Three Counterfeits

Here are three counterfeits discussed in a leaked memo in the fictional "The Gravedigger File: Papers on The Subversion of the Modern Church" by OS Guinness.

CIVIL RELIGION

"Civil religion is counterfeit in the sense that it is religion shaped by the priorities and demands of the political order Loyalty to Caesar once again overrides loyalty to Christ.

In its American form, civil religion is that somewhat vague but treasured semi-religious semi-political beliefs and values basic to America's understanding of herself. You can witness it at its most elegant in the speeches of any presidential inauguration, or at its more homespun on any Fourth of July. The American Creed is quite different from the Apostle's Creed. The latter is basically theological, the former political; the latter a matter of sacred covenant, the former of social contract; the latter is highly distinct, the former deliberately vague. But the American Creed is no less deeply held. The charge 'un-American' is far more likely to provoke a deep reaction than the charge 'heretical'.

CONSUMER RELIGION

"A second force contributing to consumer religion has been the virtual sanctification of prosperity and success through the American dream. Religion, you remember, has been confined increasingly to the private sphere at the very time when the private sphere has become the sphere of individual gratification and consumption. This special configuration has produced a surge of conspicuous consumption in religious guise.

Notice how a complete set of principles and slogans has been created ("Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve", "Turn scars into stars", and so on). These are designed for plugging into the Apostles' Creed or the American Creed or both. The Good News and the Good Life, the Christian Way and the American Way are serviced under the same franchise."

CLOSED RELIGION

"by which I mean religion shaped by the priorities and demands of the social order... The issue at stake in this case is: What is the source of an individuals meaning and belonging?...This lack gives rise to a simple dynamic which is natural for us to harness: When social chaos, then religious cults..Freedom! was the cry of the sixties. Freedom from tradition, custom, routine, morals, authority and all that inhibited the spontaneous expression of the autonomous individual...it created a vacuum which in turn built up a consuming hunger for the very things that had been discarded.

Predictably, there was a rebound--from openness to closure, from virtual anarchy to authoritarianism...The liberated generation suddenly woke up and found itself the fatherless generation; and in the ensuing scramble for authority, community, family, and home, it showed itself decidedly unparticular...This is the context of the '70s -style surge of closed religion which reached its climax in Jonestown...

You may have noticed the sudden somersaults in some of the fringe charismatic groups, for example. One moment they were all for freedom (rejecting one-man ministry, impatient with hide-bound liturgies and traditions, overturning male domination). Then presto, and a thousand mini-popes were strutting around telling their followers what to believe, how to believe, whom to marry, with whom not to associate.

Such swings toward micro-totalitarianism were dressed up properly, of course, sailing under the flags of respectable notions such as authority, discipleship, and accountability. But unquestionably they were closed religion, the Christian faith sucked into the black hole of today's vacuum of meaning and belonging."

Monday Mini Codices

Here is today's installment:

• The new Daylight Saving Time is a pain. I wonder if the people that instituted this actually realized what ramifications this would have. Will the change fulfill its objective? Maybe not. In fact, there is the possibility that it will actually increase power usage. I've already used quite a few CPU cycles (read: more energy consumption) to support this change, and I don't manage thousands of computers. Oh, and Microsoft in typical fashion doesn't release a patch for their older OS (Windows 2000)


• Kim R's blog says that OS Guinness will be on the White horse Inn. I'm looking forward to listening to that program!
  
• Greg Bahnsen has a new book. Looks good! (HT: Ian)

Counter Culture and The Dust of Death

In the early 70's, Christian Os Guinness published a tome entitled "the Dust of Death". On the back cover it says "With the dust of death slowly settling over all of Western culture, Os Guinness charts the journey of of a generation--out from the technological wasteland and into the Promised Land of radical politics, Eastern religion, psychedelic drugs and the occult. Rejecting both the technological society and the counter culture, he calls clearly for a Third Way".

To be properly digested, this nearly 400 page volume needs to be read from cover to cover.

