God Still Dead?

I do hope all of you read the Newsweek article on spirituality in America because it seems to have sparked a re-evaluation of faith and belief in a land supposedly dominated by intolerant, fundamentalist religion.

The Dance of the Mind blog points out that according to the new polling numbers regular church attendance is only up by %1 from the famous 1966 Time Magazine “Is God Dead” issue. She also references an appearance on MSNBC by Martin Marty who says that the coming clash of cultures won’t play out as some grand battle of competing ideologies since it won’t be one communal culture against another, but instead communal versus individualistic cultures.

Meanwhile Mark Morford of the San Francisco Gate is more than ready to join a new individualistic, spiritual, revolution.

“There is this upwelling. There is this delicious rebellion. It is not yet loud and it is not yet conventional and it is certainly not yet dominating the national political dialogue and it is not yet making the headlines and maybe it never will and this is probably a good thing. But it’s happening. I have seen it. Maybe you have, too. I am, in fact, a part of it. Maybe you are, too. And lo, it is righteous and delicious and good. It is this: Whole happy unfettered slews of people, young and old and in between, both genders and all genders and those who have yet to figure out just which gender they are, they are dancing to their own cosmic tune and blaspheming against the quo of status and taking divine matters into their own tingling and luminous hands because, goddammit, it’s the right thing to do.”

Not surprisingly, several Christians are not happy with the findings of the article and some like Rebecca Barnes of Church Central are starting to think American believers are “shallow” and “ignorantly” tolerant.

“I do think it is accurate to assess the current religious climate in America as increasingly tolerant, however. But I think that tolerance is owing to the increasing ignorance of Americans toward both their own religious faith and that of others.”

While some, like Rabbi Yakov Travis of the Siegal College of Judaic Studies affirm the findings in the Newsweek article and acknowledge a growing mysticism within the Jewish tradition.

The most important thing about this article (in my mind at least) is that it echoes a growing awareness about the nature of spirituality in America. Religion and spirituality in America is growing to encompass more instead of just focusing on the trends within popular monotheisms. It points out that while a whopping 85% of Americans identify as “Christian” that identification may have little to do with an adherence to Christian dogma and instead be a slowly eroding cultural “default” setting. Since many of these Christians are in inter-religious marriages, dabble in other religious traditions and often have kids who reject monotheism completely I have to wonder if that 85% is a mile wide and an inch deep.

I see modern Paganism quickly approaching its tipping point. While not directly related to modern Paganism the DaVinci Code controversy/sales explosion and the huge Harry Potter debates should be considered as warnings that our moment in the media sun is quickly approaching. We need to be ready so that our family of faiths can define itself when that moment comes instead of being defined by those who don’t understand us.

God may not be dead, but it looks like he’ll be having some company soon.

Tags: Neopaganism