I appreciate this article, and appreciate The Free Press as a medium willing to publish articles pro-Christian for once. Though I'm not Christian myself, I am a theology Masters and find some of your comments quite interesting.
Through my studies of American Christianity, especially pertaining to the era post-enlightenment and post evange…
I appreciate this article, and appreciate The Free Press as a medium willing to publish articles pro-Christian for once. Though I'm not Christian myself, I am a theology Masters and find some of your comments quite interesting.
Through my studies of American Christianity, especially pertaining to the era post-enlightenment and post evangelical revivals, it is intriguing how those in countries where Christianity may be prohibited (at least in certain forms), people continue to pursue the eschatological hopes encapsulated in Christianity. It is also interesting that those countries where religious freedoms are ostensibly preserved (USA/United Kingdom), that the younger generations reject Christianity, at least in its ability to offer anything of weight to political and civil conversation.
Its interesting that the recent historical parallel that I see is in the Evangelical revivals of the west in the 18th/19th centuries. These movements which strongly advocated for reimbuing society with piety and religious experience, arose arguably as a response to the deistical philosophical writers of the time which directly and indirectly decentralised and displaced the Church and ecclesiastical authority from an individual's life. People now sought out hope and self actualisation via civil, economic and social means. The problem was that this didn't work for everyone, hence the vehement calls to return to Christianity. Subsequent strains of Christianity have been unequivocally reshaped by this period, in the way they read scripture and interact (or don't for that matter!) with spiritual experiences.
Essentially, the human race has never moved and evolved in clear linear ways. But what i see has maintained a constant, is the anthropological necessity to have some form of future hope, attachment to the community, and a way to form ones own identity. The problem i see with the woke west is that they put so much emphasis upon grounding this process first in superficial notions of the self (such as innumerable labels to describe one's gender). Because their identity is primarily predicated upon labels they have self-attached to themselves, to support their self-constructed identities, they rely upon external validation (affirming one's beauty despite unhealthy appearances, affirming one's gender ideologies, affirming one's victimhood). This is an incredibly precarious and unstable manner of substantiating identity, that i really believe many will move back to more robust community builders such as Christianity or other forms of spirituality.
I appreciate this article, and appreciate The Free Press as a medium willing to publish articles pro-Christian for once. Though I'm not Christian myself, I am a theology Masters and find some of your comments quite interesting.
Through my studies of American Christianity, especially pertaining to the era post-enlightenment and post evangelical revivals, it is intriguing how those in countries where Christianity may be prohibited (at least in certain forms), people continue to pursue the eschatological hopes encapsulated in Christianity. It is also interesting that those countries where religious freedoms are ostensibly preserved (USA/United Kingdom), that the younger generations reject Christianity, at least in its ability to offer anything of weight to political and civil conversation.
Its interesting that the recent historical parallel that I see is in the Evangelical revivals of the west in the 18th/19th centuries. These movements which strongly advocated for reimbuing society with piety and religious experience, arose arguably as a response to the deistical philosophical writers of the time which directly and indirectly decentralised and displaced the Church and ecclesiastical authority from an individual's life. People now sought out hope and self actualisation via civil, economic and social means. The problem was that this didn't work for everyone, hence the vehement calls to return to Christianity. Subsequent strains of Christianity have been unequivocally reshaped by this period, in the way they read scripture and interact (or don't for that matter!) with spiritual experiences.
Essentially, the human race has never moved and evolved in clear linear ways. But what i see has maintained a constant, is the anthropological necessity to have some form of future hope, attachment to the community, and a way to form ones own identity. The problem i see with the woke west is that they put so much emphasis upon grounding this process first in superficial notions of the self (such as innumerable labels to describe one's gender). Because their identity is primarily predicated upon labels they have self-attached to themselves, to support their self-constructed identities, they rely upon external validation (affirming one's beauty despite unhealthy appearances, affirming one's gender ideologies, affirming one's victimhood). This is an incredibly precarious and unstable manner of substantiating identity, that i really believe many will move back to more robust community builders such as Christianity or other forms of spirituality.
Thanks for a good article. Harvey