THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES

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From THE URANTIA BOOK

Part IV, 195, 4

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The church, being an adjunct to society and the ally of politics, was doomed to share in the intellectual and spiritual decline of the so-called European “dark ages.” During this time, religion became more and more monasticized, asceticized, and legalized. In a spiritual sense, Christianity was hibernating. Throughout this period there existed, alongside this slumbering and secularized religion, a continuous stream of mysticism, a fantastic spiritual experience bordering on unreality and philosophically akin to pantheism.

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 During these dark and despairing centuries, religion became virtually secondhanded again. The individual was almost lost before the overshadowing authority, tradition, and dictation of the church. A new spiritual menace arose in the creation of a galaxy of “saints” who were assumed to have special influence at the divine courts, and who, therefore, if effectively appealed to, would be able to intercede in man’s behalf before the Gods.

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 But Christianity was sufficiently socialized and paganized that, while it was impotent to stay the oncoming dark ages, it was the better prepared to survive this long period of moral darkness and spiritual stagnation. And it did persist on through the long night of Western civilization and was still functioning as a moral influence in the world when the renaissance dawned.

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The rehabilitation of Christianity, following the passing of the dark ages, resulted in bringing into existence numerous sects of the Christian teachings, beliefs suited to special intellectual, emotional, and spiritual types of human personality. And many of these special Christian groups, or religious families, still persist at the time of the making of this presentation.

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 Christianity exhibits a history of having originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization, intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent relative rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the possession of vast recuperative resources. And this same Christianity is now present in the civilized world of Occidental peoples and stands face to face with a struggle for existence which is even more ominous than those eventful crises which have characterized its past battles for dominance.

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 Religion is now confronted by the challenge of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies. In this gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus will eventually triumph.

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Yeah can you hear the call

 in our rambling land sufferations,

That can expand beyond all hope of light

 and plunge us into unrelenting night
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A pall on truth and reason,

It feels like hunting season

So avoid those lines of sight and we'll set this right
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Welcome to the new dark ages

I hope you're living right

These are the new dark ages

And the world might end tonight
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Now come ye children one and all - let's heed Ezekiel's call,

And bide until the word is good and ripe and get plucked clean out of sight
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The world will be erased our kin will be

Immaculate ejaculate in space

Before the kind of king's love, he'll snatch us

From above, brothers help me sing it
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Welcome to the new dark ages

I hope you're living right

These are the new dark ages

And the world might end tonight
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So how do you sleep

There's nothing to keep

This is deep

Because we're animals - with golden rules

Who... who can't be moved by rational views
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Welcome to the new dark ages

I hope you're living right

Welcome to the new dark ages

And the world might end tonight

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WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TURN ON THE LIGHT?

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Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the
 dark or the man afraid of the light?

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Maurice Freehill

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Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
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Chinese Proverb
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In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being;
 he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in
 unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is
 something which I can only describe as a "child of darkness"
 who is equal and complementary to the more obvious
"child of light."

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Laurens van der Post
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We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.

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Ben Sweetland

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Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space.
 It does not seek anything in return;
 it asks not whether you are friend or foe.
 It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.
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Michael Strassfeld

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Live in rooms full of light.

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Cornelius Celsus
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Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth.
 His light may be compared to a niche that
 enshrines a lamp, the lamp within a crystal of
 star-like brilliance. It is lit from a blessed olive
 tree neither eastern nor western. Its very oil
 would almost shine forth, though no fire
 touched it. Light upon light; Allah guides to
 His light whom He will.
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The Quran
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We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.

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Evelyn Dunbar

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There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

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Edith Wharton

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There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines,
 and the glare that obscures.
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James Thurber
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People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.

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Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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Turn your face to the sun and the
 shadows fall behind you.

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Maori Proverb

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The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world,
who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life
 for men to see by. The saint is the man who
walks through the dark paths of the world,
 himself a light.

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Felix Adler

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The universe is illuminated by three kinds of light:
material light, intellectual insight, and spirit luminosity.
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THE URANTIA BOOK
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Wherever you go, no matter what the weather,
 always bring your own sunshine.

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Anthony J. D'Angelo

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