On the departing of Christianity…

I read something last night which cannot be described as anything other than chilling. Have you ever wondered what the world will be like when the Christian framework for morality and philanthropy is completely removed from collective consciousness? I hadn’t thought about that in great depth before reading the last chapter of Atheist Delusions by D. B. Hart. He asks, “When, therefore, Christianity departs, what is left behind? [...] The story of the crucified God took everything to itself, and so – in departing – takes everything with it: habits of reverence and restraint, awe, the command of the Good within us.”

I actually shivered when I considered that the trajectory we’re on, in a society that rejects the truth and value of the Christian metanarrative, leads to “the triviality of a world that revolves around television, shopping and the Internet.” I felt, deep in my gut, a “morbid despair” and even a twinge of fear… What kind of world will it be when our only guiding principle ends up being the limitless will possessed by each headstrong individual?

“When the aspiring ape ceases to think himself a fallen angel, perhaps he will inevitably resign himself to being an ape, and then become contented with his lot, and ultimately, even rejoice that the universe demands little more from him than an ape’s contentment. If nothing else, it seems certain that post-Christian civilization will always lack the spiritual resources, or the organizing myth, necessary to produce anything like the cultural wonders that sprang up under the sheltering canopy of the religion of the God-man.” (230-231)

It’s kind of a scary thing.

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