I'm glad you read it. I was greatly struck by it this morning. And he's a very interesting contemporary theologian.
To take the example of monasticism the communal lifestyle, the pattern of the daily offices and the living out of the values of hospitality and reconciliation all gradually form a person into someone with an unselfish, compassionate and spiritually aware outlook on life.
The author of A Nun's Tale wrote that when she left her convent during WW2 and became a nurse these attitudes had become so embedded in her that her colleagues regarded her as a delightful revolutionary who practiced a quite new and unheard of way of life.
I'm glad you read it. I was greatly struck by it this morning. And he's a very interesting contemporary theologian.
To take the example of monasticism the communal lifestyle, the pattern of the daily offices and the living out of the values of hospitality and reconciliation all gradually form a person into someone with an unselfish, compassionate and spiritually aware outlook on life.
The author of A Nun's Tale wrote that when she left her convent during WW2 and became a nurse these attitudes had become so embedded in her that her colleagues regarded her as a delightful revolutionary who practiced a quite new and unheard of way of life.
The same could be said of any communal way of living, such as at Findhorn, and is not dependent on a God-centred way of living.
What I took from the article is that the author thinks everything since the 12th century has gone downhill. In particular, the line [St Francis preceded] a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war appears to conflate rationalism with consumerism and ignores the centuries of perpetual war that preceded St Francis. I can't help feeling that someone with such a skewed view of history (one could say a self-serving view of history) hasn't much of use to say about anything.
I'm glad you read it. I was greatly struck by it this morning. And he's a very interesting contemporary theologian.
To take the example of monasticism the communal lifestyle, the pattern of the daily offices and the living out of the values of hospitality and reconciliation all gradually form a person into someone with an unselfish, compassionate and spiritually aware outlook on life.
The author of A Nun's Tale wrote that when she left her convent during WW2 and became a nurse these attitudes had become so embedded in her that her colleagues regarded her as a delightful revolutionary who practiced a quite new and unheard of way of life.
The same could be said of any communal way of living, such as at Findhorn, and is not dependent on a God-centred way of living.
What I took from the article is that the author thinks everything since the 12th century has gone downhill. In particular, the line [St Francis preceded] a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war appears to conflate rationalism with consumerism and ignores the centuries of perpetual war that preceded St Francis. I can't help feeling that someone with such a skewed view of history (one could say a self-serving view of history) hasn't much of use to say about anything.
That’s a rather monstrously unjust dismissal of Rohr’s thought. You read one minor passage and dislike one sentence and decide he hasn’t much use to say about anything? Wow.
Corrected italics code in quoted post. BroJames Purgatory Host
Alternatives to consumerism are a very topical subject. The monastic life is very eco-friendly.
I think he makes a good point that it is the living it out that transforms your way of thinking rather than the other way around. Not everyone is called to be a monastic, but their values are significant for building stable and healthy communities. Which is another very topical subject.
For lay Christians the practice of daily prayer or the daily office, community worship and spiritual direction gradually develop an outlook which is formed by theological reflection.
That’s a rather monstrously unjust dismissal of Rohr’s thought. You read one minor passage and dislike one sentence and decide he hasn’t much use to say about anything? Wow.
The passage is such a huge misreading of history that yes, it does undermine anything else Rohr might write. Though having looked him up on wikipedia I applaud his attitude to the LGBT&Q community.
Alternatives to consumerism are a very topical subject. The monastic life is very eco-friendly.
I think he makes a good point that it is the living it out that transforms your way of thinking rather than the other way around. Not everyone is called to be a monastic, but their values are significant for building stable and healthy communities. Which is another very topical subject.
For lay Christians the practice of daily prayer or the daily office, community worship and spiritual direction gradually develop an outlook which is formed by theological reflection.
I would say the communal life is very eco-friendly and communal values are often healthy values. Unless my ideas are out of date, monastic communities are not self-sustaining in the long term because they require a supply of new recruits. Communal communities can be self-sustaining because children are born within the community.
But I agree that how and where you live can transform how you think and in part that's why I moved to Glastonbury.
Rohr has written a lot of interesting books on contemporary Christian spirituality. I particularly like his Falling Upward.
I think that he is right to say that living it out is the key to spiritual transformation. And the most convincing witness of the reality of faith. There are two lovely Christian ladies in my church who go around unobtrusively making cups of tea for everyone and warmly greeting all the visitors. They are like the angels of the church.
Perhaps it would interest you to go on a day trip to visit a monastery. My favourite is Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire but it's a long way for you to go. But there is Buckfast Abbey which many tourists go to visit. And it makes nice beer and cider too.
That’s a rather monstrously unjust dismissal of Rohr’s thought. You read one minor passage and dislike one sentence and decide he hasn’t much use to say about anything? Wow.
The passage is such a huge misreading of history that yes, it does undermine anything else Rohr might write. Though having looked him up on wikipedia I applaud his attitude to the LGBT&Q community.
