The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedRosemary Ruether
Title QuotedChurch Against Itself
Date (Year/Month/Day)1967/02/14
ImprintNew York : Herder and Herder. 1967
QuotationFinishing the Ruether ms. Really a question of getting new bearings. The book is important - at least for me. And explosive. Where it is important for me is that it forces me to reexamine the whole question of my conversion, and to distinguish in it the action of God's word and the attraction of a sacral and traditional and stable culture. This was important especially in my vocation. Now that the stability of these structures is really shaken - and I have done my own part in shaking them - I have to live really by God's word and by a "tru" Christian community (where?) and not cheat by relying on past cultural props which keep me comfortable. The whole Church-world argument in my work has been ambiguous because I bought the idea of a sacred and unworldly Christian culture and set that up against the wicked world. We tried hard to be therefore modern, technological. Technology is certainly able to be even more demonic than, say, the Papacy (see R.'s book) - but the division is too easy.
Quotation SourceLearning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 198
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