Customer Reviews

The Death of the Mythic God: The Rise of Evolutionary Spirituality

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When I read Jim Marion's first book, 'Putting On the Mind of Christ', I felt as if I had finally found someone who could help an agnostic kid who had stumbled upon nondual consciousness find the common ground between modern (often incomprehensible) Christianity and his own mystical experiences. Thanks to Marion, for the first time in my life the Bible reflected back my own worldview. No small task, to be sure. His first work was refreshing and its impact quite groundbreaking for me.

'The Death of the Mythic God' is the continuation of Marion's bold journey into his own spiritual truth, though it's a truth that is available to us all. In this smaller tome, he explains his observations and beliefs in the simplest of terms, the true sign of a gifted teacher with much to say.

Marion believes that it's time we retire the concept of the mythic god who lives up above the clouds, separate from His creation, doling out rewards and punishments upon a predominantly sinning and rebellious populace. This belief was really only a reflection of the collective consciousness of earlier times and cultures, he contends. We are now mature and intelligent enough, however, to really investigate humanity's unshakable belief in a higher power. It can never be repeated enough that this higher power is, as odd as it may first sound, at the very core of our own being. (His beliefs and my own.)

Since I was so thrilled to find his first book, this review is assuredly not very neutral in tone. But if you have a mind that is open enough to realize that the path to spiritual maturity (even enlightenment) begins with the very first question you pose of your culture's ingrained religious belief system, then you will find a very exciting and safe world to explore within these pages. I highly recommend this book to any curious and seeking soul.

Although my own path to meeting the God within was different than Marion's, it's almost eerie that much of what he writes parallels my own thoughts and experiences. Therein lies the proof I need that 'Death of the Mythic God' is built upon a very sturdy and Truthful foundation.

In his first book, "Putting on the Mind of Christ", Marion described the Christian's spiritual journey as a gradual rise in consciousness. He shoe-horned (not in a bad way) it into a philosophical construct of Ken Wilber's that describes the various levels of consciousness that we as individuals and collectively as human civilization go through in our evolution of consciousness toward God.

Marion continues that line of thought in this book, but focuses on where western society, at large, is at in the process - i.e. we are moving beyond viewing God as a mythological being who resides up in the sky and is a seperate and somewhat detached observer of human development. Marion describes the various philosophical, religious and scientific influences that are moving us in this direction and attempts to reconcile this manner of thought with existing Christian dogma.

Although this book was interesting, it repeated a fair amount of what was in his first book and covered much of the same ground that other writers have been focusing on lately such as the intersection between science and religion.

I would recommend reading his first book, first and then reading this one if you're hungry for more detail.

Overall, however, interesting and worthwhile.

There are some very good and extremely thorough reviews of this book. However, I wanted to add to the commentary a simple interpretation of the relevance of this book to the average person.

What I liked about this book is that it looked squarely at some apparent problems with the disconnect between what the author calls a "Mythic God" concept and modern rationalist society. For many people, there are significant gaps in synthesizing old conceptions of God with science, post-modernism, etc. This book which is engaging and accessible to the average person certainly puts the central issues front and center and offers a plausible although not perfect alternative. In other words, it provides great food for thought and for many people are more sophisticated paradigm that doesn't require a course in philosophy to understand.

I rated this book highly partly because it tackles a difficult topic in understandable language and offers a fair amount of supporting argument that is accurate. Where it doesn't fair quite as well is in terms of scholarship. As other reviewers point out, there are flaws in some of the arguments in terms of a deep understanding of Christian philosophy. I won't go into specifics here because others have already done that.

Despite this books flaws, I highly recommend it for Christians, agnostics and those embrace a very strong rational view. While it isn't perfect, it is certainly a step in the right direction and there is much of value here for the average layperson to ponder. This book is also extraordinarily readable, enjoyable and not overwhelming. I am very well read in this area and I read through this in about two days. I also became very engaged with the book and the author held my interest. While I don't agree with all of what he says, I do agree with the general argument, the need for a more up-to-date interpretation of Christianity and looking for ways to build bridges between other fields of knowledge.

The Death Of The Mythic God by Christian mystic and public policy lawyer Jim Marion is a superbly crafted conceptual guide to his interpretive understandings of the God who is seeming to fade away in the myth of our contemporary and progressive society. As Marion carries his readers through his various interpretations and narrative commentary, The Death Of The Mythic God enlightens readers to a more fulfilling ideal of the God as not separate from the human, but one with the everyday lives of individual as they begin to expand their conscious awareness of a spiritual path. The Death Of The Mythic God is most especially recommended to the attention of readers searching for an alternative take and inspiring wisdom on the Christian path of religion.

