Bruce Charlton's Notions

To define Romanticism with precision has proved impossible - because it is a movement, a phase in human consciousness; but those who feel it will recognise it when we see it.  

To be included in this list, one must be both Romantic and Christian (and be someone whose work I personally respond-to):

William Blake
William Wordsworth
ST Coleridge

Then came several generations during which the Romantics were not Christian, and the Christians were not Romantic. Exceptions include George Macdonald and GK Chesterton, who link between the early Romantic Christians and the Inklings. Both of these I somewhat like, especially GKC - but I am unable to engage whole-heartedly.

Charles Williams
JRR Tolkien
CS Lewis
Owen Barfield

William Arkle

Current representatives of whom I am aware include Jeremy Naydler, Terry Boardman, and the Albion Awakening bloggers: William Wildblood, John Fitzgerald and myself.

Comments:

The influence of Rudolf Steiner is evident; since although Anthroposophists are extremely rare in England - Barfield, Naydler and Boardman are all of that ilk. This is evidence that Romanticism fits most comfortably with heterodox Christianity - despite that Tolkien (Roman Catholic) and Lewis (Church of England) were orthodox in their practice. Indeed; Blake, Barfield (for much of his life), Arkle and most of the currently alive people - are (I believe) essentially unaffiliated Christians; whose religious and spiritual practice is mostly and in-principle individual rather than communal.

The Steiner link is also important because Germany (in the sense of the Central European German-speaking culture - including Austria and Switzerland, and some culturally-Germanic cities not nowadays in Germany) was the other great origin of Romanticism - with Herder, Goethe, Schiller etc. However until Steiner's 'conversion' in about 1898; the German Romantic literary tradition was not really Christian. An exception is Novalis - the father of Romantic Christianity in Germany.

It might also be argued that CG Jung (1875-1961) is also part of the German tradition of Romantic Christianity - although (as so often with Jung) his status as a Christian is ambiguous - overall, I would say that by the end of his life, Jung should indeed be regarded as a Christian.  

There are not many on this list; because I don't know of many Romantic Christians. It is a job still to be done, by each individual - since Romantic Christianity must be experiential (knowing 'about' it does not suffice).

However, I regard both Barfield and Arkle as having essentially done the necessary work and, uniquely, achieved Romantic Christianity: both in their theory and in their living.


Mainstream Christianity still tends to regard Traditionalism as a 'safe' path to salvation; and theosis as too 'risky' - and Romanticism is about theosis.

But for the Romantic Christian there is no 'safe' path in the modern world; and traditionalism has in fact become impossible (judged at the deepest level of motivation); as well as sub-optimally desirable. We feel that, in modern conditions, salvation requires theosis; so a purely salvation orientation can only be a kind of 'rescue' procedure.

Because ultimately Romanticism is not a 'reaction' against the Industrial Revolution, modernity and bureaucracy; rather, Romanticism is a positive path of divine destiny, concerned with human evolutionary-development of consciousness.


The aim of Romantic Christianity is (implicitly) to attain the divine form of cosnciousness (what Barfield termed Final Participation) as the primary goal of mortal life at this era of history. In different words: the aim is to restore the unity of Life - including the healing of the split between mind and matter, subjective and objective... to cure the malaise of alienation.

Romantic Christianity is both theoretical (metaphysical) and practical (experiential) - ideas and living both need to change; because otherwise the two aspects will be at contradictory, at war - and therefore unattainable in life.

The Romantic Christian demands that life be Christian - as its root and frame; and also demands that life (including Christianity) be Romantic - therefore it cannot accept the ultimate of primary necessity of System, organisation, institution, bureaucracy... these are all to be regarded as evils; even if, sometimes (in mortal life); expedient or even temoprarily-necessary evils - evils that challenge us to love, faith and hope; and to grow.

Love and creativity are the goal; with creativity as located in thinking, and thinking regarded as universal and primary. 

The major Episcopal church in The West is the Roman Catholic Church; other Episcopal churches include the Anglican (such as the Church of England, or The Episcopal Church in the USA) - and there are branches of the Eastern Orthodox (divided into its national churches - Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romanian etc). 

RCC, Orthodox and Anglican are, in that order, the three largest Christian denominations in the world, and a substantial proportion of church-active Christians. 

What makes such churches 'Episcopal' is that they Must Have priests in order to function in accordance with their principles; and these priests must me 'made' (ordained) by Bishops (the word Episcopal means governed by Bishops). 

I have argued that the faith of Christianity can only survive in these times if it is a Romantic Christianity - which means explicitly and consciously rooted in the individual and intuitive discernment of each individual Christian. Our faith must be acknowledged as ultimately an internally-driven, not externally-imposed, Christianity - for which each individual Christian takes explicit responsibility. 

This would at first glance seem to rule-out the possibility of Romantic Christianity in an Episcopal church, since such churches operate on the basis of the spiritual authority and necessity of priests (therefore Bishops); so there must be some basis in the obedience of the laity to the priesthood... 

Yet in reality this is not the case; and one can be a Romantic Christians and a genuine Episcopal church member (including oneself a priest or Bishop). 

However, this entails making one's actual choices honestly conscious and explicit (rather than, as now, having those choices somewhat dishonestly, or unconsciously, denied).  

My conviction is that - in The West now - it is just a fact that all serious Christians are Romantic Christians in the sense that all major Christian churches are deeply corrupted, and particularly at their leadership levels - which are (where it matters) Not Christian but aligned with the literally-demonic agenda of the Global Leftist Establishment. 

Therefore, to be a real Christian - everyone - whether Bishop, priest or layman - must and does make personal discernments as to where truth and goodness is located - within institutional structures that are permeated with lies and evil. 

Thus all serious Christians who are in any kind of church, including the Episcopal churches, must have deployed discernment: they must have-chosen their church, and within their church. 

In the case of small and (so far) uncorrupt churches or groupings; the church must be found, evaluated and joined; and if the church stops being true and good - such an individual will leave and try to find another that is sufficiently helpful to his Christian life to be worth committing to (which finding, of course, may prove not be possible). 

But equally, even the cradle-born Episcopal Christian cannot avoid making discernments as to which Bishops and priests he will choose to accord spiritual authority - because all Western Episcopal churches are (more-or-less) led and dominated by evil-affiliated fake-Christians, and are getting more so with each passing year. 

Therefore, for example, even a 'cradle Roman Catholic' has (at some point in his life, like it or not) almost certainly made a positive choice to stay-with the church into which he was born - such is the nature of these skeptical and subversive times. 

Having made this choice of 'which church?'; he must discern where in his church true authority lies (in order to obey that authority) - which particular aspect of his church; since there are many disagreements that demand such choice, and many authorities are at odds or in conflict. 

And the same indeed applies to every priest and Bishop within the Roman Catholic Church - he must/ and already-has, choose/ have-chosen exactly where among the many factions he should place his loyalty and obedience. 

And this choice within an institution cannot be determined without making a choice of where true-and-real authority lies; e.g, the priest must answer the question of how authority is distributed between particular persons or groups, written scripture (and particular scriptures), theological authorities and interpretations past and present, and church tradition (which itself has varied) etc.. 

And the proper location/s of spiritual authority is itself a heavily-contested matter; and cannot simply be 'assumed' without begging the very question at issue.

Only then can the priest cease personally to discern - and then obey.  

My point here is therefore very simple. In a world where choice is unavoidable and the corruption of churches is to prevalent; every real Christian already-has-made personal discernments of a fundamental nature - and is therefore implicitly a sort-of Romantic Christian...

But; the very heart of Romantic Christianity is that such intuitive discernments leading to choices, absolutely-must, at this point in human history and development, be made explicitly and consciously - with every individual (whether layman, priest or Bishop) being and clear and honest with himself that this has-happened - and will (in a darkening world) probably need to continue-happening. 

What I see, by contrast, is too many real Christians (both priests and laity) in Episcopal churches who (currently) exist in a state of denial about the many personal discernments they themselves have made in arriving at their life of faith. 

They will claim that they follow 'the truth'. or that it is so obvious what is true, and where true-authority lies, that no discernment has been required... 

They will claim that they are in-effect 'merely-obedient' to their church; despite that they have picked-and-chosen their church in the first place, and then picked-and-chosen who is right and wrong within their church... 

It is as-if they wish to cover-their tracks, and pretend that their own obedience to the modern, 2022, church is exactly the same simple, natural, spontaneous, unconscious, and unthinking obedience that was possible (and usual - and probably desirable) in the Middle Ages.

But this is just false; and it places a lie at the heart of a Man's faith which cannot but tend to weaken and corrupt it - especially in these times; when challenges to discernment, and temptations to affiliate with a Satan-serving System, are coming at Christians with increasing frequency and severity. 

For Romantic Christianity; that discernment and personal responsibility which is unavoidable for a Christian in order for him to become and remain Good; needs to become acknowledged as a reality - and that reality itself, should be regarded as Good. 

