7 - FROM PILLAR TO POST-

October 16, 2024

Ideas have consequences!  In that little sentence lies an important truth.

That little sentence became the title of a book, written by Richard Weaver (1948).  In the book, Weaver traces the history of some ideas introduced into Western thought in the Middle Ages and analyzes their long-term impact on the decline of Western Civilization. 

From one perspective, Christianity has enjoyed a good “run” as a cultural “influencer” (to use le terme du jour).  For roughly 1500 years Christian ideas about human nature and the good society were the rising, or the dominant, influence in the “West.”  But for the last 250 years or so, Christian standards have been in retreat and Christianity, as a cultural force, has been waning. 

The French Revolution (1787-1799) is the first major evidence of this process.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1768), Karl Marx (1818-1883), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) are three of the big-name philosophers who attacked Christian culture.  (Marx is, in my mind, the most influential intellectual of the last 200 years.)

Since the mid-20th century, the decline of Christian cultural influence” has accelerated, to the point where today, not only is its influence absent in the West, even people’s “cultural memory” of that influence is gone; hence, we have entered the Age of cultural “Posts:”

• Post-Christian

• Post-Modern

• Post-Truth

and Christians find themselves in an increasingly obvious “strange land.” (The list could include other posts-, but those are the top three.)

Each of these terms identifies a shift in cultural beliefs – that is, in the ideas that shape people’s worldview, what they value, and, therefore, how they behave.  Taken together such ideas form what has been called a “paradigm.” So, we have seen a paradigm shift. 

The emergence of the Christian West 1500+ years ago followed a paradigm shift.  That shift could be called post-pagan, as Christian (Biblical) ideas displaced a once-dominant pagan outlook.

Since ideas have consequences, a change in ideas brings new, or different, consequences.  So, what are the consequences that come with a Post-Christian, Post-Modern and Post-Truth culture?  And what causes the shift in ideas that lead to those consequences?  I find these of great interest.

I think it is self-evident that changes in ideas and beliefs do not result from change in our bodies: no change in the brain or in the way people are “programmed,” or from some “disease” or “virus;” rather, it’s the changes in what people believe and how those new beliefs affect their desires and outlook, and how these, in turn, impact what they see as acceptable and “good” choices.

If this strikes you as an odd or puzzling, consider this… 

In recent years we have seen behaviour which was unimaginable 20 years ago, behaviour that has become socially acceptable to some, but is “strange” fruit to others, including me.  Transgenderism is probably the most obvious example.  Some (many?) critics of the Trans phenomenon often describe it as “crazy” or “insane.”  This frames the explanation of the phenomenon as mental illness – in other words, as a medical problem.  I think this is mistaken, and misses the reality that the phenomenon is the product of a spiritual condition.

I will proceed – slowly – to make my case for that in posts to come...

Coming up: Restoring Reason - 1