The following article of mine is an old article that I wrote and posted years ago.
Old articles of mine (as is the following article) state that my globalization mission is a Roman Catholic
mission. In the past it was Roman Catholic. However, at the time, the religion of my
globalization mission was almost an expression of the counter culture's syncretistic, New Age
universal religion. More recent articles of mine state that the religion
of my globalization mission is NOW the counter culture's New Age universal religion.
The New Age movement is attempting to unify the world's religions to create
a single universal religion wherein all of humanity can live harmoniously together.
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more...
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(3.)
Evangelization In The Age Of Globalization
By Thomas Dahlheimer
This booklet presents both excerpts from Cardinal Jean Danielou's book:
The Salvation Of The Nations, as well as commentaries about these excerpts. They are about
a version of Roman Catholic missionary spirituality. This expression of Christian missionary
spirituality is directed toward leading humanity to unity within a single religion; a single
religion that will serve as the basis and principle of unity for a single united global culture;
a culture made up of the best of the past of all peoples' traditions and cultures;
a culture wherein "the world will live as one".
This missionary spirituality movement's envisioned world-unifying single religion is, in respect
to my expression of it, a 1960s youth countercultural expression of the Catholic religion. My
youth of the 1960s countercultural expression of this Christian missionary spirituality movement
is presented in this booklet's commentaries.
By Cardinal Jean Danielou:
"The missionary question may seem to have been pushed into the background at the present time,
in view of the urgency of other problems. The spiritual and temporal revival of the West appears
to be a task of such vast importance and exigency as to consume all of our efforts. I should like
to show however, that in certain fundamental aspects, missionary spirituality is the answer to some
of the gravest problems of our day.
Let us make two things clear at the outset. First, that missionary spirituality is Christian
spirituality, envisaged in all of its amplitude; it is Christianity lived on a cosmic scale -
to use a word much in vogue at present, and particularly apt in this case. Christianity can, of
course, be lived within the narrow limits of the community of which we are a part, whether it be
our family or our country. To view Christianity in this light is not to see it in its true
perspective.
Christianity is catholic by definition, that is, it embraces the world. A Christian spirituality
that is not fundamentally oriented toward the building up of the total Mystical Body is not a
catholic spirituality. Some Christians develop an inferiority complex in the presence of other
movements (particularly Communism) because they have a feeling that others posses a greater
breath of vision than they. This is because their own conception of Christianity is too
circumscribed.
Many of us accept as entirely normal that Catholicism is the religion of France, Italy, Spain and
South America, but we also seem to take it as normal that it is not the religion of India or China.
Thus, we cling to the notion that Catholicism is the religion of a certain number of countries.
This greatly diminishes our effectiveness. Catholicism must embrace the entire world; in our prayer
and in the orientation of our interest, we must live on a world scale. If we do that, Christianity
will truly be the fresh breathable air that it was destined to be.
There is a second reason why the missionary problem is most urgent. Let us not imagine that
missions consist only in making contacts in distant lands with civilizations that are different
from our own. The missionary problem is at our very door. I am not speaking of the missionary
problem in its broadest sense, as one might speak of France the land of missions, or say that
our first duty is to convert the pagans in our own country. I am speaking of the missionary
problem in its exact sense, that is the problem of evangelizing the pagans. This problem is at
our very door, in our very midst, and it has two aspects:
1. It is no longer necessary to go to India or China to seek out these civilizations. They are
flowing back towards us. I am referring here particularly to Buddhism and Hinduism. There is no
need whatever to go to India or Tibet to be in contact with these religions. Many Western minds
are preoccupied with them, in some cases intensely so. We find ourselves in the presence not of
geographically separated civilizations so much as of a number of universal movements which
encompass the entire world. Today the world is faced with a conflict between a few great
spiritual movements, each professing to offer the one and only cure for a sick humanity.
Chief among these great movements is Communism; Islam; Buddhism and all that comes within
its sphere; and Christianity. Therefore, missionary problems are no longer a matter of remote
civilizations, very different from our own. They are a matter, first, of what is vital for the
human beings of today. It is our duty to live in harmony with the realities of our
age."
"I should like to develop this last point by showing that there are two grave problems which often
confront us, and on which is direct missionary bearing. The first is syncretism. Syncretism, as you
know, conceives of a universal religion that is to transcend all particular religions. It holds that
these latter each possess a part of the truth...Hinduism no less than Islam, Judaism, Catholicism,
or Protestantism. Its task, as it sees it, would consist in dissolving opposition by rising above
them to a superior religion which would embrace all the others."