You extracted from that passage material which isn’t there. Try reading one of his books instead of his Wikipedia article.
Rohr has written a lot of interesting books on contemporary Christian spirituality. I particularly like his Falling Upward.
I think that he is right to say that living it out is the key to spiritual transformation. And the most convincing witness of the reality of faith. There are two lovely Christian ladies in my church who go around unobtrusively making cups of tea for everyone and warmly greeting all the visitors. They are like the angels of the church.
Perhaps it would interest you to go on a day trip to visit a monastery. My favourite is Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire but it's a long way for you to go. But there is Buckfast Abbey which many tourists go to visit. And it makes nice beer and cider too.
Of course their faith is real. It's the thing they have faith in that's imaginary! And I have no desire for spiritual transformation.
What I find odd is that you are inviting me to go to abbeys but did not engage at all with my experience meditating on the Akashic Records. At present I have all the spirituality I desire.
That’s a rather monstrously unjust dismissal of Rohr’s thought. You read one minor passage and dislike one sentence and decide he hasn’t much use to say about anything? Wow.
The passage is such a huge misreading of history that yes, it does undermine anything else Rohr might write. Though having looked him up on wikipedia I applaud his attitude to the LGBT&Q community.
You extracted from that passage material which isn’t there. Try reading one of his books instead of his Wikipedia article.
I disagree. God gave St. Francis to history in a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war. Francis was himself a soldier, and his father was a tradesman in cloth. Francis came from the very world he was then able to critique, but he offered a positive critique of these very systems at the beginning of their now eight centuries of world dominance. is complete and utter nonsense. It actually reminded me of the kind of nonsense right-wingers spout.
To have real faith in the imaginary is neither logical nor authentic. Spiritual people come to mirror the Spirit which they embody. And if you visit a monastery then you can experience the spiritual atmosphere at first hand. It's not something that can be expressed in words.
I had never heard of the Akashic Records but I have looked online and see that they are a library of vibrational energy. The compendium of all human thoughts sounds like the Logos of John 1.
Whom do you think is receiving your meditations on the etheric plane?
Of course their faith is real. It's the thing they have faith in that's imaginary!
Would you mind getting into the habit of saying 'in my view' or 'for me' a little more often when you make statements like that? For me, God is not at all imaginary - and it's not hard to add those couple of words so as to keep open a space for discussion amongst people of very different views, which (for me) is one of the big strengths of these boards.
I don't see any theists here denying that non-theists can have a sense of mystery, the numinous or spirituality in the broad sense of the term. Perhaps I'm missing something.
What I do see are non-theists saying, 'How dare you theists try to monopolise spirituality. Why, the audacity of it, there are even spiritual directors around who recommend spiritual practices associated with their own particular faith tradition! What utter, utter bastards!'
I disagree. God gave St. Francis to history in a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war. Francis was himself a soldier, and his father was a tradesman in cloth. Francis came from the very world he was then able to critique, but he offered a positive critique of these very systems at the beginning of their now eight centuries of world dominance. is complete and utter nonsense. It actually reminded me of the kind of nonsense right-wingers spout.
Eh? The idea that Francis stood at the cusp of Western Europe's transition into a more mercantile, utilitarian, and anthropocentric society that recognisably gave rise to our own is absolutely bog-standard. Historians have long debated (and will presumably continue to debate) the exact relationship between humanism (in the Renaissance sense), the growth of the merchant classes, and new conceptions of reason and reasoning. They've also debated quite a bit about the exact role of the mendicant orders in all of this, and whether they were more a symptom or a cause. But to assert that they all arose and co-evolved together is so commonplace it's banal.
With warfare I'm not so clear. Certainly it was getting better-organised, professionalised, and bigger in Francis' time; we're moving out of the age of courtly nobles smashing each other and into the era of the mercenary and citizen army. Here, though, I'm on less certain ground - I don't know what the standard account is here, or even if there is one.
Anyway, Rohr's writing is dramatically telescoped here: he's shrinking eight centuries down to a sentence and focalising it exclusively through St. Francis, so obviously a lot drops out of the mix. But it's not nonsense. Let alone 'complete and utter' nonsense.
That said, Charles Taylor sees Francis's emphasis on the goodness of the Lord's Creation as a powerful motivator toward study of the natural world in the High Middle Ages, and thus one of the first steps down the road to what he calls modernity's 'exclusive humanism'. So perhaps the atheists are St. Francis's inheritors as well.
Thanks for taking the time to type all of that out, Timo Pax. I figured the contention that you could dismiss a phenomenally erudite thinker based on poor reading of a devotional text tossed off in a few sentences sufficiently bonkers and arrogant to not warrant a response, but you said it all well.
Whoa, I said that? Colin Smith said that. Try to get your attributions right. I never got anywhere near that quote, nor posted since it was introduced. I can't imagine how you plugged me into that. I'm not happy about it.
