Two mythbusters

1. Reclaiming the Baby
2. The Religion of our Founders

There may be ways of “getting well” that don’t start with figuring out what ails us, but it seems worthwhile to note that Protestantism may be inherently destructive, never conservative, and that the Founders of America were neither Christians nor deists.

1

Whereas in the Middle Ages Christianity had provided the social glue and fundamental sense of meaning and purpose for human existence, in the modern world these crucial functions have been taken over by consumerism. We cannot agree on anything of any significance, for, owing to the unintended effects of the Reformation, we have lost all sense of a universal truth and universal moral standard. But we can agree that we should produce and purchase as many goods as possible, for this makes us happy and wealthy. We have substituted the good life for the goods life, to borrow Gregory’s term. We know human rights are important to our way of life, but we can no longer agree on a foundation for them, so we argue a lot, listen very little, never arrive at consensus, and then to go shopping, trying in vain to consume our way out of our dire dilemma.

(The Reformation is Still Relevant – Really Relevant)

I have worried a lot about what our culture actually has in common to hold it together when it (supposedly) privileges no claims about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Not even 42.

I used to say what held us together was network TV and the shopping mall. Now network TV has waned in importance. I’m glad to see that a scholar, Brad Gregory, agrees with my synecdoche about what’s left. And I’m glad that some scholars at Valparaiso University assembled to discuss his provocative broader thesis:

How has modern western society come to be the way it is — namely, hyperpluralized? How are we to account historically for the fact that contemporary western society is host to a dizzying array of incompatible truth claims on nearly all matters of ultimate importance? How are we, furthermore, to understand the increasingly fractious and polarized nature of politics, especially in the United States, and the incessant culture wars that afflict this country? Why do we seem to be powerless to curb consumerism and the way it contributes to global climate change? Finally, why is it that the public square of most western democracies is so secular and our public universities have no place for God?

Answer: The Protestant Reformation.

This is the argument of Brad Gregory’s important and ambitious new book, “The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society.” …

Gregory thinks that the Protestant emphasis on the Bible as the sole source of authority in Christian theology coupled with the insistence on the individual’s right to interpret it for him- or herself goes a long way toward explaining the shape of the modern world and its many besetting problems. In their effort to reform medieval Christendom, Protestant reformers unwittingly and unintentionally planted the seeds of modern secularism in the soil of early modern Europe. They did so through their many debates about what the Bible actually says, debates that were never successfully resolved and therefore produced multiple contradictory religious truth claims. The result was a growing lack of confidence in religious truth itself that contributed directly to the marginalization of theology and God from life in the modern period ….

(Id, hyperlink added) Being Protestants, the Valparaiso scholars predictably reached no consensus.

Is it possible to turn back the clock, to regain some common certitude? Humanly speaking, I think not. How can you do that if you have no touchstone, some common premise with clear, uncontrovertible implications?

“America as we’ve known it” isn’t coming back. I don’t think we should even want it to come back. We’re where we are because of its contradictions, after all.

But some scholars assembled to talk about what may be the root issue, and ideas have consequences.

2

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, one of our great Anglophone Orthodox homilists, reflects on the Lordship of Christ and the Christian message more generally, contrasting the proper understanding to three common substitutes: Cultural, Aesthetical and Political.

The first is cultural or philosophical, and is typified by America’s Founders, who were neither Christian nor deist. They weren’t Christian because they disbelieved every major Christian doctrine. They weren’t deists because they believed in divine providence. They were “theistic rationalists,” as Gregg L. Frazer, author of the 2012 The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders, characterized it.

I, a partisan of the deist school, stand corrected.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.