Tuesday 1 November 2016

The unfolding of 2016: year of reckoning

From what I perceive, 2016 is indeed unfolding to be the year of reckoning which some have predicted - perhaps best understood as the year of choice; and more exactly the year of branching choices.

Starting from the triumphant domination of secular Leftism, it looks as if looks as if more and more of the Establishment are defecting from the programme - or are on the verge of doing-so, and as if the ruling cabal is afraid - very afraid - of a major backlash. Hence the global conspiracy of evil is trying to strike prematurely with their long-prepared plan of a mega-destructive World War III (starting in the Middle East); before the lower-level Establishment and the population of the West have been brought behind the idea.

The choices of 2016 can be seen as a branching system. Early choices are worth having - but only if the choices follow through (reasonably swiftly) will they do any more than somewhat delay the plan for comprehensive destruction of Good.

The first choice is:

Secular Leftism versus Not-secular Leftism

This is about as far as we have currently reached - a negative reaction against the prevailing trends.

Then there is a choice between:

Cynical nihilism versus Spiritual Awakening

Cynical nihilism is negative - and the Cynical Nihilist decides merely to operate on the basis of his gut-feelings, which he regards as subjective - so it is merely a kind of systematic selfishness. This is better than secular Leftism, because not actively suicidal - but CN is unstable and severely suboptimal. Spiritual awakening is therefore the way forward.

But spiritual awakening has happened before - eg. in the mid 1960s - and it is likely to be poisoned at source by the (Leftist) Sexual Revolution unless it leads to religion. So the next choice is either to retain the sexual revolution - leading to New Age spirituality or to reject the sexual revolution, which leads to religion (of one sort or another::

New Age Spirituality versus Religion

We know from experience the New Age spirituality leads nowhere, so Religion is the way forward. The next step is to 'choose your religion'. For Westerners this means Christianity of something-else:

Not-Christianity versus Christianity

If Christianity is chosen, at this point it refers to real Christianity, not Liberal Christianity - which is merely secular Leftism with some Christian top-dressing.

The re-adoption of Christianity by the West would be a major step in the right direction - but it would essentially be a 'rewind'; hence the question arises: would it be enough to prevent secular Leftism returning, just as it did in the past? I don't think so.

The next step is the most controversial - because there is a choice between one or many churches of Actually Existing Christianity - which is the world of the existing denominations, each of which claims (more-or-less) exclusivity and New Christianity - which does not exist and never has existed even conceptually except among a few specific individuals.

The Traditional Christianity versus Evolution of a New Christianity

The evolution of a New Christianity would probably evolve from one or more of the existing churches - but not be exactly the same as any of them currently are; nor would it be any kind of Liberalisation or assimilation to secular norms.

New Christianity would be (would need to be) a correction of those flaws in past Christianity which were exploited by secular Leftism - and would indeed be a restoration of a Christianity closer to the intention of Christ and more in-line with the nature and purposes of God.

That, I believe, is the destined way ahead - that is what Christianity was supposed to do way back around 1800 at the start of the Industrial Revolution and the first outburst of Romanticism - the kind envisaged by the likes of the poets Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge.

So, with New Christianity I am talking about Romantic Christianity.

So the final destination of 2016 would need to be

Romantic Christianity 

Which comes at the end of a many branched path of choices - so the chances of us getting to that destination seem remote; and anything less will - I believe - fail to suffice.

Nonetheless, any steps along that path would be very welcome - and we are currently seeing the first step being taken by ever more people.

We therefore now have a real chance; albeit a slim chance.

2 comments:

Duggus said...

Thank you for such a hopeful and clear-thinking post.

There are so many things I agree with in it, I wonder if I'm just being negative to point out where I disagree, but I'm not sure I would be contributing something by just saying "me too," so here goes:

The idea that Christianity in the past was deficient and that was why secularism arose seems like an inadequate explanation. Christianity has had moments of laxity and moments of vigor. Opposition to Christianity has had success against both. Re-adopting Christianity would unlikely be just a rewind because we could hardly unsee all that we've seen during the long reign of secularism. However, there will never be a time in this world when there won't be successful opposition to Christianity because free will is essential to our choice to know, love, and serve God (and free will means the ability to reject God). We shouldn't be so worried about a return to Christianity, and I think (given the constancy Christ promised with the gates of hell not prevailing, him being with us always etc.) there are some real reasons to be concerned about any call for a new Christianity rather than a restored one.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Duggus - It's a reasonable point. It took me several years to come to the conclusion that there needs to be a further (but not liberalising nor modernising) 'evolution' of Christianity - but I think it is true, nonetheless. It was mainly Owen Barfield who persuaded me of this; plus that I could not whole-heartedly imagine living in a society dominated by any actually existing previous church.