A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness
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Narrated by:
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Mark Vernon
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By:
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Mark Vernon
About this listen
Christianity is in crisis in the West. The Inkling friend of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, analysed why. He developed an account of our spiritual predicament that is radical and illuminating.
Barfield realized that the human experience of life shifts fundamentally over periods of cultural time. Our perception of nature, the cosmos, and the divine changes dramatically across history.
Mark Vernon uses this startling insight to tell the inner story of 3000 years of Christianity, beginning from the earliest biblical times. Drawing, too, on the latest scholarship and spiritual questions of our day, he presents a gripping account of how Christianity constellated a new perception of what it is to be human. For 1500 years, this sense of things informed many lives, though it fell into crisis with the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment.
But the story does not stop there. Barfield realised that there is meaning in the disenchantment and alienation experienced by many people today. It is part of a process that is remaking our sense of participation in the life of nature, the cosmos, and the divine. It's a new stage in the evolution of human consciousness.
©2019 Mark Vernon (P)2019 Mark VernonListeners also enjoyed...
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Excellent questions... wishy-washy answers
- By cynthia on 10-17-09
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Eager to Love
- The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
- By: Richard Rohr
- Narrated by: John Quigley O.F.M.
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Francis of Assisi is one of the most beloved of all saints. Both traditional and entirely revolutionary, he was a paradox. He was at once down-to-earth and reaching toward heaven, grounded in the rich history of the Church while moving toward a new understanding of the world beyond. Franciscan Father Richard Rohr helps us look beyond the birdbath image of the saint to remind us of the long tradition founded on Francis' revolutionary, radical, and life-changing embrace of the teachings of Jesus.
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Richard Rohr Should Read Richard Rohr
- By Cloud Captain on 10-18-14
By: Richard Rohr
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Jesus and the Lost Goddess
- The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians
- By: Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on modern scholarship, the authors of the international best-seller The Jesus Mysteries decode the secret teachings of the original Christians for the first time in almost two millennia and theorize about who the original Christians really were and what they actually taught. In addition, the book explores the many myths of Jesus and the Goddess and unlocks the lost secret teachings of Christian mysticism, which promise happiness and immortality to those who attain the state of Gnosis, or enlightenment.
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Great information, however now outdated
- By Patriot RN - Doc on 03-12-19
By: Timothy Freke, and others
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Things Hidden
- Scripture as Spirituality
- By: Richard Rohr O.F.M.
- Narrated by: John Quigley O.F.M.
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bible is meant to be about transformation, not merely information. In Things Hidden, Richard Rohr invites you to experience Scripture as spirituality - as a living text that can breathe new life into your relationship with God and change your way of seeing the world.
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excellent and inspirational in the insights
- By Nana on 11-03-22
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Broken Signposts
- How Christianity Makes Sense of the World
- By: N. T. Wright
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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N. T. Wright argues that every world view must explain seven “signposts”, indicators inherent to humanity. Using the Gospel of John as his source, Wright shows how Christianity defines each signpost and illuminates why we so often see them as being "broken" and unattainable. Drawing on the wisdom of the Gospels, Wright explains why these signposts are fractured and damaged and how Christianity provides the vision, guidance, and hope for making them whole once again, ultimately healing ourselves and our world.
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Favorite NT Wright Book
- By Theologator on 02-03-21
By: N. T. Wright
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On Earth as in Heaven
- Daily Wisdom for Twenty-First Century Christians
- By: N. T. Wright
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern pastors and their flocks have long considered N. T. Wright a role model for being a thoughtful Christian in today’s world. His bestselling books, including Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Simply Jesus, and After You Believe, have guided Christians in their belief and practice of the faith. Now, Christians can rely on his wisdom to guide them through each day of their lives with this thoughtful book of daily meditations, featuring short selections from his classic works.
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Beautiful encouragement to live the real Christian life. Following our King Jesus
- By Charlton & Natasha on 02-03-24
By: N. T. Wright
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The Hidden Gospel
- Decoding the Message of the Aramaic Jesus
- By: Neil Douglas-Klotz
- Narrated by: Neil Douglas-Klotz
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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If you could travel back to the world of ancient Palestine and hear Jesus teach in his own native tongue, what would you learn? Join Neil Douglas-Klotz, the brilliant translator and best selling author of Prayers of the Cosmos, as he delves into early New Testament scriptures written in Aramaic - the original language of Jesus and his followers. Overlooked for centuries by all but a small minority of the world's Christians, these sacred texts rejuvenate the teachings of Jesus with an original subtlety and richness of meaning found in no other translation. Douglas-Klotz draws us deeply into these passages of the Gospels - including the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer - and then adds to his passionate scholarship by teaching us a series of body-centered meditations for interpreting and reflecting on these sacred words in much the same way as the early Christians did. What lies hidden within these scriptures may surprise many: a visionary Christ who transcends the narrow and the dogmatic to offer us a grand cosmology based on the earthy wisdom of an ancient desert people.
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The Hidden Gospel
- By RL on 02-26-04
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The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
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Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
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Irrational Man
- A Study in Existential Philosophy
- By: William Barrett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.
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heady
- By A. Antine on 07-28-22
By: William Barrett
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The Wisdom of the Desert with Nicholas Buxton
- By: Nicholas Buxton, Wise Studies
- Narrated by: Nicholas Buxton
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
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The course begins by looking at the origins of Christian monasticism during the third century CE, when thousands of men and women renounced the world and withdrew to the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine to seek God in a life of solitude and prayer. What inspired them to do this? What were they trying to achieve? In seeking answers to these questions, we will examine the lives and sayings of the so-called "desert fathers", with a particular emphasis on the theological writings of Evagrius of Pontus (c. 345-399).