Jim Marion's, "The Death of the Mythic God," continues to challenge me to see the Christian faith from a fresh, new perspective. Marion combines exceptional insights from many different traditions. His thought-provoking question, "At the beginning of the twenty-first century, what is the state of Christianity and its God?" is a question for all Christians to seriously consider. As a mainline Presbyterian pastor for twenty-eight years, I find Marion's ability to integrate the positive, experiential aspects of the Christian faith with an intelligent analysis of Christian tradition and theology to be most helpful. Those who have read Marcus Borg, John Shelby Spong and writers in the "Emerging" church stream, will find Marion's work on the rise of evolutionary spirituality to be a powerful catalyst to seek the next stage in the growth of the Christian faith. Andrew Cullen, Kansas City, MO.

This is the one book I have given away to more people than any other in my fifty years as a Baptist pastor. When I want to invite someone to move up another step in their spiritual life, this is the book I give them. In 167 easy to read pages Marion graciously leads us from traditional Christianity to a more Jesus-faithful path. It is biblical, scholarly, and rich with the Christian mystics of the church down through the ages.

When I discovered Marion's first book, Putting on the Mind of Christ, it sparked a new and profound move in my own spiritual life. I devoured it and have read it over two dozen times since then. I always find something new. Then The Death of the Mythic God was icing on a delicious cake of rich spirituality in following Jesus.

I can't say enough about this book. I wish everyone interested in following Jesus would read it.

The Death Of The Mythic God by Jim Marion will come as a breath of fresh air to all who are seriously looking for bridges between modern forms of thought and traditional Christian formulations of reality.
Marion is a devout Roman Catholic, but he also writes from the Integral Perspective formulated by Ken Wilber and his associates.
Evangelical Christians of all branches may be outraged at some of his sweeping conclusions, but those who are looking for a renewed and expanded understanding of core Christian values will rejoice.
In some ways Marion's style reminds me of Matthew Fox and his Creation Spirituality point of view. Both view human beings as already sons and daughters of God and transformation comes about not by conversion, but by unfolding along various "lines of development", that brings about a conscious awarness of God within.
If I have any criticism it would be that our magnificent creation is focussed on one species --- human beings. A full picture of Integral Development would include the complete cosmos and all its forms of life.
Fox in his work has done this, and I expect Marion will too in future works.

If you find inspiration and guidance through the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth but are disappointed and frustrated by the narrowness and intransigence of the western church this book is for you. Jim Marion balances academics and faith as he introduces readers to some of the teachers and schema that have assisted him on his spiritual journey. For those outside Christianity, Jim may help you see hope for the future as Christianity continues to evolve beyond the worship of a mythic war god to a Christ consciousness that is profoundly spiritual and universally accessible.
Doug

I really wish every Christian/Muslim/Jew/Athiest, actually every person should read this book. It really tackles the issue well of how our concept of God or Reality is changing and how some (fundamentalists) can not accept this change while others (atheists) completely throw the baby out with the bathwater. Highly recommended work as well as Jim's other, Putting on the Mind of Christ

One hesitates to offer a critique of "The Death of the Mythic God," as, the way the author has set things up, such would only be construed as evidence that the one doing so operates out of a lower level of consciousness that is incapable of comprehending the more enlightened, evolutionary perspective being advanced in this neo-gnostic work. Nevertheless, here goes. . .

First, however, let's give the "devil his due." While it's hardly news that pre-modern formulations of Christian teaching have had a hard time stretching to accommodate the emerging modern and post-modern perspectives catalyzed by the various scientific breakthroughs of the 19th and 20th centuries, Marion has done a good job in connecting the dots to demonstrate the conflict in which many Christians today find themselves. Having to choose between secular perspectives that seem more respectful of science and religious perspectives that often cast science as "the enemy," it's little wonder that Church attendance has fallen in certain areas. Additionally, sex abuse scandals in Catholicism and some pretty dumb institutional policies in most Christian denominations are also to blame for the growing ennui with "Church." Where Marion goes with this is another matter, however, and that is the problem I have with the book.

In Marion's analysis, the problem with Christianity today is that it still clings to outmoded notions of God that were developed largely in the service of projections of the emerging human ego in ancient Judaism. Elaborations on this conception of God came to be formulated in what he calls the "mythic God," who is separate from human beings and lived in the sky. This conception is male and very ethnocentric; its believers are "fundamentalists." That this is a shallow caricature of Jewish and even Christian fundamentalist beliefs will be obvious to anyone who knows anything about these religions. Nevertheless, Marion tries to give evidence that scholars are with him, on this; and besides, he can point to his own extensive education in Catholic schools.

