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The Forum > Article Comments > Preaching to late modernity > Comments

Preaching to late modernity : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 30/1/2013

The Christian church has yet to work out how to enlighten and evangelise the Enlightenment.

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I think that Sellick paints a realistic picture of the state of Christian theology in his opening paragraphs. His last two sentences of the article are (no doubt unintentional) a bit arrogant, don't you think?.. Not a good way to end! "If you have ideas, give 'em, and don't pretend that you somehow are the keeper of truths unrevealed" is what I would say to him...

I note that Peter does not deal with religious belief in a pluralist sense, but that's OK. Sticking to Christianity, his starting point is the Jesus of the Gospels - that's OK except that he immediately confounds the issue with Trinitarian issues that make little sense to the 'modern rationalist' described in his first few paragraphs.

Christology starts with the immediate assumption, correctly stated by Sellick, that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.' Somehow I doubt that a leap of faith required by such a comment could be made by the "kind of person, rational, self reliant, individualist" that he talks about in his opening paragraphs! You can't have it both ways - categorise the modern individual with that descriptive language, and then leap in with a Christological statement that requires deep faith... Is that supposed to sway/convert/have meaning for the modern agnostic?

By the way, in ending, may I say some very kind (but not patronising) words about Peter's articles; They are always challenging, always interesting, and very thought-provoking! So please keep them coming!

Yuri K.
Posted by Yuri, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 11:08:49 AM
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Interesting article. The reasons given for the Christian church's declining numbers and influence sound about right.

Although I'm an agnostic (borderline atheist, in fact), I do feel that religion plays an important role in our society that no other institution has successfully duplicated. So I find it troubling that religion seems to have lost the battle with modernity.

If I can be excused a moment of melodrama, it appears to me that Mammon has beaten God. Who needs divine providence when the market provides all our needs?

On the other hand, the demise of religion has been incorrectly predicted for a very long time, and I don't think it will disappear entirely anytime soon.
Posted by Rhys Probert, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 11:54:14 AM
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I have characterised Peter's apophatic faith in the past as "God doesn't exist, but he's REEEELY important." Nothing in this article leads me to change that summary.
Posted by Jon J, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 1:59:52 PM
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Yuri
I agree, it’s nice to have Peter back. I don’t always agree with him, but I always enjoy his articles.

Peter
Welcome back!. I think your article raises lots of valid points, but I’d ask a couple of questions.

We can have Trinitarian theology without God as ‘first cause’, but we cannot have it without God as creator. To modern minds, the two are synonymous. How do we distinguish the two?

Recent Trinitarian thinking places more emphasis on the relational aspect of the trinity (perichoresis), as distinct from the three ‘persons’. Do you accept this? How does this speak to a society of atomised individuals?
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 3:06:44 PM
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What all beings require is Divine Compassion, Love and Blessing, the thread of Communion with the Living Divine Reality made certain and true and directly experienced.

Christians are by self-defintion sinners.

Sin is the active presumption of separation from the Divine Reality

To be a sinner is to be 100% God-less.

There is no Real existence until sin is transcended. All actions states of knowledge and experience are empty, painful and problematic, until the presumption of separation from the Divine Reality is utterly transcended.

There is no truly human life without Divine Communion, or the surrender of the entire conscious and functional being to the Absolute Divine Reality within which it appears, on which it depends completely.

Without that Divine Communion, there is no true humanity, no responsibility, and no real freedom. Without Divine Communion the individual is simply a fear-saturated functional entity living the an unconscious bewildered adventure in the midst of functional relations. There is thus no sacred or Divine plane to his or her awareness.

In our time the naive essentially childish "faith" of old time conventional religion has been destroyed by the triumph of the scientific materialism worldview and the establishment of the method of scientific enquiry as the paradigm of legitimate knowledge.

The scientific method is a non-participatory, abstracted, anti-psychic and anti-magical approach to life that actually operates by creating an artificial separation in what is truly an indivisible seamless reality.

In this age of scientific materialism, doubt of the intrinsic Fullness of Being is the only certainty and the only substance of mind. Therefore, people in this age are profoundly crippled in their ability to grasp matters of higher certainty, or to relate to subtler mental, magical or psychic processes. Likewise,they have been wounded at the core of their feeling-psyche wherein we are naturally and spontaneously moved toward Truth (rather that what is merely and temporarily factual and true).Therefore, this is an age in which people demonstrate little ability to understand and practice Real or Spiritual Religion.

Such is obviously the case with Peter.

In short Peter is entirely God-less, while pretending otherwise.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 3:14:13 PM
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What an extraordinary and rather unkind comment by Daffy Duck! Certainly belongs to the "Looney Tunes" category, that's for sure.

Dear Mr Duck, you are certainly entitled to your narrow and myopic views but I will say that I find your comments to be neither restrained nor relevant to any of the points made by Peter Sellick in his thoughtful article.

Maybe in re-reading your own pernicious ending, you might remember to "judge not, lest you be judged."

Yuri K.
Posted by Yuri, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 3:27:52 PM
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