Part one and Two
Part One
One of the most significant developments in the Church today affecting Scripture, Liturgy, Spirituality and Theology is the rediscovery of experience as the rich resource and a fundamental base as we make our journey together to God. It was not always so. During the last century and well into the present century, experience was very much distrusted and held as unreliable. Scripture, Liturgy, Spirituality and Theology itself were tied to and dominated by authority of Rome. The role of experience was not only neglected but was held very much in suspicion so that both the understanding and practices of Christianity were quite divorced from life and the real needs of the people. This divorce between doctrine and experience, between liturgy and life was mainly due to a misunderstanding of the nature of experience and its role in the Christian life. Experience was interpreted in a way very narrow, subjectivistic and individualistic sense. The world was really only what I, the individual claims to be or not. So believe in God was not so much an allegiance to a supreme being but more the extension of my intellectual and emotional horizon. Theology itself was simply an elucidation of this subjectivistic experience. This line of thinking all came under the umbrella of Modernism.
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