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[sobeit9]

Jacob needleman's book "Lost Christianity" is very thought provoking.  In real life, I've been involved with two library discussions on it.  I previously copied the preface to advertise these discussion.  I invite you to read the preface and tell me if anything intrigues you.  It is a quality of Christianity that allows me to nourish both my heart and mind.  I find his conception of intermediate Christianity extremely sensible.  Of course I highly recommend reading the book and it is easily available. To learn more about Jacob Needleman, click on his site   http://www.jacobneedleman.com/

Here is the preface:

"Do You wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself"
-ABBA EVAGRIUS, FOURTH CENTURY

"Never in recent memory has the world been at once so deeply drawn toward religion and so troubled about it. As it is now clear, all self assured predictions that the march of modern science would marginalize religion have proved false. As far as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are concerned, we are, on the contrary, in a period of religious expansion throughout the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. At the same time, it is clear that with the very survival of our civilization hanging in the balance, the question relentlessly insists itself: Is religion a force for good or ill in the life of humanity? Does the actual influence of religion, in fact sometimes intensify the very defilements of human nature - ignorance, fear, hatred, - from which doctrines and practices are intended to liberate us?


As once again we witness the horrific engines of war being fueled by religious zeal of one kind or another, and under one kind of name or another, the answer to this question is obviously to be: Yes, sometimes: Yes often! Have not the darkest crimes of world history - the insane barbarism of genocide, the bloody crusades, the murder of innocents, and the depredation of defenseless cultures - have not many, if not most, of these crimes been committed under the banner of religion or through a quasi-religious frenzy attaching itself to religious ideals? Put next to these endlessly recurrent horrors, the intimate comforts of personal religious faith and day-to-day individual efforts to live religiously may seem to count for little in the balance scales of human life on earth. Little wonder, then that so many of the best minds of the modern era entirely rejected religion as a foundation for both ethics and knowledge. Just as the scientific turn of the mind seemed to have entirely eclipsed religion's claim to knowledge, so - it has seemed to many - the same modern turn of mind must inevitably displace religion's claim to moral authority. Just as religion can no longer show us what is true but must yield that task to methods of thought that are independent of religious doctrine, so neither can religion, it was claimed, show us what is good, but must now surrender that task as well to the secular mind of modernity.

But in fact, no assumption of moral authority by secular humanism has taken hold or now seems in any way likely or justified. The modern era, the era of science, while witnessing the phenomenal acceleration of scientific discovery and its applications in technological innovation, has brought the world the inconceivable slaughter and chaos of modern war, along with the despair of ethical dilemmas arising from new technologies that all at once project humanity's essence-immortality onto the entire planet: global injustice, global heartlessness, and global disintegration of the normal patterns of life that have guided mankind for a millennia. Neither the secular philosophies of our epoch nor its theories of human nature - pragmatism, positivism, Marxism, Liberalism, humanism, behaviorism, biological determinism, psychoanalysis - nor the traditional doctrines of the religions, in the way we have understood them, seem able to confront or explain the crimes of humanity in our era, nor other wise and compassionate guidance through the labyrinth of paralyzing new ethical problems.

What is needed is either a new understanding of God or a new understanding of Man: an understanding of God that does not insult the scientific mind while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the heart; an understanding of Man that squarely faces the criminal weakness of our moral will while holding out to us the knowledge of how we can strive within ourselves to become the fully human being we were meant to be -- both for ourselves and as instruments of a higher purpose.

But this is not an either/or. The premise --or rather, the proposal -- of this book is that at the heart of the Christian religion there exists, and has always existed, just such a vision of God and Man. I call it "Lost Christianity," not because it is a matter of doctrines and concepts that may have been lost or forgotten; nor even a matter of methods of spiritual practice that may need to be recovered from ancient sources. It is all that, to be sure, but what is lost in the whole of our modern life, including our understanding of religion, is something even more fundamental, without which religious ideas and practices lose their meaning and all to easily become the instruments of ignorance, fear, and hatred. What is lost is the experience of oneself -- myself, the personal being who is here, now, living, breathing, yearning for meaning, for goodness; just this person here, now, squarely confronting ones existential weaknesses and pretensions while yet aware, however tentatively, of a higher current of a higher current of life and identity calling to us from within ourselves. This presence to oneself is the missing element in the whole of the life of Man, the intermediate state of consciousness between what we are meant to be and what we actually are. it is perhaps the one bridge that can lead us from our inhuman past toward the human future.

