18AR23-33

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AR 23:33 - The contest between Christianity and modern Paganism

In this issue:

CULTURE - "where Christian workers are required to abide by pagan values"

EDUCATION - understanding the "social justice" movement in America's universities

LEARNING - how "technology is literally altering the way we take in and process information"

Apologia Report 23:33 (1,399)

October 10, 2018

CULTURE

Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, by Steven D. Smith [1] -- according to the publisher, "Smith argues ... that today's culture wars can be seen as a contemporary reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the late Roman Empire. He looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing orientations continue to clash today. Readers on both sides of the culture wars, Smith shows, have much to learn from seeing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today's most controversial issues."

Booklist (Sep 1 '18) begins: "The term culture wars entered the American idiom in the early 1990s, thanks to sociologist James Davison Hunter's book of that title [2] examining conservative-liberal controversy over social issues since the 1960s. Smith subsumes Hunter's concern into a much longer time line of conflict, beginning with the decline of Rome. The third-to-fourth-century clash of Christianity and mandatory imperial paganism was a culture war, Smith contends, between two conceptions of the divine: Christian transcendency, by which a judging and directive God exists apart from and above the world, and pagan immanency, by which the divine is in the world and among and probably also in us. Christianity won then, but paganism went underground, reemerging gradually, especially from the Renaissance to the present. Finally, it appears to many that paganism is again burgeoning.... Based on the best authorities, from Augustine, whose two-cities (sacred and profane) formulation Smith applies to the transcendence-immanence polarity he limns, to the likes of legal philosophers John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, Smith's book is as engrossing, lucid, and jargonless a scholarly book as has ever been written."

Publishers Weekly (Sep 10 '18) adds that Smith, who <www.bit.ly/2NyGvv4> is "professor of law at UC San Diego, [and] has an elegant take on T.S. Eliot's proposition that a contest between Christianity and 'modern Paganism' would decide the West's future, arguing that Eliot's thought experiment can illuminate contemporary American culture wars. Defining paganism as a persistent religious worldview that locates the sacred in the world rather than in God's realm is key to Smith's position; progressive lawyers, in his estimation, have successfully turned the 'neutrally agnostic' Constitution into a 'partisan weapon' that respects the sacred values of modern paganism while denying authority to the views of Christians. He argues that this is most visible in the 'public annexation of the marketplace,' where Christian workers are required to abide by pagan values, such as acceptance of nontraditional conceptions of sexual orientation and gender identity. The book's early musings on human nature and religion are well-reasoned and draw on a wide range of sources from antiquity to the present. This makes Smith's avoidance of discussing Christian sexual ethics and the vast array of Christian communities that subscribe to many 'pagan practices' particularly frustrating. Evangelical readers will enjoy this work, but others will likely remain skeptical of Smith's grand claims."

For more on Paganism in back issues of AR, see <www.bit.ly/2OOWdXR>

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EDUCATION

We recently noticed a few helpful summaries by New York University psychology professor Jonathan Haidt <www.bit.ly/2NoUTGd> regarding the left-leaning surge of teaching emphasis in American universities.

In a segment from his interview with Charlie Rose (CBS This Morning co-anchor and contributing correspondent to 60 Minutes) titled "The SJW Worldview Explained in 2 Minutes," Haidt emphasizes the "totalizing perspective" of the social justice movement. <www.bit.ly/2Qx1Xmo>

In "The Rise of Victimhood Culture on Campus" (a segment from his lecture "Two Incompatible Sacred Values in American Universities"), Haidt argues that the "most sacred thing" at universities is no longer truth, but "the victim." <www.bit.ly/2OFnTyh>

Haidt finds that the most common grouping of victims are "the big three": race, gender and sexual orientation. He sees a secondary victim grouping which centers around "Latinos, Native Americans, and Disability." More recently, another victim grouping has developed which has a focus on Muslims, transgender people, and "Black Lives Matter."

In another segment, "The Blind Pursuit of Equal Outcome Leads to an 'Abomination of Justice,'" Haidt "explains how social justice is often at odds with both truth and justice, and how pursuing equality of outcome can lead to an abomination of justice." Topics include gender distribution in graduate degree programs and institutional hiring trends. <www.bit.ly/2QsYsxc>

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LEARNING

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, by Maryanne Wolf [3] -- the publisher explains that Wolf <maryannewolf.com> "considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies."

BookPage (Aug 1 '18) observes that Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist "specializing in reading and language development, asserts that technology is literally altering the way we take in and process information as our brains become rewired. ... Wolf suggests that we are already feeling [the consequences] in a world where civil discourse and considering differing points of view has given way to a reduction of complex issues into snippets. ... If you love deep reading and the ways it has enriched your life and our world, Reader, Come Home is essential, arriving at a crucial juncture in history."

Kirkus (Jun 1 '18) adds: Wolf "is worried ... that digital reading has altered 'the quality of attention' from that required by focusing on the pages of a book. ... The author cites Calvino, Rilke, Emily Dickinson, and T.S. Eliot, among other writers, to support her assertion that deep reading fosters empathy, imagination, critical thinking, and self-reflection. The development of 'critical analytical powers and independent judgment,' she argues convincingly, is vital for citizenship in a democracy, and she worries that digital reading is eroding these qualities. ... [S]he offers suggestions for raising children in a digital age: reading books, even to infants; limiting exposure to digital media for children younger than 5; and investing in teaching reading in school, including teacher training, to help children 'develop habits of mind that can be used across various mediums and media.' An accessible, well-researched analysis of the impact of literacy."

Library Journal (May 28 '18) concludes: "The author imagines a world in which young children learn to read on printed books so they can have that deep experience with language that is so important to learning and cognition. Then after the age of five they become exposed to screen reading and other technologies yet to be invented. ... The book is divided into a series of letters from the author in which she describes how the brain reads, the advantages of deep reading, how screen reading changes us, and finally lays out her ideal learning plans. VERDICT Overall, a hopeful look at the future of reading that will resonate with those who worry that we are losing our ability to think in the digital age."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, by Steven D. Smith (Eerdmans, November 2018, hardcover, 384 pages) <www.amzn.to/2zVU18R>

2 - Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, by James Davison Hunter (Basic, 1991, hardcover, 432 pages) <www.amzn.to/2yikDQb>

3 - Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, by Maryanne Wolf (Harper, 2018, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Phb3Dz>

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