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Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition

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_Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition_ by Philip Sherrard is an interesting perspective on various aspects of Christian theology and "Traditionalist" philosophy. Sherrard was an Englishman who converted into the Greek Orthodox Church during the 1940s and died in 1995. This book is Sherrard's final work in which he reflects on Christianity and relates his thoughts on various intellectual and philosophical challenges to Christianity from a variety of sources. The book starts out with an introduction by Kallistos Ware, a British Bishop and Oxford graduate, who writes at length about Sherrard's career and their collaboration on translating monastic wisdom texts, the _Philokalia_ into English in a multivolume publication. Sherrard is an adherent of the Traditionalist philosophy which states that all of the world's great religions share a common esoteric core (a view apparently endorsed by Ware). As such, Sherrard's approach to Orthodoxy is rather different than most standard books on doctrine. He makes little reference to the Bible or for that matter to many practices of the Church. Sherrard generally argues his viewpoint from universal principles rather than theological specifics. This makes his book a very engaging and challenging read, but in and of itself, _Christianity_ is a better introduction to Traditionalist philosophy than Orthodox theology. This is also a book with which one does not have to agree with all of its points and claims in order to still be of value. Sherrard begins his presentation by noting the dominant mechanistic and materialistic worldview of the modern era and juxtaposes it against traditional religious forms. Traditionally, the universe was viewed as a creation and ordinance of God and with man as an integral part in God's creation. Sherrard notes that a worldview divorcing God from His material creation provides the necessary setting for today's ecological crisis and secularized society. Another issue of contemporary importance that Sherrard takes up is the relationship between Christianity and society at large. Because Christianity is essentially a personal, initiatory faith, it lost much of its moral authority when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire. Many of the most grievous issues (like heresy hunting crazes and schisms) in the Church were the fruit of imperial power politics rather than the Gospel of Christ. Sherrard also addresses Christianity's claim to absolute and exclusive religious truth. It would be best if the Orthodox Church did not make claims to absolute truth and allow for flexibility regarding the fundamental spiritual potency and validity of extra-Christian religious traditions. Here is one point where Sherrard would stir up an amount of controversy but I am not going to go further into the issue here. His chapter on the "Metaphysics of Logic" delves into detail against the concept of Godhead exposited in the writings of fellow Traditionalist Rene Guenon. This is a dense but important chapter in understanding the nature of Divinity and how definitely attributes can be ascribed to God. Sherrard notes that Christianity is dependent upon a "radical apophaticism" when it comes to describing God. If God's Essence is so far beyond human comprehension, as Guenon maintained, then it cannot be defined by anything whatsoever. Not even the concept of "Being" encompasses the Divine Essence to the extent that God can be defined as "Beyond-Being." Here Sherrard's "radical apophaticism" kicks in. If God is so unknowable and incomprehensible, then He is even further Beyond-Being in the sense that absolute qualities (such as Love, Mercy, Life, Truth) can in fact be ascribed to the Divinity itself. Sherrard continues in his analysis of the attacks upon Christianity by Georgios Gemistos Plethon of the late Byzantine Empire and Friedrich Nietzsche of nineteenth century Germany. Both of these philosophers attempted to discredit Christianity by attacking the non-universal and seeming repudiation of natural vitality and existence contained in the Christian tradition. The issue of Jung's attacks on Christian theology is also covered. Sherrard also includes a chapter about modern society's fear and uncertainty about death. Death, of course, is not the end of individual human existence, but rather a continuation of the soul's journey into eternity. Death becomes a scandal to the non-traditional, non-theistic mindset because it stands stubbornly against the possibility of infinite human achievement on the purely material plane. Sherrard expands on his theme of how materialistic science robbed of any transcendent perspective is causing the current ecological crisis of pollution and the destruction of nature. "Pantheism," according to Sherrard, is not a heresy in the sense that it takes the creation as an emanation of the Divine Essence but when the creation itself is revered apart from the Divine Essence from whence it derives its own source of being. When God is recognized as having a part in all created existence, then a sense of "pantheism" is not necessarily a negative epithet. This further leads into a discussion of how God created the world "ex nihilo" (out of nothing) as has been explained by Christian apologists. Since all of created existence, including time itself, is an emanation of the Divine Essence, then the world was not created "out of nothing" in the commonly understood sense. If God acted as an external force upon something that was existentially nothing to give it form, shape and being into the present created order, this idea in fact leads to further denigration of the status of God's creation in man's eyes. The idea that there was something, even if that "something" is defined as "nothing," could have existed co-eternally with God is in fact in Sherrard's view a heresy "much more sinister then pantheism." Sherrard's final chapter wraps up his book by plugging in his personal interest in the practice of Hesychasm and the scholarship and translation of its mystical texts of which Sherrard has personally played an important role in spreading the _Philokalia_ to English speaking readers. I recommend this book as a good overview of Sherrard's thought regarding the Christian tradition and philosophy and also because it will make the reader think and reconsider fundamental theological beliefs.

We have studied Sherrard's "Lineaments..." at church, IT IS A GREAT BOOK! The thorough review by Zonaras says it all, I do not think I can add anything, really!

This book made me buy a small book by Philip Sherrard's called "Christianity and Eros", its subtitle is "Essays on the Theme of Sexual Love". IT IS ANOTHER GREAT BOOK! I am not aware of other Orthodox writers covering this topic in Orthodox Christianity, despite the fact that Holy Matrimony is one of the SACRAMENTS of the Orthodox Church and it is a PATH LEADING TO SALVATION which is equally valid in Orthodox Christianity just like monasticism is.

Enjoy his works!