituality, we’re being invited to return to that stream. Not to abandon Jesus—but to see him anew. To recognize that when the New Testament speaks of mind, spirit, breath, and being—it’s describing conscious communion with the Divine.
As metamodern Christians, we don’t reduce complexity—we hold it. We don’t cling to certainty—we seek meaning. We see our very capacity to notice, to wonder, to love as the image of God in motion. Consciousness as communion. Tethered to the mystery that holds all things.
So let me take you to Athens.
In Acts 17, Paul stands before the intellectual elite of his day. He doesn’t begin by quoting Scripture. He begins with longing. With shared seeking. He points to an altar to "The Unknown God" and says, essentially: I know the mystery you’re trying to name.
Then Paul says something extraordinary:
Acts 17:27–28 “God made the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being.”
Not near. Not beside. In.
Paul isn’t selling a new religion. He’s revealing reality. The Divine is not a distant deity to summon, but the very ground of our being. The context of our story. The presence we’re already inside of.
And that changes everything.
Christian spirituality is not about climbing or striving. It’s about awakening. The light of God isn’t something we perform or summon. It’s something we’re already held in.
So maybe when Christ says, “You are the light of the world,” he isn’t demanding performance. He’s naming what is already true: when you are present, aware, and grounded in love—you shine.
Not because you glowed harder. But because you finally stopped trying to glow—and trusted the light that has been holding you all along.
You don’t have to conjure the sacred. You just have to notice you were never outside of it.
And that noticing? That might be the beginning of awakening.
So beautifully written, David. God is in all of us with no exceptions. Will we embrace this or continue to place conditions on our faith in order to feel like we earned something? Rohr’s book “Everything Belongs”was one of the first things I read that helped me understand this reality you speak of here.