Thomas Merton said

[Wu Wei]

Thomas Merton

Popular religion has to a great extent betrayed mans inner spirit and turned him over like Samson, with his hair cut off and his eyes dug out, to turn the mill of a self-frustrating and self-destroying culture.

But I wonder if we have not settled down to comfortably to accept passively the prevarications that the Gospel or the Prophets would have us reject with all the strength of our being. I am afraid that common combinations of organizational jollity, moral legalism, and nuclear crusading will not pass muster as a serious religion. IT certainly has little to do with "spiritual life."

So what do you think about what Merton said?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Merton is addressing fundamentalism.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

It's Niezsche's life-denying Last Men.

 

[Amechania]

Religious services endeavor to entertain, clerics attempt to teach, and the laity put what they have seen and heard into practice. If Merton thinks protesting a social ill is a pointless byproduct of, or a phony imitation of Jesus, then all his meditations were in vain. I don't think that is what Merton intends. He valued the personal spiritual experience. I think he would like others to seek that experience out. However, many religious have no time or interest in pursuing a religious experience on a par with Merton's. So let them have that superficial attatchment to God if it makes them feel closer. Jesus would applaud them. Why can't Merton?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Religious services endeavor to entertain, clerics attempt to teach, and the laity put what they have seen and heard into practice. If Merton thinks protesting a social ill is a pointless byproduct of, or a phony imitation of Jesus, then all his meditations were in vain. I don't think that is what Merton intends. He valued the personal spiritual experience. I think he would like others to seek that experience out. However, many religious have no time or interest in pursuing a religious experience on a par with Merton's. So let them have that superficial attatchment to God if it makes them feel closer. Jesus would applaud them. Why can't Merton?

I don't think Jesus would applaud those with a superficial attachment to God, he would have yelled at them.

Jesus let's loose

 

[Amechania]

Jesus wouldn't applaud the superficial attatchment in itself, but would applaud the little faith that makes that attachment possible at all. "Oh ye of little faith" is not so much an admonition, as it is an encouragement. A person with some small amount of faith is better than a person with none at all. Remember the mustard seed.