I am needing to get back to this blog that I started sometime back, and will be posting more often.

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As this topic notes, I've been prepping for a webinar I will be presenting on July 28 on Reincarnation and Christianity.
- Find out more.

Several people have asked me why I'm taking on this topic? Isn't it a settled matter? Which way do I lean?

Sign up for the webinar and you will see. I will also record it and post it in our webinar archives.

But I can at least share that the topic itself tugs on many important issues:
- Eastern and Western notions of creation, soul, etc.
- The problem of evil.
- What happens when we die?
- Whether a body is something "accidental" to our true nature -- a bio spacesuit of sorts -- or if it is integral to the person?
- What is resurrection?

All these topics interest me greatly, and I enjoy teaching on them.

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Re-reading Reincarnation in Christianity by Geddes MacGregor, and wondering about some of what I underlined and commented on years ago. Basically, he's a believer in it, and thinks it could be compatible with Christianity, especially as a kind of alternative to Purgatory -- or as another way of talking about Purgatory.

The book is annoying. He reasons wrongly in so many ways that I doubt I'll get through it. Then there's his writing style: too elaborate, too many adjectives, too much self-important commentary -- ta da da da, dat, blah blah.

E.g., "As Catherine (of Genoa) unfolds her vision, its suceptibility to a reincarnationist interpretation becomes more and more obvious." (p. 102) Then he explains why her idea of an "intermediate state" could be kind of like reincarnation. However, "I am not suggesting, of course, that Catherine has a reincarnationist schema in mind. Nevertheless, how well her vision fits a reincarnationist account." (P. 103). Well, not really, though it does fit an orthodox Catholic account very nicely. MacGregor does this kind of bait-and-switch maneuver all through the book.

What he fails to do is to deal with the issue of the body, especially how the resurrection sheds light on what a body is. Massive oversight!

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We once had a discussion on reincarnation on this board and it meandered along for years. I finally closed it as we kept going over the same things, but the thread is open for reading.
- see https://shalomplace.org/eve/for...10135/m/65310765/p/1

The webinar on Reincarnation and Christianity has been archived.

See http://heartlandspirituality.t...com/courses/webinars

Access is free, though you will need to set up a user id and password to become part of the the site.

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An 19 min. excerpt on reincarnation in the light of Jesus' teaching and the early Church is published on youtube.

- see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqmXGKGo6g0 if it doesn't show below.

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