Everyone recognises that we live at a time of crisis, whether that be spiritual or material. We might call it by different names and have different degrees of insight into the reality of our present predicament but any thinking person knows we are in trouble. Talk about the massive amount of government and private debt, about societal breakdown or climate change (if you believe in that) or about the complete loss of direction of Western societies. All these, real or imagined, are indicative of some sort of crisis but they are just the froth on the surface. Everyone reading this blog will know that the true crisis is spiritual but even those who don't recognise that realise that something is amiss and badly so.
So, what's the solution?
There is no solution and those who look for one or, worse, try to enforce one will only increase the chaos and confusion. There is no solution because we live at the end of an age or cycle which means we are in a phase of universal decline and increasing disorder. To say this is not to be pessimistic or negative. It's just a plain fact. The world goes through cycles which follow the natural pattern of spring, summer, autumn or fall and winter. To recognise we are deep in winter is simply to see the truth. To seek a solution to that is like an old person pretending to be young and, not coincidentally, that is something we do often see nowadays. In the case of modern man there is a mass falling away from spiritual belief which leads to materialism and atheism to begin with and then in many cases to various false spiritualities. This is the way the world goes when the initial burst of spiritual energy behind the forces that set it in motion starts to fade away and humans make their own reality.
We are in the Kali Yuga or End Times which were predicted and were predictable because the tendencies to decline, loss and value inversion are typical of matter replacing spirit as the predominating force, that being a basic definition of the Kali Yuga. The beginning of a cycle sees the injection of spirit into the world system. This determines the path to be followed but over time its force decreases though the framework it has built remains and can even be developed. But eventually material conditions overwhelm that and then they begin to dominate. There is no solution to this other than to build an inner ark and that is the test of these times. To maintain faith in a world which has either lost it or corrupted it. But this is how the wheat is sorted out from the chaff which you may find an objectionable metaphor given its implications but take that up with John the Baptist.
The world is primarily designed to develop consciousness but at certain times it also has the function of testing the soul. This is one of those times. The test now is for the soul to acknowledge and turn to God as its Creator but also to recognise evil as that which opposes God and his purpose for creation. It is no good simply believing in God if you are not on his side. That just means the God you choose to believe in is one of your own imagining which is the case for many. Humanity has reached a point at which it must make a conscious choice to align itself with God, and the nature of the world today is that this must take place on an individual level. In the past we operated collectively because the culture inclined us in a certain direction but now the culture is in the service of anti-God forces and we have to stand against that if we are to succeed spiritually.
Don't be deceived by people who say that a spiritual person has above all else to be a good person. Good by what criteria? First and foremost, we have to recognise what spiritual good is and consciously, completely, align ourselves with that. It is the full acknowledgement of God. No more and no less. Obviously, we should try to behave in the way that befits a disciple of Christ. Faith alone is not an excuse for bad behaviour or a justification for antinomianism. If you love me, keep my commandments. If you don't keep the commandments you surely do not love he who gave them. Besides which, proper recognition of God will automatically incline a person to seek to be like him. But to be good as the world sees good is not the same thing. Moreover, we all fall short. That does not matter as long as we sincerely try at every moment of the day to "walk humbly with thy God" in the simple but profound words of the prophet Micah.
There is no outer solution but there is an inner solution. Know yourself to be a soul born in the world at this time to prove you are able to turn your spiritual compass to true north in a world in which all outer influences mitigate against that. Not south, materialism and atheism, not east or west, false forms of spirituality, and not even north east or north west. True north. You have to find the way to God within yourself and that is the case even if you follow an established form of religion which is no longer sufficient on its own and can often be a diversion from the true inner path. Now there has to be a real inner connection. And when you have attained that you simply follow where you are led, wherever that may be.