Christmas is the great 'romantic' season of the year - at least potentially. It is the season when enchantment is nearest the surface, strongest, most likely to cast its spell across the mundane. 

And, of course, Christmas is a Christian celebration. Therefore it ought to be a fine time for the Romantic Christian...

That, at any rate, is the challenge. Because the 'traditional' romanticism of Christmas is generally immersive, un-conscious and passive: Christmas is too-often a time when we try to devise situations where we become overwhelmed by pleasure-inducing situations and stimuli; with an apparent intent to eliminate thinking and live only emotionally, instinctually - in a happy and comfortable present.

Yet this is only truly possible for young children - which is why childhood Christmases are regarded as the best, and why they cannot be recreated later*. 

To know oneself to be un-consciously happy is an impossible paradox; so to the limited extent someone succeeds in achieving immersive Christmas goals (for example with the use of alcohol) then (by definition) he also abolishes his own awareness and memory of having done so. 

To distort Socrates's phrase somewhat, the experience of most adults in these times is that "the unexamined Christmas is not worth living" - yet to 'examine' Christmas while living it is also to ruin it! 

Thus, at best, adult Christmases become little more than shallow self-indulgence; unless a further and different attitude can be achieved.  

What Socrates meant by the 'examined' life was not what the 2021 Romantic Christian means. For Socrates, living at the dawn of the era when the human soul became self-conscious, first able to detach itself from immersion-in the world; Socrates was asserting that it was Man's proper destiny to become more conscious - to step-back and examine life philosophically. 

Socrates could advise this without fear of inducing alienation and despair in his pupils, because in Ancient Greek times it was not possible for a Man to detach himself fully from participation in the world. In other words, Socrates was such a natural romantic (he was a man who experienced living in an alive world, populated by real gods, and conversing regularly with a 'daemon' who guided him) that he could advise Men to be less romantic without disenchantment becoming a problem.  

But we, in these times, find ourselves already detached from the world - the world has lost its sense of reality, seems relativistic, socially-constructed... For us, the mainstream, publicly enforced unromantic life is meaningless; and any 'purpose' applied to life is arbitrary and does not 'involve' us personally. 

Thus to advise a modern Man to step out-from life and 'analyze' it philosophically, is to make an already-bad situations worse! 

A modern Man who looked upon Christmas 'philosophically, or analytically, would miss all the good that the season had to offer. Certainly he would not be a Romantic Christian. 

So, the examined life in 2021 is unavoidable; but if it is to be a good life (i.e. a life of meaning, purpose and one that we personally have a relationship with the world), then 'examined' must have a different meaning from the usage by Socrates. 

That is, the modern era rules-out both unthinking 'pre-Socratic' immersion and 'Socratic' thinking detachment; and implies that we need a third and qualitatively different thing. 

Christmas therefore can be regarded as a test case, an exemplar of life for the Romantic Christian. We want a romantic, a magical Christmas - and we want this romanticism to be real, honest and personal; not a failed pretense at reverting to childhood. 

What should it mean to have an 'examined' Christmas, and an examined Life? What would it mean for any romanticism (of Christmas, or anything else) to be real - for adults, here-and-now? 

This needs to be conscious (not unconscious), actively-chosen (not passively-absorbed); it needs to be thought (else it cannot be willed) - but thought with a kind of inwardly-originating and inwardly-driven thinking (i.e. intuition, heart-thinking, direct-knowing) that also consciously knows itself to be real. 

In other words; for Christmas to be really-real - starting from a position of the actual alienation of modern adult man; we need to reconstruct our thinking on the basis of different and true metaphysical assumptions. 

Instead of having passively absorbed the incoherent assumptions of modernity that thought is an epiphenomenon of the brain with no direct connection with anything outside the body; we need to recognize the truth that our thinking is an essential participant in all possible knowledge of the world and of our-selves. 

There is, indeed, no reality without thinking; and no real reality unless this thinking is 'from' our real and divine selves - rather than merely being absorbed from the materialistic and demonically-dominated world of media, officialdom, law, 'science', etc. 

In the end we come around to agree with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living; because for modern Man the unexamined life is... whatever incoherent value inversions and distortions have been put-into us by the Global Totalitarian Establishment.  

But if we examine our fundamental assumptions and discover coherent and true assumptions - we will reach the Christian reality of romanticism. 

And from this root, we can appreciate the worth of Christmas. 

I am Not suggesting that you start wishing people a "consciously-participative romantic Christmas" or anything similar! 

But we may be helped immediately and materially by awareness that the truths of Christmas are romantic truths; truths in which we are personally-involved, truths which we personally participate in creating. 

And these truths are really-real - even when not as the literalistic summaries forced-upon us by language and the need for brevity; even when, to the world, these truths are 'nothing more' than manipulative cultural fabrications. 

The really-real is wordless, direct knowing - and can be known only for-ourselves, from our-selves. 

The knowing-heart is wiser than (either or both) mind and instinct.  

*Parents of young children may - with the right attitude, and if they come to recognize what they are doing - be re-experiencing the joys of childhood Christmases; and in exactly the Romantic Christian way. For example; a parent can become the real spirit of the real Father Christmas; and also empathically identify with the child's immersive awareness of Father Christmas. But it is vital that this be regarded seriously, un-ironically, known as a deep truth of the real-situation. Mainstream modern cynicism about Christmas is fatal both to enchantment and insight; because cynical materialism is dishonest, hence un-real - thus demonic.   

Romantic Christianity could be considered that Christianity which regards directly-intuited understanding (or heart-thinking) as our primary knowledge... 

By which I mean an experience of understanding which is clear and conscious in the mind; therefore not primarily in words, symbols, concepts, principles, abstractions or any other indirect or representational medium. 

Thus, for a Romantic Christian - the fundamental basis of his Christianity is not in the reports of other people nor any kind of history; not in tradition or words; not in any external authority or person; nor in accounts of theological or philosophical reasoning. 

Instead, the basis is the experience of a positive, affirmative grasp and knowing; and it is this which needs to be applied to the 'secondary' sources of Christian knowledge that are described above. Our true faith, that sustains courage and supplies Hope, is to be derived from that which is primary. 

For example, the primary truth of a passage of scripture (or history, or commandment, or rule...) may be apprehended and known by experience in this primary way - by a process which is distinct both from 'reading the words' and distinct from the words-meanings being imposed-upon the mind by the act of reading. 

And when such a direct apprehension and understanding is lacking, then the scriptural passage (or whatever) should not be regarded as primary. 

In sum; Romantic Christianity is rooted in active and creative thinking; and the passive and absorptive is recognized as secondary. 

It also follows that the expression of Romantic Christianity can only be in the secondary forms; because the primary and intuitive, direct-knowing of the mind cannot wholly be captured or fully-communicated by any expression of it in words or any other medium. This is what makes it primary. 

What is relatively 'new' about Romantic Christianity - that 'Romantic' impulse that seemed to emerge incrementally only from about the middle 1700s in Europe, and later in other places to become dominant now (apparently) everywhere - is that the engagement needs to be both conscious and chosen. 

The possibility and effectiveness of a life passively-guided by true bit unconscious tradition, has dwindled; and has by now essentially disappeared among adults. Unconscious, spontaneous instinct is likewise both enfeebled and corrupted so as to become both impossible and undesirable. 

We are active, conscious, choosing Christians - or we are not Christians. 

Modern Man is in a new and unprecedented situation deriving from both his deficits and his capacities. Either he will choose consciously to base his fundamental (metaphysical) Christianity upon Romantic and experiential foundations; or else he will become assimilated to The World - which is (in 2021) atheistic, materialistic and (most importantly) subject to global demonic strategies. 

The Romantic Christian can thus be of any denomination or none, in his practice of Christianity - according to the guidance of his experiential discernments. 

But the Romantic Christian must always be in a process of rooting his faith in the personal and experiential - and this is the fact which enables him to discern and adhere to the good and Godly among the great mass of evil and Satanic influences that increasingly permeate and dominate the world of public discourse (including all the 'Christian' churches).    

Note: The above was stimulated by brooding upon a marvelous and inspiring talk by Archbishop Vigano - where the Abp seems strongly to imply the need for individual discernment, yet does not explain or state it explicitly. My belief is that such matters require detailed discussion. In the past - there were internal mechanisms to deal with top-down problems; but now the evil is active, globally applied and enforced (with the coordinated aid of the secular powers: finance, government, corporations, media etc) and the corruption extends through a majority of middle and lower hierarchy and through the 'masses' and the RCC laity. Unless discernment is conscious and consciously regarded as primary, it will not suffice to combat the an onslaught of evil. 

The idea of Romantic Christianity is that we must and should move forward to a new era of consciousness - because consciousness is necessary for free agency.

We can be free only when we are conscious; insofar as the unconscious affects us without our awareness then we are not free.

