If religion – more specifically, Christianity – is the only thing that can save the West, then which form of institutional Christianity currently operating in West can we rely on to step forward and attempt the task?
The simple answer – none of them.
This is a formidable, seemingly insurmountable, dilemma. The West desperately needs to reconnect with Christianity to save itself from its current death spiral, but it cannot do so through the organized Christian churches operating within its borders because nearly all contemporary Christian churches and institutions operating in the West have been converged and corrupted, likely beyond any hope of redemption.
This begs the question – how can the West save itself through Christianity if it cannot turn to its churches for guidance and support?
I have no clear answer at the moment; all I can offer is speculation. I imagine any return to genuine Christianity will have to begin at the level of individuals and families and then perhaps extend to small communities. It will have to be an authentic, organic, bottom-up process that circumvents current channels of church authority. It will have to be a new and evolved form of Christianity, one that is both much more and, paradoxically, much less than the Christianity that has brought the West to its current stage of spiritual development (or degeneration). Over time, this bottom-up process may be able to influence organized Christian institutions and re-align them toward Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, but I would not hold my breath over that possibility, at least not in the short term.
Perhaps this bottom-up process of Christianity would eventually establish new churches. Then again, maybe the next stage of Christianity will not require churches at all, at least in the way we currently conceptualize churches. Perhaps something better could take their place.
Whatever the case, the best we can hope for at the moment is a mass awakening at the level of individuals. Sadly, I see extremely meager signs of anything like that occurring right now.
But one must remain hopeful.
In the end, it seems the only kind of Christianity that can save the West is a Christianity that does not yet exist, or, at best, exists only very faintly at the moment – like small points of light scattered across an otherwise pitch-dark landscape.
Note: To call this prognosis bleak would be an understatement, and I am fully aware that I have made some sizable sweeping generalizations in the above. For example, I do not believe that all priests and clergy within organized Christian churches have been corrupted. Likewise, I am certain there a few churches here and there that have preserved their integrity. But in my estimation, the number of priests/clergy and churches that have been converged far outnumber the ones that have not, to say nothing of the churchgoers themselves. I imagine some on the so-called secular right are apostate Christians who abandoned the faith because of the corruption and convergence they rightly identified within contemporary Christian institutions. All the same, I can't help but feel these individuals have done little more than, to borrow an old cliché, throw the baby out with the bathwater - something they themselves will eventually realize when their attempts to save the West without Christianity go nowhere (or, even worse, end up creating a hell just as bad as the one their leftist counterparts are currently constructing).
The simple answer – none of them.
This is a formidable, seemingly insurmountable, dilemma. The West desperately needs to reconnect with Christianity to save itself from its current death spiral, but it cannot do so through the organized Christian churches operating within its borders because nearly all contemporary Christian churches and institutions operating in the West have been converged and corrupted, likely beyond any hope of redemption.
This begs the question – how can the West save itself through Christianity if it cannot turn to its churches for guidance and support?
I have no clear answer at the moment; all I can offer is speculation. I imagine any return to genuine Christianity will have to begin at the level of individuals and families and then perhaps extend to small communities. It will have to be an authentic, organic, bottom-up process that circumvents current channels of church authority. It will have to be a new and evolved form of Christianity, one that is both much more and, paradoxically, much less than the Christianity that has brought the West to its current stage of spiritual development (or degeneration). Over time, this bottom-up process may be able to influence organized Christian institutions and re-align them toward Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, but I would not hold my breath over that possibility, at least not in the short term.
Perhaps this bottom-up process of Christianity would eventually establish new churches. Then again, maybe the next stage of Christianity will not require churches at all, at least in the way we currently conceptualize churches. Perhaps something better could take their place.
Whatever the case, the best we can hope for at the moment is a mass awakening at the level of individuals. Sadly, I see extremely meager signs of anything like that occurring right now.
But one must remain hopeful.
In the end, it seems the only kind of Christianity that can save the West is a Christianity that does not yet exist, or, at best, exists only very faintly at the moment – like small points of light scattered across an otherwise pitch-dark landscape.
Note: To call this prognosis bleak would be an understatement, and I am fully aware that I have made some sizable sweeping generalizations in the above. For example, I do not believe that all priests and clergy within organized Christian churches have been corrupted. Likewise, I am certain there a few churches here and there that have preserved their integrity. But in my estimation, the number of priests/clergy and churches that have been converged far outnumber the ones that have not, to say nothing of the churchgoers themselves. I imagine some on the so-called secular right are apostate Christians who abandoned the faith because of the corruption and convergence they rightly identified within contemporary Christian institutions. All the same, I can't help but feel these individuals have done little more than, to borrow an old cliché, throw the baby out with the bathwater - something they themselves will eventually realize when their attempts to save the West without Christianity go nowhere (or, even worse, end up creating a hell just as bad as the one their leftist counterparts are currently constructing).
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