I have now corrected the quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
Ooops, sorry @mousethief, mis-edited the quote markup in my frenzy of typing. It was indeed @Colin Smith who originally wrote the original and over-quick dismissal.
I have now corrected the quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
To have real faith in the imaginary is neither logical nor authentic. Spiritual people come to mirror the Spirit which they embody. And if you visit a monastery then you can experience the spiritual atmosphere at first hand. It's not something that can be expressed in words.
I had never heard of the Akashic Records but I have looked online and see that they are a library of vibrational energy. The compendium of all human thoughts sounds like the Logos of John 1.
Whom do you think is receiving your meditations on the etheric plane?
In my view, no one at all. There's no one there and there is no etheric plane. I find the meditations useful as a metaphor or personification of my own thought processes and as an aid to creativity and my imagination. God, in my view, functions for those who believe in God in much the same way.
The Akashic Record has many similarities with aspects of other beliefs, Christianity being but one, but crucially for me does not require belief in any deity.
Also the meditation workshop involved one hour long session once a fortnight which is completely different from what happens in a monastery.
I wouldn't say I was a spiritual person but it's nice to do something spiritual every so often.
I don't see any theists here denying that non-theists can have a sense of mystery, the numinous or spirituality in the broad sense of the term. Perhaps I'm missing something.
What I do see are non-theists saying, 'How dare you theists try to monopolise spirituality. Why, the audacity of it, there are even spiritual directors around who recommend spiritual practices associated with their own particular faith tradition! What utter, utter bastards!'
Would that be a fair summary?
Except that as far as I'm concerned the whole spiritual directors thing was dealt with ages ago.
I did see at least one theist here questioning whether atheists could be spiritual or believe in the spirit.
Of course their faith is real. It's the thing they have faith in that's imaginary!
Would you mind getting into the habit of saying 'in my view' or 'for me' a little more often when you make statements like that? For me, God is not at all imaginary - and it's not hard to add those couple of words so as to keep open a space for discussion amongst people of very different views, which (for me) is one of the big strengths of these boards.
I will attempt to do so but I wonder how many here prefix or suffix their statements of belief with those words.
Human beings are all innately spiritual. And naturally drawn to spiritual things.
I learned the Christian technique of silent meditation known as Centering Prayer in a series of one hour worships in a similar way. There are a variety of different ways of praying and it is part of the role of a SD to resource you to find the method of prayer which works best for you. You pray as you can and not as you can't.
You are praying but you are just naming it differently to yourself.
I disagree. God gave St. Francis to history in a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war. Francis was himself a soldier, and his father was a tradesman in cloth. Francis came from the very world he was then able to critique, but he offered a positive critique of these very systems at the beginning of their now eight centuries of world dominance. is complete and utter nonsense. It actually reminded me of the kind of nonsense right-wingers spout.
Eh? The idea that Francis stood at the cusp of Western Europe's transition into a more mercantile, utilitarian, and anthropocentric society that recognisably gave rise to our own is absolutely bog-standard. Historians have long debated (and will presumably continue to debate) the exact relationship between humanism (in the Renaissance sense), the growth of the merchant classes, and new conceptions of reason and reasoning. They've also debated quite a bit about the exact role of the mendicant orders in all of this, and whether they were more a symptom or a cause. But to assert that they all arose and co-evolved together is so commonplace it's banal.
With warfare I'm not so clear. Certainly it was getting better-organised, professionalised, and bigger in Francis' time; we're moving out of the age of courtly nobles smashing each other and into the era of the mercenary and citizen army. Here, though, I'm on less certain ground - I don't know what the standard account is here, or even if there is one.
Anyway, Rohr's writing is dramatically telescoped here: he's shrinking eight centuries down to a sentence and focalising it exclusively through St. Francis, so obviously a lot drops out of the mix. But it's not nonsense. Let alone 'complete and utter' nonsense.
That said, Charles Taylor sees Francis's emphasis on the goodness of the Lord's Creation as a powerful motivator toward study of the natural world in the High Middle Ages, and thus one of the first steps down the road to what he calls modernity's 'exclusive humanism'. So perhaps the atheists are St. Francis's inheritors as well.
The nonsense is that by associating rationality, functionality, and consumerism with "perpetual war" Rohr attempts to smear the last 800 years of human progress. Anyone who thinks the superstition-ridden twelfth century was in any possible way better than modern western society is a fool.
Human beings are all innately spiritual. And naturally drawn to spiritual things.
I learned the Christian technique of silent meditation known as Centering Prayer in a series of one hour worships in a similar way. There are a variety of different ways of praying and it is part of the role of a SD to resource you to find the method of prayer which works best for you. You pray as you can and not as you can't.
You are praying but you are just naming it differently to yourself.
I was not praying. My thought processes were very close to those I apply when writing fiction, with the exception that I placed myself in the scene and at all times my thoughts were directed inwards rather than outwards.
Colin I don’t particularly go for the idea of monastic living but I think you dismiss going to check out a monastery too quickly. Just because it is Christian does not mean it has no value. If only for architectural and artistic value.
