Angel's Message: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural

Author: Berger
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-01
Features: This book is not about angels; at most, it can serve as an introduction to angelology, if by angelology one means the study of messengers who represent God in reality. Whether we like it or not, we are in an environment where the transcendent has been reduced to a rumor. If critics can reach any consensus about the contemporary religious situation, it is that the supernatural has retreated from the modern world. This retreat can be expressed in dramatic terms such as "God is dead" or "the post-Christian era has begun." Language is the container of thought and culture, and the quality of Christological thought transcends nationality, while its form clings to the national language. Therefore, Christological thought is both universal and individual in the thought of the national language. Over nearly two thousand years of linguistic evolution, Christological thought continues to extend in the cultural languages of various peoples, becoming an important structural element of world culture. The Messenger of Angels was published in the late 1960s of the 20th century and was republished in the early 1990s. More than twenty years later, Berger left his old work unchanged in every word! Today, we still deeply feel the author's sense of anxiety about the fate of religion in modern society. This book focuses on the possibility of theological thinking in the current context. It will ask whether such thinking is possible today, and if so, in what way. If critics can reach any consensus about the contemporary religious situation, it is that the supernatural has retreated from the modern world. This retreat can be expressed in such dramatic terms as "God is dead" or "the post-Christian era has begun."