The mainline tradition of Christian orthodoxy represents the cumulative efforts over several centuries to translate the mythological milieu of early Christian experience into a dogmatic system of fixed beliefs. Quickly, and increasingly so over time, these beliefs came to operate as the framework of a Christian worldview, in addition to serving as standards and requirementsContinue reading “Against Democracy”
Tag Archives: christian worldview
Dropping Illusions
De Mello: “You must drop it all. Not physical renunciation, you understand; that’s easy. When your illusions drop, you’re in touch with reality at last, and believe me, you will never again be lonely, never again. Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality. Contact with reality, dropping one’sContinue reading “Dropping Illusions”
The Inner Voice
Kierkegaard: “In eternity, conscience is the only voice that is heard. It must be heard by the individual, for the individual has become the eternal echo of this voice. It must be heard. There is no place to flee from it.” The sixteenth-century Reformation in Christianity began in Luther’s discovery of the individual conscience andContinue reading “The Inner Voice”
The Truth of Symbols
Tillich: “Symbols cannot be produced intentionally. They grow and they die. Symbols do not grow because people are longing for them, and they do not die because of scientific or practical criticism. They die because they can no longer produce response in the group where they originally found expression.” Christmas Day provides an opportunity toContinue reading “The Truth of Symbols”
The Narrow Gate
Kierkegaard: “Only the Eternal is … always present, is always true. Only the Eternal applies to each human being, whatever his [or her] age may be. […] If there is, then, something eternal in [an individual], it must be able to exist and to be grasped within every change.” One of the critical mistranslations fromContinue reading “The Narrow Gate”
A Second Look
Watts: “From this deeper point of view, religion is not a system of predictions. Its doctrines have to do, not with the future and the everlasting, but with the present and the eternal. They are not a set of beliefs and hopes but, on the contrary, a set of graphic symbols about present experience.” IContinue reading “A Second Look”
Faith For Today
Heschel: “Faith in the sense of being involved in the mystery of God and [humanity] is not the same as acceptance of definitive formulations of articles of belief. Even [one] who merely strives for faith in the living God is on the threshold of faith. The test is honesty and stillness. “Our error is inContinue reading “Faith For Today”
Is the Game Over?
Watts: “Once there is the suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power is gone.” In reflecting on the first part of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, I have already considered the idea that religion is based in or at least largely conditioned by myth – the language, stories, beliefs and judgments we useContinue reading “Is the Game Over?”
Tracts of Revolution 