In The Air We Breathe (The Good Book Company, 2022), author Glen Scrivener explains how western society came to believe in the core values we now take for granted: equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress. He contends that belief in these values is not self-evident, trans-cultural, or historically necessary. So where did these values come from? His answer: Christianity.
It is a great irony, therefore, that even while western society continues to secularize, leaving belief in the Christian faith behind, its moral instincts remain largely unchanged. Westerners do not question the existence of human rights. Nor do they doubt the equal moral standing of all people, the obligation of the strong to care for the weak, the rich to care for the poor, the benefits of education, the importance of a scientific understanding of the world, or the value in reforming society of its evils and injustices. Westerners do not need to be convinced of these values. They are, as Scrivener puts it, “the air we breathe.”
Tom Holland, a British historian who himself is an atheist, has played a key role in shaping Scrivener’s thinking on the topic. In Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books, 2019), he contrasts the moral universe of modern western society with its ancient form in classical antiquity. Holland admits that even while his belief in God has faded over the course of his lifetime, he did not cease to be “Christian” in his thinking. The historian observes, “So profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilization that it has come to be hidden from view” (17).
In other words, just as a goldfish has no conscious awareness of the concept of water, much less its H20 chemical composition, westerners today do not realize they live in a “Christian” world. They are living off the moral inheritance of a bygone era, prompting the question: What if the inheritance runs out?
In this article, I will explore one theory regarding how we reached this paradoxical moment in which society has left Christianity behind but retained vestiges of its moral foundation. Then I will offer some thoughts regarding how educators can equip the next generation of Christians to not only steward the inheritance, but contribute to it. Ultimately, I will argue that the new (ex-Christian) moral order, characterized by individual pluralistic spirituality and a preoccupation on happiness in this life, requires Christian educators to point students back to biblical, orthodox Christian thought and practice. This approach should be characterized by emphasizing the transcendence of God, the riches of Christian tradition, and the joy of following Christ within a local church community.
The Paganism of Secularism
In Remaking the World (Crossway, 2023), pastor and author Andrew Wilson offers a nuanced explanation for the rise of secularism in the Modern West. While simplistic explanations point to the displacement of religion via modern science, Wilson suggests that two ideologies emerged in the post-Reformation era that together became the theological parents of secularism: paganism and protestantism.
When Wilson refers to paganism, he does not have in mind animal sacrifices and witchcraft. Following intellectual historian Peter Gay, he observes that underlying the Enlightenment’s focus on progress and human reason lies a common appreciation for pagan antiquity and classical learning. There was something about the classical era that captured the attention of Enlightenment philosophes such as Diderot, Gibbon, Kant, and Hume. They revered the Greeks and Romans for their contributions to philosophy, mathematics, science, rhetoric, and lyrical beauty. This is easy enough to see on a visit to Washington D.C. The neo-classical architecture of a city erected following the Enlightenment is evident.
The reverence and appreciation for this pre-Christian intellectual era is one shared element between paganism and what will become modern secularism. But more importantly, the philosophes of the Enlightenment adopted the pagan worldview about the location of the sacred. Numinous encounters of the divine are a shared universal human experience. But where do these experiences come from? There are basically two answers: from this world or somewhere else. In classical paganism, the gods and goddesses possess supernatural power, and yet, they are still contained within this world. In contrast, the Christian response is that the origin of the sacred is a different world entirely, a spiritual realm ruled by a transcendent God.
There is therefore a surprising analogy between ancient paganism and modern secularism. Pagans and secularists alike look to life on earth for meaning and purpose. As Wilson puts it “The holy, the numinous and the sublime were essentially immanent rather than transcendent. And right across the ex-Christian spectrum, this had a significant impact on the way people thought about nature, art, sex, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (151). Why search for the sacred in a world beyond if it can be found here in our cosmos?
The Disruption of Protestantism
The other theological parent of modern secularism, according to Wilson (a practicing Anglican), is protestantism. In Wilson’s view, there are four main ways protestantism contributed, in partnership with modern paganism, to the present “Christian” society albeit without Christianity:
- Protestantism created an ecclesial disaster, shattering medieval Christendom into a thousand pieces, by replacing church authority with the autonomous self. Salvation became a matter of heartfelt faith rather than a religious state overseen by the Catholic church.
