The thought of the “Cosmic Christ” is the first Christian archetype for mysticism and a renewal of the sacredness of creation.
I as soon as heard a well-educated Protestant minister say she had by no means heard the time period “Cosmic Christ” in all of her theological coaching. It sounds new to some due to the huge anthropocentrism of the fashionable period that turned its again on nature besides what people can revenue from nature.
It solely sounds new as a result of Christianity most well-liked the “introspective conscience of the West” (Krister Stendahl’s language) to the larger mysteries of the universe and our place in it.
As we noticed yesterday, the earliest writings like St. Paul and the Gospel of Thomas (and the opposite Gospels as effectively), are steeped within the Cosmic Christ or wave principle of the divine Gentle having visited us, turn into incarnate and really current amongst us. And continues to be current amongst us.
It additionally sounds new as a result of trendy consciousness “deposed” the Cosmic Christ, as Greek Orthodox theologian Jaroslav Pelikan put it. The trendy consciousness substituted the human for the cosmos. “I feel subsequently I’m.” (Descartes) “We will torture Mom Earth for her secrets and techniques.” (Francis Bacon) All this provides as much as what Pope Francis has rightly referred to as “species narcissism.”
And to the peril we and Earth discover ourselves in immediately.
It additionally provides as much as a desacralized and desecrated Earth, one which exists for human exploitation and is devoid of awe, enchantment, pleasure, steadiness, concord, justice. And is thereby unsustainable so long as people play Masters of the universe having forgotten what Aquinas taught, that “people should not probably the most glorious factor within the universe– the universe is.”
Faith within the trendy period exiled mysticism and awe and with it reverence and gratitude substituting a class referred to as “ascetic theology” in 1635. This within the very century that started with torturing and burning Giordano Bruno on the stake for declaring that Copernicus had one thing to show believers.
Faith selected to divorce from science and subsequently from the cosmos. Faith primarily determined it didn’t want nature or those that research nature, scientists. It held all of the questions and solutions in its Bible e book and turned its again on the holy e book of nature.
It took faith and the Vatican 500 years to return round to formally accepting Galileo’s insights and take away the shadow it laid over Galileo.
Tailored from Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 75-77, 108.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video instructing, click on HERE.
Banner Picture: “Icon of Christ of Latomos, mosaic of Theophany.” Spontaneously appeared within the monastery of Latomos, Thessaloniki, Greece, third century C.E. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What’s your expertise of the ignoring of the Cosmic Christ in Western faith? And of the recovering of the Cosmic Christ in faith?
Really helpful Studying
In what could also be thought-about probably the most complete define of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the style through which the spirit of Christ resurrects when it comes to the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the younger, the rebirth of efficient types of worship—all of those mirroring the continuing blessings of Mom Earth and the restoration of Eros, the female facet of the Divine.
“The eighth marvel of the world…convincing proof that our Western spiritual custom does certainly have the depth of creativeness to reinvent its religion.” — Brian Swimme, writer or The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
