Our Post-Christian Society

[Geee]

National Review:

It is often said that we live in a post-Christian society. That is true, but its meaning is generally misunderstood. A post-Christian society is not merely a society in which agnosticism or atheism is the prevailing fundamental belief. It is a society rooted in the history, culture, and practices of Christianity but in which the religious beliefs of Christianity have been either rejected or, worse, forgotten. In other words a post-Christian society is a particular sort of Christian society. It is quite different, for instance, from a post-Muslim or a post-Buddhist society (if we can imagine such things). At an emotional level, its Christian character explains why many agnostics and atheists nonetheless find Christian hymns suitable and comforting at occasions such as funerals and weddings. Intellectually, its dormant Christian beliefs — notably those about the nature of Man — underpin our ideas on politics and foreign policy, as for instance on human rights. Even the Enlightenment — which strong secularists like to cite as the foundation of Western liberal polities — is an extension of Christianity as much as a rejection of it. In short, though much of what Christianity taught is forgotten, even unknown, by modern Europeans and Americans, they nonetheless act on its teachings every day.

[Valin]

But there are consequences to forgetting truths. One consequence is that while we instinctively want to preserve the morals and manners of the Christian tradition, we cannot quite explain or defend them intellectually.

Way to many people just assume the machine will go on when we leave the rules behind. Hook ups? Nah they don't have any consequences, single parent households...why should that matter. How dare you try to tell me how to live? I am the Master of my fate, the captain of my soul.

 

Point being yes the societal does go on...for a while, then we see it begin to go off the rails and over a cliff 1st with the poor then the middle class and eventually the leaders (see Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

 

 

(speaking as a Christian) There are good reasons the Bible tells us not to do certain things. And its not that God doesn't want us to live good happy fulfilled lives. Don't lie...steal...cheat, can't have a well ordered society where people don't trust each other. No sex outside marriage...AIDS/STD/millions of abortions anyone?

All religions give us a frame work for how we should live, what we should and shouldn't do. We (in the west) have decided to throw out those old outdated rules, we're too smart to need them.

 

That light at the end of the tunnel may very well be an oncoming train.