So secular modernity is impossible, because it is not Christian hence basically false - and evil because it is by nature and intent totalitarian (Ahrimanic); mainstream Romanticism is impossible because it is not Christian, and aims-at the unconscious, instinctive, unfree, not-grown-up (Luciferic); traditional Christianity is impossible because it relies upon the objective efficacy of words, rituals, symbols, institutions that have become subjective and ineffective. And, anyway, we cannot go back to traditional Christianity because human evolution is developmental (thus irreversible - like an adolescent cannot become a child).  

The fact that secular modernity, Romanticism and Christianity are all impossible does not, of course, prove that Romantic Christianity is possible - nor does it prove that Rom Christ would be desirable. The possibility and desirability of Romantic Christianity are firmly conjectural.

We should therefore be clear that there can be no publicly compelling proof that Romantic Christianity is what we must and ought-to have. So, in principle, we can only be Romantic Christians on the basis of 'evidence' that is personal individual, and - in that sense - 'subjective'.

However, Romantic Christianity includes the assertion that genuine subjectivity (intuition from of the real and divine self) is also objective, universal and eternal (objective, that is, within constraints of our perspective, experience and capability). True subjectivity is real objectivity.

In sum; to be a Romantic Christian is a matter of primary personal conviction. Either you have this, or you do not. If you don't have it, no evidence can convince you; if do have it, no evidence can disprove your conviction.

And such conviction can only be attained by consciously seeking it, and can only be apprehended by consciously knowing it and freely embracing it.

And if such is achieved; there is no more to be done with respect to proofs and evidence. One then Just Is a Romantic Christian; and our task and destiny then becomes (as I began by saying) incrementally to become conscious of all that is unconscious; to freely choose that which is spontaneously, intrinsically, naturally true.

I find it very annoying when Christians fight among themselves - perhaps especially in this era - these End Times - when the Christian churches are shriveling and spiritually-eviscerated, and have joined-with the powers of evil dominate all the 'Western' nations, and nearly-all the major social and political institutions of the world. 

My evaluation is that real Christians are now rare, and are scattered across many denominations and churches - despite that individually all of the denominations and churches are net-corrupted by their convergence with significant policies of atheist-materialist-Leftism (as evidence by the Litmus Tests). 

In such a situation it is maddening to find to many Christians 'having a go at' each other - Western and Eastern Catholics sniping and snarking; Catholics denigrating Protestants from the rich well of historical grievances, and vice versa; both of these denigrating Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses; and all the church-obedient Christians excluding Christians who are unaffiliated. 

It is maddening but inevitable; for so long as each denomination, church, sect claims exclusivity as to salvation or theosis with respect to whatever it regards as vitally important. 

Such exclusivity seems almost impossible to avoid when each group has a complex and multiple set of self-definitions that are regarded as essential to being-a-Christian; or of being the kind of Christian that is at all worth being. 

Yet it is clear that the 'liberal' alternative - pursued for more than two centuries, of loosening and relaxing the criteria for 'being a Christian'; by permitting more and more latitude, by taking the old laws, rules and exclusions less-and-less seriously -  has been a colossal disaster. 

Liberal Christianity leads - not to a new and more comprehensive Christianity - but to a subordination of Christianity to politics: specifically to leftist politics. 

And leftist politics leads to destruction of churches, assimilation to evil, and the enlistment of self-identified Christians to the strategies and policies of Satan. 

What is needed is twofold. 

First; a Core Christianity, few and simple definitions by means of which a real Christian can discern the realness of others who claim to be Christian - whatever their denomination or church may be. 

And secondly a shift away from the primacy of churches and to the full responsibility of individuals as the basis of Christianity - i.e. Romantic Christianity. 

These factors can be distinguished, but are inseparable. It is the simple definitions of Core Christianity that enable Romantic Christianity to be tough, incisive and positive in content. And it is the personal responsibility of Romantic Christianity that enable Core Christianity to escape from the elaborate (and institutionally self-serving) claims of particular churches. 

Romantic Christianity without the clarity of Core Christianity would drift away from Christianity; Core Christianity without the individual responsibility of Romantic Christianity would never get off the ground; because each church would simply implement its own already-established, exclusive and excluding, definitions of Christianity. 

Put-together; Core and Romantic Christianity offer a way-out of the current impasse, and a way by which real Christians may be allied in their faith, across a wide range of churches and outside churches; while excluding those who are not Christian. 

Sir Walter Scott's dates were 1771-1832 - much the same as the life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). But if Coleridge stands as an example of how our spiritual life in the West could (and should) have gone towards a fully-integrated Romanic Christianity; Scott is representative of what actually happened to the British culture at large. 

Scott was a very devout Christian - a Presbyterian as a child and Episcopalian as an adult. And he was also a great Romantic - whose influence (both via long narrative poems and dozens of novels; also his widely-read collection of Border Ballads) was international and lasting. 

But the Christianity and Romanticism were kept rigorously separate. It is startling to read in the account of the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, how Scotts assumptions were entirely and unconsciously dedicated to 'explaining away' all the supernatural and prophetic elements of the poem and the author's life. The hypothesis that True Thomas really was a prophet, or really had some kind of an encounter with elves, is not even entertained. 

Scott was, in this respect, entirely an 'Enlightenment' rationalist. And he embodied the duality, the schism, between Christianity and the romantic, which has persisted since - until Christianity has dwindled to very little public significance. 

I mean that magic, mysticism, enchantment, animism and all such - are rationalized and explained away; being both excluded-from, and regarded as hostile-to, Christianity. 

By such maneuvers, Christian life began to be regarded rationally, objectively, sealed off from the whole range of human experience - and became ever more wholly external. The romantic, which was about intense personal experience and gave life meaning at a micro level, was regarded as merely fictional - and psychological. 

A serious Christian like Scott might also be a romantic, but on the assumption that the romantic element was merely a kind of entertainment, a commercial exercise, or an historical document; without reality or relevance for the serious things of life.  

Later - the two split even further apart; so that the archetypal romantic became anti-Christian (as with Byron, or the New Age) and the serious Christians anti-romantic (as with those modern evangelicals who regard Tolkien and CS Lewis as literally demonic). 

The split between Christianity and romanticism is a version of the split between objective and subjective: for serious Christians the faith became 'objective' - i.e. external, public, logical, something to be 'followed' - while Romanticism was merely subjective, and to be explained-away. 

And for those who believed in Romanticism, there was an attempt at thoroughgoing subjectivism/ relativism and living by instinct - which explained-away Christianity along with science and all other attempts at objectivity.  

Consequently, Romanticism and Christianity both became partial and ineffectual. Church Christianity is now almost wholly secular and bureaucratic; Romanticism is quasi-therapeutic, commercial and recreational.

There might be some unconscious integration of the two; for instance, one suspects that Scott had a 'real' interest in the supernatural - that at some level his interest in Thomas the Rhymer was based on the possibility that the supernatural elements might somehow be true... 

But lacking any conscious and explicit acknowledgment and theorization of such an integration; 'modern Man' (since Scott's time) cannot achieve any effective reuniting of inner life. 

It was the project of Rudolf Steiner and then Owen Barfield to provide a conscious and explicit theoretical basis for healing the the subjective-objective, Romantic-Christian split. This, they largely achieved - and our task now is to put the theories into action in our own everyday lives. 

It is a striking insight when one reflects upon how Christianity (those who followed Jesus Christ) so rapidly and completely evolved from what we know of the teachings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel...

...To a situation in which "the church" (an always-contested definition) successfully claimed the authority to define Christianity, and to control each Man's access to salvation. 

The Romantic epiphany is that this claim of primary authority by "the church" - however that is defined; and all other such claims that transfer primary Christian authority to any external objective locus: such as scripture, or tradition - Must Be Wrong. 

Must Be - because God the creator, and our loving Father, would obviously not have made the world thus; but would certainly have made a world compatible with the Fourth Gospel vision of individual Men choosing or rejecting each his own salvation - sufficiently guided and consoled by the divine within each Man and by the Holy Ghost. 

Must Be - because God regards each of us as a beloved and unique child, and has made the world such that each child has ultimate control of his own salvation - regardless of circumstances. 

Such is (more or less) the Romantic epiphany.   

Yet - although commonplace now - this Romantic epiphany was not possible until relatively recently - apparently not until the late 1700s, and then only in a few Men in a few places (in Germany, Britain, then France).

It was not possible for ancient Men to have the Romantic epiphany, because their consciousness was different from ours. 

They did not experience themselves - as we do - as essentially cut off from the world and other Men. Instead, they were - to a significant, but varied, extent, naturally, spontaneously, unconsciously immersed-in the world: part of the world. 

Therefore, ancient men could not envisage, could not experience, a religious life that was detached from the human community of "the church". Neither could they envisage life itself outwith the patronage of a leige Lord to whom was owed loyalty - exile from one's community was no better than a living death. 

