TUESDAY
Yesterday we discussed the Christian destiny, and therefore, the Christian hope. I’ve been saying throughout this campaign that our culture has a “been there; done that” posture towards the Christian faith. Our culture has in large part benefited greatly from the Christian values that have pervaded our culture in the most recent generations. I don’t want to give us rose-colored glasses in looking back at our history. We tend to think of it as a “super Christian American culture” from the founding. This simply isn’t the case. The culture was rather dark prior to the Great Awakenings. The prominence of Christian values on a cultural level has risen and fallen at various times in our nation’s history. Now, however, those Christian values are waning rather rapidly, it seems.
Along with the waning of Christian values comes the waning of the Christian virtue of hope. Instead of the Christian vision for humanity’s destiny, our culture has largely adopted some alternatives:
- Secular Utopia
- Secular Dystopia
- Overpopulation and resource depletion—Think Thanos.
- Pandemic or other health crisis - This was a common refrain in the COVID years. Think “I am Legend” or “The Walking Dead.”
- Nuclear war - The war that will destroy a great percentage of the population and the environment.
- Technological take over - AI will take over the world someday. Think “iRobot.”
- Alien takeover - Aliens will take over the planet…not on Will Smith’s watch. Think “Men in Black” and “Independence Day.”
- Environmental catastrophe - If we don’t change our way of living, the pollution and environmental degradation will eventual make the planet uninhabitable.
- Spiritual enlightenment
The vision of humanity’s destiny in a secular utopian perspective is one of continued progress until we eventually reach a utopia of sorts. This was the promise of 20th century modernism. Post WWII the economy was mostly up and to the right. Each subsequent generation had a better economic outlook than the previous. Global politics promised peace through the United Nations and diplomacy. Scientific advancements were making life easier on every front. Social programs were eradicating poverty and slowly (and painfully?) but surely advancing justice. Marginalized groups have been gaining equality although imperfectly and not as rapidly as hoped. As MLK Jr. has said, “The arc of history is long and it bends towards justice.”
In the secular utopian perspective, much of this progress has been made without religious influence, or perhaps because religion has been relegated to its “proper place” as a privatized, isolated aspect of the society that is to be kept separate from the secular culture. Mark Sayers calls this “the kingdom without the king.” This secular utopian dream maintains the Christian framework of virtue and values while attempting to keep them without religious, spiritual components—without God himself. Much of our culture’s definitions of values such as justice, goodness, peace, human dignity are owed in large part to Christian influence in the western world. The secular utopian vision of destiny attempts to progress in those values without the source of those values.
If God isn’t the source of these values and the driving force in propagating these values, who or what is? The answer that many have turned to is humans. Most notably we have turned to the systems that we humans have created, i.e. politics. Sociologically and psychologically, politics has begun to map like a religion. People have rooted their identity in their political party because it provides them a definition of utopia (both conservative and liberal political parties provide a picture of a utopian society), a plan to accomplish it, a hope that it will one day come about, and a community to identify with.
This is the opposite of the secular utopia. This is the Nihilistic interpretation of humanity’s destiny. In this perspective hope is viewed as a childish dream. Humans are bad, the world is dangerous and the problems we are facing don’t seem to be getting any better. Lots of movies are made as prophetic warnings of a secular dystopia. They usually warn us what could happen if we fail to make appropriate changes now. The most common culprits of bringing about the secular dystopia are:
Anyways, the idea is that the world will eventually fall into a dystopia one way or another. The only thing we can do is to prevent it as long as possible.
Both secular approaches to our destiny put all the eggs in the basket of this life. There is no afterlife. There is nothing beyond this world to live for so all of our hope is in preventing a dystopia or creating a utopia. Both of these perspectives are rather bleak.
Another destiny that’s worth mentioning, as it is rising in popularity in our postmodern world, is the idea of spiritual enlightenment. Folks who claim to be “spiritual but not religious” often borrow ideas from different religions and blend them into an incoherent cocktail of religious ideas and practices that they like. One of the most common is borrowed from eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism and framed as some form of spiritual enlightenment. In this perspective the path to eliminating suffering and pain in the world is through enlightenment. This enlightenment comes by following the Noble Eightfold Path—right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. By following this path and producing good karma over the numerous reincarnations, one can achieve nirvana—a state of ultimate liberation, peace, freedom from suffering and pain, and harmony with the world. In Hinduism, meditation is the central practice to achieve oneness with oneself, others, the world, and the universal consciousness. Similarly the goal it to attain a state of liberation or moksha as one realizes their oneness with the universal consciousness or Brahman.
It’s all lofty language and sounds good on the surface and has become incredibly popular in our culture. I suspect this largely because it’s new and different while also keeping a lot of the hope that the Christian worldview holds as well. Again, this is language that is appealing but is rather nonsensical. It also lacks real power to bring about a good, desired end. In Christianity, instead of a blind hope in people achieving enlightenment, we have the all-powerful God, sovereign over the affairs of creation moving history towards his desired end.