24AR29-22

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AR 29.22 - Ready for a better "great reset"?

In this issue:

ATHEISM - the "cultural oxygen" that "we breathe but never see"

ISKCON - is Jay Shetty "just another influencer battling for relevance?"

OCCULTISM - Black Americans and the pursuit of "a different way than Christianity"

WORLDVIEW - "What the world does not realize" about the God(s) of Christianity and Islam

Apologia Report 29:22 (1,663)
June 13, 2024

ATHEISM

"Christianity's decline has unleashed terrible new gods" by Madeline Grant (Telegraph, Apr 3 '24) -- (Prepare to have your mental reset button poked a time or two. Like us, you'll likely be wanting a lot more detail after you finish reading this item. Stay tuned.)

   "Professor [Richard] Dawkins' admission that he considers himself a 'cultural Christian', who is, at the very least, ambivalent about Anglicanism's decline, is an undeniably contradictory position for a man who in the past campaigned relentlessly against any role for Christianity in public life, railing against faith [in] schools and charitable status for churches. ...

   "[I]t's worth noting that Dawkins says he remains 'happy' with the UK's declining Christian faith, and that those beliefs are 'nonsense'. But he also says that he enjoys living in a Christian society. This betrays a certain level of cultural free-riding. The survival of society's Christian undercurrent depends on others buying into the 'nonsense' even if he doesn't. ...

   "[T]his feels like another staging-post on a journey towards the good Professor finally admitting that the New Atheism, of which he was such a shining light, was wrong in crucial respects. First, in its almost touching naivety that a post-Christian world would give way to a values-neutral space, rooted in reason. Second, in its semi-adolescent diagnosis of Christianity as a retardant upon cultural and intellectual progress. ...

   "It doesn't take the brains of an evolutionary biologist to work out that New Atheism was mistaken in its diagnosis of what would follow religion's decline. The rational world we were promised hasn't materialised and a nastier, less reasonable one is supplanting what was there before. ...

   "New Atheism assumed that, as people abandoned Christianity they would embrace a sort of enlightened, secular position. The death of Christian Scotland shows this was wrong. Faith there has been replaced by derangement and the birthplace of the Scottish enlightenment - which rose out of Christian principles - now worships intolerant new gods."

   The Scottish National Party's "draconian hate crime legislation is a totemic example. Merely stating facts of biology might earn you a visit from the Scottish police. ...

   "Not that things are much better south of the border, where we have de facto blasphemy laws under which a teacher can be forced into hiding for showing his class a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Certainly not the neutral secular space we were promised with the erosion of Christianity's central role in society. 

   "Yet increasingly, the thesis of Tom Holland's book Dominion <www.tinyurl.com/AR-T-Holland-Dominion> seems to be winning out, via a growing recognition that the ethics we hold as natural and universal are, in fact, anything but. Much of what atheists ascribed to vague concepts of 'reason' emerged out of the faith which informed the West's intellectual, moral, and, yes, scientific life - a cultural oxygen we breathe but never see. ...

   "Recognising Christianity's cultural impact is the first step. The bigger task facing the West is living out these values in an age when they are increasingly under threat." <www.tinyurl.com/4kpsf2nn> (paywalled)

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ISKCON

"Uncovering the higher truth of Jay Shetty: Celebrities call him 'amazing' and fans pay thousands - but what exactly do they get from this self-help guru with an iffy origin story?" by John McDermott (The Guardian, Feb 29 '24) -- "the former Hindu monk who's become a one-man self-help empire" has attracted attention: "Delivering pop-psychology wisdom culled from sources as varied as Carl Jung, Bruce Lee and St Francis of Assisi, Shetty has earned near universal acceptance. It's a remarkable rise to fame for a man who says that just 13 years ago, he was living as a penniless monk in India."

   How did he do it? "Shetty has written two bestsellers: Think Like a Monk, a 2020 memoir/self-help guidebook <www.tinyurl.com/yh845vyn> based on his time studying Hinduism, and 2023's 8 Rules of Love, <www.tinyurl.com/nhnjsx4r> for helping people better maneuver their romantic relationships."

   How does ISKCON fit in? Shetty "grew up in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness" (aka the Hare Krishna movement). "Shetty almost never discloses his association with Iskcon [sic], perhaps concerned with the organization's problematic history, which includes allegations that in the 1970s and 1980s members engaged in corporal punishment, child sexual abuse and, on two occasions, conspiracy to commit murder. Instead, he presents his spirituality in vague terms."

   How does McDermott fit in? "I first met Shetty last March, when I was assigned to write a profile of him for Esquire magazine. ...

   "I began researching and found multiple allegations of Shetty using people's content without consent or attribution and distorting details about his past as a monk. ...

   "Though he markets himself as a spiritual leader, Shetty's output isn't overtly religious. He occasionally references ancient Hindu texts, but the vast majority of his content is generalized, secular pop psychology, the likes of which you can find from any number of competing self-help personalities. He's pulled off a seemingly impossible contradiction: branding himself as a spiritual guide without ever specifying the religious tradition he practices.

