Washington National Cathedral

The Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith

Deryl Davis, host

Deryl Davis, producer of the Sunday Forum, talks with Alexander Shaia about “The Hidden Power of the Gospels: Four Paths, One Journey.”

Shaia describes the spiritual approach of quadratos, referring to four paths that unite the critical mind with the devout heart throughout the faith journey of the Christian. Although Shaia comments that the four-path approach is universal, shared by major religions and psychology, he also describes it as inherent in the practices of the early Christian church, including the four steps leading to baptism.

The four paths are also visible in early Christian imagery, Shaia says. The first symbolic crosses of the church were symmetrical, with four terminal points. This shape is still found on Greek crosses, the Jerusalem cross, and others. According to Shaia, this symbol was deliberately adopted in the early days of the church, and retained for 1,200 years, even though Jesus was crucified on a cross shaped like a capital T.

Shaia believes that the early church deliberately decided to select four books from the fifty works originally called Gospels. Only the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John entered the canon and the early lectionary. In selecting four Gospels, Shaia asserts, the church provided a manual for four key aspects of practical Christian living. The Gospel according to Matthew teaches how to approach change. Mark’s Gospel talks about how to move through suffering. John teaches how to receive and understand joy. Finally, Luke’s Gospel shows how to mature in service (the book of Acts, although not a Gospel, rounds out Luke’s message).

Shaia views these individually named books of the New Testament together as chapters of one single Gospel. “We are not seeing the life story of Jesus, but we are seeing the teachings of the risen Christ in each of these four chapters, from the first line to the last line,” he explains. “The resurrection is not the end of the text. The resurrection is the teaching of the entire text.”

How can the ancient four-path approach apply to the lives of today’s Christians? Shaia asserts that Christians still sometimes face the same struggles as the earliest believers, because Christianity inherently and radically challenges injustice. The son and grandson of Lebanese Catholic Christians who immigrated to the United States, Shaia grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the struggle for civil rights. Because of his family’s origins, they were considered “colored.” Someone—possibly the Ku Klux Klan—burned down his grandmother’s house, piling her Lebanese and Christian possessions together and dousing them with kerosene.

Shaia’s grandmother was not at home when the fire was set. Five days later, the family met for Sunday dinner. The matriarch said the table grace and then looked silently at the generations gathered around her. “Finally she just simply said, ‘No hate,’” Shaia recalls. He credits his grandmother with rescuing the family from a cycle of hatred, and keeping them on the Gospel’s path.

About Alexander Shaia

Alexander Shaia, Ph.D., is an educator, psychologist, spiritual director, writer, and practicing Christian. He is the founder and director of the Blue Door Retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shaia travels internationally, lecturing and conducting workshops on the four-gospel journey of quadratos, psychotherapy, rites of passage, and Christian spirituality.