“The Evangelization Of The World In This Generation”

This was my column for September in The Meta Arts, an online magazine, which is to be found at http://www.themetaarts.com/pages/frankdemarco.html

“The Evangelization Of The World In This Generation”

I got involved in one of those arguments. You know the kind, where the two sides start from so far apart, believing “facts” that are diametrically opposite, that there is no real way to come to agreement. What’s more, she was a friend of a friend, and I wanted to be careful not to let an argument become a heated dispute.

But the “facts” she was quoting with such certainty were just not so. Missionaries, she said, were merely agents of imperialism, using their religion as a weapon to destroy native institutions. Like so many people – political liberals, mostly — she assumed that religious institutions are automatically corrupt, that missionaries are automatically bigots, and that efforts to convert natives of other cultures were mere manifestations of racism.

But in this she, as most people in our generation, was the victim of ignorance fostered by leftist ideology and propagated by lack of historical memory. For instance, she had never heard of the slogan “the evangelization of the world in this generation,” and when I quoted it, had no idea what it meant or why it was adopted.

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William Bloom: Do people really create their own reality?

This article came to me in an email some time ago, and surfaced tonight, so perhaps it is time to pass it on. I am not (the guys are not) totally in agreement with everything he says about the background of incarnation, but I am fully on board with his objections to the way New Age “thinkers” over-simplify the causes of suffering — and in the process often diminish their own empathy. I have had many an unsuccessful argument to that effect!

 

DOES EVERYONE REALLY CREATE THEIR OWN REALITY?

William Bloom ‑ Cygnus Magazine

Over the years it has been an honor for me to advance and defend new age and holistic spirituality. I love its open‑mindedness, its embrace of metaphysics and the way it combines spiritual work with healthcare. But I have also despaired at times about its apparent lack of morality and compassion when faced with the realities of people’s suffering.

This coldness is often explained away with half‑baked ideas about how energies, karma and the laws of attraction work. This often reach a peak of disturbing smugness when a new age ‘philosopher’ faced with cruel suffering says authoritatively: ‘People create their own reality’ or ‘Their soul chose it ‑ its their karma’ or ‘Everything is perfect in God’s Plan ‑ you just need to perceive it differently’. People who say such things seem to have no idea how smug and nasty they sound. Nor of the hurt they cause. Continue reading William Bloom: Do people really create their own reality?