Postby Technomancer » Tue Feb 17, 2004 7:36 pm
One has to be careful, especially given the quality of many sources on the internet, which sometimes resemble the Weekly World News more than any reasonable attempt at research. I don't know what you would call a "Christian perspective"; Christians may be just as ill-informed and hysterical as anyone else.
Anyways, the Opus Dei organization is meant to be a lay Catholic organization, and is very conservative in character. In some regards, it's organization is similar to a monastic order, as some of the members may choose to live in a communal environment although they still work in the community. The idea is that while the more traditional teaching and charitiable work done is valuable, there is a need to foster a "lay spirituality", which means members working in more secular professions and bearing witness to their faith.
As for being "cultish", I have seen nothing to indicate that they're any worse than the more established orders. Being a human organization, it is made up of, well, humans, with everything that that entails.
An article of some use my be found at:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/opusdei_story1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei
And of course,
http://www.opusdei.org/
The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry—is not even a "subject"—but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.
Neil Postman
(The End of Education)
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge
Isaac Aasimov