"Let us investigate the first question, that of syncretism. There are many souls today that have
a deep-seated need for spirituality, but admittedly have found no satisfaction in the Catholicism
which has been offered them. Whence the notion, arising in some minds, of seeking a new spirituality
that will correspond more closely to the needs of the soul. Now, where is such a spirituality to be
found? Many are tempted to seek it in the Orient, and especially in the religions of India. We are
confronted by a real trend affecting some of the most vital people, that is, the people who aspire
to a spiritual life. A trend that would turn them away from Catholicism and toward Hinduism and its
spiritual methods."
All this betrays an unrest which we must very definitely take into account. For where do these
restless souls end up? With the idea that adherence to a particular credos is perhaps not
indispensable to spirituality; that outside of and above all credos there may be a universal
wisdom in which all men may commune, and of which Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, were great pioneers,
each having revealed one aspect of the total wisdom, but none having had a monopoly of absolute
Truth.
This syncretism is no present-day invention. It is as old as Christianity. From the very
origins of Christianity we find there were analogous movements. The first heresies of the
days of the Apostles, particularly Gnosticism, were compromises between Christianity, Judaism,
and the pagan religions, a higher truth to which initiates might rise.
How much truth is there in this movement? We must remember that very error has a portion of
truth, without which it would have no efficacy whatever. Indeed, there is a portion of truth
in every religion. Thus, syncretism contains elements of value. But it remains a caricature and
a distortion of true Catholicism, namely catholicity. For it amounts to placing Catholicism on
the same level with all other religions, whereas the catholicity of the Catholicism consists
in the fact that it is the true religion and the religion of all men. It is a religion that
does not exclude the riches of other forms of spirituality, but recaptures and adopts them in
order to assimilate them. Why is this? By what right can we say this? Precisely because
Catholicism is the religion instituted by God Himself. This is the answer, the sole answer,
but one which is absolutely decisive, to all arguments for syncretism. There is in history a
furrow made by God. This is the great proof of Catholicism, and is one of the most astonishing
facts to come out of any objective study of the world. God intervenes in history to accomplish
a certain plan.
"Then in the fullness of time, as Saint Paul says, the Word of God Himself, Who until then has
spoken through the intermediary of the Prophets, becomes man and comes into the World. Henceforth
He is the cornerstone of the true Church which is to be the home of all humanity, and into which
all people will be gathered."
"The second question with which we must grapple might be formulated: Communism and unity. The
idea of attacking the problem from this angle came to me through a conversation with a friend.
We were talking of the current situation. He was saying: "The real problem of the present is the
union of the Churches." I must admit this gave me quite a jolt at first. Indeed, his approach
was more Christian than mine, for I had thought the most urgent problem was peace and
reconstruction of the devastated countries. In short, I was thinking of all the problems
that concern us every day. He continued: "I think it is the problem of the union of the
Churches, because the big question today is whether Christianity will be strong enough to
re-create its unity, and in consequence to serve as the basis for a single civilization."
Evidently, a disunited, divided Christianity is powerless to re-create the unity of civilization.
Consequently, the question is whether, in the face of movements like Communism , Christianity is
strong enough, whether it still possesses enough vitality to become this principle of unity."
"Indeed, one of the big problems confronting us today is the unity of civilization. Men are
increasingly in contact with one another. As a result, every occurrence has a cosmic, universal
repercussion, and the aspiration toward a world society which would embrace the whole human race
is intensified. The fundamental strength of Communism lies in what it retains of Christianity.
Communism offers to men the Christian ideal, that is, the ideal of the Communion of the Saints,
the ideal of the Mystical Body, of a society in which all men shall be united; but at the same
time...and this is what satisfies human pride...it makes man believe that he himself must achieve
it, and that he must not expect anything from God. It is to return to Babel and renounce Jerusalem.
It is to make himself the creator of this society in which the whole human race is to be united.
In the face of this, is our Christian claim that we can bring about the unity of humanity strong
enough? Here is the problem we must solve. Have we not practically renounced this claim? And has
not this setback for the Redemption led us to accept as a matter of course that there are
Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox Christians...that is to say, that Christianity itself
is divided and that it is the religion only of Europe and of a part of America? Catholicism
loses its hold on souls in the measure that it ceases to present as an urgent task, to accomplish
as soon as possible, the unity of all men within a single religion."
"A second question which concerns the missionary problem more directly: Catholicism's power of
expansion. Has not this power declined? And is not present-day Catholicism somewhat shriveled up
within itself, having lost the sense of its evangelical mission among the non-Christian people?
If this were true, it would be something to grieve over. It would indicate that Catholicism no
longer seeks to conquer the world."
"I return once again to the problem I raised earlier: Has Catholicism renounced the task of
unifying humanity? Is it resigned to internal divisions? Is it resigned to running foul of
civilizations that are impermeable to it, and that are more penetrated by Communism? Is
Communism, indeed, becoming more universal than Catholicism. The problem is most serious.
