Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2023 1:27 am
Can you just hang back and
listen for once?!
Sure. As long as you don't say I said things I never said. If you can supress that urge, I'm ready to hear you.
So you have mentioned (depreciatingly) superficial, cultural religiosity. What you mean is things not Christian!
Not quite. I mean things some people present as, or choose to call "Christian," but which, when held up to Scripture, are clearly not. Cultural "Christianity" fits that bill nicely. Christianity is not "cultural," or particular to the West...if we were to imagine it was exclusively anything, it would be Jewish. But it's really universal, and thus super-cultural.
But what are the 'racist suppositions'? That also interests me. I looked over the sentence and the designation was to Europe. So you mean to say that if something is strictly or specifically European -- a cultural identity, a European paideia, and indeed a European spirituality or existential ethics -- that it is 'racist' according to you?
Well, you'd better explain this alleged "paideia" of yours, making clear why it's "European" and not, say, Mediterranean or Jewish, or relevant to Asians and blacks. And then we'll see if there's anything racist in it.
This is fitting with what has been called Christian Universalism.
No, "Christian Universalism" is good example of the doctrines I've identified as verifiably pseudo-Christian, but not Christian at all. But "Christian Universalism" ordinarily refers to this:
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/chris ... faith.html , and I'm pretty sure you're trying to use it for something completely different. So you'd best clear that up.
And according to you if Europe (and the English-speaking world) is in disarray and does require 'renovation' -- the only viable means in your view is Christian revivalism.
No. The only possible effective means would be personal salvation. A "movement" is not the answer.
So this is what I am interested in bringing more out into the light.
Well, you'll need to understand it, first. It's not any form of "universalism," it's supercultural, it's totally apolitical, and it keys on personal salvation, not mass movements. Those are four basics you have to get down, if you want to understand anything about real Christianity and what it advocates.
The question is relevant because it is true that when an entire culture loses its *belief* in a defining and organizing metaphysics, surely that culture is in great danger.
That much is true. But neither such a "losing" nor any restoration of a "defining and organizing metaphysics" can be produced by mere political program.
This is one of the key differences between politicized "Christendom" (an artificial blending of the words "Christianity" and "kingdom," found nowhere in Scripture, either as a term or as a concept) and real, personal "Christianity." They are not the same thing, and in many ways, the former is actually the opposite of the latter.