In commenting on how Christians are to understand supernaturalism and mysticism, Guiness states: "..there are for the Christian two supernatural areas. The first is a genuine experience of God and the second is an experience of the occult powers, the devil and evil spirits. While both are real and supernatural, only the former is legitimate; the latter is real but wrong. Understanding this, we can see that for the Christian there are still two legitimate mystical experiences. The first is natural mysticism including nature mysticism and aesthetic mysticism; the second is supernatural mysticism, a genuine experience of God. Both are legitimate forms of mysticism, but it is common error to mistake the natural mysticism for the supernatural and give it connotations that are spiritual...It can not be stressed too strongly, especially in the climate of a growing and dangerous vogue for contentless religious experience, that the mystical experience is only a part of the Christians total experience."

Then, continuing, Os Guinness responds to Timothy Leary's charge that "Every religion in world history was founded on the basis of some flipped-out visionary trip". Guinness responds by saying that "the Christian's supernatural experience of God is always in terms of truth. This judgement runs counter to much current theology let alone mysticism..There was a content to [Apostle Paul's] experience. Paul did an about-face and headed in a direction totally antithetical to that in which he had been traveling before. Clearly his was no undefined experience...Paul mentions with fascinating attention to detail that Jesus had spoken to him 'in the Jewish language'...the biblical account clearly indicates an experience that was mystical; much of it was beyond words. But it was also personal and propositional."

The Christian worldview embraces the reality of the supernatural, but at the same time the Christian message is not centered around a "trip". Christianity, as Guinness clearly expounds, is not contentless mysticism, but embraces mystical elements in a proper perspective grounded in truth and reality, with personal and propositional revelation. This, when rightly understood, provides a robust answers to the dillemas faced by the rise (and fall) of the 60's counterculture and psychedelic movement. The "trip" did not provide answers, it only raised more questions and left its adherents without a solid base to stand on. Unfortunately, many times modernist Christians have done no better, only offering yet another 'trip' (ie. religion bathed in mysticism without any sort of concept of personal and propositional revelation). Humanity does not hunger for another "trip" bathed in religious language (contentless religion), but it needs to be presented the gospel, and a gospel with propositional content.

Guinness ends the book in a powerfuly way, saying:

"The present erosion of Christian culture means the removal of the last restraining influence of the Reformation. The striptease of humanism is simply the logic of the Renaissance held in check by the Reformation for four centures but now exposed in all the extremes of its consquences. If the last twenty-five years presuppose the tensions and questions of preceding centuries, it is little wonder that the counter culture [of the 60's] is not equal to its task. Christianity has proved itself a genuine counter culture once before. It is the hour for the Third Race once again.

The second reaction will be from thoes who will say, How come? All this is very well in theory, but how can it be translated into action? As Bertrant Russell remarked in one of his more tolerant moods, 'The Christian principle, _Love your enemies_ is good...There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely.' His emphasis was not strong enough. The Christian life is not juts difficult for man; it is impossible. But it is exactly here that humanism leaves off and Christianity begins.

That is also why this uniquely 'impossible' faith--with a God who is, with an Incarnation that is earthy and historical, with a salvation that is at cross-purposes with human nature, with a Resurrection that blasts apart the finality of death--is able to provide an alternative to the sifting, settling dust of death and through a new birth open the way to life."

This book (and the citations I give here) are definately not interesting to everyone. However, to anyone who, from a Christian perspective, wants to analyize where we (as a civillization) are right now, we need to understand some of these concepts. The 60's counter culture has had a large impact on where our society is at right now. When correctly understood, the counter culture should be seen to have been responding to REAL problems (injustice, violence, unchecked rationalism, materialism, 'plastic' culture, ossified traditionalism, etc.), however the response was launched from a WRONG basis (they provided no, or at least very few satisfactory answers to the problems they saw). We are left with the shadows of that turbulent era. Do we understand it? Are we seeking to respond to the dilemas that are facing our society in 2006? Are we prepared to communicate the gospel faithfully AND understandibly to those we rub shoulders with?

Thoughts from OS Guinness

What follows is a quote from OS Guinness issuing a valid challenge for everyone to remember that our minds need to be exercised:

"Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind. Living in a sensuous culture and an increasingly emotional democracy, American evangelicals in the last generation have simultaneously toned up their bodies and dumbed down their minds. The result? Many suffer from a modern form of what the ancient stoics called 'mental hedonism'-having fit bodies but fat minds."