The Cultic Origins of Christianity: The Dynamics of Religious Development - Softcover

Meissner, William W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814650767 ISBN 13: 9780814650769

Publisher: Michael Glazier Inc, 2000

Synopsis

How do the subjective events and psychic forces that form an individual influence the forming of a religious community? What confluence of external and internal influences in the pre-Christian Palestinians led to their acceptance of the mission and preaching of Jesus? In The Cultic Origins of Christianity, psychiatrist Fr. William Meissner, S.J., draws on anthropology of religion, psychology, and particularly psychoanalysis, to explore how the inner workings of the minds and hearts of the early Christians led to the formation of the initial Christian community. Meissner refers to the complex interweaving of inner and external influences as the "cultic process." He argues that the dynamic forces underlying the cultic process, including what he defines as the "paranoid process," are operative in religious groups of all kinds. In The Cultic Origins of Christianity, he looks back through the history of religion to discern workings of the cultic process in the origins and historical evolution of Judeo-Christian beliefs and in the emergence of orthodox and heterodox religion groups involved in the historical evolution of the Christian Church.

About this edition

• Publisher: Michael Glazier Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0814650767
• ISBN 13: 9780814650769
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296