Romantic and Christian - both are needed.
Christianity comes first, because it is the structure of reality. But without Romanticism... well, "Christianity" does not involve us, each, personally, powerfully.
Without the Romantic and personal involvement, then Christianity is just theory and/or just a social institutions. And, as of here-and-now - such a Not-Romantic Christianity Will Not motivate us sufficiently to resist the pervasive and otherwise-overwhelming evil of our civilization.
On-paper, or legal, or social religion (including Christianity) has been demonstrated to be radically insufficient. Its adherents - no matter how strident! - are actually engaging in mainstream atheist-materialist cultural activities...
Whatever they spout or assert (and no matter of what they have convinced themselves); they Actually Are doing nothing-more than socializing, doing politics, seeking status, or an economic niche, or survival - or pursuing some-other of those things that everybody does, and is encouraged to do, in the mainstream of ideology.
Such theoretically/ legalistic/ institutional Not-Romantic Christianity is literally irrelevant; it is spiritually-indistinguishable from the atheism, agnosticism or anything-but-Christianity spirituality.
Not-Romantic Christianity is no-better than the prevalent values of our society.
And, what this means in practice; is that Non-Romantic Christians will not choose the actuality of salvation after their mortal lives; for the simple reason that there are other things they want more than salvation.
And because they have assimilated the value-inversions and anti-creation values of the actual Western Civilization into-which their churches are thoroughly assimilated.
To recognize this fact, we need to understand that things really were different in the past, because people were intrinsically different.
Romanticism - the need for a personal and passionate engagement with Life; was not really "a thing" at all, until the late 1700s, and did not spread at all widely for another century.
In the more remote past - especially in the Medieval era and before - all religion was "social" in nature; and for Men of that era it was potentially very powerfully motivating. Personal engagement, motivation... these things just-happened, spontaneously - or by passive-acceptance.
Indeed; such religion with such people was for centuries (millennia) the single most powerful motivator in life, such that individuals were extremely courageous in loyalty to their church (in many religions) - men would risk and indeed sacrifice much in adherence to the Christian church.
Even monarchs (certainly not the best of Men!) could be remarkably courageous!
While Henry VIII was a monster of pride, lust and spite; his children (Mary, Elizabeth, Edward VI) all displayed tremendous individual courage and tenacity in pursuit of their religious convictions...
Even when (especially in the case of Mary and Elizabeth) they found themselves isolated, their lives in danger, and with all the powers of the state and institutional church ranged against them - each continued to be loyal to (and risked everything for) what he or she regarded as the true church.
Such motivation is now gone, and long gone; such courage in loyalty to a religious vision is now a thing of the past.
What was an automatic, passive, spontaneous involvement in Christianity - must now actively be sought as a personal necessity, a lifelong quest.
This is necessary if a Christian is to find the motivation necessary to transcend the endemic evils of Western Civilization, 2026.
What I would call a proper hierarchy of values is I think real, and I think the Medieval church defined it basically correctly with different words for different levels of love- adoration as the highest and owed exclusively to God. But a Medieval Christian didn’t seem to have enormous difficulty attaining a higher level of love for Christ such that if they converted, they continued to love fully and properly their family, tribe, spouse, children, etc., and just added above that “adoration,” like unlocking a higher level in a video game.
ReplyDeleteNearly every modern self-identified Christian I’ve examined seems unable to do this. They can only love God best by diminishing other loves in their lives. It’s quite horrible to watch, especially when it’s love of children that gets most noticeably diminished. The end result of course is a net decrease in love, which doesn’t bring anyone closer to God. A lot of Protestant theology to me seems motivated beneath the surface by this diminishment of human love, theoretically in pursuit of purer divine love, but it just isn’t how it works for us. Divine and earthly love aren’t at odds in man unless improperly ordered. They should be integrated for love to be really-real. Which is all to say that I see the lack of motivation you describe as intentionally self-inflicted.
@Mia - I think that Christian theology has always (I mean since the early days of the church) talked about love in an abstract and universal way that is more like Buddhism than what Jesus practiced and recommended.
ReplyDeleteBut in the past, people were most instinctive and spontaneous and groupish than we are now - so this didn't do much harm to most people - at least among the laity.
Nowadays there is a chaos of incomprehension, contradiction, and incoherence - plus a vast amount of deliberate and malicious disinformation! - when it comes to Love.
It used to be possible to rely upon a kind of common sense, with "mystery" to paper the cracks...
But because modern people need to know clearly "how and why" if they are to be strongly motivated ; IMO this malignant mess cannot be sorted-out until Christians sort out their incoherent (and often anti-Christian) theology - their most fundamental assumptions regarding how reality is structured and works.
The trouble is that people can claim and assert, and *sort-of* believe, almost anything - but it soon becomes evident that this belief in insufficient to motivate and en-courage adequately to avoid the pervasive corruption - and *actively* to pursue the needful Christian life.