In the writings and utterances of the great teachers of Christianity over the centuries, one may begin to discern, like a photographic image gradually developing before ones eyes, the outlines of this vision of what is called in this book "intermediate Christianity." But modern man can no longer perceive that vision or hear that language tjhat has been associated with it. Words like "humility," "purity of heart," "contrition" are no longer understood to require the individual, existential struggle, for what the early Fathers called "attention in oneself." On the contrary, it is assumed that such qualities of character can be ours in the distracted and dispersed state of being that is more and more characteristic of life in the contemporary world. The result is self deception which masks, and perhaps even intensifies, our weaknesses and which inevitably leads to the disillusionment with religious ideals that has been one of the hallmarks of the modern secular worldview. Of course, the modernist attempt to establish ethical life without religion itself ignores the same lost element in human life that has been forgotten in the conventional understanding of religion. The result is often a sad ineffectuality under the name of rousing moral formulae - or, ironically, the decay of what began in opposition to perceived religious tyranny into its own brand of quasi-religious dogmatism and violence - as witnessed for example, in the fate of communist ideology.

Whether it is conventional religion or secular humanism, or any other modern program of morality or inner betterment, the question remains: Can there be any hope or our becoming what we are meant to be without first becoming fully and deeply aware of what we in fact are, now, here, in just this moment of our lives? Whether religious or not, is there any hope for man who has lost this capacity, or forgotten the need, to know himself and to be alive and present in himself?

The great ideas and ideals of Christianity continue to offer hope and comfort to the world, as do the ideals of Judaism and Islam -- and all the world's great religions. And as do the ideals of humanistic morality, with its passionate commitment to justice and to human rights. Yet we see, we see, we cannot help but see that now, as ever, something is missing, something has been forgotten about ourselves and in ourselves. Our children see it as clearly as we sometimes do; more clearly! The words of St.Paul never sounded more distinctly than they do now in the lengthening shadows of our civilization.

For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do......Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

-Romans 7"

[Acumen]

If I ever start to sound like Jacob Needleman, someone please shoot me.

Never say in eight paragraphs what can be said in one.

[sobeit9]

Hi Acumen

You've got me curious. How would you say it in one paragraph? I surely couldn't

[Acumen]

Is that a challenge?

[sobeit9]

Acumen, it isn't a challenge.  I just don't think it can be done in a meaningful fashion that captures the intent of the preface

[Acumen]

Well, I think you're wrong here.  I think the author tries to spicen up his language with too many adjectives which effectively muddles his message.

[Acumen]

El,

I agree with your assessment.   

The author believes that religion has become a bit of a problem in the modern age.  People are having difficulties looking to religion as a moral compass and a foundation of truth.  Therefore, it's time for a new approach, a new understanding of ourselves based upon experiencing the self.  Only if we unlock the identity within ourselves, can we experience the character of humility, contrition, and purity of heart.

I almost get the impression the author believes we must look to ourselves first, then to God, which seems a little backward.

-Acumen

[sobeit9]

El and Acumen

Let me back up for a moment and ask you if you accept the Gospel of Thomas and the following passage.  Emphasis mine

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

[Acumen]

Sobeit,

That sounds much more like Socrates than Jesus.

[sobeit9]

If it is a sacred truth, why should it not be known by both?  Paul referred to himself as the Wretched Man which is a result of the inner experiential effort to "Know Thyself"  Why shouldn't this conscious inner effort invite the help of the Holy Spirit which is what the GoT is suggesting as "become known."

What do you find offensive about it?

[Acumen]

I don't find anything offensive about it.

It just sounds more like Greek philosophy than God's word.

As born again Christians, God has called us out of darkness into a state of repentance.  He has convicted us, and therefore we have seen our true identity as a sinner.  It is only then, that we invite the Holy Spirit to regenerate our depraved state.  Our rebirth, powered by the Holy Ghost, enables us to experience the fruits of the spirit, noteably humility and purity of heart.

Instead of focusing inward, we should be focusing upward in prayer and faith.

-Acumen

[Acumen]

Gotta go.  Chat with you tomorrow.

[sobeit9]

Acumen

As born again Christians, God has called us out of darkness into a state of repentance.

.
Repentance is the translation of the Greek word "metanoia". The literal meaning of "metanoia" is "a change of mind". "Meta" means "change". "Noia" means "mind" So, therefore, "metanoia" means a "change of mind". Instead of seeking meaning from the external world or outside ourselves we see that meaning comes from inside, our inner life.

He has convicted us, and therefore we have seen our true identity as a sinner.

Grace has allowed the temporary awakening experience of seeing ourselves as we are.  We see that we are a plurality as Paul suggests.  Then we go back to psychological sleep.

It is only then, that we invite the Holy Spirit to regenerate our depraved state.

This is what is suggested in the GoT.  When we can see ourselves that part of us that can see can be seen and helped from above.

