I went to a stuffy Anglican private school where we dutifully filed into Chapel three days a week. I rebelled against the conformity, but then it was the second half of the 1960’s, Vietnam demonstrations and the all the associated upheavals. (I had a book called 1968 The Year that Changed the World but it was atrociously written.) I declined Confirmation - no complaint from my medical professor dad who was if not atheist, highly sceptical. That said, I realise I retain something of a Christian conscience, although I’ve never found a congregation or form of Christianity that I could really accept. Although I’m self-aware enough to know that most of what I’ve pursued through philosophy really is a search for salvation in some way shape or form. Hence my attraction to Christian Platonism and the transcendental elements of Plato’s dialogues.
Nice. I have sometimes wondered whether the impulse toward the countercultural is often the same impulse we have toward salvation; the desire to shake off the restrictions and blandness of convention in order to arrive closer to truth.
That’s what it was for me! You’re probably old enough, or nearly, to recall the radicalism of the 1960’s — when Sergeant Pepper’s came out, when LSD became a thing, ‘but first are you experienced?’ — all of that. It was the promise of and the pursuit of enlightenment which animated that, at least as far as I was concerned. Of course in hindsight I can see the traps and pitfalls.
I also discovered a great analysis by Camille Paglia, Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in America in the 1960’s (a long read but insightful.)
I was listening to a video while I was driving today and there was an interesting tangent which began with an explanation of the way the term “barbarian” shifted from a linguistic reference to being a complement to the Christian nomos. From there it goes on to talk about similar things, such as the original Christian confrontation with the Greek/Gentile nomos and the subsequent transformation of Greek culture into a Christian culture. It stuck me as a different angle on the OP, complete with a reference to secularism. (timestamp 9:14)
I’m not familiar with the Christianization of the west, but Buddhism is an ethical system absent god(s); so is Jainism. These are the nastika (atheistic) traditions that budded off from hinduism, whose ethics (I think) lacks that theistic foundation present in the Abrahamic triad. Hinduism that way has a richer, more nuanced view of ethics. God knows how they managed that so many thousands of years before (casteism 
)
Same goes for the Chinese I guess.
Christianity’s history with ethics is, let’s just say, complicated. According to a 19th century philosopher, slavery and the evils of colonization are tricky subjects. I suppose we could chalk that up to misinterpretation of God’s love thy neighbor message.
Another problem I see is that Christianity is one of the most edited religions in the world - Jesus may not recognize Christianity.
Sure. I’m not convinced that if there was a real person Jesus was based on, he intended to start a religion to begin with. One of my favourite theological thinkers, David Bentley Hart, thinks that much of Christendom deserves to collapse because it is antithetical to the message in the Gospels, with love being replaced by hate and greed for gain.
But nothing is more tedious than disputes between believers who think their interpretation is better than others.
Do you have much familiarity with the history of non-Christian religions? Often people will make negative claims about Christianity without realizing that their claim applies to all religion. I suppose this is natural enough in a culture that is both Christian and self-critical.
But Sunni Muslims stopped “editing” their religion in the 10th Century. The view was that allowing it to continue to evolve (as it had done up to that point) would be to admit that the Prophet wasn’t actually the last of God’s earthly representatives.
This can be cause for confusion for Christians, because Christianity does evolve and this will be expressed by particular religious leaders. No one in Sunni Islam has the authority to make that kind of proclamation. So this is a religion that’s frozen in time.
That’s a good point, Frank. Sunni Islam has attempted to freeze the religion and prevent it from evolving. Still, this is a rare phenomenon in religion. It’s pretty difficult to do, and even Sunnis go on making further elaborations and distinctions as, for example, new technologies arise.
Yes. It’s easier if it’s the state religion, but there are still storm clouds on the horizon.
@Tom_Storm The extent of the fabrications (esp. Matthew) seems to point to an actual person in 1st century AD Palestine, a ‘deluded, charismatic rabbi’. Jesus is absent from most of the historical records of the time, but the Pilate inscription somewhat helped the case for Jesus’ historicity.
@Leontiskos You raise the larger point. One atheist criticizes God for having resorted to telephone to convey His all-important divine message.
God commands and perpetrates genocide in the OT. In the NT he accepts a human sacrifice. If modern western secularism got anything out of Christianity, it must’ve involved a lot of hemming and hawing - one has to very carefully wade through the bible to find anything that matches the modern man’s understanding of what right and wrong are.
Except possibly the polemics of atheists who think all religious belief is delusional.
They can’t all be right (cf. Judaism’s pending Messiah and Christianity’s dead one).
Dead heat in my experience. Both are insufferable.
I think along the lines of Christianity (specifically Catholicism) having adopted the traditions of other cultures over time, such as Christmas as one example, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that enculturation would work both ways within the Western world.
…So yes, it would seem very likely then, that Western secularism, and Christianity would become intertwined over time.
OK, though again, “Western secularism” doesn’t tell me much about what doctrines are actually being discussed.
By no means am I any kind of biblical scholar, but I could easily compare similarities between Catholic social teachings, as well as biblical passages such as Mark 12:31, James 2:14-26, Matthew 25:31-46, to be very neatly aligned with Western secular ideals such as Civil Rights, social safety nets for the poor, and other empathetic ideas seen in progressive policy decisions, which are rooted in Western Secularism - which if not steming from, at least align well with the Christian passages noted.
…This is only what I have personally noticed through my own observations.
Just to be clear, that while these passages by no means ‘sum-up’ the whole of Christianity and it’s teachings, it could be viewed as one way in which the two ideologies are able to live side by side, and work with one another, as well as feed off each other, and share a space in time together. IMO.
Let’s hope so. The confusing thing is, one could just as easily find scriptural passages that accord well with retrogressive policy decisions, also rooted in secularism.
Not sure if I’m overstretching here, but to be honest, I sometimes think that the biggest difference between Christianity and secular progressivism, is that with the one, the rules are all laid out and aren’t really open to addition, while with the other, there is this desire to create change, which leads to the notion that more rules are needed, which in turn, leads to the complication of life. It’s a kind of overwhelming burdon, IMO.
So in some ways, there is a big difference between modern Western secularism, and Christianity too.