• The Evolution of Post-Christian Culture

    Understanding The Situation of the West

The Unfolding of Western Culture

  • The root of "culture" traces to the soil, linked to the act of cultivation—growing and nurturing. Cicero first popularized this term, describing the intellectual, political, moral, and religious soil essential for fostering a virtuous society.

    In its broadest sense, culture encompasses the patterns of social behavior, norms, knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, and habits within human societies. It shapes philosophical self-understanding, influences outlooks, and colors daily life—how we dress, eat, and greet one another.

    Culture emerges from and is embodied by its people, forming a mutually constitutive relationship. Individuals are molded by their culture, yet they shape it through collective and individual actions, rendering culture inherently dynamic.

    Culture manifests as narrative—mythic, foundational plots, metaphors, and stories that provide meaning and direction. Historically, religions have offered central cultural narratives, while secular narratives, such as those of progress and consumerism, also shape societies.

    Culture is multifaceted, comprising interwoven subcultures that are shaped by various factors, including ethnicity, religion, nationality, socioeconomic status, and geographic location. Systems theory proves helpful in analyzing these dynamics.

    Anthropology, history, and philosophy distinguish Eastern cultures—encompassing China, India, Japan, Korea, and surrounding regions—from Western cultures, which include European civilizations and their influence in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa and South America.

    Such distinctions remain imprecise. Is Russia Western, Eastern, or distinct from both? How do we classify the Middle East’s rich history? Is modern Japan Eastern or Western? Argentina appears Western, but what of Brazil?

    Given the complexity of culture, we must avoid overgeneralization, acknowledging the limits of fully describing any culture.

  • The term "the West" originates from Europe's geographical position relative to the ancient civilizations of the East, particularly those in Asia and the Near East. Europe, situated west of these early cultural and economic hubs, such as Mesopotamia, Persia, and China, became known as the Western world during the ancient period.

    The designation was further solidified by the Greco-Roman world’s distinction from Eastern empires and later by the medieval division between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Byzantine Empire.

    Geographically, Europe’s western orientation—bordered by the diverse landscapes of mountains, plains, and coastlines from the Atlantic Ocean to the west —shapes its identity as a distinct cultural and political entity.

    Today, the concept of the West extends far beyond Europe’s borders, encompassing regions that share its cultural, political, and historical legacies.

    Through centuries of exploration, colonization, and migration, Western culture has taken root in Australia and New Zealand, where European settlers established societies grounded in Western traditions.

    Much of South America, influenced by Spanish and Portuguese colonization, also falls within this sphere, blending European heritage with indigenous and African elements.

    North America, particularly the United States and Canada, is firmly part of the West, having inherited and expanded upon European institutions, languages, and values.

    This global expansion reflects the adaptability and influence of Western culture, uniting diverse geographies under a shared historical and ideological framework.

  • This analysis seeks to comprehend, even superficially, the West’s underlying worldview, core ideas, and narratives.

    We focus on the West’s transition from classical to Judeo-Christian culture, evolving into more secular expressions. This overview employs broad strokes for brevity.

    Western culture emerges from a hybrid of classical influences—primarily Hellenism and Roman culture—combined with the Judeo-Christian religious worldview and pre-Christian contributions from Celtic, Gallic, Germanic, and Slavic peoples. These influences clashed, blended, faded, and transformed one another.

    The classical world of Greece and Rome introduced democracy, philosophy, the rule of law, and the concept of the individual as a person. Its religious outlook was polytheistic, animist, and pagan, yet it yielded impressive achievements. Yet, it also fostered slavery, tribalism, military conquest, and dehumanizing imperialism.

    Despite its erudition, the Greco-Roman culture spread violence, abuse, and harshness. Women were deemed inferior, and many people were enslaved, and such was claimed to be justified by the natural order.

    Contemporary Westerners often overlook that the architects of justice and law also practiced infanticide, subjugated women, and endorsed slavery.