Ancient Man was substantially and inescapably communal in his consciousness. 

Even, more than a millennium later, by the time of the Reformation - Men's minds had only somewhat detached from the group: Men were 'semi-detached'. Authority was still experienced as ultimately external.

Instead of locating external primary authority in "the church" the Reformers maintained the primacy of external authority and 'merely' transferred it to a book: while maintaining strict control over the interpretation of that book. 

But the condition of modern Man - not chosen, but fated - is one of alienation, of detachment. The Church/ The Bible or any other possible external location is experienced as Other - we are not organically and spontaneously "members" of any human social grouping, nor do we experience any book or scripture as innately authoritative in an objective - group-shared - fashion. 

We each confront the world as an isolated consciousness; whether we like it or not - and for a Christian, therefore, the claims of any external entity to stand between us and God, strikes us as simply, obviously, untrue. 

This is the Romantic epiphany; and once experienced it can never wholly be forgotten or suppressed. The Romantic Christian knows he has direct and personal task in this world, and that responsibility for his salvation lies, inescapably, on his own shoulders.

(Our individuality is, for us, as inescapable as was the communal consciousness of the ancients.) 

The Romantic Christian knows, too, and therefore; that a claim otherwise - a claim that an external is the necessary condition for our personal salvation, regulates our 'access' to resurrected life eternal - a claim that salvation is ultimately described-by or controlled-by any external authority -- is a false claim.

The Romantic epiphany is that nothing - nothing external, not an institution, not a book, not a set of 'authorities', not a practice... ultimately nothing stands between a Man and his choice of whether or not to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven. 

Nobody can give us salvation - except our-selves. Nobody can take away salvation - except our-selves. 

Salvation is as easy as you, me, or any person, saying and meaning Yes to Jesus Christ... And Damnation as easy as saying Yes to Satan. 

I've already covered this on the blog - but I don't think everybody understood what I was saying, or maybe thought I was exaggerating; so I'll say it again.

In broad terms, my feeling is that all the major Western Christian churches have revealed themselves as at best lacking sufficient faith to have courage, as universally dishonest, and at worst as unbelieving hypocrites.

All the Western Christian churches - so far as I know. 


For example (and I use this example because the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination, and 'officially' they are solid supernaturalists)...

(...Sorry, I still can't get my head around this one!)

The healing pools at Lourdes have been closed to prevent spread of the birdemic. The healing pools...

If the RCC believed the pools worked, they would not close them (quite the opposite); if they don't believe the pools work, then why is Lourdes just-about the biggest Catholic shrine in the world?


The Christian churches have abandoned and excommunicated Christians (either literally in denying communion, or whatever equivalent is regarded as most significant church provision in non-Catholic denominations).

This is not a speculation about what might happen 'if' - it has already happened; officially, from the leaderships.

There has been, in the space of a few weeks, a clear statement in the form of action, that the self-identified Christian churches don't really believe what they say; and that when the chips are down (as now) they actually believe that speculative, manipulative, evil hype from politicians, media, and pseudo-scientists is More Valid than all the 'Christian stuff' that they spout from the pulpits.

Christians are Now living in a post-church era.


Now I am a Romantic Christian, so I was already living in this era - by choice and by conviction.

I believe that Christianity is primarily between me and God - and that there is a direct and umediated contact between Man and the Divine. I believe that God has not left us bereft of all the guidance we need. Even if we lack valid churches, traditions, scriptures and theology - we will each individually be provided with what we need - if we turn to Jesus for help.

(Not least because we knew Jesus personally, and knew the nature of his mission, in our pre-mortal lives; and will recall this when our decision is needed on whether or not to follow Jeus; recalled whether in this mortal life, or afterwards.)

I believe that any particular church/ churches have a secondary and optional role (sometimes helpful, sometimes useless, sometimes harmful) - we may choose to join or 'use' the resources of a particular church or denomination to help our Christian life; or choose not.

But we choose and the churches job is to serve us; each of us.


Romantic Christianity is now the only game in town for serious Christians. The churches have signalled explicitly and unambiguously that they simply do not believe that they offer anything essential for Christians in a time of crisis and need.

If you are a Christian, then you too live in this post-church world - like it or not. You live in a post-church world even if this is against your wishes and convictions; because you have just been abandoned by your church; and sooner or later you will (if you remain a Christian) be compelled to acknowledge this as a fact.  

I trust I make myself clear?

Note: All of this is conditional - of course; because some churches may yet repent and acknowledge their sins and errors in this matter.

Romantic Christianity understands the future of Christianity to be one in which the individual person takes ultimate responsibility for his most profound beliefs. 

Because of the corruption-to-evil of the institution of the Western world, including all the major churches; this implies the need for a Christian life of creative discovery, and that this life needs to be self-motivated. 

To be sustainable through difficulties, this kind of creative life must provide personal motivations and rewards - or else it will not be begun, or will soon be abandoned. 

 

People are most creative when creativity is supported with positive and rewarding emotions and/or provides relief from negative or aversive emotions. 

This would seem to work in three stages: Discontent –> Delight –> Satisfaction. 

This corresponding to: Perceiving a Problem –> Having an Insight –> Generating a Solution.

Therefore, creativity is driven by a negative or ‘Dysphoric’ feeling – that some state of affairs produces an emotion of dissatisfaction. 

"The creative" then turns his attention to this ‘‘problem’’ – and he enjoys working on the problem (that is, he enjoys ‘being creative’); and finally he may come up with an insight which leads to a euphoric feeling of delight. 

So, The Creative is rewarded up-front for generating insights – by working on a problem he both gets relief from a negative state of inner dissatisfaction and is also positively rewarded by an inner fulfilment by the work – and this happens whether or not his insights eventually turn-out to be answers. 

As such, The Creative will tend to generate insights for the sheer fun of it! – and even if the insights turn-out to be trivial, erroneous, useless, or harmful. This provides his day-to-day motivation for being-creative. 

But, finally, with persistence and luck on his side; let us say that The Creative comes up with a solution to the problem: a solution which, for a shortish period (minutes or hours, perhaps), makes him feel joyously happy or ‘Euphoric’! Thus a Dysphoric state of Discontent has then been replaced by a Euphoric state; and when Euphoria subsides the successful creative will move onto a longer-term and sustained state of satisfaction or gratification – and this can be termed ‘Euthymic’, meaning a state of ‘normal’ good mood. 

Therefore, first Euphoria, then Euthymia are the emotional rewards for creativity. So, in terms of phenomenology, it goes: Dysphoria – Euphoria – Euthymia Or, in English: Discontent, Bliss, Satisfaction.

In terms of the larger picture of Life, this is the discontented state of seeking Destiny and the gratification of discovering it; embarking on a Quest – which is itself a satisfying albeit frustrating activity; and finally achieving Illumination – which leads to an acute state of bliss then a chronic state of satisfaction (and quite likely a new search for another Destiny). 

Therefore, for the creative person, a normal life in conformity with social expectations is unsatisfying; but being creative is rewarding. Such a person will be spontaneously creative, as a consequence of their inner drives and personal satisfactions; and creative whether asked to be creative or not, whether it is useful or not, and whether he is sufficiently knowledgeable and competent for the task or not.

Romantic Christianity therefore entails that being A Creative is not the preserve of traditional geniuses; but becomes the norm for Christians. 

In other words; each Christian should become a Genius of his own fundamental and ultimate Christianity; even when, as usually happens, he chooses to retain an affiliation to some denomination or church with respect to less-fundamental and more-superficial aspects of his faith and life. 

His base-faith is required to be the work of his genius, else he will not be sufficiently motivated in the world as-now; yet part of this base-faith may entail the insight that "such-and-such a church" is (at present) valid and helpful for his Christian life. 

But the first step for a Romantic Christian is to discover what it is that we will be creative about, what really motivates us from-within and is in accordance with divine creation; and finding that is the beginning of his "genius quest". 

Note: The above passage, starting with "People are most creative", and ending with "task or not" is lightly-edited from my co-authored (with Ed Dutton) book The Genius Famine. 

I have been re-reading this book for the first time since it was published nearly eight years ago, and have found it to be (somewhat surprisingly) Very Good! Helped by Ed's input; it reads excitingly (for this kind of book), and I had actually forgotten writing several of the ideas and insights that seemed most valid. So I am (re-) learning something, just from reading my own stuff.

Anyway, I would recommend The Genius Famine to my readers, as being much-more-relevant-than-expected to the project of Romantic Christianity. 

You can read the text version linked above for free, but the Kindle version is a lot more user-friendly. (The paper version seems over-priced; and was badly typeset, unfortunately.) 

Thinking affects the world - just as we knew it did when we were young children. 

We knew then that thoughts come into our mind from outside our heads, and that our own thinking was known-by and affected the world outside our head. 

