In The Lands of the Unbelievers
Recently Happy Jack has been reading articles concerned about the 'death' of Christianity and the 'de-Christianisation' of Christmas. For his sins, he has also been traveling in that 'Foreign Land' that goes by the name of 'Thinking Anglicans' - an oxymoron if ever there was one! - where they are obsessed with matters sexual, confuse this with love, and twist and bend Scripture to accommodate all manner of heresy.
There can be little doubt that Christians today are effectively living "in partibus infidelium"; in formerly Christian lands where non-believers, inside and outside the Christian churches, press toward a future world that orthodox Christians cannot share.
The question is posed in the First Things article: how do orthodox Christians conduct themselves in a hostile environment? Do we stay silent, retreat to the metaphorical catacombs, become “God’s secret agents”? If not, how do we defend and promote the Christian Gospel in all its beauty and complexity. It offers no suggestions other than donating to their site! It does conclude on an optimistic note:
"Christianity surely has stores of resilience that have not yet been fully expended. Nor can they ever be, for they are ultimately God’s to withhold and dispense."
Onto the Conservative Woman. There the question: "A Christ-less Christmas?", is given a resounding "Never!" The author observes we are entering "the age of neo-paganism", an era of pre-birth child sacrifice and killing the elderly and vulnerable in the name of Christian ‘compassion’. The conclusion, once again is one of optimism:
"As Chesterton also pointed out, ‘Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.’ The Disciples found an empty tomb, and since then there has never been an empty manger. There has never been a Christ-less Christmas – and there never will be."
But in all this optimism the question remains: What will 'I' do? What will 'You' do?
Happy Jack returns once again to Father Joseph Ratzinger’s 1969 predictions on the future of the Church:
“The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves ...
The big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future ..."
The Church will become smaller. And as the number of her followers diminish, as a small, voluntary society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.
I keep reading that while the number who identify as Christian in the census has dropped, church attendance has held steady.
ReplyDeleteIs this an anomaly or is it simply people being more comfortable about identifying as not religious?
I think you may be right. Christians are frightened of being discriminated against in jobs, health care etc especially if you are a Catholic because Catholics are hated. For years I hid my Catholicism....so that's how I know.They think it is safer to declare no religion on a census form hide any reference if possible on your CV, or even when going into hospital.Not every Christian is a saint and equipped to stand in the colosseum square and be demolished by the lions. St Peter wasn't initially. More comfortable? safety issues more like
Delete@ Prof G
ReplyDeleteRepeated surveys show both church attendance and Christian belief to be in decline. Here's a couple here an here.
Oh I know. The articles I'm talking about are specifically in relation to the recent census. I'll try and find one.
DeleteOh I give up! I've spent ages looking.
DeleteMy memory, if only I could remember the magazine it was in
@ Prof G
DeleteJack wishes he could remember the day of the week!
Peter Hitchens predicted the demise of Christianity (in Europe at least) several years ago. Christianity only finishes if we give up . But that it "surely has stores of resilience that have not yet been fully expended" is blatently obvious, you just need to search them out - try Rod Dreyer's Live Not By Lies' for a start. But "they are ultimately God’s to withhold and dispense." - eh?? I think we should feel free to communicate and learn from resilient Christians!
ReplyDeleteI thought I would get tired of reading those words by Ratzinger, but it seems not.
@ Gadjo
DeleteRod Dreher offers one path for Christians in a secular, post Christian word. It has its drawbacks and is not suited to everybody. His proposition is that Catholics/Christians leave politics and public square as the "Culture War" is lost. For a rime, we should separate from the world, catechise our young, create distinct communities, and wait for the day to fight back against the New Dark Age that is coming. In this new “Dark Age,” public morality is all about individualistic relativism and moral choices are simply the expressions of what the choosing individual feels is right. Gone are the traditional virtue communities of yesteryear. Faith is in decline. Failure to withdraw into faith communities will, he believes, “doom our children and our children’s children to assimilation.”
