Imagine no Religion? # 2
I read the facsimile of the 1977 church newspaper on the front of Crosslight with interest. “A world church event at a decisive hour for the faith” . Did you read it?
The preacher at the inauguration of the UCA service said it had come into being when the future of Christianity in Australia was under question.
Does it worry you that 30% of Australians claim no religion?
What lies behind this huge shift within our lifetime?
In this sermon series I am probing into this massive shift unimaginable a century ago when the Western world was presumed to be Christian.
I don’t have answers, but I do have inklings. Partly because I am fascinated by the cross-conversations about God and world religions, science and faith and doubt, history and myth, beliefs and credulity and mystical experiences.
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Jesus, and his contemporaries lived underpinned, penetrated by belief in one God. Sure, they had different takes on how the confession: Hear, O Israel The Lord is One.” (Deut 6: 4) was to be observed, but there was absolute unanimity that God was was the ultimate reality of life.
Monotheist Jews lived in the Roman Empire who didn’t share the same beliefs. Ancient Greece and Rome were largely polytheists – they believed in the existence of many gods. Proper sacrifice was a mark of pagan society, and sacrifice to God was a mark of Judaism. There were many differences between them but the big one was monotheism -the belief that there is one God – maker of heaven and earth.
Non-belief was not really an option. Atheism had been expressed by a handful of Greek philosophers, but had no real traction.
Everyone’s experience was shaped the forces of fate and destiny whether they believed in many household gods or a Creator God.
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For about a millennium – a thousand years or more – Christianity – which was shaped by Judaism – shaped the imagination and culture of the West.
The biblical stories were the grand narrative taught from cradle to grave. The acts of creation, the fall of Adam & Eve, the story of the Ark, Moses’ encounter at the burning bush, the crossing of the Red Sea and the great trek seeking the promised land. The dramas of Israel’s kings , especially King David, the prophets and the exile of Israel.
And then … light in the darkness…
The promise of the Messiah. The birth of Jesus. His life, teachings and miracles, his death and resurrection. The birth of the Church, its growth and mission. The making of the Bible. The struggles between of orthodox and heretic. The vast institution of Roman Catholic Church, and the protests against its abuses which led to the Reformation and its after-effects. The creation of denominations.
All this took place under the belief .. we believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth. And then about 200 years ago this assumption began to be disturbed.
The disturbance is called the Enlightenment, a period when scientists really started to get to work. It was a ferment when the Church’s ancient authority over everything became increasingly questioned.
Slowly, ever so slowly England and Europe, then America and Australia began to become secularised. No one was immune from its impact except those few groups and sects that withdrew from the modern world. The effects were different around the Western world.
For long centuries a Christian world view had been an umbrella over Europe. Non-believers kept quiet and were few and far between. The mediaeval Christian story focussed on the realities of heaven and hell. It wasn’t a biblical worldview, but it was a very powerful and persuasive one which for a whole host of reasons has been largely abandoned.
The emergence of science – medical, astronomy, biological – was slow at first. But humans are innately curious, and the early scientists were more curious than others, and often worked against the tide of conventions.
Take dissection of the human body as an example. For centuries it was prohibited, and scientists exhumed cadavers at night. This paved the way for ever increasing understanding of diseases and pain management. Penicillin is an example. Despite the fact that bodies are amazing in their complexity, modern medicine can sustain life in ways that were unimaginable 100 years ago – and do it without invoking God.
People have been gazing up to the stars since the beginning of humanity. “ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of the, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8)
In 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. Many space missions have followed, including treks to Mars – and many astronauts have returned to Earth safely. Genesis chapter one was read to those watching their black and white TV’s at that event, invoking the majestic story of the seven day Creation …. but astronomers don’t need to invoke God as they explore the universe.
One of my closest friends is an astronomer who teaches children to wonder at the immensity of the universe through his workshops in schools . Though he is a Christian, I don’t think he also teaches them about God.
Then, there’s the impact of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The story of evolution doesn’t necessarily need God as the creative jump start to life, although there are many Christians, as well as scientists who are relaxed about the compatibility of God and evolution.
Israeli macro-historian, Yuval Harari, wrote: “According to a 2012 survey only 15% of Americans think homo sapiens evolved through natural selection alone, free of all divine intervention; 32% maintain that humans may have evolved from earlier life forms in a process lasting millions of years , but God orchestrated this entire show; 46% believe God created humans in their current form sometime during the last 10,000 years…” (Homo Deus 2016)
Unbelievable! Over 150 years the imaginative effects of evolution have trickled down into our collective imagination and stripped the natural world of the obvious need of God. There are some brilliant syntheses between Christian belief and biology but they don’t have a lot of presence in a secular culture.
A scientific worldview – medicine, astronomy and biology are three of its fingers – dominates our collective imagination. All of us – no matter how “strong” our beliefs are deeply influenced by this massive revolution.
The great shift in consciousness is from heaven down to earth. No one planned it, there was no secret conspiracy against religion, and most people were not very aware of vast cultural changes. which happened decade-by-decade, year-by-year.
An example is information technology. If you use a computer, an Ipad, a smart phone ( or even a dumb one!) – how did it become so significant? Simply by using it, or enjoying the various benefits that info technology brings to the whole of life. It was a human, not a divine invention. Vast amounts of information, entertainment, bloggers and more than you can ever need, or consume are available at the press of keystrokes. God is not invoked – although religions are very present.
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The great shift in imagination in our era is from heaven … to earth.
From preoccupation with our eternal souls
to preoccupation with our bodies.
From a supernatural worldview
to a natural understanding of life.
From assuming God has the whole world in his hands
to a growing awareness of climate-change changing the world.
What lies at the heart of Christian faith?
The confession he came down to earth from heaven – and this incarnation changed everything ….
(to be continued)