{"id":10242,"date":"2011-10-28T06:12:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T06:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/28\/on-corporate-prayer-and-instituionalized-religion\/"},"modified":"2011-10-28T06:12:51","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T06:12:51","slug":"on-corporate-prayer-and-instituionalized-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/28\/on-corporate-prayer-and-instituionalized-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"On Corporate Prayer and Institutionalized Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of P. B.<\/em>, vol. 12, part 2, p. 34, #68:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A public place is an unnatural environment in which to place oneself mentally or physically in the attitude of true prayer.  It is far too intimate, emotional, and personal to be satisfactorily tried anywhere except in solitude.  What passes for prayer in temples, churches, and synagogues is therefore a compromise dictated by the physical necessity of an institution.  It may be quite good but too often alas! it is only the dressed-up double of true prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Where would we be without institutions?  We need them, but only up to a point.  We are what we are because of the institutions in which we grew up, and natural piety dictates that we be appropriately grateful.  But their negative aspects cannot be ignored and all further personal development requires those who can, to go it alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

We need society and its institutions to socialize us, to raise us from the level of the animal to that of the human.  But this human is all-too-human, and to take the next step we must tread the solitary path.  Better to be a social animal than a mere animal, but better than both is to become an individual<\/em>, as I am sure Kierkegaard would agree.  To achieve true individuality  is one of the main tasks of human life.  In pursuit of this task institutions are more hindrance than help.<\/span><\/p>\n

For some, churches and related institutions will always be necessary to provide guidance, discipline, and community.  But for others they will prove stifling and second-best, a transitional phase in their development.<\/span><\/p>\n

For any church to claim that outside it <\/em>there is no salvation — extra ecclesiam salus non est<\/em> — is intolerable dogmatism, and indeed a form of idolatry in which something finite, a human institution contingent both in its existence and configuration, is elevated to the status of the Absolute.<\/span><\/p>\n

For my take on idolatry see the Idolatry category<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of P. B., vol. 12, part 2, p. 34, #68: A public place is an unnatural environment in which to place oneself mentally or physically in the attitude of true prayer.  It is far too intimate, emotional, and personal to be satisfactorily tried anywhere except in solitude.  What passes for prayer … Continue reading “On Corporate Prayer and Institutionalized Religion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[208,178,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brunton","category-ecclesiology","category-spiritual-exercises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}