Posted on 12/21/2003 3:46:23 PM PST by nickcarraway
Forgive me for playing prophet, but I think this will be the last Christmas of the 20th century. Yes, I know that the 20th century actually ended a few years ago, but I'm thinking of it as an era. This Christmas a certain era will end.
Call it the era of Christianity lite. Much popular religion of the century descended into mere feel-goodism. Gone was all serious reference to sin, repentance, suffering, atonement, evil, anything unpleasant.
God was in heaven and all was rosy. Say your prayers, try not to hurt anybody, never be "judgmental," and everything will come out right. Business will go well. The kids will behave. You'll never get sick. You'll acquire lots of "stuff." The Father in heaven became a Grandfather in heaven.
Christmas was similarly sterilized. When we were given anything beyond Santa Claus, coloured lights and canned carols, we might actually see a baby, a manger or a star. But Herod's massacre of the children in Bethlehem was certainly never mentioned, nor the dire warning to Mary: "A sword will pierce your soul also" (Luke 2:35).
It was rarely acknowledged that all this unrelieved sweetness and light was much at odds with the Christianity of the New Testament or the actual experience of Christians through much of their history or what ordinarily happens to us ordinary people. Business did not always go well, kids did not always behave, people did in fact get sick (and died, too) and along with all the "stuff" came credit card bills that are now, we're told, astronomical. So 20th century people gradually slipped away from the churches on the sufficient grounds that what they were saying seemed utterly unreal. Such was the era of Christianity lite.
There is convincing evidence now, however, that the era is over, and that the 21st century will see some fundamental changes. I don't mean a massive return to the church, but rather a massive turn of the churches away from Christianity lite.
The after-effect of 9-11 has been a general decline in the credibility of what's called "post-modernism," the belief there are no such things as moral truths. You have your moral truths, I have mine and no version whatever can claim to be really true. This means that the people who deliberately murdered 3,000 innocent civilians had just as good a claim to be right as those who thought otherwise. Nobody, apart perhaps from professors of "ethics," can swallow that line any more, and this has thrown the whole post-modern phenomenon into doubt.
The continuing probability of terror, wrought in the name of an Islamic God, will spur more and more thought about who or what God actually is.
A "spiritual" awakening is going on. According to a recent cover story in Time, Canadians are flocking into prayer groups that meet outside of churches, though they're often sponsored by churches. Such a ferment has preceded every major religious revival. They begin as strictly non-institutional, but they rarely remain that way. Genuine "spirituality" makes people want to do things for God. So corporate action follows and some sort of institution becomes necessary. "Spirituality," in other words invariably turns into "religion."
This may sound extreme, but I think it will happen. Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion, will prove to be the most attended Hollywood movie ever made. (This excludes, of course, the Campus Crusade movie Jesus which is already and by far the most attended movie ever made, but it is not usually considered a Hollywood product.)
The Gibson production is emphatically not Christianity Lite. It portrays the crucifixion for what it was, "a bloody, dusty, sweaty and sordid business." That is, it follows the New Testament account. Never has a movie received so much advance attention - an 18-page review in the New Yorker, columns in every major American newspaper, sophisticated Washington crowds openly weeping. It will hit very hard.
So consider this the last Merry Christmas in the age of Christianity lite. The new century will see a new Christianity which in fact is the old one. And a very different Christmas. Less sugary, but far more real. And it's about time.
I have recently begun reading the bookn at the urging of my daughter. (who is a youth minister and decidely not "new age")
I haven't seen any of that which has been charged so far. I'll read it very carefully and decide for myself before I agree or disagree with the other poster.
Thanks, but I mispoke. I should have said ...like a fir tree. God didn't say he was a fir tree.
1TH 4:13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.
Sure sounds like a Rapture to me! This thread reminds me of the chiding I received last Christmas at FR, when I had the audacity to assert that Mary was not raped by God, that Mary had the free will to refuse but to our great blessing she volunteered to receive The Christ, that God knew her heart before He sent the Angel to her ... God Bless the Mother of Christ for she chose Life, that we may have eternal blessing through her beatification (is that the right word?... squabbling sows (sews) so much confusion ...)
Figured I'd throw in a bit of fun -- "Immaculate Conception" refers not to Jesus' being born without sin by a virgin, but to Mary's supposedly being born without sin. That's according to Roman Catholic doctrine....
Which one? Where is the headquarters? I think there are more than 2. Thanks.
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