Still Running Off at the Keyboard

A COUPLE MORE COMMENTS ON CONTEMPLATIVE OUTREACH OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

before moving on to something else.

Remember that odd Episcopal church, linked on the CO website, St. Gregory Nyssen, that I posted links to the other day? Father Thomas Keating spoke there on February 17, 2001 according to their introductory page.

Returning to the CO links page, scroll down to the "Christian Meditation" section where you can find a picture of Fr. Laurence Freeman and a reference to he and Fr. John Main's World Community for Christian Meditation. There is a link there for "church of the future." The link is broken, but the subject intrigues, thus I went to Google with his name and the title. This article from The Tablet came up. There you can read Fr. Laurence Freeman's description of interreligious dialogue that admittedly makes it appealing until I remember Gershom Scholem's admonition that the visionary experience must be closely linked to doctrine or it becomes "mystical nihilism." Freeman writes:

...the Western Buddhists I have met generally seem to me people for whom Buddhism is a first genuine religious experience. Why this should be so in a Christian culture is a question for the Churches to answer. The large numbers of young people who frequent Buddhist meditation centres are attracted to Buddhist thought, or even to the Dalai Lama’s personal goodness. They are not apostates – they are seekers. When they find...a Christianity open to dialogue which offers them a spirituality of depth and a revelation of joy, they often embrace it with relief. The Dalai Lama told me that of the many letters he still receives because of The Good Heart, [his book] the ones that please him most are those from Christians telling him how it has helped them to embrace their traditional faith afresh. (emphasis mine)

Did you notice that subtle change in definition? "Apostates" are now "Seekers." It is being embraced by those under 30. Those are the very young people who have grown up in the post-Vatican II Church that has admittedly done a poor job of catechesis. Was that poor job intentional?

Freeman writes further:

One thing is certain. Without exploring new ways and taking the risk of sharing ourselves with others, particularly with Buddhists in the West, Christianity will miss its cue as the new millennium dawns. Either we become a global cult, or we go on to become a truly global religion. Yet we do not face the troubling future with quite the same anxieties or methods as the Euro-politicians or the global capitalists. As they are nervously realising, the world is too complex for a single solution. But those who live in the spirit know that the solution is simplicity. Unfortunately, it is much tougher than complexity. The recovery of the contemplative dimension of our religion and spirituality, theologically but especially prayerfully, is the most inspiring and hopeful movement in the Church. The way we pray is the way we live and believe. Lex orandi est lex credendi. (emphasis mine)

Freeman has just recommended that we become a global religion. But what religion? A combination of Buddhism and Catholicism would seem to be the answer from this Tablet article. But will he stop there? Perhaps not.

Immediately below the picture of Laurence Freeman on the Contemplative Outreach of Northern California links webpage is an entry "Contemplative Mind Society". There you can see that "Teacher formation" is given

Under the guidance of Parker J. Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach, the Fetzer Institute created the Courage to Teach program, piloting an approach to professional development called "teacher formation." This approach is rooted in the the (sic) inner life of the teacher is cruicial and valuable. Courage to Teach is devoted to deepening that personal wellspring from which we must drink in order to satisfy ourselves and to truly reach our students.

Nice sounding words until you discover that Parker J. Palmer is a Quaker. Palmer "served for a decade as dean of the Quaker Pendle Hill community outside of Philadelphia" according to this Willamette University website. The Pendle Hill Pamphlets website lists his publications. QuakerBooks.Org lists COURAGE TO TEACH at the top of the list on this website.

Even more interesting is an entry in the Rudolf Steiner Institute July 3-23, 2005 Catalog titled "The Courage to Teach: Finding Authenticity and Integrity in the Waldorf Classroom" a course being taught by Jack Petrash. The text being used in Palmer's A HIDDEN WHOLENESS: THE JOURNEY TOWARD AN UNDIVIDED LIFE. Mentioned in the course description is the COURAGE TO TEACH program developed by Parker Palmer.