Ultimately, every Christian, in the midst of this storm, must find ways to remain firmly attached to Christ and to share the Gospel with those they live and work alongside.
An alternative is for Christians to enter the public square and engage with the world with joy and confidence. The earliest Christians did not focus on saving civilization. They trusted in the providence of God. They mixed with Jews and Greeks to witness Christ through their lives. We do not evangelise by withdrawing but by forming friendships and relationships.
@Jack, I don't think my comments were clear at all: I actually misread the quote from the First Things article, my apologies. Yes, to be in tbe world and evangelise is good, but to first remain firmly attached to Christ and in communion with other Christians is key to the survival of the faith. I was thinking of the ways to maintain a Christian community in Dreyer's Live Not by Lies rather than in his The Benedict Option.
Delete@ Gadjo
DeleteNo apologies necessary!
My view is that Dreher's analysis is broadly correct. Corporations jump on the same-sex 'marriage' and 'gay rights' and 'Black Lives Matter' - they follow profit.
We live in uncertain times. A time of peril. We need to witness with our lives, rather than withdraw into the 'catacombs'; witness family to family, friend to friend, local church to local church.
@Jack do both. This 'secularisation' is nothing new. 'Keep Christ in Christmas' dates back to at least the 1640s...
DeleteChristians should avoid being drawn into the 'culture wars' IMO, because it allows the Evil One to choose the battleground: the banal and superficial, where Christianity has nothing much to say, since it concerns an interior kingdom that is not of this world. The Apostles didn't start challenging Roman occupation, they simply lived faithful lives and drew people to them through that.
I think there is a place for withdrawing to the 'catacombs', at least figuratively; churches have become too worldly. In the beginning, the uninitiated weren't even allowed into the Liturgy, and we preserve the traditional call to seal the church doors and expel the catechumens before the Eucharistic rite begins. This is now symbolic, but it's a reminder that this is Christianity's lot: the world will hate you because it hated me first. Without being formed in the catacombs, one ends up with a compromised and worldly religion that can evangelise nobody.
@ Lain
Delete👍
@Jack, I agree. Big corporations have been complete sl*gs. Take my wife (please!) who lived half her life as a Christian behind the Iron Curtain, where any attempt at evangelisation could cost you your job, or worse, and so she settled for trying to show her faith by example of her life. As far as church life went, I'd say it was 'semi-catacombs' - in some Eastern bloc countries it was more fully underground. In the West now, some professions are becoming off-limits for people of traditional faith if they don't keep quiet about it.
DeleteShare the gospel with those they live and work alongside....well I don't see this working in reality if you were living in the third reich or in the cleverly camouflaged one we are living in now.
ReplyDeleteYes,the only way is forming genuine friendships and you will only succeed by example by having and demonstrating intrinsic Christian values and behaviour ...not spouting reams of scripture then indulging in non Christian behaviour .It's the behaviour that counts. Christian hypocrisy earns the hatred of non Christians....and we must admit there is a lot of it.
DeleteI have always been a staunch supporter of Pope Benedict but on the following issues I have this to say
ReplyDeleteThe kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future
How on earth can a priest just be a mere social worker without the precepts of Christianity? If this is the case what is going on in the seminaries? Crackdown time and hard....If a priest loses his faith along the way.....he can no longer be permitted to be a priest.
A lot ot shrinks social workers psychotherapists psychologists eminent medicos are anti Christian...the reason why it is imperative that committed Catholics and intelligent priests gain professional qualifications in these disciplines.....essential weaponry against the dark forces.
PS
Thank you Jack for these interesting posts.....
I think it's important to remember that Christianity is only dying *in the West*. Western Society is a rotting oak, whose ancient but now withered roots will keep it upright enough for some time to come, I suspect, but which cannot secure it forever.
ReplyDeleteBut God's Church has always been "not of this World", let alone "not of the West". It may be that the lands that once learned of the Gospel from our forefathers prove to be the ark where the faith survives and, in time, remembers its fallen elder brother and, in pity and love, sends aid.
