The New Age - Part 5

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded part 4 with:

 

(p.286) " This leads to the third aspect. We have considered first the physical,

material growth of the world and secondly its psychological and social growth.

Now we turn to the spiritual order and the place of religion. This involves a

return to the perennial philosophy, the ancient wisdom which underlies all

religion from the earliest times. It will involve a respect for the traditional

wisdom of primitive people, the Australian Aborigines, the American Indians and

the tribal peoples of Asia and Africa. More and more today we are discovering

the wisdom of these people, the harmony they have achieved in their lives and

the very profound understanding they have of how human life is related to the

natural world about them and to the world of spirits beyond them. Generally such

people evidence an integrated, holistic view of life. "

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith)

Chapter 13, p.286.

 

Here now is part 5.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

The New Age - Part 5

 

(p.286) Then we turn to the great religious traditions, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain,

Sikh, Taoist, Confucian, Shinto, Zoroastrian, Judaic, Muslim and Christian.

These are systems of religion which had their origin during the first millennium

before Christ. All are based on the perennial philosophy, developed under

different situations and in different circumstances, and all embody in their

different ways the ancient wisdom and the wholeness of life. These different

traditions will all be seen as interrelated and interdependent, each giving a

particular and unique insight into ultimate truth and reality. In fact, of

course, they all grew up apart and mostly without contact with each other for

many centuries. (p.287) When they did make contact there was often rivalry,

acrimony and conflict, and as a result we have the disastrous divisions of

religion today. But we are learning, and we shall continue to learn, that all

the different religious traditions, from the most primitive to the most

advanced, are interrelated and interdependent, and that each has its own

particular insights. For the Semitic religions in particular, Judaism,

Christianity and Islam, it is important that they give up the exclusive claims

which characterise them. This would free them to recognise the action of God in

all humanity from the beginnings of history. For the Semitic religions this is a

particularly difficult problem. All three tend to extreme exclusivism and on

that account have brought so much conflict into the world.

 

For Christianity this enlargement of its horizons would involve a recognition of

the limited character of its original revelation, coming as it did from within a

Semitic culture in the limited world and thought-forms of the Ancient Near East.

Emerging from that world it spread through the Roman Empire from Palestine

through Greece to Rome. For centuries the whole sphere of Christianity was

simply the Roman Empire centred around the Mediterranean and completely without

contact with the greater part of Asia, Africa, America and Australia. Yet we

have seen that Christianity is a unique revelation of God in Jesus Christ and

that, although it was conditioned by the circumstances of its origin, this

revelation has a unique message for the whole world. The Christian church began

as a Jewish sect and only gradually realised its vocation as a universal

religion. It developed its structures from the second century onwards entirely

in the context of Graeco-Roman culture, with an extension which must not be

overlooked in the Syrian East, in Egypt and Ethiopia. The doctrine of the church

remains essentially based on a Semitic foundation developed by the Greek genius

in terms of Greek philosophy, while the organisation of the church remains a

Roman structure built on the foundation of the original Jewish community.

 

(p.288) In the course of the centuries these structures within Christianity have

expanded and a whole system of theology, philosophy and morality, a sacramental

order and an ecclesiastical hierarchy, have developed. Though it derives from

Jesus and the apostles in the first century, the Christian church as such

received its definitive structure in the second century, its evolution in the

Roman Empire being determined by the circumstances of the time. All these

structures which we have inherited are Western structures built on the

foundation of the original Semitic revelation. These structures of doctrine,

discipline and sacrament are thus historically conditioned. They are integral

elements in a historical development which has taken place gradually over many

centuries. In the course of its history - and this is the great tragedy - the

Asian and African churches were separated from the main body. In Asia, where St

Paul conducted his missions, the churches which were centred on Antioch were

separated in the fifth century, while the churches of Africa, based on Egypt and

Alexandria, were also separated. The result was that by the fifth century Asia

and Africa were lost to the church. Then in the eleventh century Eastern Europe,

centred on Byzantium, separated from Rome which was the centre of the Western

church. Finally, at the Reformation the churches of Northern Europe were

separated from Rome. It is this tragically divided church that we have

inherited. The separations which have accumulated over the centuries are all

still present today. It will be one of the tasks of the new age to see the

reconciliation of these divided churches as each recognises the other as a

particular expression of Christian faith and worship, and as each seeks to

reconcile the differences. There are valid elements in every Christian church.

Each is a way of expressing Christian faith and worship. (p.289) There are

obvious limitations and obvious differences in each but today we seek to discern

the differences and overcome the divisions, in contrast to previous times when

we were engaged in dividing from one another and in asserting our own values at

the expense of those of others.

 

Reconciliation within the Christian church will involve recognition of different

ministries. The present ministries of the different churches all derive from the

second century or later. In the New Testament there is neither papacy,

episcopacy nor priesthood. The only priesthood, properly speaking, in the New

Testament is that of Christ himself and of the people, which St Peter describes

as a " holy priesthood " . It would be necessary to reconsider the different

ministries in this light.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith) Chapter 13, p.286-289

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0