There are many problems with his analysis, however: lots of misinformation, misrepresentations of Christian teaching, straw man fallacies, and other errors. A few examples:

p. 17 - he suggests that the Christian creed is premised upon certain cosmological assumptions that have come to be proven wrong;
- the truth is that the affirmations in the creed are not contingent on any particular cosmology;

p. 20 (and many other places) - he objects to the idea of God as a separate being; later in the book, his monistic assumptions emerge fully stated; this way of putting things "straw mans" the Christian understanding of a distinction between God and creation to make it seem as though Christians believe in a God Who is totally transcendent: not merely "separate," but "apart."
- the truth is that even Christians in mythic consciousness understand there to be a vital intimacy between God and creation . . . that creation exists in a state of "contingency," totally dependent on God for its existence.

p. 20 - he speaks of the theory of evolution as though it undermines the doctrines on the Fall and Original Sin;
- the truth is that theologians have been demonstrating the compatibility between evolution and the traditional doctrines for well over a century.

p. 26 - he speaks of contradictions in the resurrection narratives in Scripture as though this somehow should cause us to doubt the legitimacy of the accounts of Jesus' resurrection;
- the truth is that these differences in accounts were known from the first, and reflect different encounters with Christ and/or different points to be made about the resurrection; modern biblical scholars are also well aware of these issues and have written about them.

p. 27 - here and in other places, when speaking of Jesus' resurrection, he places (recussitation) next to the word;
- the truth is that the early Christians were well-aware of distinctions between resurrection and recussitation, and considered their encounter with Christ to be the former.

p. 27 - he considers the Christian idea of eternal life to be in conflict with the teachings of modern physics because an "infinite duration of time" is no longer scientifically defensible;
- the truth is that eternal life doesn't mean an "infinite duration of time," but the trans-temporal realm of God that touches all of time.

p. 28 - the Incarnation is caricatured as "as god or divine being who was sent down from the sky;"
- the truth is that this is a silly caricature.

p. 28 - Jesus is "a human being who realized his own divinity;" later in the book, he makes it clear that Jesus is not different from us in any way; we, too, possess divinity innately just as he did;
- this Arian notion was condemned in the 4th C. as it fails to fully honor the Christian intuition of Christ as God-incarnate because of the numerous divine attributes at work in Jesus in highly distinctive ways.

p. 32 - he objects that the Church is still teaching outmoded ideas like the Fall, Resurrection and Ascension, as though they were literally true;
- the truth is that these teachings have always been taught as more than "literal truth," but as theological and spiritual truths as well.

p. 36 - he makes a particularly nasty comment about the Church's opposition to abortion, stating that "the bottom line for the Church's crusade is jail time for women and doctors who disagree with the Church's moral position."
- the truth is that the Church's bottom line is concern for the rights of the unborn, whom the Church regards as human beings with a right to live.

I could go on, but you get the idea, I'm sure. What we discover throughout the book is a confused and confusing analysis of core Christian beliefs and practices, which are considered outmoded and unworthy of modern Westerners. If Marion ever understood Christianity in the first place, it's clear that he has long forgotten its central teachings and meaning. The alternative proposed is a Wilberized view of Christianity that leaves virtually nothing of its essential teachings in place in any recognizable sense. Instead, we are given as the goal of the Christian spiritual life "causal consciousness," which is considered "Christ consciousness" -- a dubious equivocation, at best. Marion, who now attends a "Metaphysical Church" and considers himself "permanently enlightened," assures us that this is what it's all about, and, furthermore, that it's what Jesus really had in mind when he said "the Father and I are One." If this is starting to look, sound and smell like Vedanta in sheep's clothing, then welcome to the club. Only you won't find yourself or any creatures present when you get there; as it turns out, only God is real. So much for creation!

Christian theologians and biblical scholars have been grappling with the kinds of issues addressed by Marion for a long time, and the overwhelming majority have remained faithful to its core revelations and convictions. Broadening the understanding of "mythic Christians" is very much needed, but what Marion offers as an alternative is precisely the kind of teaching that keeps them hanging on to their Bibles and Catechisms, where at least they feel they still have something they can trust to have come from God.

Anyone interested in the kinds of issues raised by Marion would do well to check out web sites like innerexplorations.com, especially the book entitled "Can Christians Still Believe." The answer is "Yes, we can." And do.