The Spectacle of Western Civilization

Does the Christian roots of Western Civilization matter for the future of humanity?

First Observation

Since the end of the COVID pandemic, I have found people far more open to discussions of religion, faith, and specifically Christianity. As a Christian and a minister, I don’t parade my commitments and affiliations around as some badge of honor and distinction. My reasons I will explain later.

If you know me, read me, and heard me talk about such things, I abhor labels. They are used to marginalize and delegitimize people. It happens, say, between the left and the right, and it happens within the culture of the left and the right. This is one of the outcomes of the modern world which is one of the outcomes of Western Civilization.

I do recognize that the roots of Western Civilization grew from the ground of the late Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Those historic developments led to the modern world where the value of the individual, rationalism, science, and the twin industrial movements of capitalism and socialism grew. Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World is a good survey of the influence that Christianity has had over the past two millennia. If there is a way to understand Christianity’s connection to Western Civilization, Holland’s book is it.

The problem with this line of inquiry is that it treats Christianity in a manner that its founders would not recognize. The aim was not to create a global power culture. Early Christianity consisted of local communities of faith in Jesus Christ. Those communities grew in spite of the persecution that came from the Roman Empire and local religions. The faith grew because the religious culture of Christianity was relational, not institutional. Over time that changed as the need to standardize the beliefs of the church and establish the canon of the Bible created a common understanding of the church.

Read the Gospels, and we find the religious and political authorities trying to mold Jesus into their likeness. He refused to be coerced or conscripted. Instead, he walked among the poor and called the society of religious and political institutions to live according their values. He showed people compassion and dignity, while calling them to lives of faith and repentance.

In the early nineties, while serving as a chaplain and leadership program director at a small church related college, I taught a two semester course in Western Civilization and one semester on the New Testament. I found students lacking a basic understanding of Christianity and Western Civilization. Even at a church-related institution, I was operating in an alien culture. Imagine an American college student not knowing who Jesus Christ is.

Christianity in every age and in every culture has existed in a dynamic relationship to the cultural context. Many think that Christianity survives by accommodating itself to the prevailing culture in the name of relevancy. We can see this in how mega-churches resemble rock concerts and rock concerts resemble worship services. This is how contemporary people express their faith. They respond to the Spectacle character of the event through structuring congregational life through small groups. Relevance is personal and relational, even as the spectacle of the rock concert defines public perception.

The labels that we apply to historic periods of time are over simplifications of very complex moments. This leads me to the commentary by Glen Scrivener about The ARC conference in London last week. I think it is worth your time to watch. He sees what I see. Christianity is being used as an object of cultural reform and renewal of Western Civilization. The arguments are cogent and passionate. I also believe they see contemporary Christianity in much the same way that Emperor Constantine saw Christianity’s value to the Roman Empire. The ARC participants see Christianity as a cultural movement for this time. What we know as a Christian culture is not separate from local churches functioning as dispersed, decentralized communities of faith in Jesus Christ. Christianity and Western Civilization are not synonymous.

Second Observation

The ARC’s bandwagon in support of Christianity reminds me of Professor Harold Hill of The Music Man fame announcing that there is trouble in River City. He is a character of The Spectacle of the Real applied to a local MidWest community. His band of kids is like a church organized as a culture to influence River City and sell a lot of horns. Watch this.

I am not cynical about those who spoke at ARC. I believe they are sincere in reflecting exactly what they see from the vantage point of their experience in the world. I would celebrate if renewal had more to do with the character of leaders and citizenship than movements of power and political influence.

Glen Scrivener, who I had never encountered before, used David Brooks’ presentation to speak to what he saw taking place at The ARC conference. Brook's’ spoke to elites as an elite. However, an elite perspective is not representative of the populace of the Western nations. While I may belong in an elite culture, I do not self-identify as an elite. I also belong in a common culture. In that culture, Christianity is personal and the core of their local community affiliation.

Conversation by elites about Christianity and Western Civilization I interpret through the lens of The Spectacle of the Real. The ARC conference suggests that the values of Christianity and Western Civilization are elite values. If so, they are a recent accommodation to the growth in the church. In reality, Christian values are ones commonly held. They are ones that people without elite educations and access to the corridors of power in Washington and statehouses have continued to live by. Christianity became an interest to elites because, I believe, Donald Trump identified with those values and the people that they represent. Even as an elite, he ran from a position of affirmation of the common person. And the elites that he ran against had clearly shown a distain for those who Trump appealed to as the openly criticized what the saw as a Christian civilization being imposed upon the nation.

It is important to understand what I mean by The Spectacle of the Real, an essay I first published in 2013. The Spectacle is a simulation played for the public’s benefit to distract them from the reality that hides in plain site. I wrote in my essay.

Fueled by a 24/7 news cycle, actual news - a statement of "facts" that an event, an accident, a death, an agreement, a visit or something has taken place, described in the traditional journalistic parlance of "who, what, when and where" - is transformed into a spectacle of opinion and virtual reality driven by the images of faces speaking words of crisis, fear, and self-righteous anger. Televised analysis - more important than the "facts" of the story- drives the news through the ambiguity of the visual image and is its source of validation. …

These televised events aren't conversations seeking truth, but, rather, people talking at and past one another in a game of leveraging images for social and political influence. We are drawn to the image on the screen of these "experts" having something to say that is meaningful, hoping that at some point some sense of the moment will be revealed, bringing reality into view. …

Guy Debord in his book, Society of the Spectacle, was one of the first to explore the spectacle nature of the modern world.