Meditation as you have described it is not the same and cannot be compared. I don’t do Meditation of any kind Christian or otherwise. It just does not work for me. I have tried it though. There is value in visiting a monastery beyond any spiritual meaning
Colin I don’t particularly go for the idea of monastic living but I think you dismiss going to check out a monastery too quickly. Just because it is Christian does not mean it has no value. If only for architectural and artistic value.
Meditation as you have described it is not the same and cannot be compared. There is value in it.
Err. I've been to quite a few abbeys and the like. I had a job interview at Buckland Abbey and worked at Mottisfont Abbey (albeit that had been a private residence since the Dissolution. I've also visited, to name a few, Glastonbury Abbey, Whitby Abbey, Bayham Abbey (albeit a long time ago) along with Wells, Salisbury, St Davids, Ely, Exeter, Winchester, and Canterbury Cathedrals, and countless numbers of parish churches. I'm no stranger to church architecture.
I don't see any theists here denying that non-theists can have a sense of mystery, the numinous or spirituality in the broad sense of the term. Perhaps I'm missing something.
What I do see are non-theists saying, 'How dare you theists try to monopolise spirituality. Why, the audacity of it, there are even spiritual directors around who recommend spiritual practices associated with their own particular faith tradition! What utter, utter bastards!'
Would that be a fair summary?
Except that as far as I'm concerned the whole spiritual directors thing was dealt with ages ago.
I did see at least one theist here questioning whether atheists could be spiritual or believe in the spirit.
Sure, but as far as I understand it, they were interpreting 'spirit' in a more restrictive sense. I accept that goes some way towards fleshing out your complaint, and I'm not unsympathetic. We've just had Rublev apparently trying to appropriate your meditative experiences within the purlieu of theistic prayer.
So fair do's.
That said, I still don't see those theists who use the term 'spirituality' in a more restrictive sense out to deny you the right to pursue these things in your own terms nor deny that you have a sense of mystery and the numinous.
Sure, but as far as I understand it, they were interpreting 'spirit' in a more restrictive sense. I accept that goes some way towards fleshing out your complaint, and I'm not unsympathetic. We've just had Rublev apparently trying to appropriate your meditative experiences within the purlieu of theistic prayer.
So fair do's.
That said, I still don't see those theists who use the term 'spirituality' in a more restrictive sense out to deny you the right to pursue these things in your own terms nor deny that you have a sense of mystery and the numinous.
Thank you. The way I see it, and I admit I am a bit prickly about it, is that theists and atheists (at least the more spiritually inclined or interested variety of atheist) are chasing the same thing under different names. In other words, I don't see the spirituality of a theist as in any way superior to that of a spiritually inclined atheist.
In other words, all beliefs are fundamentally equal because the only measurable value of a belief is its usefulness to the believer.
The nonsense is that by associating rationality, functionality, and consumerism with "perpetual war" Rohr attempts to smear the last 800 years of human progress. Anyone who thinks the superstition-ridden twelfth century was in any possible way better than modern western society is a fool.
Rohr isn't saying that the twelfth century was "better". He, like many historians, identifies 12th-century Italy as the cusp of a momentous shift in European society still recognisable today, and sees contemporary Western Civ as thus marked by many of the same traits and problems that existed then. Rohr then goes on to claim that this is what makes St. Francis relevant now: because of the cultural continuum that exists between St. Francis's day and ours, his foundational critique still applies.
And you know, I'm not performing any hermeneutic wonders here. I'm just reading the text that is on the page.
Colin I don’t particularly go for the idea of monastic living but I think you dismiss going to check out a monastery too quickly. Just because it is Christian does not mean it has no value. If only for architectural and artistic value.
Meditation as you have described it is not the same and cannot be compared. There is value in it.
Err. I've been to quite a few abbeys and the like. I had a job interview at Buckland Abbey and worked at Mottisfont Abbey (albeit that had been a private residence since the Dissolution. I've also visited, to name a few, Glastonbury Abbey, Whitby Abbey, Bayham Abbey (albeit a long time ago) along with Wells, Salisbury, St Davids, Ely, Exeter, Winchester, and Canterbury Cathedrals, and countless numbers of parish churches. I'm no stranger to church architecture.
I had not picked that up from what you had said. Apologies
The nonsense is that by associating rationality, functionality, and consumerism with "perpetual war" Rohr attempts to smear the last 800 years of human progress. Anyone who thinks the superstition-ridden twelfth century was in any possible way better than modern western society is a fool.
Rohr isn't saying that the twelfth century was "better". He, like many historians, identifies 12th-century Italy as the cusp of a momentous shift in European society still recognisable today, and sees contemporary Western Civ as thus marked by many of the same traits and problems that existed then. Rohr then goes on to claim that this is what makes St. Francis relevant now: because of the cultural continuum that exists between St. Francis's day and ours, his foundational critique still applies.
And you know, I'm not performing any hermeneutic wonders here. I'm just reading the text that is on the page.
