Issue 24 - Dissent, Re-Enchantment, and Lessons from Recent Trends
An essay about Christianity as a form of dissent against modern culture. The punchline is that the more Christianity tries to “be relevant” by adapting to the spirit of the age, the less relevant it actually becomes (why attend church if it doesn’t offer you anything you can’t get outside of the church?)
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about “re-enchantment” - the idea that Westerners are turning against a purely materialist worldview towards one that allows for transcendent reality. One piece of evidence in support of this: the number of Americans with graduate degrees who believe in miracles increased from 30% in 1991 to 61% in 2018. The author of the tweet, professor James Woods (citing research from sociologist Ryan Burge), also notes one of the corollaries of re-enchantment: “the primary opposition to Christianity today does not arise from its teachings about "supernatural" realities, but "natural" ones.” That is, for most of the last century, opposition to Christianity has been of an intellectual variety that rejected the belief in God and miracles foundational to Christianity. People are now much less skeptical of such supernatural claims. Instead, opposition to Christianity arises in large part because it doesn’t mesh with current moral standards, particularly Christianity’s teachings on gender and marriage. Something for us to keep in mind as we disciple our children and evangelize to others.
A few issues ago, I noted that for the first time in recent history, American men are more religious than American women. A related trend: an explosion in the number of young men converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. Christian academic Trevin Wax caveats that the increase is not huge in absolute terms (Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole is fairly small in America), but suggests several lessons for evangelical denominations:
1.) “Nominal Christianity is a turn-off.” Related to the first link above, if Christianity is just a side-hobby for Sunday morning, it loses its purpose. Young people are looking for something real to be part of.
2.) “Stability is compelling.” Trevin notes that “In a chaotic world, men crave rootedness and structure. Orthodoxy’s unchanging traditions appeal to this desire.” Finding ways to connect our worship and beliefs to the two thousand-year history of the Church can help build rootedness into faith traditions with more modern expressions.
3.) “Rigor and discipline are attractive.” As Trevin puts it “Evangelicals have a rich tradition of spiritual practices that can meet this need without slipping into a gospel-less legalism or a ‘journey of self-improvement’...We need to recapture the spiritual practices and postures that bring about true life-change - where the Spirit does his work in and through us.”
4.) “Worship must be God-centered”, rather than focused on entertainment or emotional manipulation.