re christianity and repeated lives in article may athos rutgers edu kevxu cunyvm bitnet wr ites while this is essentially a discussion of reincarnation in the context of christianity gerry palo has made some comparisons to asian religious beliefs on this topic which have simplified the asian idea of karma to the point of misrepresentation i realized that my generalizations would probably have problems under scrutiny from various asian points of view they need to be discussed in detail indeed but for the purposes of this newsgroup and thread thus far and in this newsgroup i risked oversimpli fication my main purpose was to emphasize that i was not coming from a buddhist or hindu point of view as you observed the main context is that of christianity but by all means add comments and corrections as you find them i wrote a longer reply addressing some of your points but decided to not post it perhaps it would be more appropriate for soc religion eastern instead i just add the following couple of items about karma and reincarnation as i see the matter from an anthroposophical and a christian point of view karma is not simple reward and punishment dealt out by a judging deity reincarnation is not the same as being born again reincarnation is not the same as the resurrection of the body reincarnation and karma do not contradict the fundamental teachings of christianity about god the fall the being incarnation death and resurrection of christ his coming again sin grace forgiveness salvation and the last judgement isn t origen usually cited as the most prestigious proponent of reincarnation among christian thinkers what were his views and how did he relate them to the christian scriptures jack carroll origen s work was mostly lost he was not anathematized to my knowledge but his writing comes down largely in fragments and quotations from enemies perhaps someone else can comment on origen i don t know if there is a specific statement about reincarnation from him but from what i do know about him he probably did hold to the teaching in one form or another i don t know too much about the history of the idea of reincarnation in the church however i heard an interesting story about pope john paul ii from an astronomer who teaches at the university of cracow the pope likes to go to poland for a scientific conference every couple of years so he can relax and talk polish to friends and fellow countrymen my acquaintance an anthroposophist related the fact that woitila knew about steiner and anthroposophy from his early days before he became a priest he was an actor in a dramatic company in cracow whose leader was a pupil of steiner and based his acting and directing methods on steiner s indications part of the work was the study of the basic works of anthroposophy well going to this conference with him a few years ago the astronomer and another polish anthroposophist thought they would ask the pope what he thought about anthroposophy they chickened out at the last minute but one of them did ask him what he thought about reincarnation the pope smiled and said actually there have been quite a few good catholics who believed in reincarnation and he proceeded to name several from the earliest times to modern times then he changed the subject my polish friend did not say whether origen was among those he mentioned gerry palo compuserve com as far as i know origen himself was not anathematized he was controversial but avoided outright condemnation during his lifetime however some of his views were condemned at a council in alexandria in and two councils in constantinople in and i am fairly sure the preexistence of souls is one of the doctrines condemned clh