    The same minds that shaped early notions of dignity sponsored barbaric entertainments—gladiatorial combat and public executions involving torture and wild animals—devaluing the poor and marginalizing the weak.

    In this classical world, the poor mattered little, sex was weaponized as a tool of power, and life remained arduous for most.

    Don Cupitt observes, “The ancient Greco-Roman world was a harsh slave society with little interest in humanitarian considerations. Is there a single case of humanitarian prison visiting in all of pagan antiquity? Did anyone organize relief for the survivors of Pompeii?” In this pitiless age, Christianity’s appeal emerged.

    Rome adopted and adapted Hellenism, spreading its imperial ways—values, ideas, and law—termed the imperium.

    Cultures and empires evolve; few endure. Rome decayed internally from corruption, economic disparity, military overreach, and daily violence, with northern invaders merely accelerating its fall.

  • Christianity emerged in the classical world as a marginal religious movement of rebels and misfits, viewed as subversive by imperial elites. This sect, devoted to the teachings of an itinerant Jewish rabbi and cultural revolutionary, posed a threat by challenging the Greco-Roman imperium with its inverse values.

    Christians refused to offer ritual homage to the emperor or join public pagan sacrifices—a significant, anti-social defiance in that era’s mindset. Christian values critiqued the empire: justice through peace, care for the poor and marginalized, and the dignity of all persons, not just the elite. Mercy, love, kindness, and mutual care defined their daily witness, gradually winning converts and ensuring growth, though occasionally inciting Rome’s wrath.

    Eventually, outsiders became insiders. While Constantine’s sanctioning in the 4th century solidified Christianity’s integration into the empire, its rise beyond small communities preceded him. The imperial narratives of the Iliad and the Aeneid gave way to the Gospels and other biblical writings, establishing Christianity as the foundation of a new imperium.

    As Christians ascended within the crumbling empire, they assumed administrative roles, infusing the Kingdom of God within Rome’s structure. Yet, power bred corruption, as imperialism tainted Christianity, shaping Christendom—a mutual transformation.

    For a millennium, Christianity dominated Western culture, often diverging from its founder’s vision yet fostering a more humane society. Despite crusades, inquisitions, and wars, it promoted love, mercy, and kindness, influencing moral attitudes to this day.

    Human nature remains constant across cultures, although culture shapes which traits—such as love, mercy, creativity, war, hatred, and destruction—are emphasized. Christianity tempered these toward compassion, introduced hospitals, ended infanticide, founded universities, improved literacy, elevated women’s status, and aided the poor, though it did not eliminate war or oppression.

  • For over a millennium, the Judeo-Christian tradition has provided the West with foundational narratives, shaping its self-understanding. Yet, Christianity now faces a period of upheaval, losing cultural significance and influence across Western societies. This turmoil has triggered institutional and denominational decline, theological confusion, and the abandonment of once-held orthodoxies.

    Christianity’s decline in Western cultures spans decades, reaching a point where it no longer serves as the core, unifying mythic-symbolic narrative. The Christian mythos—its narratives and collective rituals—fades as church attendance drops and supernatural cosmology loses credibility, leading to the decay of mainstream Christian expressions.

    Despite this, Christian moral values—such as kindness, compassion, and concern for the vulnerable—persist, although their longevity remains uncertain.

    The potential loss of this tradition poses risks, given its profound impact on the West. While current forms, institutions, and expressions of Christianity—often flawed, outdated, corrupt, or abusive—thankfully fade, its core wisdom merits retention and re-engagement, embodying the West’s most humane and dignified traits.

    Christianity’s decline stems partly from the effects of secular and humanistic reasoning. Overall, Christian theology has failed to adapt to contemporary thought. Instead, it has veered into dogmatic claims, rendering them literal rather than metaphorical, and clinging to outdated metaphysics and magical thinking.