We knew then that our fear could attract the attention of that-which-is-feared; and indeed could conjure-up that-which-is-feared. Thinking about a bad thing could 'make it happen' - so we tried not to do it. 

(The child experiences this being-part-of-the-world spontaneously and passively; yet it is this basic understanding of 'participation' which the Romantic Christian aims to recover consciously and by choice.)  

Our thinking is a part of the world, and this is the reason why sin is evil; why our 'feelings' can harm the world. 

The modern materialist cannot comprehend why what he thinks or feels 'in the privacy of my own mind' could or should be of any concern to anybody else - and that God 'would not be interested' in such trivial matters as his personal attitudes, fears or desires. 

But the world Just Is Made so that our thinking is part of it. Thinking is Not confined to our brain - the idea that thinking is a free-spinning cog, detached from 'reality' is an incoherent delusion.

(...As Owen Barfield explained in Saving the Appearances, 1965).

Therefore, when we (for instance) experience a powerful fear of what the demon-controlled global totalitarian establishment might do to us (as spontaneously happened to me this morning, shortly after waking) - we are both committing the sin of despair and also making that bad outcome more likely. 

We make the bad outcome more likely by lending the creative power of our imagination to an evil world picture. By yielding-to despair, we take the side of Satan; and lend him material assistance by our spiritual activity. 

And this is why such thoughts come to mind. Since our minds are not cut-off from the world, evil thoughts can be put-into them by evil spirits - as was always acknowledged in the past. 

But the flip side of this frightening reality is that every 'defeat' of evil thoughts in our mind (by our will) has beneficial external effects - which is why we do not get evil thoughts all of the time: defeat wounds Satan. Every repudiation of sin somewhat improves the world

All good thoughts, aligned with God's will, tends to make good futures more likely.   

Thus we ought to recognize fear and despair as sins, and inwardly reject them - make the inward affirmation that we do not want to sin. 

This act of will (of free will) is called repentance; and it has the effect of transferring our creative aid from Satan to God (a double benefit!). 

By repentance (recognition and rejection of sin) we have thus rejected the world picture being imposed upon us by demonic powers and their servants (by all means They can muster), we have made an act of affiliation to divine creation, and we have redirected our soul's effort towards God.

However, this identification and repudiation of sin, and commitment to Good, needs to be distinguished from its perversion as 'the power of positive thinking': the idea that we can 'get what we want' if we want it hard enough. 

Positive thinking is about imposing our personal will upon the world - getting what we want from the world; and this is an extremely different matter from willing our allegiance to God's ongoing work of divine creating; extremely different from taking the side of Good in the spiritual war of these times.  

The positive thinker would - like a Romantic Christian - also try to reject fear and despair; but he would do thins because they are negative emotions that make him feel miserable. The positive thinker is not rejecting fear and despair because these are sins, nor because they aid the attainment of a more complete and extreme demonic anti-creation than we already have. 

Neither would the positive thinker be making a commitment to God's plan for reality. He is instead trying to impose his own plan on reality - and this existential selfishness plays directly-into Satan's hands, is immediately woven-into the demonic anti-creation that opposes God. 

Both positive thinking and repentance/ affiliation are - in a broad sense - concerned with 'getting what we personally want'. To the modern secular mind this means that one is as good (or bad) as the other - merely different forms of self-gratification... 

Nonetheless, there is a distinction between types of self-gratification in terms of their assumed, ultimate metaphysical context. 

The distinction is between a secular attitude of aiming at what provides gratification in this mortal life - on the metaphysical assumption that this mortal life is believed to be the only life. Or, by contrast, a Christian attitude of regarding this finite mortal life as followed by an eternal post-mortal life; with this our mortal life gaining meaning from its purpose. 

The Christian purpose of this mortal life is assumed to be 'educational': we are intended to learn from this life 'lessons' of importance to the eternity which follows.     

A Romantic Christian does indeed want to reject fear, despair, resentment and many other unpleasant feelings; and instead to think positively. 

And repentance does have a positive power. To recognize and repent a sin is to starve it of the oxygen it would otherwise obtain from being regarded as a valid emotion. 

But the aim of thinking positively goes beyond mortal life into Heaven; and the the ultimate 'positive' is seen as our personal, chosen, active participation in God's creation.

 

Christians will find themselves - sometimes again and again - at a point where there is a stark awareness and apprehension of Me-Here-Now - a situation of direct and 'intuitive' knowing; rooted in a personal and first-hand experience, and a person to person relationship - typically in relationship to Jesus Christ. 

 

This contrasts with traditional church-based knowing; which is rooted in historical discourse and 'scholarship' of various types; and is therefore second-hand (or third-/ fourth-/ fifth-hand...). 

Church-knowing is indirect knowledge-about... rather than experience-of. It is something we learn and strive to remember... rather than apprehend with instantaneous clarity and conviction. 

Because modern Men are self-aware, because we are conscious of our own consciousness; we distinguish these two 'ways of knowing' whereas at times in history these would have been regarded as aspects of a unity...  

Indeed they were not distinguished, because the individual was then immersed in the group's thinking; and often had experienced none-other; his beliefs were spontaneously and unconsciously those of the social group, and these beliefs were apparently stable, apparently 'eternal'. 

Man in the past did not distinguish even the possibility of himself having direct and personal knowledge that diverged from knowledge he absorbed insensibly and by training and education from his society. 

Therefore in the past - when Men's consciousness was different; the basis of Christianity rooted in a church was natural, inevitable, and right. 

But Now we experience self-validating truth for-ourselves, intermittently; in flashes, or 'epiphanies'; yet brief because we are then in a state of self-awareness that of-itself interrupts that which is being-observed. 

As soon as we know we are knowing - that consciousness slips-away into mere knowing that we know...

But anyone who has known by this kind of directly-apprehended, wordless intuition; is aware of its utter distinction from those vast masses of external and historical 'knowledge' which constitute 'a religion' or 'a science' or 'literature'...

The question then arises; why should we believe secondhand church-knowledge? 

Such a 'why' question would not have occurred in the past - but now it has; and it demands an answer; that is, assuming we are to give some version of church-knowledge absolute primacy* over all other contesting knowledge-claims... 

For a Christian, we see on the one hand an enormous, heavy, complex system of historical claims which constitutions a denomination or church; all of which includes the claim that this is (in some essential fashion) the unchanging truth, and our job is to worship and obey. 

Or job as a church-Christian is primarily to learn-about this body of historical material - and submit-to it. 

Therefore, Me-Here-Now and (what feels like) direct knowing; must be fitted-into - and submit-to - this mass of external stuff. 

 

For a church-Christian; Nothing we might ever possibly experience, think, say or do - past, present or future - can ever affect the directionality of that relationship. 

The Church - and therefore History - is absolute and primary; we our-selves are contingent and secondary. 

(And the same applies if, for instance, The Church is replaced by Scripture, or Tradition - it's all History, ultimately; all external - all given-us by a particular body of Men, all based-on historical claims.)

So, this is the crux. We have our own most intense, most real, most true and most important convictions - rooted in (what feels like) a direct-knowing of reality...

Or we have (what feels like) a secondary, second-hand, submission to (what purports to be) a vast bulk of mixed historical claims - cross-referencing the validity of authority, scriptures, traditions and practices, beliefs etc. 

These two possibilities (for many perhaps almost all) people have separated, their combination was a consequence of unconsciousness - and now we are conscious - and they have been split apart by this consciousness.

Thus Romantic Christianity became a possibility, and the decision concerning ultimate authority became a necessity. 

We can either acknowledge or deny the crux - but denial is dishonest. 

What to do we do; where place our primary loyalty, where look for salvation? By submission and obedience to History (i.e. Our Church)?

Or; do we instead start the process of re-knowing, re-learning, re-making Christianity from the basis of the primacy of intuition, direct-knowing, heart-thinking (whatever we call it)...

(Which is (for Christians) intuition of the divine within us (as we are children of God), and our apprehension of the Holy Ghost without?)

 

The crux is: Do we trust our-selves and personal-knowing primarily; or we we trust... whatever we have been told by our favoured historians concerning church-history, and organize everything else around that?   

Is Christian faith to be rooted in the Here-and-Now experience - or in curated historical claims? 

Romantic of Traditional? 

*Note: 'Primary' and Primacy' are used here to indicates which comes first and is foundational. It is not a matter of either/ or Romantic versus Historical Christianity - but which is primary and foundational; about which judges and discerns the other. Thus a Romantic Christian may be a full church member and believer - but at root he will have intuitively-discerned and evaluated the truth of the church's claims (at least; those which are of core importance to him), and consciously chosen to accept them. The Historical-Church Christian may experience intuitive direct knowing, but will accept or reject such insights in accordance with his primary obedience to the church - therefore no personal knowledge could ever (as a matter of principle) challenge or overturn the church's instruction and teaching. What a church-Christian experiences and knows here-and-now, will only be allowed validity when it supports the church's 'historically-based' understanding; and any other insights will be rejected as erroneous or evil. 