   "Shetty often avoids mentioning Iskcon, instead describing himself as a 'Vedic monk'.

   "Dax Shepard asked Shetty this year on his Armchair Expert podcast <www.tinyurl.com/u6dw3hka> about the particular form of Hinduism Shetty practices. 'When you then decide to become a monk, why not go the Krishna route? Why did you end up in the Vedic world?' Shepard asked." Crickets.

   McDermott notes that "Iskcon has experienced a revival in recent years, particularly within the Indian diaspora. ...

   "That resurgence was in part due to Iskcon members finding creative ways to rebrand Krishna consciousness as a secular spiritual practice, according Nicole Karapanagiotis, an associate professor of religion at Rutgers University - Camden and author of Branding Bhakti, <www.tinyurl.com/2n8pbhkz> about Iskcon's efforts to reinvent itself. ...

   "Shetty's authority as a self-help figure stems from his time as a monk. It's the basis for Think Like a Monk, and he brings it up in nearly every interview he does. Without his monk past, Shetty would be just another influencer battling for relevance online." Lengthy. <www.tinyurl.com/mwrzkwtm>

   For a recent look into today's ISKCON movement, see "'Where Did Justine Go?' One Woman Disappears Into Devotion" by Ruth Graham in the NY Times (May 22 '24). <www.tinyurl.com/dkcfbd6k> (paywalled)

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OCCULTISM

"African spiritualities are attracting Black Americans as a source of pride and identity" by Fiona André (Religion News Service, Mar 21 '24) -- "Spiritual practices such as ancestral veneration and Ifá, as well as Afro-Caribbean practices such as Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban Santería, have gained attention among Black Americans, who see it as an occasion to reconnect with their heritage and celebrate their Blackness.

   "A 2021 Pew Research Center study <www.tinyurl.com/27589hkt> showed that 15% of Black adults pray at a home altar or shrine more than once a week. ...

   "Growing up, Chaya Murrell started her day by reciting the Bible's Psalm 23....

   "Now 27, Murrell still recites the psalm occasionally but has added other practices, such as yoga and tarot card reading. ...

   "Aníbal Mejía, 59, a former Unitarian Universalist, discovered Candomblé during a trip to Salvador de Bahia, on the northeast coast of Brazil, 30 years ago. ...

   "While looking back to his African origins, Candomblé, Mejía said, 'helps me stay in this historical moment of confronting oppression in this American situation.' He notes that when he first encountered Candomblé, he was struck by the important role its liturgy attributed to women. 

   "Murrell said that her own quest for a faith that fit her better began with her questions about the role attributed to women in the churches she grew up in. Raised in Black and multiethnic congregations, Murrell deplored that few women held leadership positions. She felt that the church was reinforcing stereotypical gender roles, encouraging women to be nurturers and caretakers.

   "Her first forays into African spirituality involved reading about Orishas - Yoruba nature deities, many of - whom are female - and Vodou goddesses. Instead of church hierarchies, ancestral veneration allowed her to find practices and relationships with the spiritual world that worked for her. 'It did feel like it was my own, in a different way than Christianity,' she said." <www.tinyurl.com/yk96wdxx>

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WORLDVIEW

War atrocities, cries for peace, compromise for the sake of unity ... all to what ultimate end? We might ask this in response to the following "progressive" argument: "That terror attack in Moscow: What the world does not realize" by Jeffrey Salkin (Religion News Service, Mar 28 '24) -- Salkin refers to the deadly March 28 "terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow, killing 140 people and leaving more than 100 injured" that was perpetrated by an affiliate of the Islamic State.

   Contrasting this tragedy with last year's Gaza attack by Hamas on innocent Israelis, Salkin discerns what he calls "a dotted line between Oct. 7 and the massacre in Moscow." 

   (He then clarifies: "I write as a layperson, who is not an expert at Muslim ideology, and who respects Islam.")

   "If you think the war in Gaza is about Israel and the Palestinians, you're wrong."

   His explanation? "It turns out that what is happening in Gaza is one front of the war between Western civilization and radical Islam." Salkin quotes a generic response he encountered, and of which he approves: "The war that Israel was fighting was not only on behalf of the security of its northern border. The war that Israel was fighting was but another skirmish in the war for Western civilization."

   He continues: "As I have said: Hamas, ISIS, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Houthis are all franchises of radical Islam, and it is radical Islam that is at war with our culture.

   "For this reason, and for many others, American Jews must seek out and engage with mainstream Muslim leaders - to build bridges, to heal pain and to gain understanding."

   Salkin's bottom line: "Allah and Elohim. It is the same God." <www.tinyurl.com/yypnp7r3>

   He began this piece wanting to alert his readers to "What the world does not realize." His closing theological statement reminds us instead that there is tragically much more to it.

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