For me, it all hinges on the phrase "perpetual war". Medieval European history isn't a strong point of mine but I doubt one could look at the period 400 to 1200 AD and conclude there was significantly less war than in the 800 years following 1200 AD. It would be more reasonable to say that using a wide enough scope perpetual war is the usual state of human affairs.
I accept that 12 century Italy was a significant time and that in hindsight it marked great changes but to me Rohr's use of "perpetual war" to describe the 800 years after 1200 implies that he believes those changes were negative when I believe those changes were overwhelmingly positive.
The nonsense is that by associating rationality, functionality, and consumerism with "perpetual war" Rohr attempts to smear the last 800 years of human progress. Anyone who thinks the superstition-ridden twelfth century was in any possible way better than modern western society is a fool.
Rohr isn't saying that the twelfth century was "better". He, like many historians, identifies 12th-century Italy as the cusp of a momentous shift in European society still recognisable today, and sees contemporary Western Civ as thus marked by many of the same traits and problems that existed then. Rohr then goes on to claim that this is what makes St. Francis relevant now: because of the cultural continuum that exists between St. Francis's day and ours, his foundational critique still applies.
And you know, I'm not performing any hermeneutic wonders here. I'm just reading the text that is on the page.
For me, it all hinges on the phrase "perpetual war". Medieval European history isn't a strong point of mine but I doubt one could look at the period 400 to 1200 AD and conclude there was significantly less war than in the 800 years following 1200 AD. It would be more reasonable to say that using a wide enough scope perpetual war is the usual state of human affairs.
I accept that 12 century Italy was a significant time and that in hindsight it marked great changes but to me Rohr's use of "perpetual war" to describe the 800 years after 1200 implies that he believes those changes were negative when I believe those changes were overwhelmingly positive.
You can disagree with him and his interpretation of one thing, based on your reading of this one tiny text, and not disregard his many decades of writing. The conclusion that all or Rohr’s thought is fundamentally flawed because of your dislike of one passage is hubristic and logically untenable.
A lot depends upon how you understand the questions of what is prayer and spirituality. And what are humans and who is God? A SD would have discussions with a directee within the framework of the Biblical narrative and their faith tradition.
I've never had a discussion that was quite that broad. Because in the common ground of a particular faith tradition these questions would be taken for granted. It would be more along the lines of Where is God in this situation? Or What would develop my prayer life? Or How might aspects of Benedictine / Ignatian / Franciscan spirituality be helpful to me?
You can disagree with him and his interpretation of one thing, based on your reading of this one tiny text, and not disregard his many decades of writing. The conclusion that all or Rohr’s thought is fundamentally flawed because of your dislike of one passage is hubristic and logically untenable.
TBH, I believe that the works of all theologians are fundamentally flawed because they believe in something which, in my view, does not exist.
A lot depends upon how you understand the questions of what is prayer and spirituality. And what are humans and who is God? A SD would have discussions with a directee within the framework of the Biblical narrative and their faith tradition.
I've never had a discussion that was quite that broad. Because in the common ground of a particular faith tradition these questions would be taken for granted. It would be more along the lines of Where is God in this situation? Or What would develop my prayer life? Or How might aspects of Benedictine / Ignatian / Franciscan spirituality be helpful to me?
My understanding of the breadth of spirituality is pretty much in accordance with the collection of the Library of Avalon where I am a volunteer librarian and at whose desk I am currently sitting. It includes: Astrology; Arthurian legend; fiction (SF, fantasy, historical and mythological); religions (comparative, Paganism, Wicca, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Christianity and many others); occult teachings; magic (or magick) in numerous categories; divination; Tarot; Runes; reincarnation; Qabala (spelling optional); UFOs; ESP; astral projection; channeling; clairvoyance; philosophy; psychology; prophecy; Earth mysteries; environmental issues; sustainable living; [and]alternative technology.
Colin, come on now. Here you are on a website dedicated to discussing something you believe is made up. And here you are being rational and engaging with it moreorless on its own terms.
I put it to you that this is not how you would behave if you thought it was "fundamentally flawed" and therefore not worth anything at all.
Almost any sane person would, when he comes across a group of people with complicated ideas founded on utter bullshit, eventually decide that he has better things to do with his time. If you met someone who insisted that he was made of cheese and you were a talking banana, it might be fun for a while talking as if this were open for discussion, but eventually you would probably run away clutching your ears.
The fact that you are here, engaging in conversation about points of theology, says to everyone that these are things worth discussing and that those theists who believe things that you don't have ideas that are worth listening to and considering.
For me, it all hinges on the phrase "perpetual war". Medieval European history isn't a strong point of mine but I doubt one could look at the period 400 to 1200 AD and conclude there was significantly less war than in the 800 years following 1200 AD.
I'm admittedly out of my depth on this, but here I go anyway.
