What a weekend just past: NZ won the America's Cup [yachting] - not unexpected; and our Silver Ferns [netball] team beat the Australian Diamonds [it does happen]. But the "blows me away" factor for the weekend are two amazing cricket victories, happily, one for our women and one for our men.
The White Ferns beat South Africa to win their first ever T20 World Cup competition - and all the more surprisingly because in the run up to the tournament the team had lost 10 matches in a row!
A mere 10 or so hours before this wonderful triumph, the Black Caps beat India, in India, their first victory over India in India for 36 years (and just third victory there ever). Again, a very unexpected result, not just because a long time coming, but because recently, elsewhere in the Asian region [cricket pitches generally being a bit different there to here, favouring spin bowlers], the Black Caps had just lost two tests to Sri Lanka (not world champions, unlike India).
So, lots to smile about, read about and generally delight in.
Perhaps not quite the same if we look at religion in Aotearoa New Zealand through a "win/loss" lens.
On Saturday our local paper, The Press published an article on the currently rapid decline in religious allegiance as declared through the census. (See also here.) We are now at more than 50% of the population declaring they are not religious. The first two sentences of the article put the state of affairs bluntly:
"The deep Christian roots of New Zealand are disappearing, new census results show.
Aotearoa is becoming a more secular country as more Kiwis abandon the church."
The churches have known this for some time since our own attendance figures show decline.
If religion were a sport, the churches are currently on the losing side.
There is some news, we might call it "good", that religion may be being "replaced" by spirituality, including a new civic spirituality.
But, for Christians, who love our Lord Jesus Christ, that is not the Good News - not the news of the love of God experienced through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
We are in a tough period in our history. Whether or not this is the toughest time to be a Christian (aside from actual persecution), this is a new era for Christians, the post Christian era in which Western society, but very noticeably our Kiwi society, is collectively saying about the Gospel, "Been there, done that, no longer interested or bothered about matters of eternal significance."
From a different part of Western society, I noticed this on X/Twitter over the weekend:
The background here (I assume, as the article by Ross Douthat is behind a paywall) is the new interest in belief in God a la Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, and co. Even as "religion" declines, there can be a longing for what is lost ("a vague nostalgia for belief") but that - the argument appears to be - is insufficient for reclaiming what has been lost. [UPDATE: thanks to a correspondent I can now offer a link to another media site where the article is carried, here. At this point in time I have no time to engage with a very well considered reflection by Douthat.]
Either way, whether I am second guessing what Douthat is on about or not, there is plenty to think about in this article by Luke Bretherton.
One thing to think about is to be committed, through thick and thin, to the basics of the Christian life, including basic worship action: turning up to church regularly, which, for clarity, I propose is "at least weekly."
I suggest a challenge, putting all articles linked to here together, is whether we see the future of the church as the church - as the body of Christ, as the people of God united by belief in Christ and commitment to follow Christ - or as something else (for example, as keepers of a certain past of our society, or as useful guides and helps on the way to a new spirituality emerging).
8 comments:
This (non-sport part) is a massive question, of course. Sometimes....often...it is easy to fixate on those not going to church, as if they are doing something wrong, and when will they wake up?
In this present "low tide", I am wondering: What is the Spirit saying within me? What am I being asked to review, reconsider, let go of?
Where is the Light leading me....so the Light of the World may shine more clearly within me and out to others (neighbours, friends etc)?
I’m so pleased to see the revival of Stoicism world wide, and its wonderful guide for living a virtuous life. It actually isn’ clear to me that Christianity has ever been adopted as a guide to living, by any significant number of people calling themselves Christians. If the directives of Jesus as set forth in the New Testament constitute Christianity…. Christians have hated, killed, and oppressed each other and non-Christians since it was founded, and avarice is more characteristic of Christians than charity.
The fact that what Jesus advocated is and has been largely ignored suggests to me it is not a usable guide for living. It would be nice if we all loved one another, but we never have and I suspect never will.
Stoicism presents a more useful guide regarding how to live, and has none of the theistic baggage true Christians must always carry. There's no requirement that we love one another in the Christian sense, but respect for each other and acknowledgement that we are part of a community is something achievable, as are efforts at controlling negative emotions, desires (for riches and fame and power, things indifferent) and fears. Great effort and discipline are required, but it is a not so impossible task.
Regards Thomas
Dear Thomas,
I am sorry you've had such a bad experience of Christianity and Christians! I do sympathize and often enjoy your contributions here. But I've also experienced Christians, mostly family members, who have quietly lived lives of warmth, love, and service - being a mother to seven children in wartime Manchester, taking in foster kids that no one else will accept, setting up a youth club for homeless hungry kids on the street in an Indian city, just treating their family with more patience and kindness. No books were written about these people, but I feel they are all very close to God. Their lives were not smooth!
There's a humble version of Christianity where belief still goes on but treating others with warmth and love, quietly, consistently, is the main thing: "This is what the Lord asks of you; to act justly, to love tenderley, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8). .
