InChrist
Free4ever
Because he was a "Catholic" like me? I feel we've been here before InChrist. This is not the thread for that IMHO
He was a convert from atheism to Catholicism. He embraced the Catholic form of Christianity very seriously, becoming a Trappist monk. In his later life he became a great promoter of dialogue among religions. In this hw never once abandoned Christ, nor the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, salvation through Christ etc.
He was one of the 20th century's greatest Christian mystics IMHO.
More than a Catholic, he was a panentheist who denied and compromised the biblical faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).
Thomas Merton has influenced New Age thinking more than any person of recent decades. Merton penned one of the most classic descriptions of New Age spirituality I have ever come across. He explained:
"It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, ... now I realize what we all are .... If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are ...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other ... At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth ... This little point ...is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody."
FROM A TIME OF DEPARTING BY RAY YUNGEN (quoting Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1989 edition, 157-158)
Excerpt: Thomas Merton - Contemplative, Mystic, Panentheist
I picked up another book, Thomas Merton's Ways of the Christian Mystics, and flipped through its miniature pages. Published by Shambala, a prolific producer of occult literature, it told of a "sacred journey" with "origins in prehistoric religious cultures and myths." Myths instead of truth? I felt sad but not surprised. Few spiritual teachers have done more to blend the biblical meaning of sacredness with eastern mysticism than Merton, the popular Catholic author who died in Asia searching the depths of Tibetan Buddhism. Yet thousands of Christian women search his books for simple paths to intimacy with God.
Mertons little book echoes the theme of universal oneness. "Our pilgrimage," he wrote, is "to the stranger who is Christ, our fellow-pilgrim and our brother." He suggests some of the potential strangers: the Inca, Maya or aborigine who is "no other than ourselves, which is the same as saying that we find Christ in him." No matter which gods he or she worships?
"Yes," cry a chorus of contemporary voices. Respected guides such as Thomas Merton have opened the door to countless spiritual alternatives by tearing down the biblical separation between the holiness of God and the unholy spirits behind pagan religions. It may sound compassionate to blend the two and trust that both paths lead to the same destination, but its not true. They are incompatible. God withdrew His presence from His holy temple back in Old Testament days. His people had profaned it by worshipping their Canaanite gods and goddesses inside its walls. Having lost Gods blessing and protection, the nation that had been the envy of its neighbors was soon destroyed by immorality, greed, famine, and war.
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[/FONT]Excerpt: A Twist of Faith Chapter 2: Sacred and perfect am I
Since Thomas Merton believed that all religions lead to God and he said..."I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can." (David Steindl-Rast, "Recollection of Thomas Merton's Last Days in the West" (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969) and also believed that everyone has god within then I believe he most definitely did abandon Jesus Christ and the orthodox doctrines of biblical faith.