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AR 29.31 - Since "Our New Religion Isn't Enough," who is God?
In this issue:
AMERICAN RELIGION - "the weakening of Christianity in America and the rise of a competing belief system"
NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS - "We mocked religion only to mimic it"
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION - Chinese "belief in communism is low, forcing the state to turn to traditions"
Apologia Report 29:31 (1,672)
August 21, 2024
AMERICAN RELIGION
"Pagans, Gnostics, and Christians - Oh My?" by Jack Butler (Religion & Liberty, Jun 25 '24) -- "Two books, You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left by talk-radio host Erick Erickson <www.tinyurl.com/2jd3nk93> and Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come by The Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson, <www.tinyurl.com/jsmm3amf> do more than dwell on the Garden as the origin of man's discontent. They also confront two pressing, related problems: the weakening of Christianity in America and the rise of a competing belief system."
These books "are strikingly similar in diagnosis. There is much wisdom, both in their agreements and in their disagreements. And there is further truth to be gleaned by discerning what they overlook and where they err, if the problem they describe is genuine and requires addressing.
"Both authors are fairly persuasive as to that problem. Erickson laments that 'over the past fifty years, American society has tried - with some success - to push God, faith, and Christianity from public life, schools, businesses, and politics.' Davidson decries the 'precipitous decline of Christianity in America.' ... Davidson labels it 'a post-Christian, neopagan ethos' that harks back to the moral universe Christianity, blessedly, destroyed.
"Both survey the negative results of these interrelated phenomena. The decline of Christianity, both in number of church attendees and in the orthodoxy of the faith when practiced, has contributed to widespread social dysfunction: family breakdown, declining fertility, widespread abortion, transgenderism, a growing reliance on euthanasia, the seeking of transcendent meaning in faulty causes (especially in politics), and more. And the new faith, backed not infrequently by government power, has made the public square increasingly hostile to Christianity. ...
"Davidson's use of history, at least as evidenced in his book, outdoes that of Erickson. Relying on, among other works, Tom Holland's Dominion, Davidson shows a powerful civilizational confidence about the world Christianity created and embraces a triumphalistic interpretation of church history (more so than Erickson, certainly), noting how the faith ushered in 'a moral revolution that broke asunder the pagan world's unquestioned worship of power and its pitiless embrace of violence.'" <www.tinyurl.com/2mdues9t>
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NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
A "who" question gets a "what" answer with "Our New Religion Isn't Enough. Who Is God?" by UK-based writer Freya India <www.tinyurl.com/mryndzcb> (GIRLS, Jun 4 '24) -- "These days it seems like everything is described as a new religion." India laments that "religious faith has collapsed, and many trends and movements have moved in to fill the void. The one that most resembles a religion to me, though, is the rise of therapy culture. I think it's an exaggeration to say all of Gen Z are following the cult of social justice or climate activism - but I really don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a significant majority of young people now interpret their lives and emotions and relationships through a therapeutic lens.
"Of course this isn't a new idea. As [historian] Christopher Lasch put it in 1979: 'The contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation…but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.'" India elaborates further: "I don't even think young people see this therapeutic worldview as a worldview anymore. It's hard to overstate how much it shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world. This is how many of us make sense of loss, of love, of hurt now. We refract our relationships through therapy-speak. We define ourselves by our diagnoses. And we mimic religion, all the time. We don't pray at night; we repeat positive affirmations. We don't confess; we trauma dump. We don’t seek salvation; we go on healing journeys. We don't resist temptation from the devil; we reframe intrusive thoughts. We don't exorcise evil spirits; we release trauma. And of course we don't talk to God, c'mon - we give a 'specific request to the universe' that 'has a greater plan' for us."
She specifies that "my worry is with this tendency to obsess over our mental health, to orient ourselves with wellness and self-actualisation as our highest aim...."
Two questions go unanswered. So she asks: "Because where is God, in all this? Who is God? Some say therapy culture has no God. ...
"What's missing then, from this new religion, is moral guidance. ...
"It's hard to put this into words but I think, in some ways, what we actually want is to be humbled."
What drives India appears to be the realization that: "our mental health is collapsing." After reviewing the efforts pushed by therapy culture she observes that, nevertheless, "If anything we feel worse. And what's telling is that the decline in mental health is worse for the least religious, which now happen to be girls and young women. ...
"Religion is not just reckoning with God and with the world, but reckoning with yourself. ...
"What's also missing from this new religion, I think, is a sense of stability, of being part of something bigger, something more enduring. I think young people today are desperate for that deeper connection. I sense it everywhere - this feeling that everything is so empty and evanescent now. ...
"Even if we do get deeper commitment it's all a big joke now: marriage vows are funny; the ceremony is a perfect moment for a prank; divorce is a celebration. Meanwhile we estrange ourselves from our families. ...
