Saturday, April 12, 2008

Integral Christianity

The ancient Christian tradition stresses that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. He was not simply a really great guy; nor was he simply God walking around on earth for a time. Father Thomas speaks of Jesus on the Cross, stretched out between Heaven and Earth, as a profound symbol of the wedding together, in one Person, of all of evolution—matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit—leading the way for us all to do the same. This process of divinization, as Eastern Christian traditions put it, is beautifully worded in the liturgical prayer: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.” Integral spirituality likewise exhorts us to be fully human (developing our abilities to take the widest and highest possible perspectives) and fully divine (moving into states of an ever-deepening oneness with Spirit). Perhaps we too will die to the egoic self-contraction we somehow believe ourselves to be. And perhaps we too will awaken and leave behind “the empty tomb….”
--ISC Editor's Blog

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