Oops
So, this friend of mine was in San Francisco this
Lent, and elected to attend the Lenten program at Grace Cathedral. Now, Grace
is not exactly the center of Christian Orthodoxy, so this was pretty brave of
him. When he was there, however, he discovered something very
interesting.
He was seated at a table
enjoying dinner, and being asked about his parish. When probed on the subject
of the Lenten program at St. Michael's, he stated that we were studying
spiritual disciplines (I'll get into that later). Someone asked him what those
were, and he indicated things such as prayer and fasting. The response? "Oh,
you're studying Zen"
His response, as I
understand it, was akin to "huh?", which would pretty much be my reaction. A
bit more transpired, but the upshot was that these people, some, if not most,
who were life-long Episcopalians, had no idea that things like prayer and
fasting belong to the long history of Christian orthodoxy, and to Jewish
orthodoxy before that. In fact, the practices predate Zen, as Zen, or the
Japanese form of Buddhism dates only back to the 5th
century.
Of course, as we've discovered
during our study, even the conservative members of our own orthodox parish, are
not necessarily familiar with these practices and the long history they have. I
suspect, and actually have suspected, that this lack of knowledge about
historical Christianity, and failure to pass along the traditions, have created
a religiously illiterate generation. This illiteracy then leads to a situation
where people can be led astray because they understand something to be missing
from their spiritual lives, but never realized that it has been available all
along. We've had two years of Lenten programs now which rely on pop Christian
authors who, themselves, are just beginning to discover the very principles
which governed Christianity through most of its first two millennia. They go on
to construct their own views and beliefs, seemingly unaware of the vast treasure
of past teaching on these matters from Church Fathers and others. Often time,
when down in the details, these new beliefs are either simply wrong or both
wrong and dangerous.
The path is, I
think, the orthodox become uneducated, and lose sight of traditions. Then they
become merely conservative, holding on to those things they remember from
growing up. Then, when they are interested in deepening their spirituality,
they are available for whatever comes along that feels right. Maybe it is some
modern evangelical with their own ideas. Worse, is someone who has discovered,
for instance, that Zen has these disciplines focused on enlightenment, and off
these Christians go to pursue non-Christian religions. We are left with folks
like those at Grace. Well meaning, but effectively non-Christian.
Posted: Tuesday - February 22, 2005 at 02:09 PM