In the presence of communism's universalism the problem of Catholic universalism becomes most
acute. There is a Christian testimony to be borne everywhere. Consequently, there is need of
faith in Christ, Who said to His Apostles: "going therefore, teach ye all nations." We must,
after all, decide to obey.
Whence the importance of the missionary problem. If we want to answer Communism, we must first of
all turn in the direction of universalism. We accomplish more against Communism by laboring for the
expansion of Catholicism in the non-Christian lands than we do by disputing about the distribution
of wealth or increase of production in our own country. These are not the essential things. The
fundamental problem is spiritual, and it is on the spiritual level, first of all, that the battle
must be fought. As Saint Paul tells us, it is with the prince of this world that we must fight.
The missionary perspective embraces the world itself, and this is the battlefield on which the
great conflicting movements are coming to grips."
"Are India, China and Africa lands where in the designs of providence Christianity will find new
categories, new forms of thought, new fulfillments? There may well be many aspects of Christianity
that we shall not discover until Christianity has been refracted through every facet of the prism
of human civilization. It has been refracted only through the Greek and Roman worlds, but it will
have to be refracted through the Chinese facet and the Hindu facet in order to attain its
fulfillment; and this total fulfillment will not come through the conversion of individual men,
but through the Christianization of all the civilizations of the earth. All of these civilizations
must be permeated by Christianity, and Christianity must bring to blossom whatever in them has
been in the nature of providential preparation.
This obviously opens up an immense field for reflection. In the measure that we study these
civilizations, that we are in sympathy with them, the problem for us becomes one of understanding
which of their aspects can be incorporated into Christianity and are to be nurtured. This
requires a certain amount of stripping off of everything in us that is merely Western, because
after all our Christianity is a westernized Christianity. Now, is it accidental that Christianity
should have been westernized. We must learn to extricate from its cultural background the
essential message of the Gospel, and place this message in contact with other civilizations,
to see in what measure it is to become incarnate in them."
Arab Moslems:
"The Moslems may well have much to teach us. They have a far greater sense of urgency of God, of
the presence of God in society, than we have in our western civilizations. The proportion of
Moslems who pray every day is far greater than the proportion of Europeans or Americans. Indeed,
our Western world, in its restless and activistic life, has completely lost this sense of prayer.
That is why there are so many mentally ill and eccentrics in our midst: people don't pray enough,
there is a well of silence within themselves to which they have no access, a domain of peace they
know not how to enter. Islam has held on to these things. Therefore, should Islam be converted,
we can imagine it would have a much more extensive religious social life than in our lands.
Islam would then be in reality and forthwith a Christendom: In fact, this calls to mind our
own Middle Ages, a period when civilization was deeply permeated by Christianity."
African Negroes:
"Thus, the day the Negro world is Christianized, one can foresee a prodigious sacramental and
liturgical development, religious art, a return to the sacred dance, which is now foreign to us.
(After all, David danced before the Ark, and the dance is a means of praising God like any other).
I cannot conceive how African Negroes could praise God without dancing, for the dance is so much a
part of their being that it is an integral part of their civilization. Through them we would
discover once again the liturgical meaning of the sacred dance. This would have disconcerting
consequences for us. How could we impose the Roman Mass on them...this silent Mass, so admirably
Western, so sober, so inward, so discreet, so reserved, wherein the mightiest religious feelings
find expression in perfect decorum?"
Aboriginal Native Americans:
An excerpt from Stan Steiner's book The New Indians:
"The joys of nature, the harmony of man with the natural world, the communal brotherhood of the
tribe, the free spirit of the individual, the larger love of the kinship family...these are some
of the things that tribal society might bring to our western civilization." Comment: In respect
to bringing these things to our western civilization, I believe that they should, first and
foremost, be brought to our excessively westernized Catholic Church.
Hindus of India:
"Well! There, too, we find eminent religious values. The first that may be mentioned is the sense
of the unique reality of the invisible world. This is one of the most striking characteristics of
Indian culture: the visible world is a mirage, and what really exists is the interior world. This
is an error, yet does not lack nobility. The Hindus are striving toward the contemplation of this
formless God, this Soul of all things, this principle which is the substance of all things.
After all, this is the highest that man can attain through his own strength: the realization
that above and beyond all multiplicity there is a certain unity into which we hope to plunge
and to return, to lose ourselves and be dissolved. Indeed, this may be what is highest in the
human order, but it remains infinitely below the revelation of God Who is love, of the God of
the Trinity, in Whom there is a life of eternal love, and Who calls us to participate in that
life."
