Tomorrow's Catholic: Understanding God and Jesus in a New Millennium

by Michael Morwood

Michael Morwood offers a fascinating outline of contemporary cosmology that connects the message of Jesus and the spirituality of Pentecost to the world we live in today. Included are questions for discussion, an extensive bibliography, and a comprehensive index.

Genres: Spirituality, Religion

146 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Arvin Lising · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a good presentation of what it means to be Catholic in a changing and evolving world. Morwood presents a hard-hitting analysis of the Christian faith as perceived by most Catholics, and what needs to be changed in order to respond to the needs of people in the light of the new discourses of ecology and globalization. It can challenge one's worldview especially on how one sees his/her faith. At the same time, though, it presents a realistic promise of a growing Church should the churches accepts his proposition. Clearly a good read that synthesizes in a simple way the product of recent theological reflections in the last decades.

[Lingui5t · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars! I was WOWED. The right book at the right time!

This book's focus on the pervasive presence of God in all creation, and in us, leads to some very timely (in my life) and important questions about doctrinal models that may have outlived their usefulness.

Those who fret over every tittle of doctrinal orthodoxy will be pleased to know this book concentrates primarily on surprisingly familiar themes: the omnipresence of God; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man; Jesus is the prime example of God's Spirit acting and moving through someone, and he is not "apart" from us. Where I encourage all readers to stick with it is in its most crucial message: to replace God and our experience of God within us and within all of nature with interpretations -- even ancient ones -- is an unhelpful and outdated idolatry. The model of the Trinity, when seen through the honest, contemporary lens that Morwood suggests, is truly the way of formulating concepts cogently for the learnèd living all those many centuries ago.

Morwood's care in word choice is palpable, and clarifies the message he seeks to deliver here.
"He notes that many of the images and ideas and much of the language we bring to faith questions today belong to a worldview that is no longer relevant" (from rear cover). What resulted, at least for this reader, is nothing less than the revitalization of my Catholicism in an age demanding more than dated understandings can provide. Central among Morwood's propositions is that God is not localized, somewhere far off, necessitating that he send an envoy from some distant place to us in the Incarnation -- rather Incarnation can be seen as the Spirit working through each of us, and we also can incarnate Deity ('be ye therefore holy/perfect/merciful') when we allow God to work in and through us. "In him we live and move and have our being," a borrowed phrase from Athenian philosophers that simply cannot be truly said of a God who in a literal sense sits in a throne room somewhere far away awaiting supplication of his peasantry (a situation that by no accident is similar to the manner of kingdoms and approaching a ruler contemporary with the Bible books' human authors). It is this literal sense Morwood asks us to abandon for all its harms, which he also attests.

Those Christians who would decry Panentheism had better ask themselves 'Whence comes, then the idea among countless authors, Judaic and Christian alike, that God is everywhere?'
See Jeremiah 23:23–24.

[Don Heiman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Australian author Fr Michael Morwood, MSC’s book”Tomorrow’s Catholic: Understanding God and Jesus in a New Millennium” 8th printed edition was published by 23rd Publications in 2006. The 8th edition was sent to me by a neighborhood friend who I shared Catholic childhood grade school, high school, and college experiences. In 2001, the first edition of the book was highly controversial in Australia’s Catholic leadership and education communities. These controversies centered on Morwood’s discussion about incarnation, divinity of Christ, original sin tenets, and redemption of sin teachings. Postmodern reformation is a driving force in Morwood’s views about Catholic positions and doctrine relevancy. Before discussing the book with my friend, I decided to buy and read the most current copies of the Baltimore Catechism: Numbers 1 and 2. (P)

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out with some interesting ideas about ways in which our current scientific and historical understandings call for changes in our image of God and our understanding of some of the more "fanciful" (for lack of a better term--and the word is mine, not the author's) stories in the Bible. I appreciated the author's insights about how to incorporate our current understanding of the universe, the development of life, etc., into a more evolved Catholicism that makes sense with these facts and yet is still theologically meaningful. He wisely calls the Church to task a bit for sticking to some literalist interpretations within the Catechism and other documents; even though the Church has stated its agreement with many scientific discoveries, he says it has not yet changed its catechism / teachings to reflect these new understandings, and so faith becomes more confusing for people in the Church. I agree with this for the most part, also with some (though not all) of his points about newer understandings in Biblical scholarship that could also be better incorporated into the Church. However, the author then went on to make some claims that I felt were a bit too out in left field for me (such as that we no longer necessarily need to believe in the Trinity). And by the end of the book, he's really just rehashing a lot of the standard contemporary complaints about Church social structures (e.g., lack of women's ordination, limited involvement of the laity), without adding much new. The writer is clearly a very educated and thoughtful person. However, he's not so up-front about a lot of his less-orthodox beliefs, which felt a little dishonest (like he lulls the reader in with stuff that makes sense, and then pulls out some pretty out-there stuff, with sort of a "surprise!") I think the extreme nature of some of his beliefs ends up really overshadowing the ideas that many more people would be willing to accept, which is unfortunate, because I think he has some important things to say. Unfortunately, other parts of his agenda seem to get too much in the way, and I worry that many people who need to hear some of his points about science, etc. will find themselves unable to take him seriously. Also, I thought the writing was OK, but not stellar.

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1997 this book challenges the idea of Jesus' atonement for our sins as well as his divinity being different from our own. The author, an Australian priest, calls on church authorities to accept modern cosmology and other widely accepted scientific discoveries without silencing scholars for looking again at the Scriptures which assume a flat earth at the center of the universe.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally written in 1997, it remains current and I would recommend it to any affiliated Christian as it cuts to the very core of who we are as spiritual beings and most importantly how we discern Jesus in our lives.