Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Fr. Barron's additional comments on "Why I Hate Religion"

Excellent further analysis on that video and the tendency to uproot Jesus from his Jewish roots, from the concrete historical embodiment of Christ in his mystical body, the Church--the beauty, truth and goodness which Fr. Barron himself presents so compellingly in his "Catholicism" series.  In a sense, the "Catholicism" series as a whole is the best answer to the "Hate Religion" video.

I'm reminded of Fr. Barron's brilliant commentary on Anne Rice, who made a similar move to distance herself from the real religious Jesus and the religion he founded, with all its sacraments, worship, and institutional expression, a move to turn Jesus into her own private lover.

As Fr. Barron points out, this is a widespread tendency to create one's own deracinated, dejudaized, ahistorical, individualized Jesus free from the mess of the institution--inconveniently human as well as divine--that Jesus established on earth.  It is not a new tendency.  It arises not only in Protestantism but has precursors in the early years of the Church, in the Marcionite and Gnostic heresies.  It is a powerful temptation in all ages

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