Toto

Hi - it's the 21st century. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the theory of evolution was widespread and accepted, and a number of Christians tried to get their religion to evolve. They abandoned miracles, and many abandoned the idea of a personal god, which makes prayer an internal exercise.

Unfortunately, they didn't get very far. The evolved religion did not satisfy enough of the religious market; and there was a reaction, as the new doctrine of fundamentalism was adopted. Christianity has evolved in the way it presents its message, but not as you might hope. Instead, American evangelicals have adopted modern advertising techniques, and are marketing personal growth, marriage encounters, and Christian rock music.

The whole situation is much more complex than that, of course, but I am sure that Christian marketers would find a way to survive finding Jesus' bones and the first draft of the gospel of Mark labeled "fiction."

Minimalist

Ha!

If "Jesus" did come back and told his followers " I don't hate fags. I don't hate Mexicans. I don't hate Arabs. Just LOVE ONE ANOTHER!" they'd string him up in a heartbeat. They have no use for such a 'god.'

aa5874

I am not too sure about that. Christianity will not survive except as a tourist attraction.

gstafleu

Yes, I have... but I don't remember much of it! This is from the blurb:
This may well be correct, as all of these are common mythical themes.
This kind of observation always results in a lot of discussion on this board. On the one hand, Christianity certainly shares the concepts of its "very tenets" with other mythology. But on the other hand, that does not mean it just sat down and copied those concepts. These ideas were "in the air" (known in the culture), and so made their way naturally into new religions (or new expressions of existing religions). But these new versions then colored the concepts to their own suiting. So one can err in two ways here. First, one can take the commonalities and declare them to be similarities, preferably showing historical derivation. On the other hand, one can take the idiosyncrasies (the common elements are always reshaped to suit the new religion), and declare any similarities hence spurious. Those two types of pots and kettles can have lots of fun throwing soot at each other.
Yes, Christianity certainly became very literal, thus loosing sight of the underlying ideas. But having said that, the allegorical interpretation of the original myths was not necessarily shared by all adherents of those earlier religions. No doubt there was literalism ("there really was a virgin birth of XXX...," e.g. Europa really did conceive from a bull) there as well. So again, lots of soot can be slung both ways.

So far my blurb-analysis. We have to remember that Harpur's goal here is more mystagogic than historic. He is a great fan of the "Christ within." How palatable that idea is to rationalists depends a lot on the details. I found his presentation in general too preachy, which made the book difficult too read for me. But YMMV. As the aim is mystagogic, historic credibility is really secondary, is in fact an expression of the error of literalism. If you take the book on its own terms, you may like it. Or not.

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

In the US, yes. In the civilized () world however, e.g. Europe and Canada, this happened to a much lesser extent. There the churches are slowly but steadily emptying.

Having said this, fundamentalism is a minority position even in the US--be it a noisy one. For an interesting view of an alternate development in current myth in the US, I suggest the following experiment. Buy a DVD of a live concert of Rage Against the Machine, The Battle of Mexico City is a good one. Be sure to switch the subtitles on, which it fortunately provides. This will provide you with quite an interesting insight into how myth is also developing in the US. And re our literalism debate, pay close attention to "Bombtrack." The statement "Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn" ("you" being the "landlords and power whores", lyrics available here) is meant metaphorically. But whaddayathink, might people start taking it literally? The lack of credible guiding myth in society is, in other words, not completely risk free.

Gerard Stafleu

Robert Byers

This is a evil attack against the Christian identity and people in my country.
These people at the network and the creaters of the doc would be the first to cry foul if the Christian faith from a evangelical or any group was presented in a persuasive way on evidence and general merit.
I say they would cry that the CBC is not to advance any particular Christian sect or in general Christianity. They would say it is imposing on a publically funded medium a particular religion.
Then they happily have a documentary that attacks Christianity in a absurd attempt.
Evidence to the fact the establishment is at war with the Christian faith and will disuse or use any human relationships to arrogantly advance their hopeless animosity.
The grewat Christian faith and the Christian people who created the greatest countries in the world deserve and must have much better.
This is organized hate, sanctioned bigotry.
Well
Will a rebuttal be allowed.
Stay tuned folks.
Robert Byers
Toronto, ontario

wordy

Don't we need one that not only have his or her heart in the right place but that also is able to deliver a text that works? That we still don't have one either indicates that is few such people or that they are not motivated or have no writing skills or are bad at expressing their good heart?

My heart seems to be all over or nowhere to be found.

Marcus Borg is interesting but fundies are better at getting people to come to their churches.

Are the fundies better at marketing or are they less moral in using foul play or why do we fail to get our act going?

On the surface it does look likely that they got god out of Egypt. They where the great power of their time. They also god god out of competition with Babylon and Persia? They competed with these three powers and then we have Pagan Greek and Rome. So all this together get mixed into the Abramic gods we know?

ktsai

Thank you for your comment. It has definitely helped. Just what I was hoping for.

Regards,
ktsai

No Robots

Absolutely.

Christianity must cut itself loose from paganism, and paganism must be converted to Judaism. If Christianity is to become what it wants to be, it must renounce the desire to know anything that pure Judaism in Christ neither knows nor wishes to know: it must renounce symbols, dogmas, articles of faith, liturgy, worship; it must want to know nothing of creation, the Fall, redemption and justification, heaven and hell, the incarnation of God, the Three Persons of the Godhead, the single Personality of God; it must not hold on to a single item of religion's superstition. If Christianity is to come about, Christ must be the Master, revealing to the heathen that they are but men (Ps. 9:21).--Constantin Brunner

Roger Pearse

Surely that process happened long ago? That was being asserted when I was young. Secularised state churches have long since become cyphers; but then they hardly count as churches anyway.

All the best,

Roger Pearse