I was starting this book after being recommended it by a friend. What I found very fascinating is that even though the book is an older one the author talks about the state of the overall Church of today:
Today, when thirty thousand people in China are becoming Christians every day – a number unprecedented in the history of the world – a growing number of people in the West are turning away from their Christian roots and becoming interested in ancient Chinese religion. Why is such a reversal taking place? Clearly, it is because many Chinese are now finding a true experience of Christ in the face of religious persecution by the communist government, while churches in the affluent, free West are losing an awareness of the essence of Christ and His teaching. In modern Western society, many people turn away from the Christianity of their formative years because they find its truths smothered under an unreal kind of religiosity. They see that the people in the churches are not changing and becoming better, but rather are comforting themselves and each other in their unregenerate state.
They find that the spirit of the Western churches is, at its core, little different from that of the world around them. Having removed from Christianity the Cross of inward purification, these churches have replaced a direct, intuitive apprehension of Reality and a true experience of God with intellectualism on the one hand and emotionalism on the other. In the first case, Christianity becomes something that is acquired through rote learning, based on the idea that if you just get the words right – if you just memorize the key Scripture verses, intellectually grasp the concepts and repeat them, know how to act and to speak in the religious dialect of your particular sect – you will be saved. Christianity then becomes a dry word-based religion, a legalistic system, a set of ideas and behaviors, and a political institution that operates on the same principles as the institutions of this world.
In the second case, the Western churches add the element of emotionalism and enthusiasm in order to add life to their systems, but this becomes just as grossly material as religious legalism. People become hypnotized by their self-induced emotional states, seeing a mirage of spiritual ascent while remaining bound to the material world. This is not direct perception of Reality; it is not the Ultimate. It is no wonder, then, that Western spiritual seekers, even if they have been raised in Christian homes, begin to look elsewhere, into Eastern religions. It is also not surprising that so many are turning to the profound and enigmatic work of pre-Christian China, the Tao Teh Ching. In reading Lao Tzu, they sense a spirit similar to that of Jesus Christ. They see a poetic glimpse of Christ in Lao Tzu – a reflection that is faint, but somehow still pure. And to them, this faint but pure image is better than the more vivid but tarnished image of Him that they encounter in much of what now passes for Christianity. In the traditions of ancient China, the Western spiritual seeker can learn the basics of spiritual life which the churches failed to teach him: how to be free of compulsive thinking and acquire stillness of thoughts, how to cut off desires and addictions, and how to conquer negative emotions. Some are satisfied to stay on this path. In others of us, however, a strange thing occurs. In one sense, we are making more spiritual progress than ever before, but at the same time we are inexplicably unfulfilled. In our newfound apprehension that there is something more than the realm of the ego and the passions, we become aware that there must be something even more – more than even the authentic Chinese tradition supplies. And we find that although we have left behind the Western Christian confessions, we cannot leave Christ behind. Why is this? Some would say that, as Westerners, we have Christianity in our genes, as it were. But we would say more: that, even though we were exposed to an attenuated form of Christianity, still we were exposed to «the Christ Ideal» – as the great transmitter of Native American religion, Ohiyesa, called it. The very seed of the idea of Jesus Christ – God Who became flesh
This is from the introduction and I was surprised that the author speaks of this time in the overall Church. I remember being on the bus once and these two ladies were talking about churches to go to. They weren't talking about getting a good homily, the Eucharist, or anything like that. What they wanted was a Church that entertained them and they decided on the Dwelling place Church that had golf, movies, concerts, and the whole nine yards.
We are in the west lost in our own paganism of emotionalism that we mistake for real authentic Christianity. Dark days are coming for true Christians
Today, when thirty thousand people in China are becoming Christians every day – a number unprecedented in the history of the world – a growing number of people in the West are turning away from their Christian roots and becoming interested in ancient Chinese religion. Why is such a reversal taking place? Clearly, it is because many Chinese are now finding a true experience of Christ in the face of religious persecution by the communist government, while churches in the affluent, free West are losing an awareness of the essence of Christ and His teaching. In modern Western society, many people turn away from the Christianity of their formative years because they find its truths smothered under an unreal kind of religiosity. They see that the people in the churches are not changing and becoming better, but rather are comforting themselves and each other in their unregenerate state.
They find that the spirit of the Western churches is, at its core, little different from that of the world around them. Having removed from Christianity the Cross of inward purification, these churches have replaced a direct, intuitive apprehension of Reality and a true experience of God with intellectualism on the one hand and emotionalism on the other. In the first case, Christianity becomes something that is acquired through rote learning, based on the idea that if you just get the words right – if you just memorize the key Scripture verses, intellectually grasp the concepts and repeat them, know how to act and to speak in the religious dialect of your particular sect – you will be saved. Christianity then becomes a dry word-based religion, a legalistic system, a set of ideas and behaviors, and a political institution that operates on the same principles as the institutions of this world.
In the second case, the Western churches add the element of emotionalism and enthusiasm in order to add life to their systems, but this becomes just as grossly material as religious legalism. People become hypnotized by their self-induced emotional states, seeing a mirage of spiritual ascent while remaining bound to the material world. This is not direct perception of Reality; it is not the Ultimate. It is no wonder, then, that Western spiritual seekers, even if they have been raised in Christian homes, begin to look elsewhere, into Eastern religions. It is also not surprising that so many are turning to the profound and enigmatic work of pre-Christian China, the Tao Teh Ching. In reading Lao Tzu, they sense a spirit similar to that of Jesus Christ. They see a poetic glimpse of Christ in Lao Tzu – a reflection that is faint, but somehow still pure. And to them, this faint but pure image is better than the more vivid but tarnished image of Him that they encounter in much of what now passes for Christianity. In the traditions of ancient China, the Western spiritual seeker can learn the basics of spiritual life which the churches failed to teach him: how to be free of compulsive thinking and acquire stillness of thoughts, how to cut off desires and addictions, and how to conquer negative emotions. Some are satisfied to stay on this path. In others of us, however, a strange thing occurs. In one sense, we are making more spiritual progress than ever before, but at the same time we are inexplicably unfulfilled. In our newfound apprehension that there is something more than the realm of the ego and the passions, we become aware that there must be something even more – more than even the authentic Chinese tradition supplies. And we find that although we have left behind the Western Christian confessions, we cannot leave Christ behind. Why is this? Some would say that, as Westerners, we have Christianity in our genes, as it were. But we would say more: that, even though we were exposed to an attenuated form of Christianity, still we were exposed to «the Christ Ideal» – as the great transmitter of Native American religion, Ohiyesa, called it. The very seed of the idea of Jesus Christ – God Who became flesh
This is from the introduction and I was surprised that the author speaks of this time in the overall Church. I remember being on the bus once and these two ladies were talking about churches to go to. They weren't talking about getting a good homily, the Eucharist, or anything like that. What they wanted was a Church that entertained them and they decided on the Dwelling place Church that had golf, movies, concerts, and the whole nine yards.
We are in the west lost in our own paganism of emotionalism that we mistake for real authentic Christianity. Dark days are coming for true Christians
