The book is disturbing, which is not a bad thing: I know all too well that it is easy to get complacent in the matter of our eternal life.
The book is also discouraging, for which I honestly struggle to find an excuse. The impression it gives when I put it aside a bit past half-way is that I am sure to go to Hell, it is too late to do anything about it, and neither Fr. Rose nor his God has a problem with that.
I think I should have stopped at Chapter 4, at the paragraph where he dismisses out of hand the possibility that a Protestant may have caught a glimpse of Heaven. Actually I agree that the vision used as example is unlikely to be of the Heaven of saints; that is not the problem. The problem is the unreflected and unconcerned certainty that you have to be an official member of an earthly organization to not be condemned collectively. Actually it soon becomes clear that even if you are a member of the Orthodox Church, your chances are pretty slim, but at least you may get a fair trial. This is simply taken as an axiom, a starting point, though I suppose it may be elaborated on in other works.
Unless you follow the particulars of the Orthodox path (in this work not specified, but hinted to be some sort of asceticism), you can be assured that any impulse you receive, even if it is toward gratitude and love for others, comes from evil spirits. Any comfort and bliss you may experience is sure to come from demons.
If I were to take this book seriously, I would conclude that the Presence that has been with me since my youth, which once made the Scriptures come alive to me, which has advised me against evil and encouraged me toward good, which has forgiven me and comforted me through the years, must certainly be a demon. I find that hard to believe.
I may be harsh, but that is the impression the book leaves with me, and I suspect it could be even worse for those not already favorably inclined toward Orthodoxy. Strongly dis-recommended for those not in the choir he is preaching to.
It is rare that I even consider burning a book, but the risk of this work falling into the hand of a doubting soul after my passing is something I am not sure I want to have on my conscience. I have someone with depression in my close family who might inherit my bookshelf if I were to pass away soon. I don't want to risk their life. While I assume the book must have some positive value for some people, I fear that it may be too dangerous for outsiders.
I think I should say that I actually agree with Fr Rose on his main points, I am just horrified by his vision of a world where God has basically lost against Satan, being content with getting a few elite souls while the rest of mankind is and remains completely under the thumbs of demons, the good people with the bad. The word "dystopia" is far too mild. It is more like "second-worst case scenario" and one would tend to agree with the sci-fi author that "In the beginning God created the universe; this was widely considered a bad move."
2 comments:
Well Magnus, good post. So you have the Presence. I have it too.
We both know It isn't a demon.
How much faith and trust can we lose by reading the works of others?
I natter at the One Cosmos blog author for over-reliance on other people to interpret the Presence for him. He does not heed. He erases any comment I make about it.
Undoubtedly he has his reasons.
But you seem less inhibited. That is good.
How much faith and trust can we lose (or win) by reading the works of others? That depends on how close they are to us, I think. In so far as they resonate with some part of us, they have a "handle" to influence us, for good or ill.
For this reason, whenever we "receive" an emotional state or a point of view from another, it should be natural for us to take a quick look at ourselves and see WHY this transfer happens. This also applies face to face.
Most of human communication is not about conveying facts, but emotional states. What motivates people to do this?
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