I was reflecting on the fate of the New Age spirituality, which began in the late seventies but hit public consciousness from the middling 1980s.
There was a tremendous growth in this (loose) "movement" - involving huge numbers of people thousands of whom were professionals (made a living from it), thousands of book titles - with sections in mainstream bookshops and multiple specialized bookshops, a huge expansion of participation in workshops, conferences, residential weekends, pilgrimages and the like.
It seemed to most people at the time that this was evidence of an on-going mass spiritual transformation: which would lead to a much more spiritual and personal; less materialistic and bureaucratic world.
And yet here we are.
Masses of people spend many hours per day interacting with the internet and social media.
A world where small scale institutions are subordinated or co-opted or assimilated to the agenda of globalist or multi-national institutions; a world where all the crafts, guilds or professions of 1980 are now either destroyed or converged into a depersonalized (increasingly computer-mediated) totalitarian bureaucracy.
What we got instead of spiritual transformation was spiritually-themed fandom - which is simply a component part of The System: an aspect of the Leisure Industry.
And almost exactly the same has happened to the churches.
Whatever hopes may have been cherished for a positively-transformative religious revival, a church-based Christian revival; have devolved into merely Religious themed-fandom.
To be a "devout" Christian church person is nowadays a part of the leisure industry, and implicitly regarded as such - as was evident in 2020 when the churches formally acknowledged themselves to be (unlike gardening shops, for example) a part of the non-essential economy - and therefore collaborated eagerly in their own closure.
The churches offer a variety of leisure time and sociable activities; and the really keen Christian will spend hours a day getting updates and inspiring Christian quotes from social media, reading and commenting on Christian social media and (if serious Christians) various essays and blogs - and during their holidays can make Christian pilgrimages, and post photos of their Christian devotion onto their favoured media.
Really-really serious Christians can be internet "creators": generating their own visual and audio material to stimulate others -- and perhaps gathering a bit of extra income from running advertisements, getting sponsorship, amassing a band of admiring virtual-Patrons, or facilitating drive-by consumers to but them a virtual "cup of coffee".
Christian church activity is nowadays just like any other Leisure activity - except that it "about" Christianity, has a Christian-themed content - instead of being about movies, popular TV series, bestsellers, celebrities, or sports teams and stars.
Such activity is precisely analogous to, no deeper than, no more religiously significant than, any of the many other fandoms of sports, franchise products, hobbies and pastimes; special interest groups and charities; with which the mass/social media abounds.
As with New Age - this kind of religious "growth" may be enjoyable (else people wouldn't do it); but it has demonstrably-feeble religious depth or motivational power; because the whole activity is encapsulated within the ruling mainstream totalitarian and materialist ideology.
Christian churches here-and-now are just a subtype of System-assimilated fandom - and have no more spiritual significance than any other such.
6 comments:
Has it ever been different though? Religion doesn't pay the bills unless you're a sheister. Religion is a type of hobby. Religion doesn't plane the crops, weed them, or water them.
@JS - Yes, it used to be as different as is possible. You about as mistaken as you could be!
Religion used to be the most powerful human motivator of all - even more powerful than sex.
In ancient times, the world and everything in it was seen through a religious lense.
Read history, or anthropology. It is very obvious indeed - unless of course you exclude the possibility a priori.
I think this is harsh but I appreciate the challenge of it.
'Such activity is precisely analogous to, no deeper than, no more religiously significant than, any of the many other fandoms of sports, franchise products, hobbies and pastimes; special interest groups and charities; with which the mass/social media abounds.'
Most of the Christians I know are not like this with their respective church. Trying to hold marriages together, trying to keep desperation at bay, getting the energy together to voluntarily go catechise someone else's children, etc.
@Owen - I appreciate you understand the challenge, but the fact that some church Christians strive to behave with common decency is not distinctive, and not related to the faith.
What is damning is not so much what such people Do (we are all sinners, and the encouragements to sin are legion) but their inability to discern, to recognize, the gross evils of these times; and the eagerness with which they positively support... one or more of the latest strategies of evil.
Christians just blend-in with the attitudes, ways of thinking, as well as most behaviours of atheistic materialism - and their political convictions are qualitatively deeper and more powerful than their religion.
If you consider the great evil strategies of our time, most Christian churches actively support most of them - even when they dissent on one or a few of them.
For me 2020 was a clear revelation of the value inversion of the Christian churches, including the mass of their members - but there have been others since (late 2020 antiracism, early 2022 anti-Fire Nation war, late 2022 AI-dolatry).
I say this to emphasize that as of 2026: there is no salvation to be got from organizations.
All organizations, all formal *institutions* - including churches - are overall-servants of the agenda of evil.
Churches are Not an exception to the global phenomenon of institutional convergence with totalitarianism, and it is overdue that serious Christians acknowledged this reality.
'.... but the fact that some church Christians strive to behave with common decency is not distinctive, and not related to the faith.'
I thought it was distinctive and related to the faith or am I missing something? Marriages mainly happened and stayed together in emulation of the Christian marriages of their parents' generation. In the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the last Christian generation, hardly any married at all and many divorced. And turning up to catechise children weekly in 2026 is much more than common decency.
@Owen - My understanding of the statistical evidence (such as Pew surveys) is that this kind of behaviour you describe is not more common among Christians per se, or of Christians than some other religions; especially when the appropriate socio-economic or personality factors are taken into consideration.
There are quantitative differences (eg in divorce rates) for some of the most rigorous adherents of the most selective Christian groups, such as US "active" Mormons whose marriages are Temple sealed. (Conservative evangelicals are another example.)
But for a fair comparison these would need to be matched with the most conscientious and socially-integrated of non-Mormons. To be an active and Temple-approved Mormon requires exceptional personal attributes (motivation, conscientiousness, to some extent intelligence) and excludes many. And the divorce rates of even devout Christians are surprisingly high.
In general, some people put great efforts (spend a lot of time, and money) on hobbies and pastimes, on fandom related activity, on political, NGO, charitable activities, and on teaching children various things (sports, music, public works) - on matters unrelated to Christianity.
But in the end the spiritual ought to be primary in our considerations, and it is was shocking how quickly and completely spiritual considerations were suspended, denied, apparently forgotten by the mass of Christian church members (of pretty much all denominations) in response to the health-fear-campaign of early 2020.
And how they still have neither acknowledged nor repented this behaviour - quite the contrary!
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