The Re-paganization of the West: A Glimpse of the Future
11/5/2004
Albert Mohler
www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?cal=go&adate=11%2F5%2F2004
“In the beginning there was the Church,” explains Carol Midgley. “And people liked to dress up in their best clothes and go there on Sundays and they praised the Lord and it was good. But it came to pass that people grew tired of the Church and they stopped going, and began to be uplifted by new things such as yoga and t’ai chi instead. And, lo, a spiritual revolution was born.”
Reporting in the November 4, 2004 edition of The Times of London, Midgley announced the results of a major research project conducted in Great Britain. According to the data assembled in this report, England is returning to its pagan roots.
If that seems unlikely, just consider the fact that only 7.9 percent of the British population attends church with any regularity. On the European continent, those percentages are generally much lower, with rates of churchgoing in Scandinavian nations running less than three percent.
The research was conducted by a team of British sociologists who looked at the small village of Kendal in Cumbria as a laboratory. As it happens, the statistics on religious participation in Kendal mirror almost precisely the national statistics in Great Britain. Led by sociologist Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, the researchers found that organized Christianity will be eclipsed by New Age spirituality within the next generation, if current trends continue. Their new book, The Spiritual Revolution, documents this incredible transformation of Great Britain–a reversion of a largely Christianized culture to its pagan roots.
As Midgley explains, “Study after study appears to prove that people are increasingly losing faith in the church and the Bible and turning instead to mysticism in guises ranging from astrology to reiki and holistic healing. The Government, significantly, said this week that older people should be offered t’ai chi classes on the NHS [National Health Service] to promote their physical and mental well-being.”
Professor Heelas, a well-known specialist on the New Age movement, describes the trend toward new forms of paganism as a response to larger cultural shifts. “It’s a shift away from (the idea of) a hierarchical all-knowing institution and a move towards (having) the freedom to grow and develop as a unique person rather than going to church and being led.”
Beyond this, Heelas argues that the idea of life after death is receding in the minds of most modern persons. With Heaven gone from the horizon, individuals must find full satisfaction in this life. “A lot of the comfort of religion is in postponement–a better life after death,” Heelas explains. “But belief in Heaven is collapsing, so people believe it is more important to know themselves and make themselves better people now.”
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