"Perputual" may not be the best way of putting it. But I don't think there's much dispute that the 12th–14th Centuries saw significant changes in how warfare was conducted. One of those, if I recall correctly, was the decline of the feudal system as a means of raising armies and the rise of standing, professional armies for the first time since Rome, which in turn led to the ability of armies to fight throughout the year, without regard for peasant armies to return to the fields. There were the Crusades, which was church-sponsored, or at least church-promoted, warfare. There was the rise of nationalism (as seen, for example, in the Hundred Years War). There was gunpowder and, I think increased reliance on infantry.
Made up isn't how I would put it. Belief is a fascinating subject and I am quite open that my atheism is itself a belief. Shakespeare's plays are made up and sometimes flawed but no one would say they are of no interest as dramatic works or for the way they have shaped language and culture. For that alone I would be interested in belief and those who believe.
I am also interested in belief and believers because I write fiction and it's useful to talk to those with very different worldviews to inform my writing.
As regards cheese and bananas, there's a chap I've encountered a few times in Glastonbury who believes he is a falcon-god and that Amen-Ra sent him to Glastonbury, so tbh, you're all relatively normal.
"Perputual" may not be the best way of putting it. But I don't think there's much dispute that the 12th–14th Centuries saw significant changes in how warfare was conducted. One of those, if I recall correctly, was the decline of the feudal system as a means of raising armies and the rise of standing, professional armies for the first time since Rome, which in turn led to the ability of armies to fight throughout the year, without regard for peasant armies to return to the fields.
Yeah, I wonder if maybe 'total' would have been a better adjective than 'perpetual'. It's probably not possible to tally up all the conflicts over one period and say 'there were x from 1000-1100 and y from 1100-1200'. But war started getting wider and deeper and affecting more of the population.
There were the Crusades, which was church-sponsored, or at least church-promoted, warfare.
That's really my favourite Francis episode, I think. The preaching to the birds is lovely, and the stigmata are miraculous ... but to request an audience with the Sultan in order to convert him to Christ; that takes gumption.
Comments
I'm glad you read it. I was greatly struck by it this morning. And he's a very interesting contemporary theologian.
To take the example of monasticism the communal lifestyle, the pattern of the daily offices and the living out of the values of hospitality and reconciliation all gradually form a person into someone with an unselfish, compassionate and spiritually aware outlook on life.
The author of A Nun's Tale wrote that when she left her convent during WW2 and became a nurse these attitudes had become so embedded in her that her colleagues regarded her as a delightful revolutionary who practiced a quite new and unheard of way of life.
The same could be said of any communal way of living, such as at Findhorn, and is not dependent on a God-centred way of living.
What I took from the article is that the author thinks everything since the 12th century has gone downhill. In particular, the line [St Francis preceded] a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war appears to conflate rationalism with consumerism and ignores the centuries of perpetual war that preceded St Francis. I can't help feeling that someone with such a skewed view of history (one could say a self-serving view of history) hasn't much of use to say about anything.
Corrected italics code. BroJames Purgatory Host
That’s a rather monstrously unjust dismissal of Rohr’s thought. You read one minor passage and dislike one sentence and decide he hasn’t much use to say about anything? Wow.
Corrected italics code in quoted post. BroJames Purgatory Host
I think he makes a good point that it is the living it out that transforms your way of thinking rather than the other way around. Not everyone is called to be a monastic, but their values are significant for building stable and healthy communities. Which is another very topical subject.
For lay Christians the practice of daily prayer or the daily office, community worship and spiritual direction gradually develop an outlook which is formed by theological reflection.
The passage is such a huge misreading of history that yes, it does undermine anything else Rohr might write. Though having looked him up on wikipedia I applaud his attitude to the LGBT&Q community.
I would say the communal life is very eco-friendly and communal values are often healthy values. Unless my ideas are out of date, monastic communities are not self-sustaining in the long term because they require a supply of new recruits. Communal communities can be self-sustaining because children are born within the community.
But I agree that how and where you live can transform how you think and in part that's why I moved to Glastonbury.
I think that he is right to say that living it out is the key to spiritual transformation. And the most convincing witness of the reality of faith. There are two lovely Christian ladies in my church who go around unobtrusively making cups of tea for everyone and warmly greeting all the visitors. They are like the angels of the church.
Perhaps it would interest you to go on a day trip to visit a monastery. My favourite is Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire but it's a long way for you to go. But there is Buckfast Abbey which many tourists go to visit. And it makes nice beer and cider too.
You extracted from that passage material which isn’t there. Try reading one of his books instead of his Wikipedia article.
Of course their faith is real. It's the thing they have faith in that's imaginary! And I have no desire for spiritual transformation.
What I find odd is that you are inviting me to go to abbeys but did not engage at all with my experience meditating on the Akashic Records. At present I have all the spirituality I desire.
I disagree. God gave St. Francis to history in a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war. Francis was himself a soldier, and his father was a tradesman in cloth. Francis came from the very world he was then able to critique, but he offered a positive critique of these very systems at the beginning of their now eight centuries of world dominance. is complete and utter nonsense. It actually reminded me of the kind of nonsense right-wingers spout.