"There is, then a sense of expectation which existed in the early Christian era and continues to
exist today among the entire civilizations and worlds whose riches Christianity is to complete.
Yet there is much also that must die. The great civilizations we have just considered in their
positive reality...Islam, for instance, and all that is in solidarity with it; Hinduism and
Buddhism, the great and diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies of the Orient...remain,
for all their excellencies, great obstacles between human souls and Christ. They are what the
missionaries strike up against, what holds them back, what retains souls in error. We can well
understand the indignation against these erroneous doctrines expressed by missionaries of
former days, and the vehemence with which they spoke of them. At bottom what keeps India away
from Christ is pride. It is the refusal to recognize its insufficiency. The great idea of the
Hindus is that they possess wisdom and that they alone control the wellsprings from which it
flows. All else is avatar. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha are merely manifestations of a single message,
but it is India that possess this message in its purity and in its completeness. At bottom,
Hinduism holds that there is but one wisdom and that there is no Revelation."
"The Hindus see in Christ a great personage...perhaps the greatest...but still one among other
personages of the same order. This gives them the appearance of respecting Jesus. In deed, today
many men speak of Christ, of the admiration they have for Him, of the veneration in which they
hold Him; but the Christ they speak of is only the One Who preached the first part of the Sermon
on the Mount, and not the One Who rose from the dead. That amounts to recognizing only Christ as
He lived on earth and disregarding Christ as head of the Mystical Body. In consequence, it means
forgetting Christ's primary achievement, which consists in having divinized humanity and thereby
having introduced it into the mystery of God. That amounts to suppressing all the transcendence,
all the supernatural, all the mystery in Christianity. It's a distortion that suppresses Christ
the Lord, and stresses only the human character of Jesus; that sees in Him only a Prophet, "the
most illustrious of the dead of the past," but not "the most living of our contemporaries;" a
master of wisdom who lived in Galilee twenty centuries ago and who preached the most beautiful
of all messages, but not the Christ of "yesterday, today and forever," as Saint Paul says: in
other words, not the "living Christ" Who is our king today and with Whom we commune through the
sacraments, through prayer, and through the Church"
"It has been the error of certain missionaries to want to take their civilizations along with
them, and to impose on the people they were to evangelize their own way of seeing, their own
artistic style."
By James Engel: (A staff writer for a Minnesota Catholic diocesan newspaper.)
"Christianity came to the Americas nearly five centuries ago. Spirituality had been here long before
that, and while Christians often disregard the principles of Christianity, nowhere has it done
more damage than to the people native to the Americas. Traditionally, Native Americans recognized
the presence of the Creator in all of His Creation...living and inert. Dating back centuries
Native Americans are credited with respecting this creation: The lakes, which today are poisoned
or have died. The earth, now cursed with pesticides and dotted with overcrowded landfills. The
sky, today sporting holes in its unseen ozone and sporting too, thick layers of visible
smog."
"European setters denied Native Americans their rights...to land, to life, to religion. Much was
lost. And while there is little effort to retrieve that which was lost, something can be learned
from it, even today."
"When Pope John Paul II toured the southern and western United States in the fall of 1987 he
addressed, and was addressed by, a conference of Native Americans."
A Native American (Alfretta Antone) spoke at that conference and said:
"Upon initial contact with Europeans, we shared the land given us by our Creator and taught others
how to survive here. History, however, stands as a witness to the use and abuse we have experienced
in our homelands."
"Today little remains of the gifts and richness which our Creator has shared with us, the
original peoples of these lands."
"Antone implored the Pope to help secure a dozen rights for Native Americans. Several dealt with
fair treatment by the government, others dealt with much needed economic gains, others dealt with
successful incorporation of Native American culture into American culture. But one stood out as
important in its meaning, and its insight: That our sacred ways and prayers be respected."
"Many Native Americans espouse some Christian religion, and while the Native American population
in Minnesota might be higher than in some regions of the country, there is precious little Native
American culture or spirituality in the ways and lives of central Minnesota Catholics. And, most
probably, precious little respect for that spirituality."
"A 1977 pastoral letter on Native Americans, written by the bishops spoke of justice, the
American experience, and the role of the Church. It spoke of faith and culture: the Catholic
faith, the American culture. It virtually ignored the gifts, the talents, the spirituality that
Native Americans bring to the Church."
By Cardinal Jean Danielou:
"The Missionary's position is hazardous and delicate, for he must be unusually discerning to
distinguish the tares from the good grain, to disentangle what is good in a civilization and
can be adopted, from what is perverted and must be rejected."
