By my understanding; it was once (almost) inevitable that Christianity would be conflated with "Church" (although exactly which Church, was very soon a matter of deadly dispute).
Whether or not such conflation of Christianity and Church was once inevitable, so that it was natural, spontaneous, and necessary for a self-identified Christian to conceptualize his religion in church-terms; this conflation is now contingent upon personal choice.
Indeed, the situation is almost reversed; in that it is now natural and spontaneous - and almost unavoidable - for each Christian to conceptualize his own Christianity separately from Church.
The tendency to mental separation between Christianity and Church happens in the modern Christian's own mind; even when that Christian asserts and believes in one of the orthodox-traditional, church-defined conceptualizations of being-a-Christian.
The inner mental separation of Christianity from Church probably explains the progressively-increasing over the decades, shrill-aggression of Church-first Christians in their advocacy and apologetics.
In other words, in arguing for an external and groupish conceptualization of Christianity as necessarily Church-originating and sustained; they are arguing, primarily, with themselves!
In other words; the trad-orthodox advocates are fighting their own recurrent inner tendency to separate their Church from Christianity - a tendency that is forced upon them by the continual crises and conflicts and profound schisms, endemic within all the Christian churches - as of 2025.
I believe that human consciousness, human thinking, has changed over the centuries; and what was once natural, universal, and almost irresistible; has become a forced-choice - and almost impossible.
4 comments:
i usually don't care much for this kind of psychological analysis, but i know this one to be true because this is what i was trying to do, and failing, between 2017-2021. eventually i got it, and started to see it in others too. of course i can be wrong about the others, but i know it was true for me at least.
The crises and conflicts and profound schisms clearly go back to the very beginning of Christianity, though.
I think you could say the same about the supernatural, as well. I've heard some people say they believe in the supernatural in the same way they believe in their own existence. This has never been the case for me, and my guess is that it's true of few modern people. Believers today often have to vociferously argue the existence of the supernatural. They might be arguing with themselves, but does that make them wrong?
@Laeth - It isn't really a "psychological" analysis - in that the level of psychology is a surface symptom of a deep underlying (and I believe irreversible) change in fundamental human nature. If so, then it is more than "just" a matter of personal experience.
@M - I think you may have missed the main point of this. I am saying that things have changed such that similarities between now and 2000 (or 1000, or 500) years ago have a very different significance, because the world was experienced very differently then, and Men wanted and reacted differently. What was possible and usual then, is not necessarily possible or desirable now - and vice versa.
i agree Bruce, as you know. i didn't mean it that way. but i also cannot be quite sure how other people are. more and more i am doubtful that the evolution of consciousness happened as broadly as i would have liked to believe, and that all that needs doing is a choice. even in the west. for all i know, most people i meet could very well still be trapped in the previous phase. certainly no longer in original participation, but just as impermeable to intuition as people in the eighteen century. i just don't know, and more and more i reject any kind of universalism. and even if it did, maybe there are timelines, lost opportunities, so that if the choice wasn't made already, for all intents and purposes cannot be made now. this is what it feels increasingly likely to me. because the antichrist tests keep on coming and people keep on failing. maybe there never was a chance that they'd pass them. and as for outside the west, another question entirely. not saying this is right, i really don't know, but it's how i've been making sense of what i see lately.
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