Image via Wikipedia
Over and over I hear opinion leaders say that traditional religion is constricting, and I will admit that some forms of traditional religion are. Radical Islam, radical Fundamentalist Christianity, and other fringe movements have given traditional religion a bad name. But I found since entering the Anglican Catholic Church in 1989 that orthodox Christianity is freeing, not binding.
All my life I have been a thinker, a philosopher, someone who wonders at the hows and whys of the world. Growing up in Fundamentalist Christianity was not healthy for that kind of thought. But neither was my short stay in liberal Protestantism. For liberal Protestantism, there is no place to set one’s feet. Sands shift, opinions blow in the wind, and the only heresy is orthodoxy. Speculation without some foundation from which to speculate turns into anarchy, which is every bit as imprisoning as Fundamentalism. Contemporary liberal Protestantism reduces Christianity to a distortion of social justice, with the mantra of “race, class, gender” the only words that its brainwashed adherents can speak. To say that there is anything about Christianity that is important other than the political will get you excommunicated from liberal Christianity. I felt like a puppet on a string–I had more intellectual freedom in Fundamentalism.
When I discovered orthodox Anglicanism, I discovered the richness and breadth of the Catholic tradition. Within the boundaries of the great Creeds–the Apostle’s, the Nicene, and the Athanasian–and under the teaching of the bishops on moral and theological matters I could speculate to my heart’s content as long as such speculation did not become an idol. Within Christian orthodoxy, I can accept any metaphysics compatible with the basic teachings of Christianity. I am a Thomist along the lines of the late Fr. Norris Clarke of Fordham University, but I could hold many other metaphysical frameworks and still remain an orthodox Christian. There is even room for psychical research and parapsychology–even the most traditional Anglicans have been generally open-minded about psychical research in England, and European Roman Catholics, including Pope Pius XII, had no problem with research on electronic voice phenomena. If someone at the Rhine Center or SPR asked me how I could be such a traditional Christian and still accept psi and be open to the existence of ghosts, I would ask that person, “Why not?” Orthodox Christianity has boundaries, of course, but knowing those boundaries makes me comfortable in exploring what I can within those boundaries. The world remains full of wonder, and like a child I can explore it to my heart’s content as long as I remain within the limits God has set. I am grateful for that.
Gratiaetnatura's Blog 
Jan 26, 2012 @ 03:39:20
For myself if I were to chose a Western religion it might well be Islam. Perhaps I know too much about Christianity. In my growing up years I don’t recall any particularly harsh experience with religion. When I was young I enjoyed being a Catholic despite a rather legalistic priest of the Franciscan Order. I liked the ritual. Later in college I guess I went through a period of agnosticism. But I spent a year in Europe and went to most of the great cathedrals including the St Peter’s at the Vatican. In those days there were not so many tourists and one could simply walk in and find it relatively vacant. And I of course appreciate the great art and literature that has come from the Christian culture. But it was only when I became interested in Yoga that I found something that really suited me. And later in Buddhism. It was a feeling that I never had with Christianity. Who know why these things are as they are. So I would say that in Eastern religions or spiritual paths I find the freedom that you find in Anglican Catholicism.
Still if I had a friend who wanted me to attend the Catholic Church or some other church with him or her, I would be glad to go along. And I would get something out of it I am sure. I very much like Schopenhauer’s statement of morality: Harm no one; and help others as much as you can.” Both justice and loving kindness.
Feb 11, 2012 @ 22:17:03
We read to our four children the classics: the Iliad and the Odyssey which they loved; the Aeneid which they also liked but not quite as much as the Greek classics. We read Dostoevsky to them which they liked a great deal. And the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, E.Nebit, Lewis’ space trilogy and lots of other similar things. We also taught them some Yoga and Buddhism. We fed them very well . . . We were at home for them. My oldest son once said we were too nice to him. And so on.
Nonetheless, I do not think my children would find the Anglican Catholic Church a place for them. Perhaps the indoctrination of school. Or the temper of these times. I am not sure. It might not be either. But they would not feel at home.
I am sure this not at homeness would be shared by many of their friends. It would be hard to characterize this time but something like postmodernism. It is a very deceptive time in human history as the Elite would like to talk the masses back into a feudal attitude. A new feudalism cradled in science and technology. Philosophers like John Searle, who are back when the sun never set on the British Empire, are perfect. The fact that he is smart but without the talent for philosophy is perfect.
A good presentation of the present time can be found in the novels of Michael O’Brien. I imagine you have come across these. He writes well; and I see his point. It looks like it may take centuries if we have centuries before some tranquility comes back to earth.
I believe there was a flaw in the early church which finally has worked out as this modern/postmodern society. First a barrier was placed between humans and everything else on earth; and secondly a barrier was placed between the Christian and the heathen. The first barrier eventually led to materialism and the second to our current mess of the Absolute Enemy, presently Islam. In the meantime narrow mindedness thrived as did fears of heresy. Etc. All this could have been avoided by wiser men and women being in charge. Oh, well. . . the way of the world.
Oct 12, 2012 @ 03:01:10
“Feudalism, the Inquisition and scholastic theology are clearly the work of the Franks who took over the Church and her property and used the religion of the Romans to keep the conquered Romans in a servile state.
In contrast to this the Romans conquered by Arab and Turkish Moslems had their own Roman bishops.
Thus in the one case the institutional aspects of Christianity became a tool of suppression, in the other the means of national survival.” — R O M A N I S M
AND COSTES PALAMAS — http://www.romanity.org/htm/ro3enfm.htmJohn S. Romanides
Fr. John Romanides (1927 to 2001) was both an Orthodox priest and a professor and scholar. Looking again into the Eastern Orthodox presentation of Christianity it does seem like it is considerably more authentic. For one thing he points out the errors of Augustine: original sin; predestination; and his Neo-Platonism ( which I believe was quite faulty and incomplete). He goes on to write in various books and articles about the take over of the Western Church by the Franks who only knew Augustine and who replaced the Roman bishops and popes–often by the expedient of death! Much of his writing is available on-line. Could this be at the heart of the loss of interest in Christianity in Western Europe and America? And in “Western” Civilization? I suspect it may be as Romanides gives an excellent critique of what came from Carolingian Franks and their idea of Christianity. And we have to also ask here about Apostolic Succession. Given the methods used by Charlemagne and his successors in Church matters and replacement of bishops and popes–beginning at the end of the 9th century–do the Western bishops really have it?