Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus · The Sophia Society

Celtic Spirituality w/John Philip Newell

·1 hr·4 clips

Newell says fundamentalism often rises during transitions and reacts out of fear.

1. Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus centers on Celtic spirituality with John Philip Newell. 2. Host Gary Allen interviews John Philip Newell, a Celtic teacher and author whose book The Great Search is named in the conversation. 3. The episode asks what spiritual path can guide people who feel betrayed by institutional church and imperial politics. 4. Newell says he grew up in a very conservative evangelical family and later found a language for his love of nature in Celtic Christian wisdom. 5. He says hearing George McLeod speak in his early 20s about the sacredness of earth and nonviolence felt like a “coming-home experience.” 6. Newell argues that Celtic spirituality is creation-centered, reciprocal, and attentive to the divine feminine. 7. He says the Celtic stream remains alive today in Britain, Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland, and the United States. 8. He traces Celtic culture back to around 500 BCE, when the Greeks called the peoples Keltoi and the Romans called them Galli. 9. He describes Celtic art as using an “everlasting pattern” that shows the interwovenness of heaven and earth, spirit and matter, and the divine and the human. 10. Newell says fourth-century Christianity became a religion of power and prestige and that imperial religion was expected to bless empire's wars and domination. 11. He points to the conflict between Augustine and Pelagius and says Pelagius was misrepresented for generations. 12. He cites Pelagius's claim that the face of a newborn child can be seen as the face of God freshly born among us. 13. He says Irenaeus of Lyon challenged creation ex nihilo by teaching that everything comes out of the substance of God. 14. Newell links that claim to the sacredness of the human body, the body of earth, and the needs of people who are hungry, homeless, or seeking shelter. 15. He says the Synod of Whitby in the seventh century pushed the Celtic lineage of wisdom underground. 16. Newell says his book The Great Search responds to the yearnings of millions in religious exile and uses nine chapters to pair those yearnings with prophetic voices from different traditions. 17. He says he relinquished his ordination because he could no longer hold together the sacredness of earth with the foundational creeds and doctrines of Western Christianity. 18. He describes himself as being more in the wilderness than in the temple, but still as a grateful son of the Christian household. 19. The conversation is reflective, historical, and politically direct, with long answers and frequent references to scripture, empire, and ecology. 20. Listeners interested in post-evangelical spirituality, Celtic Christianity, and eco-theology will fit this episode. 21. Listeners wanting a quick devotional or a short, apolitical conversation may skip it.

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