A Finger pointing at the moon
Description
If religion is viewed as "a finger pointing at the moon," then preoccupation with that finger - rites, rituals, rules - can actually be an obstacle to spiritual experience. This program considers the idea that religion is a means to sanctity, not an end in itself; the importance, in a time of rising global threat levels, of dissolving strictly sectarian conceptions of God; the profound unanimity of the religious quest; approaches to connecting with one's own inherent divinity; and the influence of personal and cultural mythology, as defined by Joseph Campbell. Participants include retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong; James Forbes Jr., of New York City's Riverside Church; author and futurist Peter Russell; religious mythologist Karen Armstrong; Sister Joan Chittister; Diana Eck, of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University; Harvard Divinity School's Harvey Cox; Robert Bellah, of U. C. Berkeley; Rabbi David Rosen; Huston Smith, philosopher of world religions; and Buddhist scholar and translator B. Alan Wallace.
Runtime
28 min
Series
Subjects
Genre
Date of Publication
[2008], c2007
Database
Films on Demand
Direct Link
Similar Films
Call and Promise
Marketing the message. Selling Jesus, or selling Jesus out?
South Africa. A Pastor Fights HIV
Salvation. Army in streets
Modern Culture Temples
Paradise
The Abraham File
The First Murder
Eye of the storm. Jerusalem's temple mount
Karen Armstrong
Logic. Structure of reason
The Politics of belief. Protestantism and the state
Sectarianism and schism in Europe. Christianity in the 15th and 16th centuries
A Leap of Faith
Handmaids of the Gods