"This is a danger even for us who would study Buddhism or Communism or Islamism. Ours must be
incorruptible souls to be able to traffic with them without being contaminated. And indeed it
is the attribute of a very pure soul that can retain all that is good and throw off all that is
evil in the things it touches. This requires exquisite tact and "the mind of Christ." Then, once
we are truly filled with Christ, we can go anywhere without being contaminated. Christ can
associate with anyone at all; we yet, cannot do so, for too often others would leave their
imprint upon us. Here lies the mystery as well as the danger of the apostolate and of all
missionary activity."
History And Eschatology
By Jean Daneilou:
"The remarkable thing is not that only is Christianity a religion that gives history its due, but
it is the only religion that conceives things historically in the strict sense of the word, in
that Christianity is the only religion that grasps the meaning of history. The other religions,
for the most part, view time, the order of reality in which history unfolds, as a degradation
with respect to eternity, which they hold to be the only genuine reality; they consider being,
in the full sense of the word, as exempt from change, progress, and evolution. For them, time
is nothing but a mirror, a degraded reflection of eternity. We find this very marked in Platonic
thought and in all that derives from it. It is also very characteristic of Hindu thought. For
Hinduism, an even more for Buddhism, time represents multiplicity, division, dispersion,
whereas what truly exists is unity.
The purpose of Buddhist asceticism is to escape from time, from multiplicity, in order to achieve
interior unity, which is held to be divine. In Buddhist thought time has neither beginning nor end,
and one must ever strive to be liberated from it because it is pure absurdity.
Now, in contrast to these doctrines, the Bible has a totally different perspective. In the Bible,
history is a realization of God's plan, having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Within the
framework of time and by means of time, God accomplishes a definite task in successive stages,
according to His plan. This point of view recurs often in the Old Testament: much is said about
"the day of Yahweh," or "the day" on which the world will come to an end. Our Lord also makes
use of this vocabulary in the Gospel. He uses this mysterious expression: "My hour is not yet
come," or, "This is not my hour," or again, "This is your hour and the power of darkness."
All this demonstrates the existence of a plan established by God in which everything happens
at its appointed hour.
History now takes on consistency and meaning. It ceases to be pure multiplicity and dispersion
and becomes a coherent reality, ordered towards an end, a creation of God. Biblical thought
gives expression to this view of history from the moment it becomes self-aware, that is, from
the time of Abraham, in anticipation of the accomplishment by God of His design. God promised
Abraham...and this is the Covenant...that in him all nations would be blessed and that his
descendants would posses the land of promise.
Thereafter, the history of Israel is a series of events by which God's plan is accomplished. The
promise made to Abraham about 1800 B. C. was accomplished about 1200 B. C., when Joshua entered
the promised land and the Jews settled on it. But this first realization did not exhaust the
substance of the promise. That is why, throughout Jewish history, there persists the expectation
of the definitive coming of the Kingdom of God. That is what the word "eschatology" means.
Eschatology is the science, the "logos" of the "eschaton," that is, of the end. "Eschatology
pervades all of Jewish history, and only Jewish history. This is what is absolutely unique
about Jewish people, from the purely ethnological point of view. In fact, one can say that
only the Jewish people have a real history.
This expectation inspired the preaching of the prophets. Toward the time of Christ it had taken
on an almost feverish intensity, which was manifest in all the apocalyptic literature of that
period in which details of the end of the world were given. These events are to be characterized,
first of all, by the great assembling in Jerusalem of all men, Jews first, and then the others,
an assembling that necessarily implies the resurrection; because in order for all men to
assemble, the dead must rise again. Then the Son of man will come."
"Salvation is come to the Gentiles, that they may be emulous of them. Now, is the offence of
them be the riches of the world, and the diminution of them, the riches of the Gentiles; how
much more the fullness of them?" (Romans XI, 13-15)
This extraordinary text suggests that the plenitude of the Jewish people’s vocation will
become manifest only at the end of time. "For I say to you, Gentiles: as long indeed as I
am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will honor my ministry. If, by any mans, I may provoke to
emulation them who are my flesh and may save some of them. For if the loss of them be the
reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?"
(Romans XI, 11-12) Thus, there is a relationship between the reintegration of the Jews and
the resurrection of the dead, that is, the Second Coming, the end of the world. And Saint
Paul continues: "….blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the
Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall
come out of Sion, he that shall deliver." (Romans XI, 25 - 26)
Therefore Saint Paul knew that the salvation of Israel, of his brothers whom he loved passionately,
was linked to the conversion of the Gentiles. Many consequences flowed from this. Here was a
second reason why the conversion of the Gentiles appeared to be so urgent in his eyes: he knew
that the Jews would to be saved only after the mass of the Gentiles had been gathered in. This
was one of the great mysteries of His Revelation that the Lord had made known to him. But,
here again, Paul thought this could all be accomplished within the span of a man’s life, and
that the conversion of the Jews could come to pass during his own lifetime…
The conversion of the Jews has remained in abeyance ever since. For what reason? It remains
in abeyance because of the missionary question. We know that the Jews will not be converted as
a people before the mass of the Gentiles have entered the fold. The obstacle to the conversion
of the Jews is precisely the fact that the work of evangelizing is not yet completed. It
is only when all the peoples of the world have been collectively evangelized, when India is
Christian, when China is Christian, when the African Negro world is Christian, that the Jews
can be converted; and once the Jews are reintegrated, as Saint Paul says, then and only then
can the resurrection come to pass.