    Institutional failures—moral lapses, shallow communities, clergy abuse, political overreach, and cultural control—further erode its credibility, portraying it as a detrimental cultural force.

    However, it was the Christian West, shaped by classical influences, that fostered the Renaissance’s humanism, the Enlightenment’s focused reason, and the rise of science, technology, and industrialization.

    The Church resisted these self-caused developments; yet, the critiques it faces today for past and present actions stem from Christianity itself, which has transformed Western moral and anthropological foundations.

    The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romanticism reinforced the concept of human dignity, extrapolating it to include the rule of law, democracy, human rights, market economies, and liberalism.

    These movements also embraced freedom of conscience, tolerance, pluralism, individualism, and anti-dogmatism.

    The Enlightenment posed challenges that Christianity largely ignored. Catholicism, however, stands out for its efforts to align with and engage in dialogue with this thinking, though progress remains incomplete.

    Catholicism accepts evolutionary theory and science, acknowledges freedom of conscience and religion, embraces church-state separation, and supports democracy. Granted, this acceptance was long in coming. 

    Vatican II sought to modernize Catholicism and engage with secular culture, welcoming dialogue and adopting the restraints of tolerance and humility.

    Yet, the Church faltered earlier. Vatican I’s definition of papal infallibility proved less than ideal, while the Syllabus of Errors and resistance to Enlightenment ideas caused more than their share of cultural and intellectual harm.

    Conversely, Mainline Protestant churches compromised by uncritically adopting Enlightenment reductionism now face a different set of consequences.

    American Evangelicalism, reacting against the Enlightenment, spawned fundamentalism, literalism, and regressive theologies, tarnishing Christianity’s image.

    Christianity’s influence wanes amid secularization, yet the notion of secular triumph over religion is flawed. Some Christian forms—vapid superstitions—deserve to fade, but a core value endures.

    Evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and sociology suggest that humans are inherently religious, drawn to narrative, meaning, rituals, and symbols.

    Secular thinkers recognize that secularism, while beneficial, fails to provide cultural meaning.

    As culture abhors a vacuum, hybrid myths of progress, consumerism, individualism, and technology emerge, yet they fail to deliver authentic meaning, offering only consumption and pleasure. Secularism, lacking a transcendent purpose, leaves individuals disconnected and unfulfilled.

Our Current Post-Christian Culture

  • Throughout the Western world, Christianity’s dominant cultural influence has been diminishing over the past few decades, if not centuries, and this trend has become increasingly apparent.

    The remnants of Judeo-Christian moral insights endure, yet they grow weaker. Public identification with Christian mythic narratives and participation in their rituals decline, marking a clear post-Christian era.

    The present religious landscape reveals declining institutions, congregations, financial support, participation, relevance, and interest, with entire denominations facing extinction within a decade or two.

    Over one-third of Americans now disavow affiliation with any church or Christian organization, a trend more pronounced in Europe. (See Pew Research Center, Barna Research, or the latest Gallup poll for data.)

    Church attendance and affiliation, though limited indicators, offer valuable insights. In 2016, 73.7% of Americans identified as Christian; by 2020, this number had fallen to 63.1%.

    Europe’s trends are more striking. In Ireland, 85% attended weekly Mass in 1990 (at least three out of four Sundays); by 2023, only 18% attended regularly—a significant decline, not a mere drop-off. Most other European nations report even lower attendance.

    Those abandoning active church membership or rejecting Christianity typically join no alternative religious group, forming the “Nones”—a demographic that cites “None” as their religious affiliation in surveys.

    Studies of the Nones indicate a predominantly younger cohort rejecting traditional religious structures, forms, and perspectives. (See Pew Report on Religion in America or Wikipedia’s “Decline of Christianity” for details.)

    Recent data suggest stabilization. The 2024 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey notes a plateau in Christianity’s institutional decline following the COVID-19 pandemic, with many commentators highlighting a growing interest among public intellectuals. There is also a documented reengagement with certain forms of Christianity, notably Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but the climb up is steep. 