The Fetzer Institute that helped Palmer create the Courage to Teach program is a major financial supporter of Anthroposophy. No wonder the Rudolf Steiner Institute uses the book. On the Anthroposophy in Australia website you can read about "Buddhism and Anthroposophy Presented by Prof. Arthur Zajonc, former program director of the Fetzer Institute and former General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Why are these monks linking an Anthroposophical/Quaker program? The Catholic Encyclopedia makes it clear that Theosophy, the spirituality from which Anthroposophy is an outgrowth, is contrary to Catholicism.

From the Encyclopedia entry on Theosophy:

In of a Christian ethical phraseology, theosophy in reality is a form of pantheism, and denies a personal God and personal immortality. Its appeal to the spiritual in man, and its striving after union with the Divine are based upon a contradictory metaphysic, an imaginary psychology, a system of ethics which recognizes no free-will, but only the absolute necessity of Karma. No evidence or proof is given for its teaching except the simple statements of its leaders. The denial of a personal God nullifies its claim to be a spiritualistic philosophy. Judging it as presented by its own exponents, it appears to be a strange mixture of mysticism, charlatanism, and thaumaturgic pretension combined with an eager effort to express its teaching in words which reflect the atmosphere of Christian ethics and modern scientific truths.

Anthroposophy is a variety of Rosicrucianism, or Wisdom Christianity. The monks have a category for "Wisdom Christianity" on their links page:

Fr. Bruno Barnhart, OSB Cam, who has presented for us in San Francisco, has a web site dedicatd to the wisdom tradition within Christianity, in particular, a non-dual tradition. He feels that this tradition has been revived among Christians today due to the impact of Eastern traditions which emphasize non-duality and remind Christians of their own tradition of non-duality existing along side the dominant tradition emphasizing relationship with God.

"Non-dualality"? That would be monism--everything is of one substance, including God? The only Christian tradition of non-duality is the tradition of the Gnostics. He is talking about Gnostic Christianity, not Roman Catholicism. In the linked "Christian Wisdom: A Special Kind of Knowing" article Barnhart talks about the "affirmative energy or breath within it" and tells us that "One knows through union with that which is known. And the culmination of this knowing is a 'mystical' or contemplative union with God." I would like to know how he explains that God is always and ever "other" to a Catholic and contemplation is a relationship with God, not a joining into non-duality.

Are we all supposed to become esoteric Gnostic Christians in order to become part of the global religion?

The Tidings reports on the first international religious conference of Buddhist and Christian leaders held at Loyola Marymount University June 3-8. Notice that Rosemary Radford Reuther is doing some of the talking:

Interreligious dialogue nurtured by Pope John Paul II must continue to evolve under Pope Benedict XVI's papacy or global ethnic and religious conflicts will escalate, said Buddhist and Christian leaders attending an international religious conference at Loyola Marymount University June 3-8.

As one of the first major interreligious meetings since the start of Pope Benedict's pontificate, the seventh International Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies drew 130 participants from eastern and western faith traditions discussing ways to increase mutual understanding and appreciation.

Conference participants in a June 5 panel offering perspectives on religious dialogue and Pope Benedict expressed both reservations and cautious optimism about the future of interreligious relations. Panelist Rosemary Radford Ruether, a professor at the Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, said interreligious dialogue boosted at Vatican II by the "Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions" has born enormous fruit.

However, according to Ruether, Pope John Paul II's "Dominus Jesus," a declaration published in August 2000 while the new pope served as head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), conveyed less than a friendly tone toward religions not affirming the salvific universality of Jesus Christ and put a "chill" on interreligious dialogue. "How [Pope Benedict] is going to implement that in his present papacy is still quite unknown," Ruether observed. "That [declaration] may not reflect what he's going to do as pope.

How he will implement Dominus Iesus is indeed the central question at the start of this current papacy. Who will you champion, Benedict XVI? Christ or world spirituality as global religion?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!