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Gifts of the Magi
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11852 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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8 / 1987 |
3,735 Words |
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Joseph H. Fichter, S.J.
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BHAGWAN
The God That Failed
Hugh Milne
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986
322 pp., $15.95
THE MAKING OF A MOONIE
Brainwashing or Choice?
Eileen Barker
New York: Basil Blackwell, 1984
305 pp., $19.95
THE SPIRIT OF ALLAH
Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution
Amir Taheri
Bethesda, Md.: Adler and Adler, 1986
349 pp., $18.95
Screwtape was a perceptive devil who constantly instructed his nephew in the task of seducing human beings. "Do not be deceived," he wrote to Wormwood: "Our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
The forsaken person still seeks the God who is to be obeyed and is often led to a charismatic leader who can show the way. When the former guidelines have vanished and the prospective devotee finds no other trace to the divine presence, salvation is proffered by many saviors, in many forms, and in many locations. Why is one way chosen rather than another? Why do some followers remain faithful and others do not?
The three books here under review focus on schemes of salvation promoted by messengers out of the Orient. The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a Hindu from Poona; Sun Myung Moon is a Christian Korean whose followers venerate him as the Messiah; Ruhollah Khomeini is an Iranian ayatollah who is revered as the Islamic Imam. They do not begin to share the same theology or even a similar religious system. They are the three "wise men" from the East, each offering a definite but different invitation to religious rapture. Each exhibits a magnetic personality that inspires devotion, loyalty, and enthusiasm.
There was a time when the charismatic missionaries went from West to East, when the enlightened nations of Western civilization delivered the word of God to the mysterious and benighted Orient. Like the colonial powers that possessed the secrets of technology and material progress, the representatives of the church - even though splintered into Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and other branches of Christianity - felt compelled to deliver the divine message. Western religions still maintain "mission stations" in the African and Asian nations, but their numbers are decreasing. Political nationalism in these foreign missions has been succeeded by theological nationalism. It is as though the Orientals are making a kind of spiritual repayment to the West through their own gurus and swamis.
Rapture becomes Enthusiasm
Perhaps everyone, even the most shy and reserved person,
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