    Though unlikely to disappear entirely, Christianity no longer predominately informs Western culture, raising the question: What drives this decline?

    Mainstream culture increasingly bypasses Christianity, not due to the culture’s corruption or immorality, but because growing majorities scrutinize Christian claims, actions, and behaviors, deeming them irrelevant or worse.

    Some decline stems from disillusionment with specific institutional communities or denominations, eroded by decades of overreach, unjustified theologies, arrogance, and abuse in the name of God. Christianity has often justified partisan agendas and marginalized others, exacting a toll for this excess.

    Recall American Evangelicalism in the 1980s or Roman Catholicism in the 1990s, where political and cultural overreach damaged both traditions. Influence requires a delicate balance, not power plays.

    Moreover, many churches offer superficial spirituality, fostering magical thinking, wish fulfillment, and ego projection through shallow contemporary theology.

    At the congregational level, Christianity often makes little sense. Ideologically driven seminaries frequently fail to train clergy, and lay religious education remains inadequate. 

    Despite occasional positive reports from scattered sources and communities, the overall situation appears bleak.

  • Despite its foundational message of love and dignity, Christianity has suffered from significant self-inflicted harm, resulting in a profound image crisis and public relations disaster. 

    Over centuries, and particularly in recent decades, actions and attitudes contrary to the Way of Jesus have tarnished nearly every church’s reputation, leading to widespread confusion about what Christianity truly entails and requires. 

    Hypocrisy, sex scandals, neglect, politicization, and attempts at cultural domination have alienated many, obscuring Christianity’s core values and driving people away from its message of hope.

    Hypocrisy has been a persistent issue, as some Christians publicly profess values like humility and charity while privately acting in ways that contradict these principles. High-profile leaders preaching morality while engaging in deceit or greed, such as financial mismanagement in megachurches, undermine trust in the faith. 

    Sex scandals, particularly within the Catholic Church, have further damaged credibility. The global revelation of clergy abuse, often coupled with institutional cover-ups, as seen in the 2002 Boston Globe investigation, has horrified the public, associating Christianity with betrayal rather than healing. 

    Neglect of the marginalized, despite Jesus’s clear call to serve the poor and oppressed, has also hurt the faith’s image. Some churches prioritize wealth and power over social justice, ignoring systemic issues like poverty and homelessness.

    Politicization has exacerbated this crisis, especially in the U.S., where political agendas have often co-opted Christianity. 

    This politicization has fueled attempts at cultural domination, where some Christians seek to impose their values on society, often through legislation or public policy. 

    Efforts to impose values that disregard pluralism, alienating those who do not share these beliefs, result in Christianity appearing as authoritarian rather than compassionate.

    This has led to Christianity being associated with attitudes of domination and exclusion, particularly toward women, LGBT individuals, and those whose lives do not align with a restrictive, often Iron Age vision of morality. 

    Women have faced marginalization in some Christian circles, with antiquated mores used to limit their roles in church life, social life, the ministry, and beyond, ignoring the egalitarian spirit of Jesus’s interactions with women. 

    The alienation of LGBT people has been especially pronounced, with some denominations justifying exclusion, despite Jesus’s emphasis on love and inclusion, as seen in his outreach to societal outcasts. 

    Additionally, those whose lives, through circumstances often beyond their control, such as poverty, divorce, or addiction, do not fit the narrow moral ideals of some Christians face judgment rather than support, further distancing them from the faith.

    Banal music, mundane liturgies, irrelevant teaching, and excessive moralizing take their toll. Studies reveal a yearning for authentic community, relevant teachings, and traditions with spiritual depth.

    When Sunday services prioritize entertainment or political messages over communal meaning, they sacrifice mystical experience, weakening lasting commitment.