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When the Student is Ready
- By Douglas Scott Miller on 12-10-21
By: Nicholas Buxton, and others
What listeners say about A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rutland Walker
- 08-22-20
An exceptional read.
This book changed my entire paradigm on how I see the teachings of Jesus, the evolution of how they came to be , and the genius practicality of use in everyday life. His definition of Love transformed the way I read, say, and think about that word. Truly an exceptional book.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jenafer Collier
- 05-01-21
Excellent
Using this to lean into Barfield. Learned much that expanded my understanding of God's truth emerging through the mess of human living.
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1 person found this helpful
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- frankences
- 08-19-20
Listen With New Ears
After listening to Mark Vernon give a talk,via The Fintry Trust, I am listening to this book for the second time. The listener is invited to consider that some of what we were taught could use a review. Perhaps we are different beings from the ones who first heard the words of Christ two thousand years ago. His words have not changed but our ability to grasp their meaning has. Mark’s book is refreshing and kind of exciting. Mark gives permission to try Christianity anew and is an excellent guide.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-06-23
Exactly the book I needed
This put words and research to the journey I’ve been on towards “oneness” with God rather than simply a belief in creedal statements. Well articulated journey through the development of consciousness within the Christian faith.
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- Anony 2112
- 04-29-24
Interesting but unconvincing view Christianity
I enjoyed and learned a lot from discussion of Barfield’s philosophy. I have read Barfield in the past and found him difficult to penetrate. Vernon does a good job making difficult concepts easy to understand. He is less successful in translating these ideas to Christianity. Still, his views are interesting and worthy of consideration.
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- James
- 12-26-21
A Book I'll Be Returning To
Incredible summary of the Barfieldian perspective towards Christianity. Excellently written and well explained while also full of references that can be used as a jumping off point for exploring these ideas through other authors. I'll be going back through several of these chapters again.
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- KC
- 08-29-24
An incredible piece of work
I will be reading again and thank you for this work.
I will be reading again and thank you for this work.
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- bryan
- 11-19-23
This
I absolutely love this book. Mark has a tone and embodies a genuine desire for humans to fully understand God’s unconditional love. This book is an inspiration for anyone who has been searching, asking and potentially relearning a relationship with God. Much respect for
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- GoingGoingGone...
- 01-08-20
Fascinating
I occasionally get an offer to obtain a book for free on the condition I provide a review, and that's the case here. Every once in awhile I find a gem, and this is one of them. Owen Barfield, the "Inkling" the author cites as a launch point for the book, theorized that humanity's development occurred in leaps at specific periods of time. Judaism's development occurred during the early Axial age and was largely "peoplehood" oriented, and Christianity following the development of Greek thought, which over time placed individuality in the forefront. The author presents us with a clear, and I think accurate, enriching and enlightening understanding of the historical development of Judaism and Christianity, as far as how Jews and Christians thought about religion, G-d, and the world around them, in the context of these leaps. Eventually, Christianity evolved as a combination of Jewish and Greek philosophies, explaining some of the clashes in values that confuse us so much today, resulting in religion being left behind as a useful contribution to our lives. Nevertheless the author provides hints on how persons alive today can participate in a new "leap" based on the two previous ones. Just as Christianity was modified in the centuries following Jesus to take a shape and form given to it by Apostles, so too today individuals are well positioned to syncretize once more a way forward. It seems to me that this is the approach taken in Jewish thought, from its start until now. Somehow, in the author's mind this form of syncretizing seems to be absent in Judaism. I therefore don't understand what's "new" in grasping for answers in Greek thought, when Jewish thinkers (Jesus included) from the Talmudic period onward dabbled there and in Persian, Babylonian and European thought as well. Jesus was simply doing what Jews do, and did. Rather, Christianity as we know it and the incorporation of Jesus as a divinity in human form seems to me to be unnecessary to the author's case, that persons today can benefit from Christianity in ways that for now they seem to be ignoring. If you want to live like Jesus, why not do so and try to understand his Judaism? If you want to integrate today's influences, why not do so from that place of understanding of Jesus as a syncretist, rather than from the one offered up in the New Testament by its authors? As fascinating and as enriching as this book is - and I highly recommend reading it - and even though he built his points convincingly inasmuch as he's advising us to embrace religion as the means by which we tackle the unknown (which is to say, recognizing the limits of science to do so) while shaping and improving our inner lives and awareness and cooperation with others, I think bringing forward Christianity specifically as an antidote needed to be considered with other alternatives. It could be he'd conclude the same, but I think starting with the supposition weakens the conclusion. So, awesome book. Highly recommended, for persons of all beliefs.
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7 people found this helpful
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- M.Biblioswine
- 07-15-21
It is pretty good
It is pretty good. The author reads the book. His performance is pretty good. This book doesn’t rock my world.
The book does what the other reviewers said that it does. The author discusses why people are staying away from the church in droves. He describes how the writer Owen Barfield believed that humanity has gone through stages of evolution of our consciousness in the past and the evolution continues to the present and the future. The author, Mark Vernon, uses Barfield's work as a jumping off point. He says people are staying away from the church because it operates and provides worship services that would have been appropriate for humanity during earlier stages of our evolutionary consciousness but are not appropriate for us now or in the future.
Vernon continues with a church history that highlights the evolution of human consciousness. He doesn't say a lot about Barfield's work for a lot of the book. Then Vernon brings Barfield back in toward the end of the book when provides his conclusion in which poetic imagination will make the church relavent again.
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1 person found this helpful