why did christianity come to an end in the UK?
a: because it became too liberal: church men said 'it's all about ethics and spirituality, you don't need to worry about all the Jesus and God stuff' and people said 'if we don't have to worry about all the Jesus and God stuff we don't see why we should worry about all the vicars and hymns stuff either''
-- solution: start to preach that ol' time religion again
b: because it didn't become liberal enough: people wanted spirituality and moral guidance and all they got was creeds and ancient texts
-- solution: apologise to J.A.T Robinson
c i: because the institution itself became corrupt -- people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that shielded child molesters and diverted funds into the hands of flamboyant televangelists
-- solution: be less evil
c ii: because the institution failed to move with the times: people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that didn't recognise women's vocations, couldn't accept LGBTQ+ people, wouldn't acknowledge its historical role in slavery and segregation etc
-- solution: be less evil
c iii: because the institution became too woke: people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that kept banging on about slavery and women and LGBTQ+ rights
-- solution: be, er, more evil
d i: because the basic premises of christianity became impossible to sustain: people ceased to believe in god because god's existence became impossible to believe in and therefore stopped supporting an institution which did believe in it
-- solution: none; accept that the church was an historical mistake and move on
d ii: because changes in social mores revealed the situation that has always existed; a very small number of believers and a very large number of indifferent or hostile persons who no longer feel social pressure to attend service
-- solution: none -- both believers and skeptics should welcome the new situation although it does create an issue about what to do with all the pretty buildings scattered round the countryside
why did liberalism come to an end in America and the UK
a:
I know this is the point, I do, but even so, minor correction to d-ii: with all the usual due respect, I cannae be having with the equivocation between "theism" and "Christianity" here. It may be that belief in God-in-general remains unfalsifiable, but the public no longer feels convinced by the historical claims about the alleged first-century messiah in particular.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to be exhaustive here. I could also have included e i: The church insists on 19th century hymn tunes and 16th century liturgy which make it seem irrelevant e ii: The church keeps trying to update its liturgy and using modern pop music which makes it seem embarrassingly trendy. I don't think you would disagree that "fewer people believe in god" is one probable reason why fewer people identify as Christians. Certainly "and few of those who do believe in god believe in the specific Christian theological claim about Jesus" would be another reason. And there is also the issue of my saying "people" when I probably mean "white people": it's an observable fact that large numbers of people of Asian and Somali heritage attend Mosque; and non conformist Christian pews have been somewhat replenished by black British families. But as you say, none of this is actually the point of my little squib.
Delete(Agh, just realised I forgot the "not" in "not the point"; I'm grateful that you seem to have re-added it.) Yes, yes, of course. Just wanted to say.
DeleteThe problem is that "God, Jesus, mass and Evensong" and "ethics and spirituality" are seen as separable at all. "Spirituallty" is the experience of God, who is spirit, which is God. Mass and Evensong are a space to experience God or they are a just a concert and sing-song in uncomfortable seats. God is love and ethics a response to love, which is a response to God, recognised or unrecognised (because God is love) and Jesus is love and responding to Jesus is love, which is ethics, which is spirituality. Christianity is doomed if they all aren't the same damn thing.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't necessarily trying to write a discourse on the decline of Anglicanism in 300 words. There is no doubt that some people put the decline of the church down to excessive liberalisation; and some who put it down to a refusal to move with times.
ReplyDeleteSpirituality doesn't just mean "experience of God = Spirit = God." Otherwise it would be impossible to talk about, say, Buddhist spirituality.
Some people think that the rituals and disciplines of the Church still have value even if you don't believe in them; and some people think that if you do believe in them the rituals and disciplines are unnecessary or positively off putting. (It is a very dated book, in some respects, but Honest to God is still worth a read.)
When I said "God and Jesus and Mass and Evensong" I was trying to refer to the traditional practice of Christianity -- the person who goes to Church because it is a Church, not (by hypothesis) in order to show off his nice hat or meet respectable neighbours or get his children into a better school or because he likes weak coffee and soft digestive biscuits. I intended to convey that some people who want to practice traditional Christianity had been put off doing so for secondary reasons -- bad behaviour by the clergy, political disagreements, feeling alienated by aspects of the liturgy, etc.
Granted that God = love = ethics = God = Jesus = ethics = spirituality, a clergyman still has to decide if he is going to preach an ethical sermon about the proper Christian response to the middle-east crisis; or to dramatically bring to life the story of Jesus and the Cyro-Phoenician woman; or to explain how the Chalcedon controversy is relevant to modern believers -- and whether to illustrate it with classical organ music, a black gospel choir, or a local lad performing Christian rap.
I didn't, of course really mean to start a discussion on this point. As Achille spotted, this wasn't really what I was writing about.