Looking back over the past fifty years I have been reading Tolkien; I can perceive that my attitude to the books (especially The Lord of the Rings) falls into three broad phases. 

Socio-Political

When I began reading, in my middle teens, I regarded LotR as, pretty much, a blueprint for how we ought to live in a socio-political sense. My attitude was that the lesson of the book was that we ought to deindustrialize substantially, and return to an agrarian society, divided into mostly self-sufficient units (i.e. a kind of feudalism), based upon a much simpler level of technology. 

Thus, my interest in Tolkien led to an interest in pre-modern history - Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval. And also an interest in the 'self-sufficiency' and 'intermediate technology' movements, 'ecology', and the politics of William Cobbett, HD Thoreau, William Morris, RH Tawney, the 'distributism' of Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton, and EF Schumacher of 'Small is Beautiful' fame.  

In essence; I saw the spirit of Tolkien located in a type of society; and I hoped to live by this spirit via living in what I understood to be a Tolkienian society. I therefore read the books almost as if they were a manual or blueprint for how we ought to live. 

Jungian

In younger adult life, I lost faith in both the power and goodness of politics - and realized that its direction was against the agrarian. I realized that Men were not passive products of social systems - and I developed the broadly-Jungian idea that 'the psyche' was the primary reality. 

I saw the psyche as a third realm in-between the subjectivity of the everyday and mundane mind on the one hand, and the objectivity of the material world (including society and politics) on the other hand. 

My broad conclusion was that the 'lessons' of Tolkien ought to be developed in terms of living in accordance with the collective unconscious - which I saw as an objective realm of archetypal and mythic realities that was shared by all Men. 

In sum; I saw Tolkien as the greatest modern exemplification of this mythic world; and reading him as a way of discovering and strengthening the mythic in my own life; with the goal of living an integrated life - feeling part of society and guided by the wisdom of myth. 

Romantic Christian

In middle age I became a Christian, and then more and more of a 'Romantic' Christian - under the influence of Mormon theology; and writers such as Blake, Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle. 

Thus, from about 2009, I began increasingly to read and experience Tolkien in a different way. This new era began with my immersion in JRRT's posthumously-published and unfinished novel: The Notion Club Papers. The NCPs contains a good deal of Tolkien autobiography, and was intended as a framework and bridge between the modern world and the world of the 'legendarium' (ie. the Silmarillion annals, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings). 

The Notion Club Papers blog then began to record a new practice of reading Tolkien, and some of the other Inklings, as what used to be termed 'devotional literature' - in the same spirit that past generations might have read Milton's Paradise Lost or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

So, this is where I am now: in my third era of Tolkien. 

One fundamental idea of Romantic Christianity is that we took a wrong turning in the past and therefore need to recover and reconnect with lost things - another fundamental idea is that when this recovery and reconnection is achieved, we will develop to a future that is new and has never previously been experienced anywhere in the world.

So, Romantic Christianity has an element that is conservative, or even reactionary; and another element that is radical, or even progressive.

This can be seen in its antecedents: those writers from whom Romantic Christianity intends to pick up the torch and carry it forward. These include William Blake, ST Coleridge and Novalis - authors who looked back and were also innovators. Authors who were deeply Christian, and also unorthodox or heretical.

But their work was not taken up by society, and was perhaps incomplete - or, at least, their task and project was lacking in that self-conscious, explicit awareness which we modern people (it seems) require to be sufficiently convinced by an idea that we can powerfully be motivated by it.

In particular; it is part of the intuitive conviction that leads to Romantic Christianity, that the destined future must be - can only be - one that is consciously known and voluntarily chosen. That, indeed, the only free choice is a conscious choice - and this is, of course, necessarily the choice of a single person.

Such an ideal of free individualism has not been seen at any time or place in the past... nonetheless, the conviction is that nothing else will suffice, here-and-now. 


The idea of going back and reconnecting with this Romantic Christian impulse was, I think, only itself made fully self-aware and explicit by Owen Barfield (in the essays collected in Romanticism Comes of Age, from 1944) - although he could perceive that it was solidly implied by the work of Rudolf Steiner.

But the possibilities for Romantic Christianity have changed over the past two hundred years, and indeed over the past decades. When it began, there was the possibility that the whole of a national culture (or a substantial segment of one) might take-up the project of Romantic Christianity - that, for example, England might do so.

To be more exact, that English culture might recognise the incoherence and insufficiency of the ruling assumptions of materialism (aka. positivism, scientism, reductionism) and reconnect with the embryonic spiritual and Christian tradition it had incrementally, and very fully, abandoned throughout the 19th century.

Such a large scale self-transformation now seems to be impossible; or at least the trends are contrary. So the hope of Romantic Christianity has narrowed to the individual. It is a project that operates one person at a time, one soul at a time.


This might seem trivial - except that (unlike for materialism) for Romantic Christianity each soul is immortal and of unbounded value.

By contrast, any and all worldly gains are bounded by the decay, sin and death that are intrinsic to this mortal world.

A culture, society or planet is evanescent; but a soul lasts forever.

Romantic Christianity made a brilliant start with Novalis, William Blake and ST Coleridge - and then nothing-much for many decades until Rudolf Steiner became (strange sort of) Christian in about 1898; to be followed by Owen Barfield and William Arkle in later generations - and there is William Wildblood and myself among current writers. But there have never been many Romantic Christians...

Why so rare, and what went wrong with the intermediate generations? Of course there were plenty of Romantics - but among them hardly any Christians; indeed most of them were either atheists or spiritual anything-but Christians.

A pre-eminent example was Ralph Waldo Emerson; who was an arch-Romantic and who began as a Unitarian minister - Unitarians being, at that time, like Emerson, Christians on-the-way-out. He ended-up as a kind of deist, flavoured with what he had gathered of Hinduism and Sufism.

Emerson was known for his elevation of the intuitive, epiphanic, 'moment' of insight to the highest possible valuation; like most Romantics, he required that all knowledge be derived from direct personal experience. SO why did Emerson not do the same for Christianity as he did for everything else? Why did he not develop a Romantic Christianity built from the kind of direct intuitive insights that fuelled the rest of his wide-ranging creativity? This will be answered below.

My guess is that Emerson accepted the evaluation of most Churches that Christianity must be derived from external authority - or else it is not Christianity. Catholics demand that the individual conform to the teaching of the Church authorities, or the traditions of the lineally descended ancient Church. Protestants demand conformity to the canonical scriptures of the Bible.

But what unites all churches is the assumption that whatever Christianity is, it is located outside the individual. The insistence is that Christianity does not come from within - not from individual experience, not from personal intuition.

Ultimately the task for the individual is to conform to external authority. The church judges the individual. 

If this is true; then Romanticism and Christianity are incompatible. So, how did Novalis, Blake and Coleridge come to believe that they had developed a Christianity based on their inner knowledge? It is mostly a matter of their basic and ultimate assumptions, of metaphysical assumptions. These authors believed that the individual could have direct knowledge of Christianity without it being derived from any intermediary at all; not rooted in church authority, without canonical scripture, traditional, philosophical theology or anything else.

Or, at least, and in conformity to Romanticism; that this direct form of personal knowing should serve to evaluate all other knowledge claims. So the individual judges the church; and may (like Blake, Steiner and Arkle) dispense with all churches - although Coleridge and Barfield were both, in later life,' communicating' (communion-taking) members of the Church of England.

We can see, then, why Emerson did not remain a Christian - because he apparently accepted the assertion that a real Christian must be under the authority of a church. (The only dispute was about which church/es it was correct to regard as really Christian.) It seems that, for Emerson, anyone who claimed to be a Christian outside of a church, was not really a Christian.

But there may be more to it than this - because Emerson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus; therefore real Christians were in error. Emerson's idea of deity was abstract - 'The Over Soul' - and therefore infinitely different-from a Man. The only union of Man with deity, therefore, was for Man to surrender his self and 'melt-into' the infinitude of deity.

So Emerson was a hopeless case! Ultimately, he did not want what Jesus offered; and preferred what Eastern religions offered. And what applies to Emerson, also applies to many other Romantics since. Some Romantics are materialist; but among those who are spiritual - it has mostly been an Eastern spirituality; which ultimately regards the individual self and our mortal world as temporary illusions.

This is the source of the paradox by which Emerson valued the moment of insight above all; yet ultimately he regarded each epiphany as evanescent, soon to be lost in time - and therefore worthless.

Other Christians have had strong Romantic impulses, but retained the conviction that the individual judgement must be subordinated to church authority - GK Chesterton is an example. Chesterton regarded the 'catholic' church (at first the Anglo Catholic wing of the Church of England; then in his late middle age, the Roman Catholic church) as the source of knowledge, of truth. For Chesterton Romanticism was the proper attitude each individual ought to adopt towards this truth.

For Chesterton, therefore, the individual did not have direct and personal intuitive access to knowledge; except for the knowledge that the church was true. The only primary knowledge was that the church was the only source of knowledge. 

Something similar could be said for CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. They were Romantics and also Christians - but their Romanticism was secondary to their Christianity - and was at most understood to be a good and proper (perhaps even necessary) attitude towards their Christianity. The Romantic intuition was not, for them, a primary source of knowledge: that was revelation as communicated by  their churches.

This is why Romantic Christians - by a strict definition - have been so rare. Most Romantics were not Christians, but among those that were; Romanticism is regarded as an attitude but not as a source of knowledge.

It was the great contribution of Owen Barfield - posthumous disciple of Steiner, best friend of CS Lewis, and fellow Inkling with Tolkien - to clarify and emphasise this vital distinction.

I should first say that Romantic Christianity is for adults, for post-adolescents. It is, in other words, a product of the modern adult consciousness.

It is for all Western adults, because all modern Western adults are Romantic; and all may (if they want it) choose to accept the gifts of Jesus.  

But I need to say this because this means that Romantic Christianity is neither intended-as nor suitable-as a Christian way of bringing-up children - raising kids is still, essentially, pretty much the same as it was in the era of traditional Christianity. In other words, for pre-adolescents guidance must necessarily be external, and therefore a Christian environment is the key (home, school, church, books, 'media' etc).

But beyond adolescence lies the destiny of a Romantic consciousness, and the new thing needed is that this be a Christian consciousness.


One major concern about Romantic Christianity relates to morality - and in these times and this place, this means primarily sexual morality. Traditional Christianity was pretty clearly defined in relation to sexual morality; and mainstream modernity has as its (perhaps) core value the Sexual Revolution in its various dominating phases.

The Sexual Revolution is, of course, ever 'advancing' its scope (despite the contradictions) via advocating positively divorce, extramarital promiscuity, abortion, feminism, homosexuality, sadomasochism, transexualism and so on 'forward' toward paedophilia and I don't know what next - the stages of dominance of which define modern culture.

Traditional Christianity is clearly against the sexual revolution - on various grounds: for example the teachings of scripture, the authority of the church, the primacy of tradition, the rigorous implications of theology. Now, all of these grounds are 'external' - so Romantic Christianity requires that they must be validated by internal and intuitive understanding and assent.

The problem has often been that the Romantic impulse has, since the time of Lord Byron and Shelley, often been used as a reason to reject traditional sexual morality - by simply claiming that one does not find intuitive confirmation of 'conventional' morality; and that - on the contrary - inner conviction validates unfettered expression of one's own current lusts and desires.

This 'morally relativistic' way of reasoning has become 'official' over the past several years; so that the sexual revolution requires no greater validation than that claim that it would make some person or group unhappy, or simply unfulfilled (here and now) if they were prevented from doing some sexual thing that they currently very much want to do. If, that is, the 'thing' is currently approved-of by the mainstream sexual revolution at that particular point - and this has changed, and reversed, through recent history. For instance, 'Weinstein-type' promiscuous behaviour was strongly supported, positively-media-depicted, and leftist-advocated in the late 1960-70s, when 'hetero'-sex was officially regarded as merely a pleasurable type of physical exercise; not to be taken seriously.

This validation of extended sexuality began by being applied only to 'consenting adults in private' and was presented as toleration; but has swiftly been extended to public situations and to children of any age and it is now necessary that extending the sexual revolution (in officially approved direction) be actively and publicly embraced - and this positive attitude is compulsory. 


It certainly seems (to traditionalist Christians) as if Romantic Christianity is either sure to be distorted to rationalise the sexual revolution (as happens all the time among the mainstream churches, and by 'liberal' Christians'). But then, the fact is that anything can-be/ has-been/ is-being perverted to rationalise the sexual revolution - whenever the motivation to do so outweighs the desire for truth.

The way I think of it is that the intuitions of Romantic Christianity do not merely 'validate' the truth of sexual morality as it is (partially, with some distortions) represented by the various traditional Christianities (which situation would suggest that the intutions are not necessary, because we could take traditional moal codes as a short-cut to where we wanted, ultimately, to go). Instead, what happens is that by Christian intuition we are able to know for our-selves that sexual morality arises-from ultimate and universal reality.

We personally tap-into the very source of morality, in the nature-of-things - that is in God's creation. 


But this direct knowledge of ultimate sexual morality is Not in the traditional form of general laws and rules about collectives of people; instead (as Rudolf Steiner makes clear in Philosophy of Freedom).

What would be (can be) discovered is that morality is on the one hand absolutely specific to each situation, and also absolutely objective - there is always just one right thing to do, and one only.

And this we can know for-ourselves, and can only know for-ourselves - although equally the judgement of what we may say or do is open to the unique and direct evaluation on others who love us*.


*But only those who love us - because only such have the ability to know directly concerning our souls - by contrast, with other strangers and secondhand observers, they will merely be applying general principles to general situations.

  

In Romantic Christianity and in Life - the most important thing to be romantic about is metaphysics. What we need, above all, is a Romantic Metaphysics.

What I mean by this is that our fundamental beliefs concerning the nature of Reality, ought to be such that we feel Romantic about them; they should appeal to our imagination, we should love our metaphysics, know it from experience to be beautiful and wonderful. And this is, of course, something that we can only discover for ourselves, from living (intensely) with these beliefs, from using these beliefs in practice in a way that is whole-hearted.

From my experience, since becoming a Christian, finding Romantic Metaphysics is a path which may not lead to the destination immediately. For me it was (broadly speaking) a case of 'third time lucky'.

Firstly I embraced the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of the traditional Roman Catholic church. I found the process of understanding this to be very exciting and romantic; but once I had understood it (hylomorphism, etc.) then I began to find it dry and abstract - and I could not be whole-hearted about the fundamental assumptions that underlay the system of thinking. The fact is that I regarded these assumptions as arbitrary, and did not love them.

Next I became a Platonist - in association with Eastern Orthodox Christianity. This, I found much more Romantic (I already knew quite a bit about Platonism, and had felt drawn to it). The whole idea of the liturgy, the idea of the Orthodox society (Byzantium, Holy Russia) had much to appeal. So this swept me along for several months.

But as I took on board the fundamental assumptions, as I came to understand - I began to feel the infinite gulf between the ideal world of forms which was God's Heaven - and this actual mortal life. The Orthodox ideal of ascetic monasticism, was - even if perfectly realised - merely a pale copy of what was wanted. Indeed, there was no real necessity to mortal life; it would surely have been better to have been born into Heaven - or, as second best, to die and get there ASAP.

Platonism is anti this-mortal-life - its Romanticism is not actual, but displaced to another ideal world, time, place, situation...

Furthermore, the actuality of being Eastern Orthodox in the context of a modern atheistic materialistic Leftist society; with Orthodox churches that were designed for expatriates from other nations, meant that in practice is was just a different kind of church to attend. The daily private practice was not Romantic - but felt bogus and pretentious, and did not yield imaginative fruit. Modern Orthodox life was a very pale imitation of the Byzantine ideal; but even that life had seemed a tragic and unsatisfactory imitation of the abstract timeless perfection of the Heavenly reality.

Romanticism led me into Orthodoxy, and then it led me out again.

My third, and with modifications (eg. from Barfield and Arkle) so-far-final Romantic embrace was Mormon metaphysics.

The difference here was that my Romantic feeling of attraction grew as I discovered more, and as I lived with my earlier imaginations. I took a while before I distinguished between the Mormon metaphysics - for which I felt a spontaneous Romantic love; and the actualities of Mormon religious life in modern Britain - which overall did not attract me.

(There is, I discovered, no actually existing church or denomination or formal religious practice that attracts me Romantically and imaginatively. Therefore, by my Romantic principles, there is none to which I can (or should) commit myself. But the metaphysics of Mormon Christianity has not just proved durable in my life, but has led to a renewing stream of further Romantic intuitions and insights.)

So eventually - the process took about five years - I found a solid ground of Romantic metaphysics to underpin and clarify my Christianity. To recap, the process involved a thoroughgoing and persistent Romanticism; making the Romantic choice then persisting with Romantic evaluations in a serious and exploratory way; until I found solid ground upon-which imagination could stand, and from-which imagination could draw further nourishment on an (apparently) permanent basis.

The can be a conflict between creativity and Christianity - in the sense that being a Christian can be experienced as a constraint and inhibition on creative work. 

This has been experienced especially since the Romantic Era (from the late 1700s) - and some of those geniuses (and others) who were most deeply committed to their creative work (whether in arts or sciences) made 'a religion' from their creative work - took it with the utmost seriousness and made great sacrifices. 