Indeed, Grutchy
DeleteWritten before Vatican II reforms and the sex abuse crisis, in 1958, Father Joseph Ratzinger wrote of the Christian façade of contemporary Catholicism here:
This so-called Christian Europe for almost four hundred years has become the birthplace of a new paganism, which is growing steadily in the heart of the Church, and threatens to undermine her from within. The outward shape of the modern Church is determined essentially by the fact that, in a totally new way, she has become the Church of pagans, and is constantly becoming even more so. She is no longer, as she once was, a Church composed of pagans who have become Christians, but a Church of pagans, who still call themselves Christians, but actually have become pagans. Paganism resides today in the Church herself, and precisely that is the characteristic of the Church of our day, and that of the new paganism, so that it is a matter of a paganism in the Church, and of a Church in whose heart paganism is living.
This is a remarkable insight:
The Church was a community of believers, of men who had adopted a definite spiritual choice, and because of that, they distinguished themselves from all those who refused to make this choice. In the common possession of this decision, and its conviction, the true and living community of the faithful was founded, and also its certainty; and because of this, as the community of those in the state of grace, they knew that they were separated from those who closed themselves off from grace. Already in the Middle Ages, this was changed by the fact that the Church and the world were identical, and so to be a Christian fundamentally no longer meant that a person made his own decision about the faith, but it was already a political-cultural presupposition. A man contented himself with the thought that God had chosen this part of the world for himself; the Christian's self-consciousness was at the same time a political-cultural awareness of being among the elect: God had chosen this Western world. Today, this outward identity of Church and world has remained; but the conviction that in this, that is, in the unchosen belonging to the Church, also that a certain divine favor, a heavenly redemption lies hidden, has disappeared ...
For the Westerner, the Church is, for the most part, nothing more than a very accidental part of the world; through her externally remaining identity with the world, she has lost the seriousness of her claim. So it is understandable that, today, often the question will be asked very urgently whether or not the Church should again be turned into a community of conviction, in order to confer on her again her great gravity. That would mean that she rigidly abandons the still present worldly positions, in order to get rid of an apparent possession, which shows itself to be more and more dangerous, because it stands in the way of the truth.
Quite right. The Gospel came to the West, not from it. The West needs to reevaluate its assumption that it's the spokesperson for civilisation.
DeleteQuite right. I am the spokesman for civilization.
Delete@ Chef
DeleteTo the lifeboats!
@Chef
DeleteHello, Chef, I hope this Advent season finds you well. Brian has been courageously trying to lift the pun content of this blog single-handedly in your absence.
O Felix Jacobus
ReplyDelete😲
ReplyDeleteChristian authorities don't do the faithful any favours either. The more they treat with the world, the worse it gets.
ReplyDelete@ Bell
DeleteBut the world cannot be ignored! If it was, the Church would be ignoring its basic mission.
@Jack
DeleteThere's a middle ground between ignoring the world and allowing it, as the CofE has, to dictate its doctrine.
'Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst.'
We are called to minister to the world, as in the people who live in it, but to shun the world in the sense of the empty promises of sin, the flesh and the devil.
Nobody's talking about ignoring the world. I'm talking about the Church allowing itself to be "evangelized" by the world.
Delete@ Bell
DeleteThat's a given. The issue is how Christians fruitfully engage with and evangelise in an increasingly post Christian West.
This would be my suggestion.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=591n8GKvyaY
@ Bell
DeleteThat address isn't about faith. It's about power and the things that flow from it,
The vocative of Jacobus is "Jacobe". But "Jack" is a familiar form of John, Johannes.
ReplyDeleteI know.
DeleteBut Jim is a familiar form of James, which is Frenchified Jacob, and it's not vocative in the English.
Is this place a humour-free zone? Sheesh! (Which is a euphemistic distortion.) Chillax! (Which is a portmanteau.)
avete atque valete
Felix Jacobus
DeleteShould we be calling Carl John or Jim? 😕
DeleteAvete atque valete is plural. Are you saying farewell to all of us?
Delete