“Many people, because they’ve written God and Christ out of their lives, think that their existence has been enclosed within the stifling framework of this world.” (Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis)
“… a world of almost suffocating immanence, a flattened human universe where the escapes are boredom and distraction, not ecstasy and rapture. Hell is self-consciousness, and our late modern, TV-ized (now Twitter-ized) world only ramps up our self-awareness to an almost paralyzing degree. God is dead, but He’s replaced by everybody else. Everything is permitted, but everybody is watching. So most of the time the best “salvation” we can hope for is found in behaviors that numb us to this reality: drugs, [other vices and ], entertainments of various sorts.” (James K.A. Smith)
“This world rubs off on us in such a way, that we can begin to lose awareness of realities that offer us so much hope. Hope, for many, is harder to come by these days. Perhaps it is not so much that we lose hope, as it is that we forget that which can bring us hope. Increasingly, we become more preoccupied with what we can see and touch, and the unseen fades from our consciousness. In essence, it gets buried under the more immediate tasks, needs, and heartaches that so dominate this earthly life.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“The experience of belief begins, I think, with the experience of transcendence, the questions of meaning and significance. It is a conversation that struggles to find its way in a sea of commodities and mundane pleasure. We are not immune to the transcendent – but simply distracted. In Jesus Christ, we confess, Transcendence became flesh and walked among us. He is the Gateway to seeing the fullness of all that is. To see this, of course, involves the healing of the soul. Beauty, Truth, Goodness are medicinal balms. It is a medicine that drips from every leaf, is painted across the sky, rests in the bosom of everyone we meet, and dwells secretly within our own heart. In this day and time, we may largely be doing a ministry of “triage,” healing those souls that are given to us, and tending to our own wounds as well. Take time to breathe, to listen, to look, to look beyond, to yearn, to do something beautiful, to love, to forgive.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Christ proposes not merely a new moral code for us in his Gospel but the transcendence of our earthly limits. And this is true not only of the rich but of all of us who know existentially what we need to overcome in life if we’re going to meet the transcendent Christ. Some might have to overcome their wealth; others their gluttony; others their avarice, others their sensuality, and all of us whatever weakness we have.” (Protopresbyter Nikolaos Patsalos)
“The secular worldview says there is only this world. The here-and-now material universe is the only reality. The natural is real, there is no supernatural. The immanent is real, there is no transcendent..." (Pastor Timothy Keller)
“The “modern” mindset also holds that “…as our knowledge becomes both broader and more unified, we will experience continued progress (and they have in mind not only technological progress, but also social, political, and moral progress)….In the modern imaginary, this expectation of relentless progress is reflected in a certain restlessness or dissatisfaction with the way things are. Having grown accustomed to the constant evolution of technology, the late modern individual tends to generalize and project this movement on almost every area of life. Accordingly, the economy has to grow. Relationships, friendships and allegiances have to change and evolve. Ideas (even truths) have to be developed. Speeds have to increase. Superstitions have to be overcome. This often takes the form of an outright rejection of the past. The beliefs, values and aspirations of those who have gone on before us are thrown off simply because they are of the past. Like everything else these things have been modernized and improved upon. Those no longer on the progressive side of life’s curve are shunned and hidden away. The immanent obsolescence of just about everything leads to an idolization of the new and improved.” (Fr. Edward Rommen)
“Life lived fully within the horizon of the finite and the immanent has a trivial character in contrast to a life lived in recognition of God…The Christian worships a God Who is utterly transcendent and presently immanent, and Who has filled His creation with astonishing lessons about Himself – if we just cared enough to look for them. “For from the creation of the world,” St Paul writes in the same chapter, “the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.” (Rt. Rev. Thomas Joseph, Fr. John Oliver)
“The central affirmation of Christianity is that Jesus Christ, who is God and eternally both transcendent and immanent, became a human being in order to take human beings back into God's fold, and that by His death and resurrection, He has become the source of forgiveness of sin, newness of life, redemption, and eternal life in God…” (Demetrios J. Constantelos)
“We know God as transcendent, as far away; one of the feelings of truly authentic experience of God is that of awe, that of feeling annihilated in His awesome and distant Presence. However, it is also true that the opposite feeling is also part of true and authentic religious experience: that is to feel God as immanent, and intimately close and nearby and present.” (Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh)