The Areopagus Update Jan/Feb 2024
Are we living in “the last days” of our uniquely Christian-influenced society and culture?
Since its founding in the late 18th century, America has been a unique nation in all of world history – one founded on such revolutionary but nonetheless “self-evident” creeds as “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” such as “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” and such fundamental natural moral law principles as equal justice under the law in an equal opportunity society. Truly, Americans have been uniquely blessed and privileged.
But in recent decades these founding precepts have been undermined, ridiculed and rejected by those determined (in the words of Barack Obama) to “fundamentally transform” America into a modern secular/socialist state – a godless system in which any individual rights we possess are granted not by our Creator but by an imperious and ever-intrusive government that is determined to control virtually every area of our lives.
For years we have heard and read warnings by informed Christians and social conservatives in general that “the next election is the most crucial election since at least the Civil War.” Many Americans blow this off as alarmist hyperbole by those who live perpetually under the ominous illusion that “the sky is falling” when, in fact, what we are witnessing is simply “progress.”
But the consequences of these troubling trends are apparent to those with clear and open minds, and in fact we have reached the proverbial tippingpoint beyond which traditional American values – including freedom of expression and even religious liberty itself – will be irredeemably and irrevocably lost. Driven by the political agenda of radical cultural Marxists in the Democratic Party and acceded to by their liberal allies (“useful idiots,” as Lenin called them), virtually every sector of our society and culture is being secularized, socialized, sexualized and racialized to the point that any residual Christian and natural law-influenced beliefs, values and practices have been purged from most all our major institutions from corporate America to our legal, political and education establishments. Even the entertainment/ industrial complex – everything from Hollywood, the music industry and social media to college and professional sports – promotes this toxic neo-Marxist (i.e., “woke”) agenda. Most egregiously, so do many churches and entire denominations. Few pastors, church leaders, seminary professors or Christian educators seem to have the knowledge, the wisdom and the courage to stand up and speak out against these trends.
It is not irrational to contend that 2024 might be our last opportunity to intervene and interrupt this manic cultural suicide and begin to reverse some of these perverse trends that have so polluted and poisoned our society and culture over the past several decades.
In December of 2017 a PhD student at the Univesity of Stirling in England came across a long-forgotten article by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947, entitled “A Christmas Sermon for Pagans,” in which Lewis, an astute cultural observer, argued that Great Britain and the rest of the West (including, of course, America) was rapidly being “de-Christianized” and, in the process, “repaganized.” But modern paganism is markedly different from that of ancient times. Pre-Christian paganism was typically polytheistic nature-worship in which devotees believed they lived in a mystical world animated by various spirit-beings and “gods” to whom they were, in effect, morally accountable. In that regard, humanity sensed that there were “Higher Powers” whom they must serve or else suffer the consequences.
Modern post-Christian paganism, however, is actually far worse. It is explicitly secular (i.e., godless), humanistic (i.e., ego-centered), morally relativistic, and devoid of any “Higher Power” or transcendent Being to whom mankind is accountable. It is also, of course, explicitly anti-Christian. Lewis might have been right regarding the demise of true spirituality and morality in Western civilization in the immediate aftermath of World War II, but today we realize that the human problem is considerably more complex. In an October 2023 article in First Things journal entitled “We Are Repaganizing,” author Louise Perry argues that the influence of Christianity on Western civilization, despite its considerable and transformative contributions over the past 1700 years, has always been somewhat compromised by residual pagan influences and practices that have particularly proliferated over the past century due to the re-emergence of secular humanism and, in particular, the sexual revolution. Whereas pre-Christian paganism was understandable (but no less destructive) given the dark realities of human nature, post-Christian paganism is absolutely catastrophic in terms of its spiritual and moral effects on our society and culture. Meanwhile, as Perry describes it, Christianity is being systematically marginalized to the point that it is once again “retreating to the catacombs.”
In most every respect – spiritually, morally, socially, economically and politically – America is in the throes of cultural suicide. As Christians, we have a responsibility to be well-informed and actively engaged in the great spiritual, moral, cultural and political issues of our day so as to fulfill our calling as a source of Light, Love, Hope and Truth. In that regard, the 2024 election can perhaps contribute to a new spiritual and cultural renaissance in America or else seal our nation’s decline and collapse. Wholistic Christian discipleship requires that we take our citizenship responsibilities seriously. To do otherwise is cowardly and irresponsible.
