I was exploring this theme a little on the phone today with Fulano. I believe you already know about Fulano, Gentle Reader. He is my imaginary friend with whom I chatter in Spanish on the phone while I`m out for a walk. I then play back my monologue to get an idea of how my Spanish is sounding that day. Very interesting subjects come up. For example, I was exploring the whole idea of the secular versus the sacred. It is common parlance that we live in a post-Christian, post-religious culture. But really, when we consider the content of the Gospels of Christ it is not easy to imagine that maybe there has never been such a thing as an authentically Christian culture.
For example, I was just listening to a segment on the CBC Radio One, the local late afternoon program called, On the Coast. Apparently, a local art gallery is featuring an exhibit that involves videos made in the Eighties by fundamentalist Christians against the so-called evil influence of heavy metal music. Of course the videos are lame and amateurish and naturally there is little or no conclusive evidence to indict heavy metal performers as arbiters of Satan. My issue is the lack of respect in the conversation, that it exists purely to mock and discredit without considering any of the subtle subtexts in the issue, not to mention that there could still be some substance to the argument raised by fundamentalist Christians. The host of On the Coast, Stephen Quinn, didn't help matters either when he tried to do his, admittedly creepy and authentic-sounding, Satan-voice on the air. I did phone in a comment suggesting that they might spend less energy on attacking Christianity (they never seem to have derisive comments about other faiths) and more on encouraging a respectful conversation.
All said, the concerned Christians of course were very earnest and somewhat pathetic. Their big problem? Their assumption that Christianity was, or ever was, a real defining characteristic of Western Civilization. And the following assumption that they had to do something to regain lost ground. And their inability to really make a coherent conversation about the complex and very uneasy dance between religion and culture. They really sat up and begged for the derisive treatment, even if that doesn't justify or excuse Mr. Quinn's impromptu performance today.
I actually like a lot of the developments in our culture since we really ditched religion: huge advances in human rights, feminism, gay rights, proactive concern for the environment: all things that Christianity could have and should have served up for us over the centuries and defaulted in spades. Why? Because by the time Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire it had already been bastardized and eviscerated into a corrupt shell of the faith of Jesus Christ and his Apostles and that is the kind of Christianity that has been dished out to us over the centuries, condoning, justifying, and enacting mass murder, war, inquisitions, witch and heretic burnings. By the time the Protestant Reformation came along it was already too little too late.
This isn't to say that nothing useful or socially redemptive hasn't come to us through the Christian cultural influence: hospitals, care for the poor and needy, the abolition of slavery, great works of art, music and literature, to name a few. But there never was a golden age of cultural Christianity and likely, Ernestine, there will never be one. It is not going to happen.
But this doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility of individuals and small groups of Christians through lives of prayer and consecration and faithfulness bringing about such change in our lives and society such as we have never dreamed.
Stop laughing, Stephen, and yes, I am sending you the link. Make sure you read it and yes I do expect a reply.
No comments:
Post a Comment