When Will Christianity Reignite the West?

9/30/2023

I don't know, but I suspect it will only come after the

"What are you going to do to protect me in this world?"

question becomes anathema in Christian discourse.

6 Comments

NLR

10/1/2023 02:36:03

On a related topic, the fact is that both the spiritual and the material are operative in the world. (Though I don't think anyone fully understands how they fit together).

Yes, it's true that one can damage religions by material means. But on the other hand, without the motivation provided by a real belief in the spiritual, things fall apart.

In theory, one could have a system run on pure expediency that takes into account enough of the variables to ensure that things run the way one wants. But in practice, it never seems to work that way.

Hoyos

10/1/2023 04:22:31

Maybe I missed something, I do read your blog regularly, but what does this question mean? Who are the “you” and the “me” referred to here?

Francis Berger

10/1/2023 19:19:31

@ Hoyos - The you is as abstract as the "they" in statements like "they say the economy is going to improve" or "they say it may rain tomorrow" or "things are bad, what are they going to do about it?"

The question is meant to reflect a prevailing attitude among Christians. Nothing less. Nothing more.

bruce g charlton

10/1/2023 20:50:44

Agreed. This is why I try, more and more, to emphasize that Christianity ought-to-be about the next world; in the sense that our understanding of this world, and what we should be doing, comes After we have decided to follow Jesus to life everlasting in Heaven (and do what is necessary to attain that).

In contrast; there is a common discourse (and I used to be deeply into this) that evaluates Christianity in terms such as its ability to save Western Civilization from itself, or improve the conditions of My life - soon.

It is natural to desire protection from suffering, yet in an entropic world leading towards death; this is ultimately futile, and therefore should Not be allowed to take primacy. ...As it so often does take primacy; in both explicitly-secular and fake-Christian discourse.

Anti-Gnostic

10/1/2023 21:03:45

It won't. Christianity requires a Christendom with geographic territory and artifacts, which Christians blew up after two World Wars against each other. When Christians aren't protected or don't protect themselves, they go extinct like anybody else.

The religions which actually propagate themselves maintain blood-and-soil homelands or enclaves that support natalism (literal Creation, in which nominal Christians no longer participate), like Islam, Judaism and the Anabaptists.

Religion as metaphysical abstraction is just someone's, anyone's opinion. It has no tangible or tactile representation, no means for inter-generational transmission, no temporal events or life-cycle rituals. It actually eschews tangibility and tactileness as mundane and mortifying. It's just the burden of praxis with no benefit other than a narrative of an unknown, theoretical afterlife.

WanderingGondola

10/2/2023 09:52:03

I feel it's a matter of a few years. It will require something special and unexpected. Revelations will come.

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When Will Christianity Reignite the West?

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