In this article, Ong challenges the concept of a “post-Christian era.”\u00a0 He states that the term is misleading and should be referenced as “post-Christendom.”\u00a0 To paraphrase Ong, Christendom is an inculturated, Eurocentric, Christian worldview closely allied with power, politics, and the advanced technology of war and conquest, roughly originating with Constantine prior to the Dark Ages.\u00a0 Essentially, this worldview visualized a mechanistic universe in which time was discarded as “disposable waste,” while Christians awaited an eternal life after death.\u00a0 Ong claims that difficulties are inevitable in the attempt to dissociate essential Christianity from its cultural artifacts.\u00a0 While Christendom may represent a soon-to-be obsolete worldview, Christianity continues to evolve as the human species gleans more knowledge, through technological (electronic) advances, from its own planet and the cosmos.\u00a0 Indeed, Ong states “human consciousness is the point at which the universe becomes and remains self-conscious, aware of its own existence in the consciousness of each individual human being, and thereby becomes capable of receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ as human beings, Lord and brother and redeemer.”<\/p>\n
Ong claims youth for the Church and Christianity and announces that in many ways we live in a “pre-Christian era.”\u00a0 Real time in the real cosmos is a constituent of matter.\u00a0 Life only exists in “old matter.”\u00a0 Christ became Incarnate in a cosmos 1.5 billion years old, in a species that is approximately 150,000 years old.\u00a0 Thus a Christian theology, of necessity, must be ecological, evolutionary, and ecumenical.\u00a0 Ong advocates a “theology of religions,” which recognizes Christianity\u2019s continuity with and supplementation by other religious worldviews.\u00a0 Ong states:\u00a0 “Christian theology is not a walled fortress but, necessarily expressed in language, is necessarily open to dialogue with others.”<\/p>\n
Ong envisions further expansion of Christianity through an organic process of growth, much like the leavening effect of yeast on dough.\u00a0 He emphasizes our sacred responsibilities on both physical and psychological levels in a cosmic model that incorporates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, i.e. “in certain situations we inevitably only know details of the physical universe with probability rather than certainty.”\u00a0 Therefore, our interactions with the material world are often subject to unpredictability.\u00a0 We participate in a mystery pregnant with both potential joys and agonies.\u00a0 Ong also addresses aspects of this topic in 1989 in “Realizing Catholicism, Faith, Learning in the Future.”<\/a><\/p>\n Joyce Olszewski Applewhite In this article, Ong challenges the concept of a “post-Christian era.”\u00a0 He states that the term is misleading and should be referenced as “post-Christendom.”\u00a0 To paraphrase Ong, Christendom is an inculturated, Eurocentric, Christian worldview closely allied with power, politics, and the advanced technology of war and conquest, roughly originating with Constantine prior to the Dark … Continue reading Annotation: Church and Cosmos: Reflections on Frames of Reference<\/span>
\nUniversity of Dayton<\/p>\n
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