The evangelization of the pagans, and therefore the mission, are necessary prerequisites of the
Second Coming, and there is a direct relationship between the evangelization of the world
and the coming of the Kingdom of God, for which humanity yearns. The Lord will come to us in His
fullness only when the evangelization of the world as been complete.
Revelations, XIX, 11 -13: "And I saw heaven
opened, and behold a white horse: and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and
with justice both he judge and fight. And his eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many diadems, and he had a name written, which no man knoweth but himself. And he was
clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood; and his name is called, THE WORD OF GOD."
Cardinal Danielou wrote: "This white horse, therefore, is the Word of God, it is the
Gospel of God that is to make its triumphant way around the world before the happenings
of the end can come to pass."
By Tom Dahlheimer….The early Christians thought that the Second Coming was going to happen not
long after Jesus ascended to heaven, hence they were disappointed and seeking to understand why
there was this delay. In respect to this "delay", Cardinal Jean Danielou wrote:
These passages prove to us that Saint Paul, first of all, and the whole body of early Christians
afterwards, believed the reason for this delay (the delay of the Second Coming), this "mora" -
which astonished them and which they came to understand only by degrees - was the necessity of
evangelizing the entire world and of the acceptance of God’s message by all nations before the
Second Coming.
"Now, all the eschatological realities, awaited from all time by the Jews, were accomplished by Our
Lord. He declared Himself to be the Son of man Whom David foretold. He that believeth not is already
judged" (John, 3:18); "he is passed from death to life" (John 5:24); "he hath life everlasting"
(John, 5:24) "the hour...now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall
live" (John 5:25). All this was brought about through the mysterious events of His Incarnation,
His passion, His resurrection, and finally His Ascension, by which, according to the Epistle to
the Hebrews, humanity was introduced once and for all into the sphere of God. I lay stress on the
words "once and for all" because they are of capital importance for the Christian philosophy of
history.
The Ascension represents an extraordinary event in the history of the world because through it
humanity was once and for all eternally united to the life of God and introduced by Christ into
the sphere of God: "once and for all," absolutely "irreversibly", to use an expression currently
in favor among philosophers for defining the meaning of time. There can be no turning back, and
humanity can never again be separated from God. It has entered into His intimacy definitely and
for all eternity. We have been saved in Christ. Therefore, salvation is for us no longer merely
a hope; it is a reality we already posses. We posses divine life, and fullness of time has come
with Christ.
Yet, when we consider ourselves and the human beings around us, we are struck by a contrary
vision, by all that remains in us of misery and sin, by the slight difference there often seems
to be between Christians and non-Christians We are astonished that this salvation acquired
through Christ is manifested so little. It was so for the first Christians, too. While they
were fully convinced that from the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came down upon them
they had divine life, still they were conscious of what they lacked; they realized especially
that they were not yet risen again. They could say with Saint Paul, "in Christ also you are
risen again." Yet they knew that this resurrection in which we participate through grace is
not yet manifest in our bodies. According to Saint John, "We are now the sons of God". "And
it hath not yet appeared what we shall be." Something, then has been acquired, yet this first
acquisition is far from ultimate fulfillment. But we know that at the time of this final
manifestation, of this Apocalypse, "we shall be like to him: because we shall see Him as
He is."
Thus, the first Christians, although they had realized all that had already acquired for them,
awaited Christ's return from heaven (where He had gone on the Ascension) by an event that they
called the parousia or adventus, the second coming of Christ to gather all the friends of God
into the father's house. Christ says in the Gospel of Saint John: "I go to prepare a place for
you... and I will come again, and will take you to myself...a little while and you shall not
see me, and again a little while, and you shall see me".
