{"id":30680,"date":"2018-01-04T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=30680"},"modified":"2018-01-08T08:35:12","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T13:35:12","slug":"new-religions-rushing-into-the-void-old-religions-rushing-off-the-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/01\/new-religions-rushing-into-the-void-old-religions-rushing-off-the-cliff\/","title":{"rendered":"New Religions Rushing into the Void"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"woman-865021_1280\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A culture that is\u00a0\u201cspiritual but not religious\u201d\u2013made up of people who have mystical impulses but reject the existing organized religions\u2013is a fertile ground for the introduction of new religions.\u00a0 We have blogged about a leftist version of \u201ccivil religion<\/a>,\u201d which\u00a0invests the state and the government with religious meaning.\u00a0 We have blogged about how the sexual revolution <\/a>has\u00a0morphed into a new religion.\u00a0 We have blogged about the new religion that worships Artificial Intelligence<\/a>.\u00a0 And more new religions are emerging.<\/p>\n

\n

Joel Kotkin, the \u201cnew urbanist\u201d architect who has become a perceptive cultural observer, discusses this phenomenon in a recent article\u00a0\u00a0Is the end near for religion?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

He discusses how some are creating religions based on technology and adds\u00a0a new religion that we haven\u2019t considered here yet:\u00a0 \u201cOne faith system follows the call of \u2018Gaia,\u2019 or Earth, a kind of neo-druidism based on an often puritanical form of earth-worship. It apostles include onetime Jesuit Jerry Brown, Bill McKibben and Al Gore, whose views are increasingly considered gospel in the media and on college campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

What struck me most about\u00a0Kotkin\u2019s article is his assessment of how both conservative and liberal Christians (as well as Jews) have hurt their cause and their credibility by their politicization, which he considers \u201cthe biggest threat to religion.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He takes up the familiar account of evangelicals discrediting themselves by their pursuit of power, even at the cost of jettisoning their moral standards in supporting figures like Donald Trump and Roy Moore.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t think that\u2019s really what evangelicals did, but evangelicalism\u00a0has certainly become discredited.)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But Kotkin then points out that \u201cprogressive Christians\u201d\u00a0have also politicized themselves at the expense of their credibility:<\/div>\n
\n
Not to be outdone, the religious left \u2014 in both liberal Jewish and mainstream Christian churches \u2014 seems intent on transforming faith into a politically correct creed, with even George Washington\u2019s own church in Alexandria disowning our first president. Groups like Faithinpubliclife.org demonstrate embrace of the progressive agenda, but are funded in large part by George Soros, probably the world\u2019s most influential promotor of atheism. Not surprisingly, these apostles of tolerance seem to find little wrong when senators attack religious Catholics in confirmation hearings, a kind of McCarthyism of the left.<\/div>\n

This may earn them support of the media and large parts of the political class, but turning religion into a form of progressivism has done little to slow their own demographic decline. Mainstream Protestant churches, the largest base of the religious left, have lost over 5 million adult members since 2007 and are doing even worse among millennials than other faiths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Politicized faith of any kind has little appeal among the \u201cspiritual but not religious,\u201d in my opinion,\u00a0because those interested in \u201cspirituality\u201d\u00a0crave the otherworldly.\u00a0 Too much fixation on the policy details of\u00a0this<\/em> world is of little interest to the mystically inclined.\u00a0 (Though idolatries of nature, leaders, sex, technology, and other realities that defy rational understanding can still be the focus of mystical devotion.)<\/p>\n

Demographically, though, says Kotkin, traditional religion will win out in the long run.\u00a0 This is because followers of traditional religions have more children than secularists or advocates of these new religions.\u00a0 In the meantime, religions and spiritualities will be competing with each other.<\/p>\n

Questions for our reflection and discussion:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0 Can you think of other \u201cnew religions\u201d that are emerging?<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0 Is the criticism of religious \u201cpoliticization\u201d really fair?\u00a0Could the problem be that politicians have intruded on the religious and moral sphere and religious people are, quite naturally for a living religion, pushing back?<\/p>\n

(3)\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t the demographic argument for the triumph of traditional religions assume the fallacy that religion is a matter of fixed identity (like race or ethnicity) rather than beliefs?\u00a0 If\u00a0this projection is to be valid, don\u2019t parents who hold to traditional religions need to pass them on to their children?\u00a0 Do they need to be doing a better job at that?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Foundry, via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the criticism of religious \u201cpoliticization\u201d really fair? Could the problem be that politicians have intruded on the religious and moral sphere and religious people are, quite naturally for a living religion, pushing back?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":30701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,36,39,42],"tags":[6023,6025,1569,6024,6022],"class_list":["post-30680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-family","category-politics","category-religions","category-social-science","tag-conservative-christianity","tag-gaia-worship","tag-new-religions","tag-politicization-of-religion","tag-progressive-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Religions Rushing into the Void<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some say that being "spiritual but not religious" encourages the rise of new religions, as traditional religions fade due to 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