Very interesting - thank you. A couple of questions:
1. Is there any reference in Minich's book to the cosmic conflict between God and Satan? Is there any unpacking of the drift into atheism as part of that struggle?
2. Do the great world wars of the 20th Century feature in the turn away from the institutional church?
3. How rich is the book in its scriptural grounding, would you say? I have a strong sense that scripture does give insight into the discernment of the times in this generation and the Spirit is not silent. Even so, the idea of a period of divine absence is interesting. The 400 years before the coming of Christ were silent and the people (particularly the religious leaders and scholars) were not ready for him.
4. In the silence, how do you avoid lapsing into deism?
(1) I could have missed it, but don't think it featured in the argument. I don't think Minch would object to this as an ultimate cause, but he is focused on the structural forces or the shape of reality as it is experienced directly by human agents.
(2) They certainly did, though the relationship isn't entirely clear or straightforward. Minich discusses this a little in chapter two (p. 86ff), treating it as a kind of natural outgrowth of divine absence that had already appeared in the urban working class spaces before the wars. This argument seems sustainable to me, as terrible wars occurred long before atheism became prevalent, yet never drove mass atheism. (At best, it drove a loss of divine honor of the gods on the losing side.) We can probably treat the wars as accelerating or amplifying the secular-aligned plausibility structures of the post-industrial world. (For example, I recall reading recently that church attendance significantly rose after the Civil War, which wouldn't make sense if catastrophic suffering due to wars caused atheism, rather than being a multivariate phenomenon.)
(3 - 4) I had no objections to Minich's use of Scripture. (I'm not a theologian or scholar, however!) Minich has a section toward the end of his book about acts or habits of remembrance that draw on the Christian life. It's a boring answer, but it's true: Christians need to meet together regularly and share in life's joys and sufferings. This should include all the acts of worship, communion, and service that the NT expects of healthy churches. (Minich closes the book with a reminder that our neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses.)
It does strike me that if you miss the cosmic conflict between God and the Satan, then you miss the main point of the gospel! The evangelion is quite literally the declaration of a new kingdom with a new king to displace the usurper. Everything else is contingent on that.
The institutional church's drift into irrelevance is instrinsic with the move to technocractic secularism - and this is crying out to be seen as a crucial twist in the cosmic conflict. The faithful response has to be more than ritual and hospitality. (Surely the Muslims can do that just as well as the confessional christians?) For many, the christian faith is an ideological confession, a code of moral conduct and a ritual of church. This is a form of godliness, but where is the power?
Very interesting - thank you. A couple of questions:
1. Is there any reference in Minich's book to the cosmic conflict between God and Satan? Is there any unpacking of the drift into atheism as part of that struggle?
2. Do the great world wars of the 20th Century feature in the turn away from the institutional church?
3. How rich is the book in its scriptural grounding, would you say? I have a strong sense that scripture does give insight into the discernment of the times in this generation and the Spirit is not silent. Even so, the idea of a period of divine absence is interesting. The 400 years before the coming of Christ were silent and the people (particularly the religious leaders and scholars) were not ready for him.
4. In the silence, how do you avoid lapsing into deism?
Thanks for taking the time to read it!
Answering your questions:
(1) I could have missed it, but don't think it featured in the argument. I don't think Minch would object to this as an ultimate cause, but he is focused on the structural forces or the shape of reality as it is experienced directly by human agents.
(2) They certainly did, though the relationship isn't entirely clear or straightforward. Minich discusses this a little in chapter two (p. 86ff), treating it as a kind of natural outgrowth of divine absence that had already appeared in the urban working class spaces before the wars. This argument seems sustainable to me, as terrible wars occurred long before atheism became prevalent, yet never drove mass atheism. (At best, it drove a loss of divine honor of the gods on the losing side.) We can probably treat the wars as accelerating or amplifying the secular-aligned plausibility structures of the post-industrial world. (For example, I recall reading recently that church attendance significantly rose after the Civil War, which wouldn't make sense if catastrophic suffering due to wars caused atheism, rather than being a multivariate phenomenon.)
(3 - 4) I had no objections to Minich's use of Scripture. (I'm not a theologian or scholar, however!) Minich has a section toward the end of his book about acts or habits of remembrance that draw on the Christian life. It's a boring answer, but it's true: Christians need to meet together regularly and share in life's joys and sufferings. This should include all the acts of worship, communion, and service that the NT expects of healthy churches. (Minich closes the book with a reminder that our neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses.)
Very grateful for that response, thank you.
It does strike me that if you miss the cosmic conflict between God and the Satan, then you miss the main point of the gospel! The evangelion is quite literally the declaration of a new kingdom with a new king to displace the usurper. Everything else is contingent on that.
The institutional church's drift into irrelevance is instrinsic with the move to technocractic secularism - and this is crying out to be seen as a crucial twist in the cosmic conflict. The faithful response has to be more than ritual and hospitality. (Surely the Muslims can do that just as well as the confessional christians?) For many, the christian faith is an ideological confession, a code of moral conduct and a ritual of church. This is a form of godliness, but where is the power?