Our rebirth, powered by the Holy Ghost, enables us to experience the fruits of the spirit, noteably humility and purity of heart.

I believe this to be a popular but dangerous mistake.  Metanoia is not re-birth.  Metanoia is like conception in the woman.  It is a beginning of the possibility of re-birth.

Instead of focusing inward, we should be focusing upward in prayer and faith.

IMO this is a celebration of egotism. It is our ego that is praying and proclaiming its faith.  Real prayer is from the depths of ones heart and it is only revealed when the ego is bypassed through impartially looking inward with eyes to see and allowing the light of grace to reveal it.

We don't see how easily egotism suppresses the soul and adopts the message for its own self justification at the expense of the possible life of this  conception begun from metanoia.

Sobeit

[gracebyfaith]

El,

I agree with your assessment.   

The author believes that religion has become a bit of a problem in the modern age.  People are having difficulties looking to religion as a moral compass and a foundation of truth.  Therefore, it's time for a new approach, a new understanding of ourselves based upon experiencing the self.  Only if we unlock the identity within ourselves, can we experience the character of humility, contrition, and purity of heart.

I almost get the impression the author believes we must look to ourselves first, then to God, which seems a little backward.

-Acumen

I find it humorous that Acumen did indeed explain the long drawn out mumble jumble in just
one "short" paragraph.

What a bunch of nonsense.  Repentence unto salvation is only brought about when confronted
with the truth of the gospel, and not with the truth one "thinks" they find within themselves.
When everyman did what he thought was right in his own eyes, I think I remember the
Scripture saying things got pretty evil.

And NO I'm not reading the GoT.  I think this book is just one more distraction from the Gospel
and true repentence.  I'm sorry I'm getting a little irritated by the philosophies of men - it just
proves how far away from Jesus Christ your willingly deceived heart can take you.  I'd like
to see where this author is in another 5 years - possibly reincarnated somewhere???

[sobeit9]

Hello gbf

What a bunch of nonsense.  Repentence unto salvation is only brought about when confronted
with the truth of the gospel, and not with the truth one "thinks" they find within themselves.
When everyman did what he thought was right in his own eyes, I think I remember the
Scripture saying things got pretty evil.

I agree, we must be confronted by the truth of the gospel.  But the sad reality is that we cannot do it and the modern churches have lost the ability to help.  Prof Needleman writes:

In the writings and utterances of the great teachers of Christianity over the centuries, one may begin to discern, like a photographic image gradually developing before ones eyes, the outlines of this vision of what is called in this book "intermediate Christianity." But modern man can no longer perceive that vision or hear that language that has been associated with it. Words like "humility," "purity of heart," "contrition" are no longer understood to require the individual, existential struggle, for what the early Fathers called "attention in oneself." On the contrary, it is assumed that such qualities of character can be ours in the distracted and dispersed state of being that is more and more characteristic of life in the contemporary world. The result is self deception which masks, and perhaps even intensifies, our weaknesses and which inevitably leads to the disillusionment with religious ideals that has been one of the hallmarks of the modern secular worldview. Of course, the modernist attempt to establish ethical life without religion itself ignores the same lost element in human life that has been forgotten in the conventional understanding of religion. The result is often a sad ineffectuality under the name of rousing moral formulae - or, ironically, the decay of what began in opposition to perceived religious tyranny into its own brand of quasi-religious dogmatism and violence - as witnessed for example, in the fate of communist ideology.

He is not suggesting the New Age path of creating your own reality but the ancient Christian path of how to become open, "vulnerable" to getting out of your own way to be able to receive the spirit into the heart.

We use words like "humility" "contrition" and "purity of the heart" and if we do experience them, cannot retain them.  He suggests that we lack the ancient Christian necessity for "attention in oneself"  I know I do so I work towards it. 

Intermediate Christianity is his way of describing how the young should learn the skills that would allow them to receive the spirit and become capable of "humility" "purity of heart" and contrition."  The young want and need it but the adults have all too often  wrapped themselves in their image so much that they cannot give the young what they need so they leave the church.

It is one thing to speak of the value of the gospels and quite another to allow them to become the living water which is their purpose.  How many truly understand what Meister Eckhart means in the following?  What does it mean to be concerned with what we are?  Yet this is precisely the question being addressed.

"People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works."  Meister Eckhart

The unique purpose of Christianity is to allow for the change of what we ARE.  Yet all I see is concern for what we DO. Is it any wonder than why there is so much hypocrisy? Prof. Needleman knows this and is describing what the church fathers also knew which is the question of how to become open to the teaching rather then have it become a product of our egotism.

sobeit

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