"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation. ...

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.”

From this perspective, the affirmation of Christianity and Western Civilization seems to be a bit disingenuous. It comes, possibly, from the recognition that Donald Trump tapped into a long-standing Christian culture that is not elitist. As is consistent with the history of Western Civilization’s spread, it accommodates the values and practices to the common place to become the culture of the elite.

In much the same way, Christianity was adopted by Emperor Constantine following his conversion in 312 AD. Christianity’s spread across the Roman Empire had a unifying force culturally. When I see modern elites advocate for the renewal of Christian and Western Civilization values, I see a similar purpose in play. This is how The Spectacle of the Real functions. The adoption of Christian values as a means to revive and restore Western Civilization actually counters the place those values and practices have never left. I’d be more likely to celebrate The ARC’s evocation of Christianity if it recognize that it is more than institutional cultural phenomenon.

Third Observation

If Christian values are to be adopted by the elites to restore Western Civilization, the question should then be asked, “What are these Christian values.” Here are three essentials.

Faith / Belief

Christianity is first and foremost a relationship of faith and trust in God. It is a consciousness that is revealed in us. The awareness that God exists comes to us in surprising ways. It isn’t like discovering the answer to a mathematical equation. As a result, we place ourselves in a relationship of seeking to understand the mystery of the divine presence.

Faith is different than belief. Faith is an expression of trust where the stakes are physical and psychological. Belief is more of intellectual ascent to a system of principles. My faith guides me through times of hardship and change. My beliefs are based on my study and reflection on the Bible, the theology of the church,

If we were to apply the two brain hemisphere perspective to the question of faith and belief, we faith comes from experience in the context of life. The experience may be ineffable and remote, yet real and present. Belief on the other hand can be a set of intellectual constructs that never get applied in the experience. In this sense, faith is a right brain experience and belief a left brain articulation of what faith is. As I have heard Iain McGilchrist describe that out of right brain intuition, left brain articulation can come, but the left brain cannot produce the intuitive embodiment that is characteristic of right brain experience.

Out of an embodied experience of God’s presence, we seek to understand what this means in theoretical and practical terms. It is not simply to understand the content of faith, the biblical truths, the theological principles and the liturgical disciplines. It is rather to understand how the experiential and theoretical blend together to reveal a world beyond our limited sphere of awareness. As Augustine wrote, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Metanoia: Confession and Forgiveness

Metanoia is a Greek word for change whose implication is that of turning around and going a different way. Within a Christian biblical/theological context, this involves the recognition of human sinfulness. With that sinfulness comes pain, suffering, trauma, brokenness, and ultimately, the realization that I need to confess my need for God.

I wonder just how much this plays into the movement of Christianity to be the core belief system of Western Civilization. My travels around the world and my interactions with people here in the US and elsewhere has shown me that the relationship of the Christian West to the rest of the world does not reflect the beliefs of traditional Christianity.

Our exploitation and paternalism towards the developing world is a denial of the faith that we claim to have. It speaks highly to the power of confession to see humility emerge in a person who once was not.

A picture of confession and forgiveness is powerfully shown in the film, The Mission. Robert DeNiro plays a slave trader. He comes to faith seeking the forgiveness of God. The discipline of the church requires him to pay penance. In this case, he is to drag a large bag of metal objects through the jungle and up a mountain to where the natives that were persecuted are found. As he arrives, he is given forgiveness and his burden is released. It is a powerful depiction of what metanoia requires.

Calling

A sense of calling has two dimensions to it.

The first is a calling to life as Christ life. Possibly the best description of this comes from the Sermon on the Mount.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

(Matthew 5:1-16)

You can see in these words the impetus for there to be a broad national culture that reflects what Jesus description of the character of the person of faith and their community.

These words are echoed in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. There he describe the church as a body. I imagine we could also describe a nation or any self-identified gather of people also as a body.

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

(1 Corinthians 12:22-26)

It is not by accident that the following chapter is what is known as the love chapter.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

This is the character of a person of faith. It is not a path of ease or the self-righteousness. It is a path of meaning and purpose. It is a path to discover the authentic self.

The other dimension of calling is to fulfill the purpose of one’s life. From Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

(Ephesians 2:4-10)

Conclusion

The Spectacle of the Real looms large today throughout the world. Every election, every meeting of the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship or the World Economic Forum offers us a simulated reality of what they believe will win the hearts and minds of the public. The greater the simulation the greater recognition that we are being presented are partial truths and realities. Of course, given the nature of the world of communication, this hyper-reality is our reality today.

The challenge for each of us is not which side do I choose to join, but to ask sincerely.

How do I discover and then live an authentic life?

Does an authentic life require faith in a higher being?

Does an authentic life require a confession of failure and the desire for forgivenness?

Can our lives today meaningfully reflect the words of Jesus quoted above?

Can we live lives where we treat people not as our opposition, but rather as persons of dignity even if they are weak, less honorable and less respectable?

These are questions that any grand movement to restore Western Civilization must ask. If we are merely seeking power over those who have held power over us, we are no different than them. And the result will be the same.

The transition before us is personal. It is the only way we relieve ourselves of The Spectacle of the Real. And in so doing, we discover a reality that allows us to recover an authentic civilization of hope and opportunity for all people everywhere.