Discernment

 "Not from the East or West, and not from the desert comes vindication, but from the Lord who executes judgement, bringing down some and raising others". 

Psalm 75: 6& 7.

Around a decade ago, I was prompted to examine the written materials of Charles Taylor, known for his insights on dealing with the inherent beliefs regarding the present. Fortunately, Professor James Smith (also an award-winning author), had just produced a work (How Not to be Secular) to provide a means to unpack Taylor's work, hence supplying a gateway into this body of writings.

Taylor's analysis on the present ideological state of play is deemed as vital by many modern writers and teaches (especially those affirming the social justice version of Christianity). Tim Keller (a good representative of this clan), for example, views the insights provided by Taylor as a means of valuable impact on what should often be provided through the pulpit.

So what does such material have to say?

Smith's examination unpacks the gradual shift in culture from what had been assumed ("Cosmos") to what is presently assumed ("Universe"), where reform became the driving force as the means of reducing what was valued (supposedly deriving entirely from the application of reason). This, he argues, allowed both Calvin and Loyola to be defined as true agents of such radical but 'essential' change. Where Taylor's analysis of all this crucially fails is the manner in which he sees the source of secularism as being purely this mode of 'reforming' (a rejection of 'old religion' and it's immersion in the mystical and sacramental). Emptying the meta-narrative of the transcendent, we equally dismiss the role of the sacred and hence, modernity then gradually moves society to the entirely secular.

Taylor views all of this as a 'radical simplification' of what counts, divorcing the actual higher (spiritual) realm from our pursuit of the imminent, but an equally serious fault lies in his very analysis.

Professor of Sociology and History, Jacques Ellul, in the opening chapter of his sobering work, The Subversion of Christianity, shows that the acidic 'Secularism' which Taylor identifies as the bane of genuine spirituality was clearly at work in the church much, much earlier, not merely in the 1500's, but at the close of the 4th century, culminating in the employment of religious power which allowed the rising call for reform to gain a means of expression so many centuries later.

This was not, as Taylor and others suggest, through the 'twinned' expressions of Geneva and Trent (however dominant they are today), but the theological imperatives, saturated in classical Christianity, expressed in the church and university of Wittenberg - the work of the likes of Martin Luther.

It is essential that this key distinction is made, because the actual reform draws directly from the Apostolic source of the faith and not the philosophical 'adjustments' which followed on the heels of this.

Just as there is a fundamental difference in both the source and consequences between the revolutions of 1776 (America - Christianity) and 1789 (France - Modernism), so it is in respect to the reformational events in Europe in the 1500's. As theologian Alister Mc Grath notes in his work, Reformation Thought, the true reform movement in Wittenberg was born of purely theological imperatives (the very nature of the Gospel) - what then followed in Geneva was equally attributable  to essentially humanistic considerations.

The consequences of the social and political polarisation of the 'elites' (secularised reformers), be they Politicians or Bishops, is a presumption that such have gained almost entire control of the vital organs of the various cultural systems, but focusing here has meant an ignoring of the 'muscle and sinew' of this very system, causing it to gradually atrophy and wither. Thankfully, there are those even now who look beyond such fevered means for nourishment and truth - to that which is Apostolic in nature, escaping the canker currently ruining so much.

Pernicious, despotic 'ideals' leave us disrobed of what must teach us.

Christ was stripped of all dignity and worth at the Cross. Those who believed they had power viewed Him as properly disgraced by their will, but they had no conception of what was actually occurring - a total redemption that entirely overturns the "natural" order (and assures the "weighing" of all those who view themselves as right and strong, by the Lord who truly executes eternal power).

The Gospel upturns our world entirely, and theology must always be sourced from this vibrant, unchanging core.

When the church builds a Christendom uncoupled from the bedrock of the faith, then we derive what is valid from a foul, polluted source. What must be faced is such a degradation, evidenced in much of church history. This has lead to a paganising of the present 'practice' of the faith in so many religious realms and the key demeaning of culture.

We must return to the 'old paths, wherein lies the good way', and there find Christ alone.