Craig Chalquist · Mar 25, 2024 · 2 min read

From Confining to Spacious: Monocreedism vs. Lamplight

A table of differences between the top-down monocreedal worldview and the more organic Lamplight worldview. 

Craig Chalquist
 Chalquist.com
 

Monocreedism is my term for a worldview in which monolithic unity dominates difference  and diversity: one God, one dogma, one faith, one master race, one master gender, one  ruling class, one nation, or one universal cause or substance behind everything. That all we  know, that the universe itself, might well emanate from one primal energy or mystery is not  inherently monolithic. Denying the importance of the many is.

Worldviews matter because they are the big stories that guide us through life. Who are we?  What is our purpose? With whom do we belong? What is it all about? These are the sorts of  basic questions our worldviews address.

Usually unthought and unspoken, the monocreedism worldview reaches back at least to the  once-Fertile Crescent, where governing power hierarchies oversaw monocropping: single  crops grown by themselves. Monocropping swelled into a mentality that assimilated people  and resources. It still does.

The historical shift away from social collaboration to organizations led by rulers and priests  (usually male) marks the rise of monocreedism. In early monotheism, other gods or divine  powers exist, but one is singled out for worship. But at the emperor-convened Council of  Nicaea of 325, where monotheism gives way to monocreedism, only one God can be  worshipped, and only one creed believed in and obeyed.

Lamplight is a fictional religion appearing in my 2023 novel Soulmapper. Founded by  Mariam Najjar, Lamplight does without creeds, clerics, holy books, or authorities claiming  divine sanction. It is a religion of imagination, relationship, celebration, and play. Its story  about the creation of an animate, sentient cosmos is just that: a story. Its ethics are inclusive  and based on care and delight in difference. Its worldview overlaps with those called  participatory, integral, pluralistic, and organic.

Lamplight is a modest example of enchantivism, which draws on imagination to envision new  possibilities for how to live together on our troubled but still-beautiful planet. We can’t have  just institutions, wise governance, or economic liberty until we imagine how first. Vivid  imagining is not a push, but a lure; not a plan imposed from the top down, but one grown  from the ground up.

Enchantivism works not through shaming, blaming, or force, but through inspiration,  enthusiasm, and example. Instead of pushing, it beckons with visions spanning the gap  between real and ideal. While learning from the wisdom of the past, enchantivism serves the  new.

So far, enchantivism has been carried out in countless as-yet unconnected projects around  the world. Nevertheless, enchantivism holds real potential for a participatory, pluralistic, and  inspiring worldview.