I get the sense that the romantic aspect of Romantic Christianity causes much confusion and consternation among co-religionists. For most, the adjective cancels out the noun it modifies.
Other modifiers – Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox, Traditional, Liberal – are broadly accepted and comprehended as describing words meant to provide further details about Christianity, but the addition of Romantic before Christianity strikes most Christians as incongruous and inconsistent.
Mention romanticism and most people envision something fanciful and unreal, an approach and attitude prone to fantasizing or idealizing. This applies to the romantic approach to Christianity, which involves the active choice to develop consciousness, creatively participate in Creation, and fulfill God’s divine plan. It's enough to make most Christians cry heresy or run for the exits.
The reaction is somewhat understandable considering Romanticism's failure to overcome alienation by vivifying Christianity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Romantic impulse attempted but ultimately fell short and succumbed to materialism. Romanticism has never entirely disappeared, but its faint residue has often been misinterpreted or misapplied.
For conventional Christians, fusing Romanticism with Christianity is the epitome of misinterpretation and misapplication. They insist that the last thing Christianity need is romanticism. After all, it already has its 2000-year tradition, its authority, its scripture, its doctrines, its dogmata, and its churches.
If Christianity needs anything at all, it is faithful and obedient followers of the 2000-year tradition and everything contained within it.
The 2000-year tradition and all it encompasses is undeniably real and true, but are contemporary Christians true to the 2000-year tradition, or are they estranged and alienated from it?
Does their participation in the 2000-year tradition emanate robustly and meaningfully from the internal, or is it mostly a matter of conforming passively to the external?
Put another way, do Christians participate in a Christianity of givenness or a Christianity of creativity?
If Christianity is to have any future, it must become creative once again. If it remains in its current state of givenness, the larger given world will eclipse it.
The only way Christianity can become creative again is to romanticize itself and the world.
Ask Christians what they dream of and most will tell you that they dream of living in a given Christian world. Most are blind to the created world they live in; even blinder to the created world that lives in them.
The first step in this time and place is to look within. The divine calling to overcome the given world and continue God’s Creation is there, waiting to be discovered.
Other modifiers – Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox, Traditional, Liberal – are broadly accepted and comprehended as describing words meant to provide further details about Christianity, but the addition of Romantic before Christianity strikes most Christians as incongruous and inconsistent.
Mention romanticism and most people envision something fanciful and unreal, an approach and attitude prone to fantasizing or idealizing. This applies to the romantic approach to Christianity, which involves the active choice to develop consciousness, creatively participate in Creation, and fulfill God’s divine plan. It's enough to make most Christians cry heresy or run for the exits.
The reaction is somewhat understandable considering Romanticism's failure to overcome alienation by vivifying Christianity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Romantic impulse attempted but ultimately fell short and succumbed to materialism. Romanticism has never entirely disappeared, but its faint residue has often been misinterpreted or misapplied.
For conventional Christians, fusing Romanticism with Christianity is the epitome of misinterpretation and misapplication. They insist that the last thing Christianity need is romanticism. After all, it already has its 2000-year tradition, its authority, its scripture, its doctrines, its dogmata, and its churches.
If Christianity needs anything at all, it is faithful and obedient followers of the 2000-year tradition and everything contained within it.
The 2000-year tradition and all it encompasses is undeniably real and true, but are contemporary Christians true to the 2000-year tradition, or are they estranged and alienated from it?
Does their participation in the 2000-year tradition emanate robustly and meaningfully from the internal, or is it mostly a matter of conforming passively to the external?
Put another way, do Christians participate in a Christianity of givenness or a Christianity of creativity?
If Christianity is to have any future, it must become creative once again. If it remains in its current state of givenness, the larger given world will eclipse it.
The only way Christianity can become creative again is to romanticize itself and the world.
Ask Christians what they dream of and most will tell you that they dream of living in a given Christian world. Most are blind to the created world they live in; even blinder to the created world that lives in them.
The first step in this time and place is to look within. The divine calling to overcome the given world and continue God’s Creation is there, waiting to be discovered.
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