A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness

Psychotherapist and former Anglican priest Vernon (The Meaning of Friendship) responds in this slipshod work to what he perceives as “the crisis” of waning interest in Christianity by re-centering western Christianity as a mystic tradition. Vernon claims inspiration from Owen Barfield—one of the “Inkling” group of writers that coalesced around J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis during the mid-20th century. Vernon calls on Barfield’s division of time into three stages (“original participation,” “withdrawal of participation,” and “reciprocal participation”) as a framing device for the rest of the book, an examination of Christian mysticism. These stages, Vernon argues, form a journey from an unconscious identification of self with object (in this case Christianity) to a chosen, fully conscious identification of self and object. His analysis is primarily an interpretation of the mystic practices of early Israelites and ancient Greeks, and ends with a call for the restoration of mystic Christianity. While Barfield’s stages are supposed to provide a framework, the chapters are only loosely connected, the invocation of Barfield’s time divisions obscures more than illuminates, and the work’s actual connection to the history of Christian mysticism is tenuous at best. Those looking for a close reading of Barfield’s work on Christianity will be disappointed. [em](July) [/em]