Personally, I find the Christian way very hard - not because it's tremendously complicated, but at this moment in history, for all sorts of reasons, it feels hard for me to embody, often. It's hard for me to live it's true simplicity and depth and to see it lived with simplicity and depth in churches around me. Micah's way (above) sounds more easy: I find the ethics and teachings of Jesus very demanding and sometimes quite confounding too. Without a contemplative practice - be that meditation, centering prayer, waiting in the Spirit etc...or like my ancestors did, attending mass (sometimes daily!), praying the rosary, reading the bible and praying in the morning - I think we have no chance. By ourselves, we have no chance!
I hear how attractive Stoicism is for you. Sometimes I wonder if we make "love" seem very high and almost impossible in Christianity. The "respect" you speak about - respect for each other and acknowledgement of our connectedness - seems to me another way of speaking of love.
In this sharp, honest, fascinating interview, Justin Welby reports a growth in numbers for the Church of England.
While I find his spirituality different to my own, I so admire his honest, personal, connecting style... confessing his own doubts and proneness to depression, etc etc
https://youtu.be/_uCANRD0S2Q?si=n_brtz2ppfL1x5v2
Hi Mark, you make an interesting and striking point with your reference to that verse from Micah. So, do you only do good things because God ask’s you to? How would you treat people if you lost your faith? The different philosophical schools Aristotelians, Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Cynics, etc held that helping family, friends, strangers in need, is a way to make you a good person, virtuous, self-content, and happy. So that’s why you should do it. Virtue is good for your character, good for your life, good for you!
Regards Thomas
Thank you for the Justin Welby interview, Mark. It was very informative about the challenges of being the Archbishop of Canterbury plus the challenges of his early life and his own personality. I did resonate with his spirituality but disagreed with some other opinions though they were obviously well thought out. Bless him! It’s an unenviable position he is in.
Hi Thomas
Don't know if this thread is still alive and being read, but here goes....
Do I only do good things because God asks me to? No! I think I do good things because they are good, it feels good and right to do them, though I'm not sure how many good things I've done today! Maybe hurrying less in all things, that seemed and felt good. A Platonic definition of God that Christianity took up (amongst other core ideas that Christianity took up from Hellenistic philosophy, e.g. the "Logos") is God as the good, the true, and the beautiful. I assume God is immanent in all things good, true, and beautiful - whether "Christian" or not.
How would I treat people if I lost my faith? Well, I hope, but who knows! Certainly I don't believe living with compassion and respect is limited to Christianity - I mean, that's obviously not true!
I think a lot of Catholic theology had been strongly influenced by classical virtue ethics.
Cheers
Mark
Mark writes: "I think a lot of Catholic theology had been strongly influenced by classical virtue ethics."
Yes - and not just there, it featured a great deal in historical Protestant ethics ('developing a Christian character'), before the wrong turns that Bultmann and Joseph Fletcher gave to Protestant theological ethics. Alasdair Macintyre did a lot to put that train back on the right tracks of virtue ethics and the formation of character. (Bultmann and the 19th century liberal tradition were of course deeply shaped by Kant's transcendental moralism. I think of Kant in his 'Critique' as largely offering secularised Christian ethics, but in his 'Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason' he recognised the inadequacy of his proposals in 'Critique' and conceded that if morality was to have any hold on the human race, then an all-wise Divine Judge, life after death and the existence of free will were essential postulates - three things his 'Critique' claimed we could never know were true ('antinomies'). A great contradiction runs through Kant's work, probably because of the conflict between his Pietist upbringing and his capitulation to David Hume's scepticism.)
It's important also to remember that classical virtue ethics - defined by Plato then refined by his pupil Aristotle - is just a prolegomenon. The four Cardinal or Natural Virtues (prudence, justice, temperance and courage) are fine as far as they go, and (it is claimed) they can be inculcated by daily moral exercise. St Augustine was happy to receive this Platonic inheritance, and St Thomas Aquinas likewise in its Aristotelian form (the Nicomachean Ethics), but both were clear that the natural virtues which we could perhaps summon up within ourselves by self-will and education (remember that Plato and Aristotle had no concept of fallen human nature) are insufficient in themselves and need the *infusion of the Theological Virtues - faith, hope and charity (agape) - for human beings to achieve their actual telos or purpose.
Faith, for St Thomas, means trusting in the revelation of truths we could never know by simple observation of the world (e.g., the Trinity, the atoning death of Christ, the blessed state of believers).
Hope is the character of steadfast trust in God's promises. in spite of all the setbacks and disappointments we inevitably face in this life.
And charity (agape) is self-giving love of God and neighbour which brings us infinitely beyond justice (the obsessive political virtue par excellence) into forgiveness and new life. Such an idea doesn't even break surface in the best of Plato and Aristotle. They show us the nobility of human reason - and its severe limits, because, as St Augustine said, "our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.'
All three are called 'the theological virtues' because only God can infuse them in our souls. The cardinal or natural virtues show us how to live well in this world and the theological virtues *perfect them, showing us where the true end of all our striving lies: in beholding the Beatific Vision. 'What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.' (1 John 3.2-3)
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
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