When the sex abuse crisis broke into the news in January, 2002, I thought that the closet door had just been opened a crack. At that time I jumped to what seemed to be the real issue. Not sexual issues for some poor priests, nor screening procedures for candidates for the priesthood, but to the cover-up of bishops and the silence of Rome.
Over the next seven years, my attention turned to Power, Absolute Power, and Authority. In the hierarchy, I thought, all three were one. That is not necessarily so, but for Rome, it appeared to be its way of proceeding. Roma locuta, causa finita -- Rome has spoken, the matter is closed.
My mind kept probing further, from Power to Church, from Church to Catholicism, from Catholicism to Christianity, from Christianity to Religion itself. Lately, I've been asking me: Do I now go one more step, from Religion to Spirituality?
Is "Spirituality" the right word for that longing in heart and mind and soul for whoever, whatever, it is that we call God? Is it necessary to worship God, who is so ultimately beyond such a display and simply created us to be? Religion says so. Spirituality doesn't bother with that question.
Religion is authority and power and, when absolute, corruption?
Spirituality is friendship?
Prayer is what friends do?
Paul
Article from USA TODAY
USA TODAY Faith & Reason: A conversation about religion, spirituality and ethics
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/03/64712677/1
Mar 27, 2009
Is USA heading for a 'post-Christian' culture?
Photo courtesy Yale University Art Gallery, AP: A portrait of the famous fiery American evangelist Rev. Jonathan Edwards hangs at Yale, his alma mater.
What's happening to America's "Christian memory?" theologian and Southern Baptist Seminary president Albert Mohler asks with alarm.
His online column today puts his concern over the decline of religious denominational ties in New England in historical context.
After all, this is the region the Protestant faithful settled and were later joined by waves of Catholic immigrants. Now, their religious influence is losing sway and there's a marked increase in the number of people -- one in three or four in much of New England-- who claim no religious identity. With this change comes efforts such as the current campaign to legalize gay marriage in several New England state legislatures, Mohler says.
Mohler frets that New England will lead the nation down the path already taken in western Europe where ...
Christian moral reflexes and moral principles gave way to the loosening grip of a Christian memory. Now, even that Christian memory is absent from the lives of millions.
In recent decades, the Pacific Northwest had the distinction of being the nation's most secular region. But the Pacific Northwest was never so highly evangelized as New England. In effect, New England is rejecting what the Pacific Northwest never even knew ...
New England was the cradle of colonial America. Is it now the cradle of America's secular future?
Do you agree? Do you think moving toward a post-Christian culture is a bad or good direction?
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