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Title	:	The Imitation of Christ
Author	:	Thomas à Kempis
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 288 pages
Published	:	March 24th 1998 by Vintage (first published 1427)
Categories	:	Religion. Christian. Christianity. Theology. Classics. Nonfiction. Spirituality

The Imitation of Christ

Thomas à Kempis

Paperback | Pages: 288 pages

Rating: 4.2 | 18223 Users | 808 Reviews

Explanation To Books The Imitation of Christ

‘You can get used to anything,’ chuckled a retired SS captain in a documentary recently about his posting to Auschwitz, after he’d described how the bodies in the gas chambers always formed a perfect pyramid, with its apex at the grille in the roof. We might take issue with this particular instance of ‘anything’, but the fact remains that human beings are amazingly adaptable when it comes to pushing the psychological boundaries. The initial shock of a new and unpleasant experience fairly quickly levels out to a plateau that becomes the new norm.

What we today accept as normal, everyday life would have seemed a vision of hell to a man of the Middle Ages: technology run riot; workers enslaved to capitalism; sex, money and power the presiding deities; religion apparently the preserve of the ignorant, the superficial and the deceived.

The airwaves are creaking like an over-laden galleon under the weight of advice on everything from cosmetic surgery and nutrition to beauty therapies and relationships.

I watched a woman on TV last night having liposuction and extensive, invasive surgery to make her feel happier with her body. The lump of flesh on the operating table, drenched in blood and with two huge wings of fat and skin laid out on either side, made her look like the aftermath of a Viking Blood Eagle execution, or the subject of a tortured painting by Francis Bacon.

It seemed a perfect symbol for the way in which we have lost our way in the materialistic jungle, and certainly if I were Satan I’d be celebrating down the pub – mankind has been successfully hoodwinked, flooded and distracted with gadgets, obsessed with youth, beauty, money and sex, all thoughts of salvation gone out the window.

The purity of the original message from any of the great religions seems to get contaminated as soon as it enters the corrupt medium of the world, so that what we end up with is an idea of the ‘Will of God’ - if it exists at all – as one that is wholly bent on evil, as Umberto Eco suggests in ‘The Name of the Rose’.

There is a need for a return, for a restoration of the spiritual balance without which life is a burden and a struggle, a minimalist drama by Beckett rather than a glorious opera by Mozart. Society will go marching on its self-destructive way, but as individuals we can look out for ourselves and try to rectify the psychic disorders by purifying ourselves of the rubbish that is constantly seeking to make inroads.

Thomas à Kempis’s wonderful book is more relevant today than when it was written. You don’t have to be a Christian or even particularly religious to derive nourishment from it. It hasn’t been out of print for six hundred years, and is worth more than a library of modern ‘self-help’ books.

The Imitation consists of four books on general spiritual topics, each divided into subsections dealing with more focused aspects: ‘On trust in God in all trouble’, ‘On knowing ourselves’, etc. After the Bible itself, no other work can compare with its profound wisdom, clarity of thought, and converting power. Christians of such widely differing period and outlook as Thomas More and General Gordon, Ignatius Loyola and John Wesley, Francis Xavier and Dr Johnson are but a few of the thousands who have acknowledged their debt to this work.

Although à Kempis spent most of his life in the cloister, his burning faith and love of God speak to us on the level of shared humanity. As F.R.Cruise says in his authoritative work on a Kempis, ‘Beyond doubt, the Imitation most perfectly reflects the light which Jesus Christ brought down from heaven to earth, and truthfully portrays the highest Christian philosophy.’

Particularize Books Supposing The Imitation of Christ

Original Title:	De Imitatione Christi
ISBN:	0375700188 (ISBN13: 9780375700187)
Edition Language:	English

Rating Appertaining To Books The Imitation of Christ

Ratings: 4.2 From 18223 Users | 808 Reviews

Judgment Appertaining To Books The Imitation of Christ

This is very deep and high. Most of the theological and spiritual concepts are high theology and spirituality, however you can find practical concepts or thoughts that you can apply in your life. If you have good pastoral psychology background, hence, this will be a good book for you... This is also good material for reflection, meditation, or any religious exercise to deepen your spiritual experience. I have read the Spanish translation of this book which is closer to the original Latin

The solipsistic faith enjoined in this book doesn't resonate with me at all. The basic thrust is that a person's mortal life is nothing but garbage compared to the glories awaiting those who erase themselves and express enough love toward God. Whereas this book instructs the devout to eliminate all relationships and attachment to "the world," I believe in a Christianity that calls for deeper human connection to each other and to God's present creation.

This book is said to be written by a monk for monks. So, it talks about things that a normal human being like me, or probably like most of us who read for pleasure, hard to implement. Common, who among us can abandon our comfortable lives, pack another pair of clothes and join a religious organization just like what St. Francis of Assisi, Beatified Mother Teresa or the disciples of Jesus? For me they are the super-humans who are different from all of us.I will never claim that I am religious and

I picked up The Imitation of Christ after seeing that Eugene Peterson recommended it (though I'm no fan of The Message). I had no idea it has had such an enormous impact on the Church for centuries. A Kempis wrote this in the early 1400s!I was in this book for 10 months--August 08-June 09--so I'm afraid I lost a lot of my sense of the totality of the book. I read The Imitation as my devotions until January; then, I picked up Oswald Chambers and this one took a back seat. All this to say, I don't

Somehow I am cheered that this is one of the best-selling Christian devotional books in history, though I imagine it has fallen down the list in recent years. Not that market penetration has anything to do with the reality of devotional life, but this is a serious work that calls the believer to a life of intense and disciplined following after Jesus. Taken from the Catholic monastic-like setting of the Brethren of the Common Life in the early 15th century it does feel medieval and Catholic at

It would be difficult to overstate the impact this book has had on me. Yes, it's really, really Catholic. Yes, it's ascetic. No, it's most definitely not pro-woman. Even so, I think Jesus meant it when he said to deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily but mention that to a modern evangelical and watch them recoil in horror. This little book calls the reader to a life of intensity and discipline in following Christ. It's not comforting or particularly warm and it makes no accommodations.

This book is going to forever be in either of two places in my home; my coffee table or my bedside. Reading this book this morning was like drinking deep of Christ's love. Thomas a Kempis wrote this devotion in such a way to fan the flame in our soul with beautiful gentle words. It is a book that calls one deeper and farther in to the heart of God.Psalm 42:7 sums it up: "Deep calls unto deep at the sound of thy waterfalls; All thy breakers and thy waves have rolled over me.