Friday, March 17, 2006
FR. SERAPHIM ROSE MENTIONS DAN BROWN
If, according to the neopagan view, we and everything else are but emanations of God, then there is nothing for Christ to do but guide us back to gnosis of what we already are. This idea is precisely what is being promoted today under the guise of being the authentic, esoteric teaching of Christ. In actual fact, it is but a revival of the ancient gnostic heresy, based on pagan philosophy, that was rightly condemned by the early Fathers of the Orthodox Church. This message of gnostic "Christianity" is being publicized today through the writings and media appearances of scholars with an obvious bias against traditional Christianity, chief among whom is Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief. The same message has recently received much attention through the quasi-historical novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: a blasphemous assault on traditional Christianity that has sold over twelve million copies since its publication in 2003.
This is the main reason why I would so like to see Eastern and Western Christianity reunited. Fr. Seraphim doesn't hesitate to call a spade a spade:
If one perceives a common thread among occult and New Age teachings spanning generations, this is because there is a single mind directing the formation of the new religious consciousness. It is the mind of the same fallen angel who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden with the words: Ye shall be as Gods (Genesis 3:5). But while the evil one's servant, the antichrist, will appear to triumph for a time, in the end it is he whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming (II Thes. 2:8).
Fr. Seraphim correctly took note of the state of the Roman Catholic Church:
Concurrently, there is now a movement in contemporary Roman Catholicism to assimilate the teachings of Carl Jung, one of the founding fathers of the New Age movement. Jung, who participated in seances and admitted to having "spirit guides," taught that the exclusion of the "dark side" is a fatal flaw in Christianity, and that therefore there needs to be a fourth hypostasis added to the Holy Trinity—Lucifer! His theories are being extolled in Roman Catholic seminars and workshops, and his psychotherapy is being practiced in some Roman Catholic churches, and by monks and nuns in some monasteries [Deborah Corbett, "The Trouble with Truth: A Review of The Illness That We Are: A Jungian Critique of Christianity by John P. Dourley," Epiphany Journal, Spring 1986, pp. 82—90; "Jungian Psychology as Catholic Theology," St. Catherine Review, May—June 1997; and Mitch Pacwa, S.J., Catholics and the New Age (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Publications, 1992)]. Episcopal and Protestant (especially Methodist) churches have entered this movement; a number of Protestant ministers who also work as Jungian analysts [Deborah Corbett, "The Jungian Challenge to Modern Christianity," Epiphany Journal, Summer 1988, pp.33-40].
We may be in the midst of the Scriptural "Great Apostasy" or just witnessing a forerunner of it. Whatever the case, while our Western monks dabble in Buddhism and the teachings of Gurdjieff, this Orthodox monk puts the Traditional Catholic interpretation on the times.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
