j) CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE RESURRECTION

Hl. 7. ESOTERICISM?

SHOKHIN V. K. DOCTRINE OF REINCARNATION AND CHRISTIANITY

ABOUT THE SOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

As Chesterton once said, the world is full of Christian virtues that have gone mad. Among them is the great gift of distrust. But people use this gift in a very one-sided way. They usually do not trust those ideas, social institutions, preachers who offer people work - the difficult work of humanization. From the one who calls for life seriousness, the listener demands no less meticulous substantiation of conclusions than is required of the candidate for a doctoral degree. But this same person gladly trusts those ideas, those publications and preachers behind which he feels a call for hedonistic indulgence.

Much has been said about the fact that modern civilization is radically hedonistic.a And she even perceives religion as another sphere for refined pleasure. As they wrote in the ever-memorable publications of the era of "scientific atheism," the task of the church was "to satisfy the religious needs of believers." Today, people are no longer ashamed to admit that it is desirable for them not to awaken, but only to "satisfy" these very "religious needs". But the conditions for relieving one's spiritual needs, of course, prefer the most comfortable ones: "Knowledge through Joy and Comfort".b

As a result, those ideas and symbols that in the old days deprived the philistine of comfort, stirred his conscience, are now reinterpreted in such a way as to give moral sanction for an essentially materialistic way of life. The religion of the Sufferer Crucified on Golgotha becomes the reason for writing brochures on the topic of "Business and the Gospel" with the simple idea that only the true evangelical faith of the American rite can make your business successful. The idea of transmigration of souls and repeated return to this world, which frightened and disciplined people of those traditional cultures that accepted it, today is perceived more as a joyful indulgence: if I have many more lives, it means that I still have many attempts to correct myself, and therefore it is better to postpone a serious attempt at systematic spiritual and moral growth until the next reincarnation...

It is clear that Christianity, with its postulate of a single life, and, accordingly, the absolute responsibility of man for its quality, seems to be a religion more disturbing and less convenient. But the moral authority of the Gospel is so high that it is somehow inconvenient to simply put this Book aside. Accordingly, the instinct of conscientious comfort requires that the Gospel be reinterpreted so that it is in tune with today's fashion. If today there is a fashion for reincarnation, then it is necessary to find this idea in Christianity as well...

So again about distrust. Once a young man stopped me in the passage of the subway with a question: "Tell me, do you have anything to do with the Church?" I said yes. He wisely insisted, "To what church? To the Orthodox?" And here I gave an affirmative answer. "Then I have a question for you. I was recently told that in ancient times, Christians, like Hindus, recognized the transmigration of souls, and only then at some council did they abolish this faith. Is it true?" Strangely, I was just finishing work on this book, which was devoted to this very issue. So his question could not have been at the right place. And distrust is just praiseworthy.