"I mean it feels as if relationships are even losing the basic requirement to be faithful now, the absolute bare minimum. No, I don't want to treat marriage like an employment contract. I want to be bound more! Bound to people; bound to places; bound to right and wrong!
"Because when young people don't think they can get anything real and lasting, they give up. Obviously. Gen Z say they are rebelling against old-fashioned responsibilities and restraints; we are empowered! I'm not so sure. We call it a revolt; feels more like resignation. No point having kids. No point committing. No point building any sort of foundation with anyone. Life is hopeless. No wonder we are drawn to the gospel of self-love and obsessively managing our own mental health. When everything is transient, might as well live for yourself. The only one left to rely on.
"Of course we're all free to follow our own faith, and I'm grateful for that. But still. Worth thinking about all this. Worth wondering - when we're downloading these mental health apps in our millions, repeating our positive affirmations, speaking in the language of salvation and higher powers - what we're really drawn to here. Worth asking ourselves, at least: why we mocked religion only to mimic it." <www.tinyurl.com/zz3pzmbh>
Also see: "Young Women Are Leaving Church in Unprecedented Numbers" by Daniel A. Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond of the Survey Center on American Life (Apr 24 '24). <www.tinyurl.com/332usp8e> "It's not only about gender roles. There is a cultural misalignment between more traditional churches and places of worship and young women who have grown increasingly liberal" in a variety of ways.
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RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
"China Is Reversing Its Crackdown on Some Religions, but Not All" by Ian Johnson, Expert for the Council on Foreign Relations, Asia Program (cfr.org, May 14 '24) -- leads with the observation that "over the past few years, some [organized religions] have begun to enjoy government support. This applies to much of China's biggest religion, Buddhism, and its only indigenous religion, Taoism. The government has also endorsed folk religious practices that it once deemed superstitious, subsidizing pilgrimages and temples.
"Driving these seemingly contradictory impulses is the ruling communist party's need for new sources of legitimacy. With economic growth slowing, the long-standing social contract of prosperity in exchange for political acquiescence is less tenable. ...
"The state has clearly identified some religions as preferable to others. Two faiths in particular are problematic: Islam, which has roughly seventeen million believers in China, and Christianity, with an estimated fifty to sixty million, based on different measures. The state essentially views them as foreign and therefore undesirable. This isn't because of the length of time they have been in China. In fact, Christianity has had a permanent presence in the country since Jesuit missionaries arrived in Beijing in 1601, while Islam arrived in China along with Persian traders in the seventh century. ...
"Chinese President Xi Jinping began alluding to the importance of local ties to Buddhism as early as 2014. ... Xi also praised Christianity and Islam for their contributions to China but, tellingly, didn't say they had indigenized. ...
"The party's concerns about Christianity are different. While Islam is practiced by ethnic minorities and is mostly sequestered in China's borderlands (perhaps helping to explain the draconian measures), Christianity is practiced among the Han Chinese majority, especially urban, white-collar professionals. In some ways, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] faces a greater challenge from Christianity because the religion is practiced among the very people the party needs to modernize the country.
"To deal with this problem, the party has adopted a two-fold policy. Toward Catholicism - which seems to be hardly growing, with just ten million adherents - the party has sought control through diplomacy. ... For Protestantism, which is arguably China's most dynamic faith, the party has sought to close down big churches that have civil society structures. ...
"By contrast, the state's treatment of the so-called indigenous faiths is strikingly different. ... Statistics and my on-the-ground observations indicate that Buddhism and Daoist religious sites and participation are increasing. ...
"For most of the twentieth century, China's modernizers - the communists and their predecessors, the nationalists - tried to discredit folk religions by labeling them 'superstitious.' Chinese elites largely held Christianity as the norm for a 'real' religion, causing them to reject the diffuse and syncretic views that traditionally held Chinese society together. According to scholars, up to one million temples were destroyed in the twentieth century, especially during the first thirty years of CCP rule.
"After the death of founding CCP leader Mao Zedong in the late 1970s, traditional religious life returned but was tolerated at best....
"By some measures, there are as many as 220,000 places of folk religious worship in China, dwarfing the 43,500 Buddhist and Daoist temples. Some of these folk religious sites get direct government support. Borrowing terminology from UNESCO, Beijing has designated many cultural practices as 'intangible cultural heritage.' ...
"In addition, the disasters of communist rule in the twentieth century mean that for at least fifty years, few people have bought into the state's main ideology, communism. Under Xi, China has pushed a return to communist values, urging the country's nearly one hundred million CCP members to 'return to the original mission.' Some of the party's stated values include widely accepted virtues such as honesty, integrity, patriotism, and harmony. But belief in communism is low, forcing the state to turn to traditions." <www.tinyurl.com/3waatyz5>
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