I had never heard of the Akashic Records but I have looked online and see that they are a library of vibrational energy. The compendium of all human thoughts sounds like the Logos of John 1.
Whom do you think is receiving your meditations on the etheric plane?
Would you mind getting into the habit of saying 'in my view' or 'for me' a little more often when you make statements like that? For me, God is not at all imaginary - and it's not hard to add those couple of words so as to keep open a space for discussion amongst people of very different views, which (for me) is one of the big strengths of these boards.
What I do see are non-theists saying, 'How dare you theists try to monopolise spirituality. Why, the audacity of it, there are even spiritual directors around who recommend spiritual practices associated with their own particular faith tradition! What utter, utter bastards!'
Would that be a fair summary?
Most bizarre tangent ever.
Eh? The idea that Francis stood at the cusp of Western Europe's transition into a more mercantile, utilitarian, and anthropocentric society that recognisably gave rise to our own is absolutely bog-standard. Historians have long debated (and will presumably continue to debate) the exact relationship between humanism (in the Renaissance sense), the growth of the merchant classes, and new conceptions of reason and reasoning. They've also debated quite a bit about the exact role of the mendicant orders in all of this, and whether they were more a symptom or a cause. But to assert that they all arose and co-evolved together is so commonplace it's banal.
With warfare I'm not so clear. Certainly it was getting better-organised, professionalised, and bigger in Francis' time; we're moving out of the age of courtly nobles smashing each other and into the era of the mercenary and citizen army. Here, though, I'm on less certain ground - I don't know what the standard account is here, or even if there is one.
Anyway, Rohr's writing is dramatically telescoped here: he's shrinking eight centuries down to a sentence and focalising it exclusively through St. Francis, so obviously a lot drops out of the mix. But it's not nonsense. Let alone 'complete and utter' nonsense.
That said, Charles Taylor sees Francis's emphasis on the goodness of the Lord's Creation as a powerful motivator toward study of the natural world in the High Middle Ages, and thus one of the first steps down the road to what he calls modernity's 'exclusive humanism'. So perhaps the atheists are St. Francis's inheritors as well.
Corrected quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
I have now corrected the quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
I have now corrected the quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
I have now corrected the quote attribution. BroJames Purgatory Host
In my view, no one at all. There's no one there and there is no etheric plane. I find the meditations useful as a metaphor or personification of my own thought processes and as an aid to creativity and my imagination. God, in my view, functions for those who believe in God in much the same way.
The Akashic Record has many similarities with aspects of other beliefs, Christianity being but one, but crucially for me does not require belief in any deity.
Also the meditation workshop involved one hour long session once a fortnight which is completely different from what happens in a monastery.
I wouldn't say I was a spiritual person but it's nice to do something spiritual every so often.
Except that as far as I'm concerned the whole spiritual directors thing was dealt with ages ago.
I did see at least one theist here questioning whether atheists could be spiritual or believe in the spirit.
I will attempt to do so but I wonder how many here prefix or suffix their statements of belief with those words.
I learned the Christian technique of silent meditation known as Centering Prayer in a series of one hour worships in a similar way. There are a variety of different ways of praying and it is part of the role of a SD to resource you to find the method of prayer which works best for you. You pray as you can and not as you can't.
You are praying but you are just naming it differently to yourself.
The nonsense is that by associating rationality, functionality, and consumerism with "perpetual war" Rohr attempts to smear the last 800 years of human progress. Anyone who thinks the superstition-ridden twelfth century was in any possible way better than modern western society is a fool.
I was not praying. My thought processes were very close to those I apply when writing fiction, with the exception that I placed myself in the scene and at all times my thoughts were directed inwards rather than outwards.
Please stop misconstruing what I am saying.
Meditation as you have described it is not the same and cannot be compared. I don’t do Meditation of any kind Christian or otherwise. It just does not work for me. I have tried it though. There is value in visiting a monastery beyond any spiritual meaning
Err. I've been to quite a few abbeys and the like. I had a job interview at Buckland Abbey and worked at Mottisfont Abbey (albeit that had been a private residence since the Dissolution. I've also visited, to name a few, Glastonbury Abbey, Whitby Abbey, Bayham Abbey (albeit a long time ago) along with Wells, Salisbury, St Davids, Ely, Exeter, Winchester, and Canterbury Cathedrals, and countless numbers of parish churches. I'm no stranger to church architecture.
Sure, but as far as I understand it, they were interpreting 'spirit' in a more restrictive sense. I accept that goes some way towards fleshing out your complaint, and I'm not unsympathetic. We've just had Rublev apparently trying to appropriate your meditative experiences within the purlieu of theistic prayer.
So fair do's.
That said, I still don't see those theists who use the term 'spirituality' in a more restrictive sense out to deny you the right to pursue these things in your own terms nor deny that you have a sense of mystery and the numinous.
