As a complement to William Wildblood's reflections on the potential value for Christians in what might be termed pagan-ism; Laeth makes an interesting point about the possibility of a future pagan religion in The West (edited):
Jupiter stopped answering the Romans, and Jesus stopped answering the Christians. This is obvious.
There is no power or magic left in the churches...
Lots of people may say: "but my church is wonderful, we do this and do that, and so on". But that doesn’t change the fact that the spirit going through your local, or even home, church is not infecting and affecting the world the way Christianity as a whole thing did...
The fact is, no religion moves the West (and beyond) anymore.
But it obviously did, as any look into history will show.
Look around: the remnants of that incredibly strong motivation are still here. We like to visit such places. But we don’t do there what our ancestors did; and even when we do, we don’t feel like they did doing it.
C. S. Lewis, I think, once said that this was doubly true for paganism; that if we are removed from Christianity, we are even more so from paganism.
But now I think it’s pretty much the same. That "gap" has been closed.
The more a body decomposes, the more it looks like the one next to it.
That point about the "gap" between Christianity and pagan religions having closed strikes me as a genuine insight from Laeth.
It is probably what underpins such pagan revivalism as has been evident over the past half century or so: Wiccan witchcraft; Druidism; Shamanism; and revivals of neo-Celtic, -Norse, or -Anglo-Saxon polytheistic rituals and symbolism - and the like.
This has been possible because - experientially - such invented neo-paganism is overall, pretty much, just as motivating and powerful as Christianity...
The trouble is that this level power and motivation is Not Enough - in either case.
So that Christianity and the varieties of paganism are way too feeble to overcome pre-existing political beliefs.
So that both Christianity and paganisms now operate at the level of lifestyle, hobbies, fandoms - and do not do what religion historically "obviously did".
From such a recognition we may look back into history and recognize that - in terms of theosis (i.e. learning and developing spiritually during mortal life) and salvation (resurrection into Heaven after death) - None Of This Matters.
Christianity was essentially not/ never supposed-to-be a socio-economic state programme.
And it was supposed to be possible for all individuals who wanted what Jesus offered; regardless of their time, place, or personal circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment