Subjective and Individual Christianity is Unavoidable, But Will It Only Be a Stage?

4/3/2022

When people think of Christianity, they think of it mostly from an objective and historical perspective -- that is, as a religion that was both popular and collective, natural and social.

I use the past tense here because although Christianity is still popular in terms of quantity -- professed numbers of adherents -- and collective in terms of ritual and practice, it has lost or is very rapidly losing its natural and social elements.

The popular and collective aspects of Christianity appear to be functioning, but beneath the surface these religious elements are in deep crisis for the simple reason that nearly everything popular and collective within Christianity is on the side that is openly opposed to God and Creation.

The positioning of these popular and collective elements has greatly diminished the natural and social aspects of Christianity, to the point that Christianity is now viewed as something so "unnatural" that it cannot be permitted to meaningfully influence any aspect of society, including the family.

To overcome this crisis of objective Christianity, the religion must become subjective and individualistic. This is the essence of what Dr. Charlton calls Romantic Christianity. I believe this subjective and individualistic form of Christianity is not only necessary but unavoidable.

Those who remain firmly committed to popular/collective forms of Christianity will inevitably be swept up by the world and ultimately cease being real Christians. Whether such Christians will ever acknowledge it or not is another matter entirely.

Thus, in the present, Christianity must become subjective and individualistic even if Christians continue to adhere to certain popular and collective religious conventions.

Does this entail that the Christianity will remain subjective and individualistic well into the future? I'm not sure, but if I had to answer, I would respond with both a yes and a no.

Yes, because at its core Christianity is a religion of freedom and love, which are both rooted in the personal -- that is, the subjective/individual.

No, because Christianity is also a religion of relationships -- a religion of spiritual beings freely connecting and interacting with each other at a personal level through love.

Whether these relationships ever become "popular" in the way objective/historical Christianity did is unknowable, but they will undoubtedly form some sense of a collective that is both natural and social.

However, this will entail a completely transformed understanding of what "natural" and "social" mean, and that understanding must first arise from the subjective and individual.

Therefore, the possibility of such developments depends entirely on what happens within the subjective and individualistic form of Christianity that is quietly emerging from the crisis of all that is popular and collective within the objective form of the religion.

4 Comments

bruce charlton

4/3/2022 22:09:51

I can't bring myself to speculate beyond the current End Times spiritual crisis which continues and worsens every week; I cannot even guess what will survive in the medium-long-term, if anything.

But the best prospect for groupish Christianity may be to return to its original form, which was to be rooted in family and close neighbours.

I believe that this is what Jesus wanted, as revealed in the Fourth Gospel - a religion based on the love relationship (*real* love - as within a good family) between its members.

Francis Berger

4/4/2022 07:57:36

@ Bruce - I agree about the speculation. I wrote this mostly for the "benefit" of Christians who seem incapable of considered subjective/individualistic Christianity as a valid form of the religion (the same Christians who are loathe to acknowledge things like End Times or just how terrible the situation for objective/popular/collective Christianity really is).

I thought that subjective/individualistic Christianity might be more palatable/conceivable to those who remain committed to popular/collective Christianity if it were viewed from the perspective of a stage rather than a end.

From my own standpoint, subjective/individualistic is all that matters now. What -- if anything -- happens afterward remains unknowable.

Jack

4/4/2022 15:23:23

I haven't read it yet except for a few excerpts, but I recommend reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship." I think he addresses this issue directly. He is opposed to a Christianity of mere "inward ness", of a retreat into the private sphere of the individual pious believer, but he is also strongly opposed to a retreat back into the medieval situation of corporate Christian officialdom. I think the next step for Christian believers is contained in his title, "Discipleship". Surely the next step for us as Christians is to see one another first and foremost as brothers and sisters by virtue of our Baptism, and then as fellow disciples striving faithfully to follow Our Lord in a spirit of mutual encouragement and instruction, and only in a tertiary sense as inheritors of the various medieval Christian ecclesiastical traditions and theological schools (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, etc.). Discipleship is a way for us Christians to meet each other without the baggage of worn-out medieval conflicts and debates. That's not at all to say we have nothing to learn from the great theologians and saints of the past, or that all their disagreements are over; but that we shouldn't be tempted to concretise these conversations into massive, exclusionary, civilisational edifices like our medieval forebears who were concerned with preserving the post-Constantine church-state political institution. I by no means look back on old Christendom with dislike or ingratitude, but I think now for us living today, "Christendom" and the desire for a revived Christendom is an enormous weight on our consciences and a distraction spiritually from the work of discipleship. My problem with the ecumenical movement is that it's too often repeated the mistake of trying to get back to Christendom, by creating this massive ecclesiastical super-institution, except this time allied to the modern democracies and international NGOs rather than the ancient monarchies. I think if we get back to basics, learn what we can from our various traditions and ancestors, read the scriptures with fresh eyes and apply ourselves to living according to the gospel in proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God — we can bypass both subjectivist individualism and objectivist corporatism, and meet each other on a plane of Christian honesty and realism in fraternity. I think Vatican II was heading in this direction by redefining (or returning to a redefinition) of the Church as primarily the "people of God" united in Baptism and the Eucharist. The early Christians took their shared Baptism very seriously as their birth and foundation as a spiritual nation of believers; the downside of the medieval legacy is that it's made us more aware of our various Christian cultural traditions and ecclesiastical apparatuses than our identity as the new Israel l, God's people. WW I and WW II proved that. I can't get over how easily we slaughtered each other who shared one Baptism and one Lord; that's the black stain of the old legacy which we still haven't fully repented of.

4/6/2022 09:35:21

@ Jack - Good comment. To add to your points in the simplest possible way -- Romantic Christianity is vital for Christians to de-systemize their thinking. At present, this is only possible at the subjective/individual level. After Christians have de-systemized their thinking, they can work on building up some sort of wider social aspect to the religion, but this wider aspect cannot be based on a system or on systemized thinking. Christianity needs to transcend systems.

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Subjective and Individual Christianity is Unavoidable, But Will It Only Be a Stage?

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