More and more young Christians, disillusioned by the political binaries, economic uncertainties and spiritual emptiness that have come to define modern America, are finding solace in a decidedly anti-modern vision of faith. As the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns throw the failures of the current social order into stark relief, old forms of religiosity offer a glimpse of the transcendent beyond the present.As I read that, I thought of "Why Liberalism Failed", a book that does a good job of covering the emptiness of chasing pleasure, money, your political tribe, etc. "Liberalism" both in the sense of free market consumerism and radical "progressive" individualism has clearly failed.
Many of us call ourselves “Weird Christians,” albeit partly in jest. What we have in common is that we see a return to old-school forms of worship as a way of escaping from the crisis of modernity and the liberal-capitalist faith in individualism.
I kept reading and low and behold there was Rod Dreher!
Likewise for Rod Dreher, a senior editor and blogger for The American Conservative magazine and the author of “The Benedict Option,” a best-selling 2017 book that argues that Christians should abandon the culture wars and focus on living in intentional, godly communities. Aesthetics were a powerful first step toward his conversion — first to Catholicism, then to the Orthodox Church.
I have blogged on "The Benedict Option" as well. I enjoy Dreher's thoughts -- my view is that he is falling into the trap of "you can't be too orthodox", though I think he makes some excellent points!
To to an always interested, often appalled observer of the "Post Boomers" like myself, it is not surprising at all that they believe they can find "god" on the internet!
To to an always interested, often appalled observer of the "Post Boomers" like myself, it is not surprising at all that they believe they can find "god" on the internet!
Thus, the "Weird Christians" find their "god" there!
Social media platforms, with their millions of users and algorithms designed to expose users to like-minded individuals, are fertile soil for communities like Weird Catholic Twitter, a loose umbrella term for a few hundred mostly millennial, extremely online Catholics. (There are smaller Anglican and Orthodox equivalents.)
As everything in the "Post Modern" world, it's all about ME! **ME** finding something "real" (cuz it FEELS real) to **ME**!!!
The Weird Christian movement, loose and fledgling though it is, isn’t just about its punk-traditionalist aesthetic, a valorization of a half-imagined past. It is at its most potent when it challenges the present, and reimagines the future. Its adherents are, like so many young Americans of all religious persuasions, characterized by their hunger for something more than contemporary American culture can offer, something transcendent, politically meaningful, personally challenging. Like the hipster obsession with “authenticity” that marked the mid-2010s, the rise of Weird Christianity reflects America’s unfulfilled desire for, well, something real.
Here is something REAL!
O Almighty God, merciful Father,
I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess to You all my sins and iniquities, with which I have ever offended You and justly deserve Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them; and I pray You, of Your boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.
Confessed with faith, in a church within a Divine Service, through an ordained minister ... "Drive by", "virtual", etc need not apply. Satan is all about presenting easy options that "feel good"!
No comments:
Post a Comment