Emma asked:

I am taking A-level Philosophy of Religion and am lacking in information on Christian religious
experience, namely conversion and mysticism. I would be grateful for any information on this topic.

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"Christianity is in the first place and oriental religion and it is a mystical religion." (Olivier
Clément). Modern Bible Christians tend never to know this. This is strange, because the
beatitudes are hardly common sense, let alone the sayings of Jesus in John, or the interpretations of
Paul. Paul in fact boasts of the "folly of the cross." Orthodox and Catholic traditions have remembered
and transmitted the mystical nature of Christianity from age to age, for better or for worse.

The term 'mysticism' is a modern modern non-believer's concept. The mystical is not properly
mystical if it is an 'ism'. The proper term is 'the mystical life'. This is a comparative term. The mystical
life is that in which God's action predominates, by contrast with the ascetic life in which human action
predominates. Mystical life requires some passivity, like a sail which needs to catch the wind.
Therefore, at its extreme it is contemplative (e.g. monastic). Too much human action can obstruct the
will of God, as we see so often. A mystic is one who is 'acted upon' rather than one who acts.

Conversion means "change of mind" (metanoia). The task is to come back from the corrupt state of
sin in which one is estranged from God, living in such a way as to disallow his acting upon one, to a
pure or primitive state of mind, for it is presupposed that each of us is the image and likeness of God
as our human nature.

The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition (OUP) by Andrew Louth of Durham University is
excellent on 'mysticism'.

Matthew Del Nevo

http://www.sicetnon.com