Part Forty Seven

From "Preacher Haywood: Library to Desert," in the Journal of Religion and Society, Spring 2004

[...]
Thus it seems evident that Haywood's experience, and all of Worship, is revelatory, not scholastic. What he is and what he is trying to communicate comes from the desert, not the library; it was the direct experience of Oneness and not anything he learned from a book that made him who and what he is. For better and for worse. And so Haywood is praised and criticized for the wrong things.

Too often his supporters credit him for religious scholarship -- credit he himself, characteristically, has not welcomed. He is not a religious scholar. His knowledge is broader than the average lay person's but not particularly deep, and it bears the tell-tale marks of an autodidact -- there are unexpected gaps in his knowledge, and unorthodox, often shaky readings of some of the classic works. Often in reviewing his writings and lectures one sees him struggle with concepts well-covered by others, and miss allusions and references which might seem obvious to the more classically trained religious historian.

But at the same time the charge of syncretism is levelled at Worship and that, too, is unfair. All religious movements historicize themselves, present themselves as a return to the "true" and "original" faith. A fair amount of classical philosophy also presents itself as merely an outgrowth or reimagining of some older tradition. Haywood is, perhaps, more transparent about this than other budding religious leaders -- that sense of ironic detachment, which ordinarily is anathema to faith, is in a way central to Worship, and therefore Worshippers could not do other than recognize its parallels and similarities to other traditions -- but admitting that others have had similar insights does not make one a syncretist.

Yes, Haywood demonstrates a knowledge of philosophy and religious history superior to that of the average (Western) layperson when he speaks at length about the teachings of al-Suhrawardi, but that does not make him a theologian. He himself scoffed at such suggestions, referring to himself simply as "an avid reader," and that is probably more accurate.

(In fact comparison to al-Suhrawardi is apt in many ways. Suhrawardi, too, created an inclusive religious and philosophical system rooted in the language and folkways of his native country. Suhrawardi underwent a mystical experience of the Divine and then brought prodigious intellectual and scholarly intellect to bear upon the phenomenon. However, Suhrawardi is one of the greatest thinkers the world has yet produced, and so it is perhaps unfair to Haywood to point out Worship's shortcomings compared to al-Ishraqi. Suhrawardi's system was immensely more complex and, historically, more significant to the world than anything Worship has yet produced. There can be no comparison between The Wisdom of Light and Notes on Worship; it is akin to comparing Hamlet to a half-hour sitcom script. This is not to belittle Worship but rather to praise the magnitude of Suhrawardi's accomplishment.)

When Haywood uses a metaphor of divine light in Notes, he invokes Suhrawardi, and St. Symeon, and George Fox, and Mulla Sadra -- he acknowledges that they have trod this path before him and, indeed, all used the metaphor of a Light of Lights. But each of them fit their message firmly within a specific faith tradition. In Fox's case, while he was founding a new sect -- the Quakers -- he was still firmly in an established Protestant Christian tradition, rooted entirely in the text of the Bible and not looking elsewhere for guidance. Worship quite deliberately eschews that single-mindedness. In fact at times Haywood seems to go out of his way to cite examples from a wide array of faiths, underscoring the deliberately non-sectarian nature of his message. "He does not," as one critic sniffed, "even call God, God."

[...]
Interestingly, Haywood's reflexive habit of appealing to authority from various faith traditions has caused various traditional faith groups to claim him as their own. "I have been told," Haywood claimed in an interview once, "that I am a Roman Catholic; a Shi'a Moslem; a Baptist; a Buddhist; a Bahai missionary; a Wiccan; and once, most interestingly, a Jew. Reformed, one supposes..." That so many different and diverse religious traditions can claim Worship for their own most likely means that Worship will in short order atomize and disappear. There is a chance, however -- slight though it may be -- that in the process of co-opting Worship, these other groups may well legitimize it and allow it to endure indefinitely.