Thank you. The way I see it, and I admit I am a bit prickly about it, is that theists and atheists (at least the more spiritually inclined or interested variety of atheist) are chasing the same thing under different names. In other words, I don't see the spirituality of a theist as in any way superior to that of a spiritually inclined atheist.
In other words, all beliefs are fundamentally equal because the only measurable value of a belief is its usefulness to the believer.
Rohr isn't saying that the twelfth century was "better". He, like many historians, identifies 12th-century Italy as the cusp of a momentous shift in European society still recognisable today, and sees contemporary Western Civ as thus marked by many of the same traits and problems that existed then. Rohr then goes on to claim that this is what makes St. Francis relevant now: because of the cultural continuum that exists between St. Francis's day and ours, his foundational critique still applies.
And you know, I'm not performing any hermeneutic wonders here. I'm just reading the text that is on the page.
I had not picked that up from what you had said. Apologies
For me, it all hinges on the phrase "perpetual war". Medieval European history isn't a strong point of mine but I doubt one could look at the period 400 to 1200 AD and conclude there was significantly less war than in the 800 years following 1200 AD. It would be more reasonable to say that using a wide enough scope perpetual war is the usual state of human affairs.
I accept that 12 century Italy was a significant time and that in hindsight it marked great changes but to me Rohr's use of "perpetual war" to describe the 800 years after 1200 implies that he believes those changes were negative when I believe those changes were overwhelmingly positive.
Accepted
You can disagree with him and his interpretation of one thing, based on your reading of this one tiny text, and not disregard his many decades of writing. The conclusion that all or Rohr’s thought is fundamentally flawed because of your dislike of one passage is hubristic and logically untenable.
I've never had a discussion that was quite that broad. Because in the common ground of a particular faith tradition these questions would be taken for granted. It would be more along the lines of Where is God in this situation? Or What would develop my prayer life? Or How might aspects of Benedictine / Ignatian / Franciscan spirituality be helpful to me?
TBH, I believe that the works of all theologians are fundamentally flawed because they believe in something which, in my view, does not exist.
Every text is 'made up' and all contain a variable degree of truth.
My understanding of the breadth of spirituality is pretty much in accordance with the collection of the Library of Avalon where I am a volunteer librarian and at whose desk I am currently sitting. It includes: Astrology; Arthurian legend; fiction (SF, fantasy, historical and mythological); religions (comparative, Paganism, Wicca, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Christianity and many others); occult teachings; magic (or magick) in numerous categories; divination; Tarot; Runes; reincarnation; Qabala (spelling optional); UFOs; ESP; astral projection; channeling; clairvoyance; philosophy; psychology; prophecy; Earth mysteries; environmental issues; sustainable living; [and]alternative technology.
I put it to you that this is not how you would behave if you thought it was "fundamentally flawed" and therefore not worth anything at all.
Almost any sane person would, when he comes across a group of people with complicated ideas founded on utter bullshit, eventually decide that he has better things to do with his time. If you met someone who insisted that he was made of cheese and you were a talking banana, it might be fun for a while talking as if this were open for discussion, but eventually you would probably run away clutching your ears.
The fact that you are here, engaging in conversation about points of theology, says to everyone that these are things worth discussing and that those theists who believe things that you don't have ideas that are worth listening to and considering.
"Perputual" may not be the best way of putting it. But I don't think there's much dispute that the 12th–14th Centuries saw significant changes in how warfare was conducted. One of those, if I recall correctly, was the decline of the feudal system as a means of raising armies and the rise of standing, professional armies for the first time since Rome, which in turn led to the ability of armies to fight throughout the year, without regard for peasant armies to return to the fields. There were the Crusades, which was church-sponsored, or at least church-promoted, warfare. There was the rise of nationalism (as seen, for example, in the Hundred Years War). There was gunpowder and, I think increased reliance on infantry.
Made up isn't how I would put it. Belief is a fascinating subject and I am quite open that my atheism is itself a belief. Shakespeare's plays are made up and sometimes flawed but no one would say they are of no interest as dramatic works or for the way they have shaped language and culture. For that alone I would be interested in belief and those who believe.
I am also interested in belief and believers because I write fiction and it's useful to talk to those with very different worldviews to inform my writing.
As regards cheese and bananas, there's a chap I've encountered a few times in Glastonbury who believes he is a falcon-god and that Amen-Ra sent him to Glastonbury, so tbh, you're all relatively normal.
There's no contradiction. Belief itself is of interest regardless of what is believed in.
Yeah, I wonder if maybe 'total' would have been a better adjective than 'perpetual'. It's probably not possible to tally up all the conflicts over one period and say 'there were x from 1000-1100 and y from 1100-1200'. But war started getting wider and deeper and affecting more of the population.
That's really my favourite Francis episode, I think. The preaching to the birds is lovely, and the stigmata are miraculous ... but to request an audience with the Sultan in order to convert him to Christ; that takes gumption.