Very true thought. The last bit about following God is hard in this world. As society materializes it becomes more dense and even well-meaning 'good' people can have a hard time connecting to God's voice and an even harder time following it.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Plato's account of the fall of Atlantis where Plato describes how one had to have the eyes to see the degeneracy of the Atlanteans. They looked fine on the outside but their actions and morality became worse, bad enough to attract the wrath of Zeus and their ultimate destruction.
In our time it easy to see decline just by externals but it does take a bit of comparison through time although only 30-60 years or so.
All civilizations rise and fall. The way through you describe is a lot more difficult to find and then to walk but it is the only way.
In the end it's a lifecycle, like of a plant, and there must be decline and death so that something new can come to rise.
It's time for a new creation.
I didn't know about that observation of Plato's but it's quite true of today too. The problem is what most people think of as good as what serves the incarnated self either in terms of increasing happiness or reducing suffering but spiritual good, while not rejecting that, has to do with what benefits the soul.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't acknowledge the spiritual component of your being you literally don't know what good is. Nor can you understand the present time and how to negotiate its pitfalls.
I think there is a solution to the current crisis. It's implied by all the talk over the last century of a 'new springtime' for Christianity/the Christian people. The Winter was acknowledged and an optimism for a change of season longed for. We are living after the end of Western Civilization in an Age of Transition between civilisations, and the sort of pioneers that built Christian civilisation in its Latin, Germanic, Celtic forms and then built Western or European civilisation are the examples of what that springtime could look like.
ReplyDeleteReally though what is needed is a new search for a new hierarchy of values within Christianity which is something Dr Charlton seems to be doing. But for traditional Christians because they regard the theology as set, they need to embark on a new hierarchy of emphases within Christianity. This new search for new hierarchies of values and emphases has to also within it solve/address the challenges of modernity/or, call it, why the last Christian civilisation died.
Once Christianity has a new vivified hierarchy of values or for traditionalists a new vivified hierarchy of emphases then this will encourage the potential/pentecost in individuals/families/communities.
Of course, this could very well be the end of all end times. But still when the Jewish people start to come into the Universal Christian people, this will both cause, and be as a result of, a new, vivified, creative Christianity being worked out.
Perhaps what we can do ourselves is embark on our own new, vivified hierarchy of values or emphases within Christianity. Watch out for and support those that are doing this. Watch out for and support ways this can be a collaborative creative effort so that this effort can last over generations. This would be the vivified Good News present socially in these dark times between civilisations.
The problem is within Christianity. We need to work on it, make it our creative work and realise that there is where solutions and our primary work is found.
The thing about winter is that practically everything dies so for the spring you are talking about to arrive would require the death of our current civilisation. I think your point of realising a new hierarchy of values within ourselves is the way forward but this can only happen on an individual level not a societal one though perhaps these individuals will provide seeds for the future.
ReplyDeleteI see Christian civilisation has died. I think it died in 1945 with the definitive and symbolic celebration of the massacre mentality with the dropping of the atomic bomb. That was the new Edict of Milan departure. Since then we've been living through the post-Christian revolution, starting in America and spread to its satellite states which is senseless and can not last. So in 2045 we'll be marking the centenary of the death of European or Western Civilisation.
ReplyDeleteI think we're past mid-Winter and seeing small signs of Spring. Most of these small buds of Spring so far point to an Islamicised West. I don't think this is just an individual endeavour. Certainly there are pioneering individuals, Desert Fathers in this desert of the West. Far, far too few. Count them on one hand. But hopefully sooner rather than later Christian communities will be pioneering in their own societies within Christian communities. The level of innovation required, the degree to which the new hierarchy of values or emphases needs to develop, requires a collaborative work of many people over generations. The Jews will do this for themselves as they enter the Christian people. There is a question mark on will anyone else do it in Europe and Europe Overseas, to give the present Islamic buds of spring competition. But I feel, more sure than not, even as the last residues of European civilisation disappear, and the collapse of order, and the potential disasters on the horizon, mid-Winter is already over. We are nearly a hundred years already into a dark age, on its way to a new hierarchy of values.