RESUMING January 2023
The Christ-Impulse study is once a month on the fourth Wednesday of the month from 18h00 to 19h00.
It is focusing on the event of Christianity – the impulse of Christ’s deed for all of humanity – as understood through the lens of Anthroposophy.
The following extracts from Steiner’s lectures forming a basis of coming to understand the significance of Christ’s deed and realising the shift in human development as a consequence of Christ’s incarnation:
“There are many ways in which anthroposophy must nowadays serve humanity. One important service is in the realm of religion. There is no need for a new religion to be founded. The impulse and purpose which the earth received when a God passed through the human destiny of birth and death, is an Event which can never be surpassed. It is clear to anyone who understands its origin that no new religion can supersede Christianity. We would have a wrong conception of Christianity if we thought it was possible to found a new religion. But as humanity itself continues to develop and advance in supersensible knowledge, its understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha – and therefore also of the Christ Being – will continually deepen. It is the aim of anthroposophy to contribute to this understanding in ways that, at the present time, it is perhaps alone in being able to.”
(Lecture of 13 April 1922, GA211)
“But Christianity does not regard Christ as a personality, as some founder of an abstract religious system. Anyone who tries to found a new religion in our day and age, sows only discord. Christian initiation is not based upon personality but upon a fact, an impersonal divine deed, which took place before the eyes of human beings….
The fundamental difference between Christianity and other religions lies in the different nature of its task within the world; its initiation principle, which leads to Christ, is different from that at work in cultures based upon other religious principles. The source of the Christian principle of initiation and its task within cosmic evolution is an event, a fact, not a personality… a single phrase suffices to characterise – although only outwardly – the source of esoteric Christianity and Christian initiation: the death which was experienced through the uniting of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth. The principle of Christian initiation aims to lead us towards an understanding of that fact, which we call the Mystery of Golgotha.”
(Lecture of 17 April 1912, GA143)
To join this Study, please contact Ludmilla King for details on 0847625570.