Do we live in a Christian culture? Or one that has long been turning into something else?
Hi, Romanus here, speaking in the second year of the reign of Emperor Decius. Delightful how we keep the old holidays- Saturnalia in early winter with its exchange of presents, Lupercalia in late winter, and Floralia in spring. The youth don't seem to be so excited about them, but I know they will come around when they get older. Many of the youngsters are going into new cults like Mithraism, Cybelism, even the Elusinian mysteries. Well, so long as they believe in something- that's all I say.I know some scoffers ask "How can there be several hundred gods? They can't all be real, can they?". Well, I'll tell you, the more the merrier. Rome is strong from its welcome of many gods, even though Jupiter is, of course the most powerful. Rome is also strong from its cultivation of ancient ritual, from augury to animal sacrifice. The wine and sacred bread sprinkled on the sacrificed animal is as important as the haruspicy we do to verify its fitness. All is fit and proper, and all redounds to the power of Rome!What I can't stand, frankly, are those atheists who call themselves Christians who follow the Jews in renouncing all the ancient and civic gods. How dare they? They are a danger to the morals and peace of the empire. One day they will bring it down, and woe to us then ... a dark age is sure to follow, with their pigheaded intolerance and care for nothing but their pathetic Jesus.
Remember Rome- how long it took for their gods to die ... to pass from belief into myth and literature? We still have countless living momentos of that culture, such as months, holiday festivals, language, engineering, myths and symbols. But it clearly does not signify that their culture is alive. No, it is dead, and humans have learned from it, found new ideals and founded new cultures. The same is happening to Christianity in the present day. Just as the Holy Roman and Apostolic church echos faintly the glories of ancient Rome, so we in our enlightened age echo faintly, in our festivals, institutions and language the age of Cathedrals and scholastics, when the queen of the university was theology and the best and brightest went into the clergy.
What succeeded the Roman religion was worse- intolerant, closed-minded, with fatally conflicting ideals and obsessive focus on non-reality, leading to a long dark age. Thankfully, that same Christianity, now heading down the same road of unbelief as the Roman gods of yore, is being replaced by a distinctly superior philosophy. This secular, scientific, and humanistic ethic is cosmopolitan, rational, and tolerant. Its templates and forerunners are the golden ages of yore, like those of Athens, Islam, Italy, Netherlands, and Scotland. Those who still hunger for spiritual expression continue to find many avenues, from classic religion to new age, scholarly immersion, and environmentalism. The reconciliation they seek between the sacred and the mundane is, however, strongly affected by today's tolerance and engagement with reality, so it is very hard to persevere in complete fantasies such as the supernaturalisms and fundamentalisms of old. Conversly, it is easier to cast what is real, such as nature and the cosmos, in spiritual and meaningful terms, since so much is now known of their truly epic scale and history. The core culture is wedded to progress both socially and materially through enlightened engagement with reality, and that is a hopeful and worthy position.
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