We should note that they thought our Lord meant His return to be imminent: "Amen I say to you,
there are some of them that stand here, that shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man
coming in his kingdom." There is a sense of urgency in certain of Saint Paul's Epistles. Do we
seem to have wandered far afield from the missionary problem? We are coming back to it. The Lord
is about to return soon. He will surely return. But there is some delay, as in the parable of
the wise and foolish virgins. The foolish virgins and the wise virgins lived in expectation,
and that is just what the first Christians did: they lived in expectation, they were awaiting
the return of the Bridegroom, who had gone to celebrate His wedding, the eternal marriage of
the Lamb of the Church. As Gregory of Nyssa pictured it, He entered paradise, bringing with
him his bride, Humanity, whom He had just wedded on the cross. He introduced her into the
house of His Father. Then He was to come back for all the members of His mystical body and
introduced them into the joy of His glory.
Now, there is a delay, it is because there is an obstacle in the way, preventing the event of the
end time from coming to pass. In his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, Saint Paul, in answer
to the question that had been raised in Thessalonia, seemed to say that the Lord would return
soon, and they should go before Him and enter into His glory. As a result, the Thessalonians,
taking the Apostle's teaching literally, sat around doing nothing, and were content to await
the coming of the Lord. That is the real meaning of the primitive Christian vigils: they
wanted to be watching when Christ came. Our Lord had said: You must watch all night, for no
one knows if the Master will come at the third, the sixth, or the ninth hour, and the Lord
must find the servant watching. The first Christians had taken these words literally and
they watched in relay so as not to miss the coming of the Lord.
Evidently, there were certain inconveniences to this procedure, and it could easily upset life's
regular routines. So Saint Paul felt obligated to give more specific instructions in his Second
Epistle to the Thessalonians: "And we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and of our gathering together with him: That you be not moved from your sense, nor be
terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle, as sent from us, as if the day of
the Lord were at hand.
Then he repeated what he had said the first time: "Let no man deceive you by any means, for…
there (will) come a revolt (before the coming of the Lord), and the man of sin (will) be
revealed, and the son of perdition, who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he
were God."
Commentary:
This II Thessalonians scripture warned the members of the early church about the coming of
a "revolt". And this same scripture also warned them that when it arrived, it would be a sign
that "the day of the Lord" was at hand.
This end-time "revolt" is being identified by myself, and also by the authors of today's
best-selling Christian books, as the popular Hindu/Buddhist New Age movement. A movement
that became popular with its wide-spread acceptance by the youth of the 1960s countercultural
revolution.
Jean Daneilou wrote, in his book The Salvation Of The Nations, that the II Thessalonian term
"Son of perdition is a mysterious term. We do not know whether it is collective or individual.
It represents the deification of man himself."
Comment:
I believe the term "son of perdition" is collective and that "it represents the deification of man
himself".
What is meant by the II Thessalonian passage: "He (the Son of perdition) sitteth in the temple of God,
shewing himself as if he were God"? Human spirits living in human bodies have either let God into His
temple, His temple being their bodies; or, they have kept God out of His temple. 1 Cor. 3:16 says: "The
temple of God is holy, which temple your body is." In the case of the New Age movement participants...their
spirits sitteth in their bodies, their bodies being individual temple's of God...and collectively their bodies
are an expression of the temple of God. Therefore, this scripture should be interpreted: "He (New Age
movement participants) sitteth the in the temple of God (the bodies of New Age movement participants,
gathered together as single body), shewing himself as if he were God..."
New Age movement participants claim to be God.
The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians says: "And now you know what withholdeth, that he
(the anti-Christ) may be revealed in his time." (Question) What was the obstacle that delayed,
or withheld, the coming of the end-time anti-Christ revolt (or the New Age movement) and the
revealing of the son of perdition (the New Age movement's participants). I believe that light
is shed on the answer to this question...by a passage from Saint Matthew's eschatological
discourse in Chapter 24. In the following paragraphs I will show how this Saint Matthew's
passage sheds light on this question.
In Saint Matthew's eschatological discourse in Chapter 24 our Lord tells of the happenings at
the end of the age. Making answer to His apostles who ask Him: "Tell us when shall these things
be? And what shall be the sign of your coming and the consummation of the age?" Jesus says:
"Take heed that no one seduce you." He indicates that there will be wars between nations,
kingdoms against kingdoms, and pestilences. And false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce
many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall be cold. But he that
shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be
preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the
consummation come."
This is the vital passage which sheds light on the text from the Epistle to the Thessalonians.
In order for the end of the age to come, that is, in order for Jesus to return to earth and
accomplish His glorious mission to establishing the (definitive) expression of the Kingdom
of God, a certain condition must be fulfilled. This condition is that the Gospel be preached
to all nations. This sheds great light on the fundamental nature of the mission, of
evangelization: it is the great reality of the present-day world.
II Thessalonians says: "And now you know what withholdeth, that he (the anti-Christ) may be
revealed in his time."
About what withheld the coming of the (end-time) anti-Christ?