    Christian communities often lack credible witness. Churches investing in coffee bars while neglecting the poor, aligning with power rather than the powerless, or promoting marginalization appear corrupt.

    Religion, at its best, fosters meaning, not control, aligning with truth through reason and experience. Control-based religion and supernatural fantasies disappoint, driving many to seek meaning and community outside traditional structures.

  • Many who confront our current situation think that if we adopt the correct beliefs or return to past forms of theology and practice, we will reconnect with the sacred and begin to gain cultural ground.

    Unfortunately, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of our current dilemma. 

    The Enlightenment transformed how we reason and understand the world. Our understanding and manner of knowing have changed.

    Our intellectual culture has undergone a threefold reductionism (initiated by the Enlightenment): 

    First, we’ve reduced ontology (our understanding of being itself) to a single level—reality was flattened; its many levels of depth were dissolved into the material.

    Second, our culture reduced knowing to a single form: the knowledge that something is the case, meaning an evidential and propositional manner of thinking and reasoning. 

    Third, we’ve reduced intelligibility itself (what it means for something to be understood) to generalizability. That is, only what can be abstracted, formalized, and universally applied is deemed worthy of understanding.

    These reductions obscure the pathways that allow us to comprehend meaning and purpose in the world, thereby eroding the fundamental functions of religion.

    Religion is an experiential connectedness to being, through which the world discloses itself as meaningful.

    Religion serves as a vehicle for encountering meaning, rooted in narrative wisdom traditions that speak mythopoetically and are enlivened by ritual. This wisdom must be experienced, not just analyzed and reduced to propositional form. 

    Simply giving personal assent to a list of propositional beliefs or convictions does not reintegrate us into the living streams of tradition, community, and transformation.

    The Enlightenment has led to the engagement of religion as a reasoned justification of propositional belief, when what we truly need is a set of spiritual practices—a living, interlocking system of disciplines, virtues, rituals, and liturgies in communal contexts that enact wisdom across multiple forms of knowing and being.

    This is what the ancient traditions cultivated through rituals, contemplation, storytelling, and shared moral formation. These practices shaped consciousness, oriented attention, and transformed the self's relationship with the world.

    So you can’t think yourself back into meaning. You have to live your way back into it. Yes, the path is defined by propositions, but they must be engaged through religious practices to have effect. 

    To help us locate and define the path, we must stop doing theology according to Enlightenment principles and develop a holistic theology of meaning that operates mythopoetically and through illiative reasoning, insight, and experiential immersion. 

    Such a move must also be acknowledged and self-aware, in the sense that we relinquish specific categories of claims formerly made by theology that today fall within the purview of science, history, psychology, or social science.

  • A post-Christian culture refers to a society where Christian beliefs, values, and practices no longer dominate public life, institutions, or individual worldviews.

    While Christianity may still exist, its influence on cultural norms, morality, and social structures has significantly declined. This shift often stems from secularization, in which rationalism, individualism, and pluralism displace complementary religious and normative concerns.

    Key characteristics include:

    • Decline in Religious Authority: Institutions like churches lose sway over societal decisions, with secular philosophies or ideologies taking precedence.

    • Moral Relativism: Traditional Christian ethics, such as the belief in moral truth, are often replaced by subjective or culturally relative values.

    • Pluralism and Diversity: Multiple belief systems coexist, with no single religion, including Christianity, holding a monopoly on cultural narratives.

    • Privatization of Spirituality: Religion becomes a personal choice rather than a public expectation, often confined to private spheres.

    • Skepticism Toward Tradition: Christian doctrines and practices are dismissed as misaligned with modern sensibilities.

    This cultural shift can result from historical events (the Enlightenment, scientific advancements), social changes (materialism, urbanization, education), or disillusionment with religious institutions.

    Even in a post-Christian society, remnants of Christian frameworks persist, providing a superficial but stabilizing structure. This "bathwater"—the diluted ethical and social residues—upholds basic civility, preventing descent into forms of imperialism and barbarism. We're operating on cultural fumes, with uncertain longevity before full erosion.

