Autor: Walsh, David

Buch: The Third Millenium

Titel: The Third Millenium

Stichwort: Konsumbefriedigung und Narzissmus unter dem Blickpunkt der Gnosis

Kurzinhalt: Feel-good narcissism and consumer gratification ...what is less well understood is their filiation with the oldest of all rivals to Christianity in Gnosticism

Textausschnitt: 207b A measure of the degree to which our contemporary religiosity is infected with the Gnostic illusion is the extent to which spirituality has become defined by self-fulfillment. The gnostic pattern of spiritual short-circuitry is at work in it. Feel-good narcissism and consumer gratification are well-recognized features of the contemporary spiritual landscape. But what is less well understood is their filiation with the oldest of all rivals to Christianity in Gnosticism. It is sensed, but rarely understood, how deeply contrary to Christianity the spirituality of immanent success really is.1 Attainment of the means of our satisfaction undermines the redemptive thrust of the Christian message. Congregations already satiated beyond their expectations and thus perfected in their spiritual lives are hardly in need of a redeemer. No wonder there is little call for preaching on the wickedness of the human heart or on the ineradicable proclivity for evil within each of us. As a consequence, there is even less need for reference to the redemptive power of suffering. Lives neither in need of repentance nor prone to the afflictions of the body and mind are hardly receptive ground for the Christian message of healing. The perfect have no need of a savior, and the same is true of those who have lost all cognizance of their imperfection. But with this evisceration of the Christian message, there also flows away the depth of insight within which reason can unfold toward its limits. The field of rationality is correspondingly shrunk toward a mundane realm of existence closed off against all illuminative glimpses from the Beyond. It is no wonder that a spirituality reduced to secular self-fulfillment and self-esteem can offer little in the way of guidance to a reason condemned to endlessly organizing the achievement of mundane efficiency. The possibility that suffering might not be something on which we would want to turn our backs can no longer penetrate, because it is no longer transparent for the transcendent love that redeems and renders it redemptive toward all others. (Fs) (notabene)