Not until the removal of the restraint that withheld modern-day technological advancements from
progressing to include satellite mass communication systems could the world's civilizations begin
to move quickly toward unity within a single civilization - a single civilization made up of the
best of the past of all the different peoples' traditions and cultures. And because we have
arrived at this stage in the evolution of human history many people throughout the world
(including myself) have become actively involved in either one of two expressions of the
"new age a-coming" ecumenical movement of the world's religions. We are participants in
this (bi-faceted) movement because we believe it's a noble mission to help unite humanity
within a single religion - a single religion that will serve as the basis and principle of
unity for a single civilization - a single civilization wherein (as lyrics in a popular
Beadles' song proclaim:) "the world will live as one".
Unfortunately, at this present time, most of the people in this movement...erroneously believe
that when all religions are finally united within a single religion - a single religion that
will serve as the basis and principle of unity for a single civilization - a single civilization
wherein the "world will live as one"...that this futuristic religion will be Hinduism and not
Catholicism. And with the removal of the restraint that withheld modern-day technological
advancements from progressing to include satellite mass communication systems...both the
"new age a-coming" Hindu and Christian world-wide missions to evangelize all of humankind
into a single religion have changed their evangelistic strategies, so that now they are
not trying to accomplish their goals from within the age of multi-culturalism but from
within the age of global mono-culturalism.
And not until the Hindu version became popular could it be recognized, by the church, to be the
end-time anti-Christ revolt and consequently a sign that the end of the age was at hand. So,
now that it has been recognized as a sign that the end of an age is at hand, the Matthews 24
passage can now be paraphrased so that it says: "this Gospel of the Kingdom"... will, now, by
way of the Church's single united global culturalism movement be preached in the whole world,
for a testimony to all nations....therefore, the consummation of the age is at hand.
What restrained the church's end-time mission from becoming manifest also restrained the
end-time anti-Christ revolt from becoming manifest. The restrainer had been restraining
modern-day technological advancements from progressing to include satellite mass
communication systems. So now that the restraint has been removed, the church is now
trying to unity humanity within a new expression of itself - a new expression of itself
that will serve as the basis and principle of unity for a single civilization, a single
civilization wherein "the world we live as one".
About who was the "restrainer" that "withheldeth":
Who does the word "who" refer to in the II Thessalonians passage, where it says:
"he who is at present restraining it, does still restrain"? In answer to this common biblical
question, I would like to say that I believe that it is speaking about Michael the archangel.
I believe it's Michael the archangel because I believe that the Holy Spirit lead him away from
his position of restraint, so that he could allow modern-day technological advancements to
progress to include satellite mass communication systems...and that, in doing so he allowed
the age of globalization to arrive - the age wherein not only the end-time anti-Christ
movement was allowed to become manifest, but the Church's end-time evangelization of all
nations and tribes mission as well. And because the Church's end-time mission has become
manifest all nations and tribes will hear the end time evangelization message about the
imminent coming of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and therefore the Church will also, at
this time, be successful at ushering in the second coming of our Lord and king Jesus
Christ.
At the coming of the youth of the 1960s generation, the world's civilizations began to move
quickly toward unity within a single civilization. And because the youth of the 1960s generation
arrived at this present stage in the evolution of human history, there consequently became
manifest...a popular, and widespread, ecumenical movement of the world's religions. And there
is, at this time, both a Hindu/Buddhist expression, as well as a Christian expression. The
Hindu/Buddhist version speedily became the most popular expression of this youth of the 1960s
ecumenical movement of the world's religions. And from most peoples' perspective it was
perceived to be, virtually, the only expression. Now, some people may be asking the question:
Why did the end-time anti-Christ "revolt" have to be the first expression to gain popular
acceptance? I would like to answer that question with the words: It had to become the first
expression to gain popular acceptance, because, in order for us to come to the realization
that we had come to the end of the present age, the coming forth of the end-time anti-Christ
"revolt" (a sign to us that the end-times had arrived) had to occur first. It took the coming
forth of the end-time anti-Christ revolt to give us the assurance that we could now begin to
present our expression of the movement as the end-time movement that would soon ushers in "the
day of the Lord".
I believe that the Christian and Catholic expression of this present-day "a new age a coming"
ecumenical movement of the world's religions will come forth victorious and that those of us in
the prophetic forefront of this movement will usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ. And
I believe that my extended maternal kinship family, the Rainbow family, will be coming into the prophetic forefront
of the Christian and Catholic expression of this end-time movement and that we will then usher
in the second coming of Jesus Christ; and that, therefore, Jesus Christ, with our help, will bring
about the unity of humanity and the restoration of creation
Click An End-Times Doctrine to view fourth chapter.
