As with
the mystical tradition in general, the danger is that the Pentecostal mystical experience becomes a mere escape from the world rather than a preparation for a purposeful reinsertion into the world.
The distinction is further blurred by
the mystical tradition in every major world religion, including Christianity and Judaism.
It must be made quite clear that he who, not on the fringe of the christian
mystical tradition but at its point of fullest development, was able without imprudence to engage in this formidable battle with matter had prepared himself for it by the most rigorous asceticism: first, in childhood and youth, the asceticism of an unwavering fidelity to the christian ideal; later, that of a careful and constant obedience to the exigencies of a vocation which would lead him on without respite up the steeply climbing road to perfection till he came to that solitude which he himself described: «he would henceforth be for ever a stranger..., he would inevitably speak henceforth in an incomprehensible tongue, he whom the Lord had drawn to follow the road of fire.»
The stress on action over against teaching (the kerygmatic tradition) and religious experience (
the mystical tradition) is significant, for it ties in directly with the way of the parables.
Many Christian's don't, either — especially within the more
mystical traditions.
The notion has tantalized many, including Tertullian and Irenacus, and though it received little assistance from either Platonism or Aristotelianism because of their denigration of matter and the body (and hence did not enter the mainstream of either Augustinian or Thomistic theology), it surfaced powerfully in Hegel as well as in twentieth - century process theologies.22
The mystical tradition within Christianity has carried the notion implicitly, even though the metaphor of body may not appear: «The world is charged with the grandeur of God» (Gerard Manley Hopkins, 27).
and even
the mystical traditions in such western religions as christianity, judaism and islam.
Understanding Hinduism can help Christians recover
their mystical traditions and allow the Church to communicate with people today at the level of experience rather doctrine.
In part such openness can be facilitated by a recovery of certain
mystical traditions in their own past, such as those discussed by Matthew Fox in Chapter Four of Cry of the Environment (CCS).
I'm now pursuing
the mystical tradition, at long last.
I am attempting to furnish a very broad sketch of the variety of Indian Christian perception of God - Christ relations as a background for a more detailed appraisal of insights on the same subject from
a mystical tradition of Islam.
The mystical tradition, with which I have great sympathy and about which I have written in the companion volume What can we Learn from Hinduism, unites believers beyond the differences of doctrines and ritual and stresses the longing to experience the presence of God.
I would suggest it is in
the mystical tradition of Islam (Sufism) that Christianity might meet a dialogue in which it sees its own face.
The second weakness is that the book does not sufficiently emphasise that
the mystical tradition of Christianity speaks a common language which crosses denominations and faiths.
Exactly how would somebody practicing Advaita Vedanta or any of the true
mystical traditions benefit from being part of a religious organization?
For Irving, Spirit baptism was a shorthand way of saying what
the mystical tradition had said all along.
Since the Reformation we have taken the emphasis off
the mystical tradition, but it never went away and it has been rediscovered by men like Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, John Main, and Laurence Freeman.
My journey went via evangelical Christianity, studying with Jehovah's Witnesses, study of other mythologies, studying some in
the mystical traditions and studying and communing as best I could with nature.
I want to share with you an excerpt from a letter I received from a more mature mystic when I first began my own pilgrimage of faith within
the mystical tradition:
In Christian
mystical tradition there is the same emphasis on discovering God as our deepest inner reality.
Hinduism helped me to turn with appreciation to
the mystical tradition in Christianity and to discover the reality of the Spirit's presence in the heart.
You were among the earlier writers who regarded
the mystical tradition as a source of religious renewal.
To be sure,
the mystical tradition has testified to an underlying unity, and has sometimes referred to God as the world - soul; but usually mystics speak of an undifferentiated identity wherein distinctions are obliterated — which is very different from the organized integration of cooperatively interacting parts that characterizes the unity of a body.
Perhaps there is also a sense in which the Christian
mystical tradition echoes the life of Christ himself.
Although some theologies have difficulty with a God who hides (it's all so anthropomorphic thru and thru), it's a common theme in many
mystical traditions
For example, a curriculum that seems to privilege courses having to do with religious experience, worship, spirituality, counseling, and the like over, say, systematic and philosophical theology may reveal a commitment to the assumption that God is understood effectively rather than discursively; while a curriculum relatively more rich in offerings in ethics, sociology of religion, liberation theology, and the like than in offerings in historical theology, patristics, liturgics, and
mystical traditions may reveal a commitment to the view that God is better understood in action than in contemplation.
Not only Bonhoeffer but the whole
mystical tradition lies very close indeed to death - of - God theologies today.
