‘Genuine Christianity demands a focus on humility, solidarity with others’
The trend of diminishing solidarity in society has long been studied by social scientists, as it seems that the West is rampantly disintegrating into a culture of selfishness. In this context, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkley, Robert Bellah often spoke about the “privatization” of faith.
Religion has for many become the quest for “me” to be blessed and succeed. Bellah argued that the swift growth of charismatic Christianity, New Age and other movements were often based on an individualistic approach to faith that takes place outside the framework of traditional church institutions. The focus tends to be how spiritual faith can enhance “me” individually, rather than what “I can do for others.”
In that sense, movements such as New Age go hand in hand with the current mainstream focus on self-realization and the acquisition of wealth as the only proof of success. Spiritual forces – or God – are used as tools to help the individual to further enhance selfish goals in the attempt to reach his nirvana.
Selfishness is extremely problematic for a democracy that is dependent on its citizens supporting one another. As discussed in other WND columns, world-leading philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas has called it a massive mistake to outroot and belittle the historic Christian ethics in the Western public discourse.
Genuine Christianity demands a focus on humility, solidarity with others, a selfless life imitating Christ’s love for humankind and belief in equality for all, regardless of race, creed, gender or class. These normative ideals were able to motivate individuals to do good and empathize with others in a way that the atheist worldview has not been able to. Today, empathy is simply vanishing from society and the legalization of selfishness spells the end of genuine fellowship. Each man becomes an island, nihilistically alone.
Unsurprisingly, the mainstream culture has embraced the New Age thinking. This new Western religion has its origin in theosophy, greatly influencing the hedonist left-wing culture of the 1960s student revolutions. The idea was to expect a new age without classical Christian principles, reaching a higher spiritual level that would bring about a socialist global-scale change, in balance with the cosmic forces of nature. Progressives were quick to rally around New Age, eager to prove that Western liberal democracy does not need traditional religion to create a utopian futuristic society.