- Feb 5, 2002
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Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Rod Dreher prefaces the final chapter of his new book Living in Wonder with a quotation from Karl Rahner, “The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’ —one who has experienced ‘something’ or he will cease to be anything at all.”
As it stands, Rahner seems to be saying that personal religious experience is vital—that supernatural revelation will be necessary to the faith of future Christians. In other words, cultural Christianity won’t do. “I’m a Catholic because my grandfather was Polish” won’t wash.
But is that what Rahner is really saying? Does the final phrase hold a more troubling meaning? He predicts that the Christian who is not a mystic will “cease to be anything at all.” Does he mean the non-mystic will cease to be a Christian, or that he really will “cease to be anything at all”? If the latter, the cost of being a non-visionary would seem to be rather severe: Being devoid of mysticism would mean annihilation—being nothing at all. To extend the thought from the individual to the corporate, for us to fail as a race of mystics means the abolition of man.
Continued below.
theimaginativeconservative.org
Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, by Rod Dreher (288 pages, Zondervan, 2024)
Rod Dreher prefaces the final chapter of his new book Living in Wonder with a quotation from Karl Rahner, “The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’ —one who has experienced ‘something’ or he will cease to be anything at all.”
As it stands, Rahner seems to be saying that personal religious experience is vital—that supernatural revelation will be necessary to the faith of future Christians. In other words, cultural Christianity won’t do. “I’m a Catholic because my grandfather was Polish” won’t wash.
But is that what Rahner is really saying? Does the final phrase hold a more troubling meaning? He predicts that the Christian who is not a mystic will “cease to be anything at all.” Does he mean the non-mystic will cease to be a Christian, or that he really will “cease to be anything at all”? If the latter, the cost of being a non-visionary would seem to be rather severe: Being devoid of mysticism would mean annihilation—being nothing at all. To extend the thought from the individual to the corporate, for us to fail as a race of mystics means the abolition of man.
Continued below.
Modern Mysticism: Rod Dreher’s "Living in Wonder"
Rod Dreher wants us to see into the life of things—to see the Creator hidden in the creation, to see the grandeur of God and sense the “deep down things.” But the trouble with the appeal of mysticism is the perennial danger of gnosticism. (essay by Dwight Longenecker)
theimaginativeconservative.org
