Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Exploring Christian Spirituality

Aired April 15, 2001 - 08:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this Easter Sunday, Christians around the world, as you can see, are honoring the life of Jesus Christ. Others are rediscovering Christian tradition. But maybe you're at home trying to figure out why there is even a desire for the divine.

Our guest author this morning has some ideas. Jim McGuckin's story of Christian spirituality explores how Christians from the earliest times to present day have sought to express and live out their faith.

Thanks so much for joining us this morning, Jim.

JIM MCGUCKIN, "THE STORY OF CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY": Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's start and talk about your book, "Christian Spirituality," and what makes this so different from other religions?

MCGUCKIN: It shares many things in common with other religions, the quest for the human spirit to ascend and find deepest values. But Christian spirituality has a 2,000 year tradition and many different ways of expressing its quest for God.

PHILLIPS: How do you think America has been impacted by Christianity?

MCGUCKIN: Well, in waves of different periods from the founding settlers, who brought Puritan and Protestant forms of Christianity, and in other waves of immigration bringing eastern and oriental Christian traditions through to the present great explosion of interest in spirituality on the Internet, for example, which America is in the forefront wave of that.

PHILLIPS: You talk about a lot of interesting historical instances in your book. I found it really fascinating. You also talk about the spirituality of African-Americans. Will you talk to us a little bit about that?

MCGUCKIN: African-American spirituality is the most extraordinary witness to Christian values. African-Americans, through the experience of enslavement, in many cases in America learned their Christianity from oppressive overlords and yet still they developed that great sense of devotion to Christ and transformed something that came to them through deep oppression into a source of great liberation and spiritual joy, something that actually brought the whole people out of that oppressive relationship. It's a most extraordinary witness in and of itself to the vitality of the Christian faith of the African-American people.

PHILLIPS: What about global events, John, that influence Christian spirituality, especially in the 20th century?

MCGUCKIN: Well, there's been an incredible explosion of technology in the 21st century. That doesn't mean to say that we've kept up with all of that development in terms of our own psychic abilities or our spiritualities. But the capacity for exchanging ideas, for learning and communicating, has never been greater than it is at the present.

And the book treats some of the writers, for example, from Syria in the fourth and fifth centuries, paradoxically, those writers have never had as wide a readership or an audience as they've now received in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. So there's extraordinary potentials for the ancient Christian tradition to go underwater and resurface and be exchanged and expressed in contemporary society.

PHILLIPS: John McGuckin, "The Story of Christian Spirituality" is the name of the book. It's a beautiful book. Thanks so much for joining us this morning and sharing it with us.

MCGUCKIN: My pleasure. Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com