A New Cultural Religion?
Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Jr of the The Cranach Institute, a research and educational arm of Concordia Theological Seminary, weighs in on our culture and finds a new religion being practiced.
“Another issue that I’m tracking is what I see as the development of a new cultural religion. To the postmodernist, everyone can have his own religion if it makes him happy. Now we’re taking another step by trying to believe in all religions. Certainly we should be tolerant of other religions in a free society. However, I’m hearing in the culture, even among Christians, that all religions are equally valid and therefore all are true. I’m seeing the emergence of a new polytheism that tries to take all of the different gods and bring them into one kind of spirituality that is different from any of the religions. This is really something new.”
Veith believes that our culture is “committing suicide” and that only a return to biblical morality can save us. But I disagree that the mutual toleration of another person’s gods and a culture of polytheism is “something new”. In my view it sounds like something very old. Something fundamentally pre-Christian. Maybe a return to polytheism is the salvation from cultural suicide instead of a symptom of it.
No responses yet