- Protestantism caused division within the Church by turning its guns, not merely on church leaders, but on Church doctrine itself. The Church was replaced by churches, which inevitably led to the call for religious toleration and the privatization of religion. With a vacuum for central authority up for grabs, experimental science took its place as the modern uncontested gatekeeper of truth.
- Protestantism engendered disenchantment by replacing a spiritually-infused enchanted world with an approach in which the individual’s inward experience takes precedent over pious practices and superstition. Insisting on the authority of Scripture alone and the importance of personal faith, spiritual flourishing became possible through an immanent frame, as philosopher Charles Taylor would put it.
- Protestantism weaponized religious doubt through normalizing public skepticism and disdain for Church doctrine and authority. Thus, skepticism became a natural step in the modern religious experience and not all pilgrims, including today, successfully overcome doubt to reach enduring faith.
While each of these points requires further elaboration, which Wilson provides, the upshot is that protestantism brought about significant change in the way Christians in the West approached their religion. It inadvertently led to the emergence of a religious menu, full of attractive options, to be selected by the consumer. Coupled with the paganism described above, the modern milieu emerged in which a person’s religious and existential needs for the sacred and a higher purpose could be met individualistically and pluralistically in this world.
Educating Protestant Pagans
This modern mindset toward religion is what Wilson calls protestant paganism. He writes, “Ex-Christianity in the modern West is the unwitting product of both these forces working together. Paganism, which has always seen the sacred as immanent and ultimacy as located within this world of space and time, reacted with the divisions and doubts brought by Protestantism, and produced a new entity” (156). It is a religion in which its adherents focus on the inward spiritual experience of the individual and practice moral virtues that bring happiness in this life.
Now we need to talk about education. In light of this proposed account for the “Christian air” society “breaths” without realizing it, how can we educate our students to be orthodox Christians rather than protestant pagans?
I want to make five suggestions:
First, we ought to incorporate into our schools the recitation of historic Christian creeds. As a Protestant myself, I am in full support of shepherding each student to make a personal decision to put their faith in Jesus Christ. We can nourish individual faith with corporate confession of what we believe as educational institutions in support of the church.
Second, we ought to lead our faculty and students to reflect on the transcendent and holy character of God. This can happen through public scripture readings, worship, and prayer. But the focus of the time should be on God’s being and works, not merely ourselves. The integration of faith and learning can lead students to experience harmony between what they believe and what they think.
Third, we should pass on the riches of the classical tradition–the art, the philosophy, the myths–as a foil for Christianity. As classical schools, we share with pride that our students can recite the myth of Heracles, explain Plato’s forms, and read the epic of Virgil’s Aeneid. Sometimes we can lose sight of the fact that as Christians we pass on this legacy because of the role it plays in a greater legacy, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
Fourth, we should explicitly help students make connections between the modern values of the day with biblical teaching and Christian thought. Our students need to understand that human rights, science, justice, and compassion are God’s ideas. While contemporary culture has found a way to divorce its inherited morality from its Christian theological origins, at least for now, we can brighten the lines around the genealogy of our culture’s morals (to quote Nietsche!).
Finally, we must lift up the name of Christ over and above these inherited values. As Scrivener himself indicates, if western society abandons Christ, but retains the values, we will be left with legalistic judgment (200). Values can only judge while persons are required to forgive. Our students need to be regularly reminded of the gospel. Moral values and virtues do not save them. Jesus does.
As Western society continues to live off the inheritance of its Christian heritage, there is a crucial role Christians can play. Through are unity with Christ, we have an opportunity to not merely live off the inheritance ourselves, but contribute new deposits. It may be that the inheritance will one day run out. If it does, I hope I am not around to see it. Or it may be that through the faithful and quiet laboring of churches and schools, the inheritance grows and the light once again shines.
As Jesus taught his disciples:
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)
