We had a caller on a recent Wacky Wednesday show who knew someone claiming to be a “blue domer.” She didn’t know much about it, and neither did we, until we did a little digging. Here’s what we discovered.
There’s more than one kind of “blue domer.”
First, we have the New Age variety, championed by a man who refers to himself as Rev. Matt who founded an organization known as “Blue Domer Ministries.” On his website, he explains what a “blue domer” is all about.
“We all live under one giant blue dome. God put it here to protect his children and his living miracles. And we all have a connected spirit. You feel it in the air, in the water, on the morning dew, or from the nuzzle of an affectionate pet…These are all evidence of God’s energy being in all things around us, under THE BLUE DOME.”
This energy, who he calls God, allegedly “surrounds and penetrates all things inside the blue dome.”
Although this non-Christian description of God could be the result of awkward phrasing, it suggests a belief in pantheism, which is the idea that God is all in all. According to an official definition, pantheism is the doctrine that “the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe.”
Hence, this God is actually more of a life force or energy, which the Vatican document, Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life refers to as the “new age god.”
“The New Age god is an impersonal energy, a particular extension or component of the cosmos; god in this sense is the life-force or soul of the world. This is very different from the Christian understanding of God as the maker of heaven and earth and the source of all personal life. God is in Himself personal, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who created the universe in order to share the communion of His life with creaturely persons.” (Sec. 4)
God clearly identified Himself as a personal being when He appeared to Moses above the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. Moses asks God what he should say to the Israelite about who sent him to them, and God answered, “I am Who Am”, clearly identifying himself as a person. Otherwise, He might have said, “I am What is.”
In other words, the pantheist believes God is in all; the Christian believes all is in God. Big difference.
A second type of “blue domer” is a less official name “that evolved to refer to those who eschewed church to worship in nature, under the ‘blue dome’ of the sky,” explains Robyn Dyba in this article.
Dyba describes herself as being a Christian who remains faithful to Jesus, but left the evangelical church of her childhood “when the unholy trinity…religious nationalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, was embraced by the church in the Trump presidency era.”
She appears to have been impacted by the same negative view of Christian churches that has invaded the Gen Z demographic – that they don’t care enough about social issues, are irrelevant, too dogmatic, absent of meaningful community, etc.
This has resulted in a mass exodus of young people from mainline Christian churches, Dyba explains, but these youth are mostly “loners.”
“…[T]hough many of us are leaving at the same time, we are not leaving together. It is a mass exodus of individuals. And it is a lonely exodus,” she admits.
They’re resorting to their own devices, such as how Dyba created her own kind of church called Beach Church where she became a “blue domer” – someone who shunned mainstream churches to opt for worship in nature under the “blue dome” of the sky.
She reads the likes of Richard Rohr, adapts the ancient gnostic practices of Mary Magdalene and Teresa of Avila, and practices breath prayer with the mantra “Be still and know that I am God.”
This mix-and-match spirituality is indicative of the younger generation who happily mix a variety of spiritual practices with their Christian beliefs such as engaging in yoga and Buddhist meditation alongside the rosary. Their homes are laid out according to the principles of feng shui and are regularly saged and sprinkled with holy water. During the holidays, they participate in both Jewish seders and attend Christmas carol concerts.
Experts refer to this mish-mosh of spiritualities as “unbundling” and say it’s peculiar to Gen Z.
“The majority of unaffiliated people are far from non-religious,” says Casper ter Kuile of Harvard Divinity School’s Sacred Design lab. “People have all sorts of beliefs, practices, and even communities that are spiritual in one way or another. So what we’re seeing is an unbundling and remixing of spiritual identities and practices.”
Blue domers may have slightly different views of the spiritual and how to participate in that realm, but they have one thing in common – they all profess to want to worship under God’s blue sky – either literally or figuratively.
Hence, the birth of the term “blue domer.”
Our thanks to all those who sent us information on this phenomena.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