In the 20th century, indeed, it became usual for the greatest creative geniuses to be raised as Christians (or sometimes as Jews) and then to reject Christianity in favour of a kind of 'Genius as Hero' ideology. 

Creativity and Christianity began to be seen as antagonists - since if a genius put his work first it seemed to mean putting Christianity second, which is not to be a Christian at all... 

Yet it was Christianity that sustained the greatest works of genius. And being raised in a religion seems all-but vital to serious creative work; so that when society became thoroughly atheist - creative genius all-but disappeared and is by now undiscerned, disvalued and even suppressed. 

This because without a basis in 'the transcendental'; creativity becomes subordinated to expediency - careerism, money or status seeking etc. 

It seems that unless a genius 'understands' his work to be contributing to divine creation (and this 'understanding is usually implicit) - then he will not give that work the effort and priority which the highest achievement requires. 

So the relationship between Christianity and creativity has become complex. This is because very few people have been raised as serious Christians over the past few generations; spontaneous, un-conscious Christianity is a thing of the past. 

As of 2021 serious Christians are, in effect, adult converts - because in a secular society even serious cradle Christians will need to make at least one (often more) renewed conscious commitments to their faith.  

To be a creative person and to convert to Christianity as an adult can be a significant challenge to creativity. Because when an adult converts he is (nearly always) converting to a particular church or denomination; with a complex framework of rules and expectations. 

Converts are held to a higher standard than cradle church members - and are usually required to make vows and promises of a rigorous and binding nature. 

So the creative Man who becomes a Christian typically finds himself having made a serious commitment to work from-within a detailed and rigorous framework of constraints and expectations. 

This framework of Christian (denominational) practice, doctrine, theology and authority may well interfere with his established creative practices. He may feel his thinking repeatedly bumping-against boundaries - to cross which would seem to take him beyond orthodoxy and obedience. 

He may well feel himself creatively confined - and, at the extreme, may feel safe only when repeating that which has been said before; ringing changes rather than being truly original... 

Consequently, his work may lose its spontaneity, distinctiveness, energy and flow -  it may become second rate, derivative, un-creative.   

I interpret this from the perspective of the changing nature of human consciousness; and that Romanticism ought to usher-in a new way of being Christian that is ultimately based on shared motivation and alignment of creative work, rather than an explicit and external framework of rules. 

The creative Christian (ideally) ought to be working-from, rather than working-towards; working-from the basis of sharing the Christian priority of love. Creating is something that should come from a base of commitment; rather than something that operates inside a framework. 

The hope of Heaven is based upon a commitment to live eternally by love, in Heaven; and to embrace the transformation that is resurrection which makes this possible for Men.

So the Romantic understanding of Heaven is a place where love overflows into creating - a place where our 'work' is co-creating with God; as was the case with primary divine creation when it was the love of God was the cause of Creation in the first place.

 

In other words; Romantic Christianity aims to make genuine, innate and endogenous personal creativity one important way of being a good Christian, a taste of Heaven itself - rather than an incipient source of conflict. 

And this 'works' by aiming at a harmony derived from a basis in love rather than from a set of rule. 

As so often, the loving family provides the best analogy (which is, indeed, more than analogy!); because the family is supposed to attain harmony not primarily by adherence to a framework of practices and rules; but instead from the mutual love of its members. 

Family members are aligned by having the same aims (so they are pointing in the same direction) and then by mutual concern for the other members: a fluid kind of adjustment which is experienced as the voluntary desire to remain in harmony and to help other members in their own loving and creative endeavors.

If creativity is understood in this fashion; then it is indeed optimal from the creative perspective. Instead of Christianity being felt as constraint, it instead provides meaning. 

After all, real creativity is not solipsistic, it is done for the creator alone. Creativity must ultimately be be for others; it needs an 'audience' who will understand, appreciate and use the creative work. 

Romantic Christianity looks towards a world in which everyone is a creator and also audience; and where creator and audience are united by the divine purpose and harmonized in their work by their commitment to love. 

The quote is slightly adapted from Charles Williams; it struck me as both absurd and true.

Absurd, because of the idea of the modern masses looking up from their mobile phones and asking their Christian pastors (which they don't have) for metaphysics!

(However, if they did; they would still be given morals.)

But the statement is true, nonetheless - in the sense that nothing less will suffice to address the modern malaise than a different basic understanding of the nature of ultimate reality.


Christianity gets nowhere in stressing morals rather than metaphysics; because morals depend on metaphysics; and when the basic understanding is modern materialism, then morals will inevitably be some species of the hedonistic (as well as incoherent): there is nothing else for them to be.


But when Christian metaphysics is dry and abstract - as so much of mainstream traditional Christian theology is dry and abstract; and as Charles William's own metaphysics was dry and abstract - then the sheep may feel that their fundamental problems are not being addressed.


The sheep find The World - the world as described by their assumptions and as experienced in daily life; and indeed them-selves as people, as souls - to be utterly dull and deadly: hence the mobile phones.

Modern Romanticism, as accessed via those mobile phones, and social media; is nothing but distraction, escapism, superficial stimulation: thus cumulative despair. It is just politics, sex and pleasure; the mere stimulation of responses - anger, hatred, resentment, schadenfreude, lust, laughter, luxury, smugness etc.

What the sheep need, what they 'really want' is a Romantic Metaphysics that is true, hence liveable. They don't know they want it; but nothing less will suffice.

Metaphysics needs to be Romantic, hence desirable; and True, hence liveable.

Luckily, it is.


But so far, Romantic Christians have done a poor job of explaining their metaphysics - often because they understand it in ways that are abstract, over-complex, too systematic - until Romantic metaphysics sound like just-more-bureaucracy...

Charles Williams fell into this trap with his writings on Romantic Theology. His basic ideas were exciting: that falling- and being-in love could be a path of Christian life; that a life of creative activity could be a path of Christian life; that life was an adventure quest and we were part of an altruistic and mutually helping fellowship.

But when Williams got down to specifics; the exciting ideas dissolved into complex, incomprehensible terminology. More crucially, Williams's detailed ideas were either wrong or simply incoherent.


In fact, Williams could in practice make around-himself a world of Romance, in which he and his circle of friends, disciples, colleagues could live their lives. It was this magical personal charisma that so impressed so many people; which made Williams so popular and admired.

But this was the person, not the metaphysics. Once Williams had died, it could be seen that his writings held only the shadows of that ecstasy in living that the man' presence could impart.

So, the problem of Romantic metaphysics remains unsolved.. at least by Williams. But there is an answer.


The answer can be found in the writings of fellow Inkling Owen Barfield; albeit again in a complex and abstract way. The answer can also can be found in William Arkle, and at times much more simply expressed; but Arkle is hardly known.

Probably, in practice, people will have to solve it for themselves or it will not be solved at all. And one would suppose that there are strong incentives to do so. Yet who - of the millions of mainstream, miserable, modern hedonists - is making any serious attempt?

There exists an answer. But one thing is sure: without personal effort, there will be no answer.

Francis Berger initiated the debate - and Orthosphere writers JM Smith and Kristor have thus-far responded. 

My attempt here is to try and summarize briefly what I believe the debate to about About. 

In other words - what do I regard as the ultimate question behind the rather complex arguments on both sides.

 

I think the ultimate question is something like this:

Is The Christian Church (in some sense of The Church) in-charge-of human salvation - or is salvation primarily a matter for each individual.

 

I think that all sides agree that individuals may err in their discernments and choices, and that such errors and choices may lead to that individual being damned.  

The question is whether The Church (which in practice means My Church, in the way I conceptualize it) can err in an ultimate sense - such that The Church's errors will lead devout and obedient members to damnation. 

 

My understanding of adherents of the Altar-Civilization Model, is that they are rooted in the conviction that (in an ultimate sense) The Church cannot err on the matter of salvation - whereas individuals can and do err; and therefore The Church will ultimately know better than any individual; and therefore the path to salvation is necessarily via obedience to The Church. 

 

In even simpler terms: the Orthospherian conviction is that "The Church is Christianity"; and any individual can only be a Christian - i.e. achieve resurrection to eternal Heavenly life - secondarily, by means of The Church. 

Whereas the Romantic Christian idea is (I think) that - however things may have been in the past (and I personally acknowledge that the Altar-Civilization model used to be true); here-and-now each individual Man can and must discern Christian truth and his own salvation...

Including the discernment of which (if any) institution he regards as The True Church, and his own relationship to that Church's authority. 

 

In the end, at bottom, ultimately; the Romantic Christian idea is that it is our individual discernment (understood as our direct and unmediated relationships with God and Jesus Christ) which is necessary for salvation; and the choice of relationship with any church (or no church) is secondary to that. 

In brief; the individual (not any church) ultimately 'defines' Christianity: i.e. the way to salvation. 

And therefore if, or when, that individual errs; and does not repent, and is damned; it will always be his own responsibility - regardless of whether he was following any church.