    Consider the following examples:

    • Moral Foundations: Concepts like human dignity, compassion, and justice, rooted in Christianity, still influence laws and social norms, though often detached from their religious origins.

    • Ethical Language: Terms such as "good Samaritan" or "golden rule" remain in common parlance, guiding behavior without explicit faith commitment.

    • Institutional Echoes: Education, healthcare, and welfare systems echo Christian charitable traditions, maintaining societal cohesion.

    • Cultural Rituals: Weddings, funerals, and oaths retain Christian undertones, offering familiar structures amid secular shifts.

    • Value Systems: Emphasis on forgiveness, equality, and community service lingers, buffering against nihilism or extreme individualism.

    This superficial retention sustains order, but as genuine Christian influence fades, the framework's durability is questionable, potentially leading to cultural voids if not replenished.

    In a post-Christian culture, arcane theology often fails to resonate, lacking relevance or meaning amid modern values of empiricism, individualism, and scientific literacy. Complex doctrines appear outdated or incomprehensible, alienating potential adherents and contributing to widespread rejection of Christianity.

    Here are just a few examples:

    • Irrelevance of Doctrines: Concepts such as regeneration, justification, papal infallibility, predestination, and millennialism are seen as disconnected from reality and daily life. They prioritize unprovable metaphysical debates over practical ethics, neglecting contemporary concerns such as mental health and social justice. As a result, they are quickly losing any sense of meaning or relevance.

    • Conflict with Science: Much of Christian theology resists scientific findings, such as evolution, viewing them as threats to literal interpretations of the Bible. This creates a perceived dichotomy between religious conviction and reason, leading many to deconvert. Surveys show science as a significant reason "nones" (religiously unaffiliated) doubt Christianity, with 60% of Americans accepting evolution versus 33% holding creationist views. Poor teaching that forces a choice between theological positions and science exacerbates this issue, as does the dismissal of evidence, such as the Earth's age or natural processes.

    • Intellectual and Emotional Disconnects: Doctrines clashing with modern understanding—suffering despite the claims of an omnipotent, benevolent God—prompt intellectual doubts. Literal readings of biblical accounts that violate natural laws are seen as fables, reducing scripture's authority. This, combined with hypocrisy or abuse in religious settings, pushes people to reject the entire framework rather than reconcile parts.

    Ultimately, these disconnects accelerate wholesale rejection, as theology's refusal to evolve leaves it sidelined in a rational, evidence-based culture.

  • As Western society navigates its post-Christian era, two primary trajectories emerge: continued fading of Christian influence, risking cultural instability, or a revitalized Christian response that redefines discipleship to potentially arrest the decline, though unlikely to reclaim former dominance.

    • Fading Influence and Cultural Drift: Without renewal, Christianity's erosion could accelerate, leaving societal voids filled by secular ideologies like extreme individualism or consumerism. This might lead a drifting into "dangerous waters"—increased moral relativism, social fragmentation, loss of communal ethics, and vulnerability to authoritarianism or nihilism. Historical parallels, such as post-religious vacuums in other cultures, suggest potential for unrest or ethical decay if foundational values dissipate entirely.

    • Christian Renewal and Re-visioning: Christians could "get their act together" by reimagining their convictions in contemporary contexts—emphasizing self-transformation in love, establishing authentic community, promoting social justice, and practicing the Works of Mercy. This might involve decentralizing from dying denominations toward organic, relational expressions of following Jesus, integrating modern challenges like technology and pluralism. While not restoring prominence in a secular landscape, such efforts could stabilize influence, preserve core values, and offer counter-cultural witness, halting further decline.

    The outcome hinges on adaptability; without proactive change, the fumes of Christian heritage may exhaust, but renewal offers a path to enduring relevance, albeit in humbler forms.