Reply #371: Add to the mix any number of early Gnostic communities, says -- [View All]

[saltpoint]

-- Elaine Pagels and others. Many of those communities pre-date Chrisitianity in any of its manifestations and several included extensive ancient tratis and tenets from a trailmix of eastern traditions.

A strong case can be made that the canonization of the Bible as we have it today (with more-or-less variations owing to different editions) was an exercise in censorship. "We want this book, this book, and this book, yes, but not that book, that book or that book," with the latter group doubtless including the Secret gospels of Mark, Thomas, etc. The Church insisted that these books did not exist and that by the way, their agents across the Mediterranean world should destroy said non-existent texts whenever they encountered communities using them for spiritual practice.

Hypocrisy cuts across many institutions, but the early Church matches contemporary tv evangelists point-for-point.

I accept fully your construction that archetypes are at work; Jung was rightly attracted to the spiritual domain of various religious traditions because he found active evidence of his base theories.

I'm still extremely comfortabole, however, with "theft" instead of "adaptation" although I concede it is a matter of spin. Agree also with you on points of significance as opposed to faith as a popular attraction. But it is the significance question that weakens modern-day mainstream Christianity. I've been through evangelical Lutheran, then Catholic, then Episcopal, then back to Catholic on the Christian side of experience alone, and find that the Sunday morning experience is dead in the water. The image of a perfumed corpse suggests itself -- congregations gussied up for morning services before returning home for another week of abnegation of spiritual identity and public service, and casual dismissal of history and science often thrown in. DU posters who attack some Christians (not all Christians) for voting for Dubya have a deep and I believe immutable point: these fuckers are hypocrites to invoke a hellfire Jesus as an instrument of denial and oppression and enforced marginalization, as Bush does. If mainstream Christian communities would fire up the significance factor you mention, I believe the teeter-totter would tilt back the other way. Toward the left, toward providing attention, food, shelter, and clothing for those who need some or all those things.

And don't even get me started on the media.