Do you like Teilhard de Chardin? What do you think of his statement?

Question

From the book of Teilhard de Chardin: "Christianity and Evolution"

Conclusion

Some years ago, in the course of a conversation with an old missionary - something of a visionary, but universally regarded as a saint - I heard him make the following surprising statement: "History shows that no religion has been able to maintain itself in the world for more than two thousand years. Once that time has run out, they all die. And it is coming up to two thousand years for Christianity..." By that he, as a prophet, meant that the end of the world was close at hand; but to me his words had a graver import.
Two thousand years, more or less, is indeed a long stage for man particularly if, as is happening today, there has just been added to it the critical point of a "change of age". So many attitudes and outlooks are modified after twenty centuries that, in the context of religion, we have to slough off the old skin. Our formulas have become narrow and inflexible; we find them irksome, and they have ceased to have an emotional impact on us. There must be a "moult" if we are to continue to live.
As a Christian, I am barred from believing that it is possible for Christianity to disappear in this period of transition that is upon us, as has happened to other religions. I believe Christianity to be immortal. But this immortality of our faith does not prevent it from being subject (even as it rises above them) to the general laws of periodicity which govern all life. I recognize, accordingly, that at the present moment Christianity (exactly like the mankind it embraces) is reaching the end of one of the natural cycles of its existence.
By dint of repeating and developing in the abstract the expression of our dogmas, we are well on the way to losing ourselves in the clouds where neither the turmoil nor the aspirations nor the living vigour of the earth can penetrate. Religiously, we are living, in relation to the world, in a two-fold intellectual and emotional isolation: an indication that the time for a renewal is close at hand. After what will soon be two thousand years, Christ must be born again, he must be reincarnated in a world that has become too different from that in which he lived. Christ cannot reappear tangibly among us; but he can reveal to our minds a new and triumphant aspect of his former countenance.
I believe that the Messiah whom we await, whom we all without any doubt await, is the universal Christ; that is to say, the Christ of evolution.

Tientsin, Christmas 1933

Answer 1

I believe that our understanding of life and of Christ evolves as we grow in wisdom and understanding.
The Old Testament is an account of the evolution of understanding of their relationship with God, based upon the experiences of the Jewish People.
Even our understanding of the New Testament is evolving. That is why we call the Bible the"Living Word." Anything that is alive is in constant evolution, constant growth.
We can get lost in dogmas. Didn't the Pharisees and Religious leaders of Jesus' day do so? Jesus reminded us that our relationship with God is not found in dogmas and rules but in relationship. Jesus called God, Mother and Father. Dogmas can not determine this relationship. The relationship between parent and child will grow when there is a mutual participation in the development of this relationship.