Christmas and the re-spiritualisation of Christianity

God became man so that we might be deified’ [1, PG 36, 265], says the church father Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 325–390 AD) in his first Christmas address, which he gave as Bishop of Constantinople in 380. This was not a one-off observation. In his famous theological speech, he says essentially the same thing: ‘… until he made me God by virtue of his incarnation’ [2, 4, 14, 12f.].

Gregory of Nazianzus was one of the great Greek Fathers of the consolidation period of Christian theology, venerably titled ‘Theologos – the Theologian’ by the Orthodox Church. He thus conveys one of the essential theological insights of the Christian tradition: the goal of the entire history of salvation, which begins with the birth of Jesus, is the deification of man. In other words, we are called upon to let ourselves be deified. For that is what one could call the ‘redemptive impulse’ of Christ and Christian tradition.

Interiority and mysticism

What exactly does that mean? Basically, this has often and repeatedly been said since the words of the historical Jesus, but rarely understood. Because it is essentially about a transformation from within, in the depths of the soul or consciousness. Because that is exactly where the son is born. The medieval scholar and mystic Meister Eckhart emphasised this again and again. There, in the depths of the soul, God gives birth to his son, just as he gives birth to him in himself:

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The Enlightenment Has Died and Is Making Way for a New Religion, Transhumanism

The Enlightenment is one of the greatest cultural, social, and philosophical achievements of modern times [1]. However, it has not achieved its goal of freeing humanity from its immaturity and bondage to dogmatic beliefs, political power ambitions, and moral constraints. Instead, it has died a quiet death. Editorial writers and columnists have neither noticed nor commented on its demise. A new religion has taken hold, one that is more intolerant, dogmatic, and at least as violent as the old one from which the Enlightenment sought to liberate us. This new religion is the belief in science, scientism, with its transhumanist creed that man is God and can therefore execute everything that he can technically accomplish and socially enforce [2-8].

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a gradual process. It is often associated with great names such as Leibniz, Kant, Voltaire, D’Alembert, Holbach, and Diderot in the philosophical realm, as well as with “enlightened” monarchs like Joseph II and Frederick the Great and the founding fathers of the United States of America. However, at its core, it was an ongoing process. It was made possible by the insights of science, which provided humans with a deeper understanding of the world, thus offering new means of control. Simultaneously, it rendered certain aspects of religion, particularly those verging on superstition, more questionable—for example, the notion that an earthquake or plague was divine punishment. Nonetheless, it must not be forgotten: Without religion, there would never have been an Enlightenment. The Enlightenment essentially began in the Middle Ages with those thinkers and philosophers—clergy, all of them—who used their intellects to explore the fundamental questions of existence [11].

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New and Old – a Journey to Lithuania…

…to a workshop of the Next Society Institute and some thoughts on new and old religions

The Next Society Institute

I was recently in Lithuania for a few days, in the capital Vilnius, for a meeting of the Next Society Institute at the Kazimieras Simonavičius University, which I have been a member of for half a year. This is a think tank of a small group of academics who are developing new concepts for different sectors of society (Fig. 1-4). We are planning a series of annual conferences with constructive models for the future.

Figure 1 – NSI members Lars Clausen, Augusto Sales and Miguel Pérez-Valls listening; Sketches Franz Hoegl

Contrary to the current trend, which squeezes everything into the Procrustean bed of one true perspective and subordinates everything under one truth, we assume that there are many alternatives, many ways of expressing culture, being human, society, and thus also different futures, “futures” (plural), and not only the totalitarian one future, one truth, one health, one form of politics, one religion, one whatever. The conceptual basis is Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems [1].

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Thinking, Political Correctness, and Thinking about Thinking

The indigenous people of the prairies of North America originally fed on big game and buffalo. They hunted on foot before the horse was introduced to America by the Spanish in the 1500s [1, 2]. They took advantage of a characteristic of the buffalo: Buffaloes are herd animals. They follow the lead animal. Once the lead animal starts running, they all run after it. The Indians, “First Nations”, had special places where the prairie suddenly breaks off over a cliff. There they built fence-like obstacles that ran like a funnel from the prairie towards the cliff. Then they panicked the buffalo and drove them towards the obstacles. They all rushed after the lead animal. It ran, couldn’t stop in time and fell over the cliff, and they all fell after it to their doom. Down below, the hunters were waiting and could cut up the meat of the buffalo that had fallen to its death, and the hunt was over. When the Indians had horses, they applied the same principle, without fences, but with horses. In Montana there is a natural park called “Buffalo Jump” where many archaeological remains of this hunting technique have been found.

Buffalo Jump: from Alchetron, the Free Social Encyclopedia

What was usually very convenient for the buffalo – relying on the experience of the leaders and the signals of the guards – was now their undoing.

Political Correctness

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