Also, with the dramatic rediscovery of
their mystical tradition, Jews have delved deeper into the inner self and its intricate labyrinth of impulses and desires.
Rooted in the Ancient Oral and
Mystical Traditions Authors Dave Mason and Mike Feuer spent years researching the Oral and Kabbalistic traditions detailing the inner workings of prophecy and the world of Ancient Israel.
Drawing inspiration from his fascination with
mystical traditions (most notably Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism and Christian mysticism), Viola's work largely deals with fundamental human experiences.
Drawing on a wealth of concepts and subjects from the atomic and the cosmic, geometry and optics, to time, rotation and visual perception, Seeing Round Corners will also include a selection of objects and images from world cultures, religions and history such as scientific instruments, technological images and works from spiritual and
mystical traditions.
He also employs a range of images and symbols that reference 16th - century Dutch painting, mandalas, hieroglyphics, and indigenous and
mystical traditions, layering them into interwoven compositions that invite the viewer to approximate his otherworldly medical experience, and serve a mode of research into that experience.
Tapping historically Ottoman
mystical traditions and self - indulgent decadence, we often see her characters in dream like trances, unaware of each other, consumed by their own existence, their dreams and hopes.
He has an overarching interest in
mystical traditions, especially those of Christianity, Zen Buddhism, and Islam.
Not exact matches
It does not come from any other source, and certainly it doesn't come from
tradition or through some supposed
mystical personal experience since the Canon is closed.
By contrast to Europe's denial of its religious and moral foundations, Asia's great religious
traditions, especially the
mystical component expressed in Buddhism, have been elevated as spiritual powers.
The chapter - headings, following a long
tradition, interpret them with reference to the
mystical loves of Christ and the Church.
Ultimately, then, God would be conceived as Other and as Holy; perhaps as the «normative» Judeo - Christian - Islamic
tradition has asserted all along in its much maligned dogmatic theology; while leaving
mystical assertions of identity and oneness suspect.
There are
mystical based
traditions in all the major religions that are more focused that the divine lives within each one of us as our true self.
So we have the rather severe problem of an unfortunate choice facing many of the young: accept either a
mystical and irrelevant religious
tradition or a cynical secular environment.
The key to Calvin's vibrancy is linking desire for God with a homey simplicity that mirrors both the great Christian
tradition of
mystical experience and the small - town sensibilities of historic American Protestantism.
Their ways of doing this are most varied, ranging from a sense of acting in accordance with the «rightness in things» (as in much Chinese religion), through a
mystical identification of the deepest self or atman with the cosmic reality or brahma (as in Hinduism), or a «blowing - out» of individual selfhood by sharing in the bliss of Nirvana (as in most varieties of Buddhism), to the sense of fellowship or communion with God found in our own Jewish - Christian religious
tradition.
Lindbeck's «experiential - expressivist» model does a reasonably good job of accounting for the romantic and
mystical streams of liberal theology, but it does not account for variants of liberal theology that make gospel - centered claims (such as the
tradition of evangelical» liberalism), that base their affirmations on metaphysical arguments (such as the Whiteheadian process school) or that appeal to gospel norms and metaphysical arguments (such as the Boston personalist school).
Ninian Smart has shown that although Western religious
traditions have been predominantly numinous and Eastern
traditions predominantly
mystical, all the major world religions have in fact included both types of experience.18 Early Israel gave priority to the numinous; biblical literature portrays the overwhelming sense of encounter, the prophetic experience of the holy as personal, the acknowledgment of the gulf between the worshipper and the object of worship.
Although they may begin in priestly,
mystical or communal religious
traditions, fundamentalist - like movements seem to be found more frequently in those religions that claim to have received through revelation or great discovery a grand message of new truth, which must be delivered and which turns all ordinary understandings on their head.
The Protestant
tradition as a whole, in reaction to perceived abuses, downplayed virtually all
mystical aspects of the Christian life — there was little if any room for miracles / supernatural gifts of the Spirit.
Many in the Christian west have been attracted to the non-theistic and more humanistic character of the Buddhist
tradition, or to the deep
mystical spirituality of the Hindu
tradition; others have been attracted to the more physical practice of spirituality to be found in Chinese
tradition.
Mystical movements within the different religious
traditions may have been.
For example, there has already been some convergence among representatives of the various
traditions regarding the
mystical dimension of religion.
It is true that Dostoevsky personally assented — despite occasional episodes of doubt — to the creeds of the ancient church, and that he believed deeply in the
mystical and sacramental
traditions of the Orthodox church, and that in general his vision of things was shaped by traditional Christian understandings of sin and redemption.