Your question to 'Wild Christians' is a good one, very searching. I arrived in Christianity fairly recently, after a long sojourn through paganism, and I am still hovering on its stranger fringes for the most part. My attempt at an answer might seem slippery, but I came by it honestly: whatever the world is, as we know it, we are part of it; without us, it would not be 'the world', it would be something else. And I think that matters. It puts me in mind of the end of The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (a writer I thought I had outgrown but always end up coming back to): if the ceremonies are not observed, the sun will not rise. Instead, a ball of flaming gas will illuminate the globe. I am beginning to think that difference is more profound and less semantic than I initially assumed. If we live in a way which honours that difference, things might be better for all creation, and not just ourselves.
I used to believe that life would go on largely unaffected by the demise of humanity, and probably for the best. That belief is still in the process of shifting, and I lean heavily on the words and ideas of others to describe my thoughts while I am still finding my feet. I recently read Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta and it has helped me understand the concept - and reality - of humans as a custodial species, a role sustained by the practice of ceremony, which only we can fulfil. Of course, almost nobody believes this; of the few that do, almost nobody has the knowledge or memory of how to perform this role, how to live in this way. I certainly don't, but I am trying to learn what I can.
I am sure that someone better versed in theology than I am will find a way to express a more insightful and Christian version of these observations. All I can say is that the ritual framework of Christianity has been useful for me to navigate the spiritual reality of the experiences which have led me here.
Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective.
Even from a pragmatic point of view, I think humanity adopting a custodial role would be better for humanity (in addition to particular other species).
I'm just thinking as I go here, so don't feel any need to answer unless you want to; but, putting aside the practical issues, I wonder how we could square such a role with the very strong emphasis Christianity places on humility?
Also thinking as I go... but from my perspective humility is an essential part of being in service, and custodianship is essentially a role of service. I genuinely believe that humility about what we can achieve is essential for us to achieve anything of value in addressing these vast and largely self-created problems; it is what allows us (or me, at least) to let go of the need to solve everything and have all the answers, and just get on with doing the small good that we can.
True, humility would also be essential to the role; I suppose my question was more along the lines of 'how could you have that much power and also be humble?'
When I put it that way, I suppose the Christian answer would be something like 'by attending to God rather than yourself'.
"how could you have that much power and also be humble" My answer is we do have that much power, have been exercising it and haven't been humble. Typically the birth of humility is midwifed by repeated smacks of failure, perhaps that is in the offing and finally we will end up as positive custodians and as Genesis says of Adam will "dress and keep" the garden. The Hebrew words for "dress and keep" could also be translated to serve and observe closely. Truly attending to the complex needs of the biosphere will be difficult, a journey of discovery with failures and missteps along the way, more humility inducements. I have experienced these challenges in small scale ecosystem restorations. Things don't turn out as hoped and planned!
I think that's part of where my view diverges from both Christianity and mainstream secular thought.
I don't think we do have that much power at species level, if 'power' roughly equates to 'within rational control'. I simply don't think humanity as a whole is capable of being a rational agent. Individual humans can be rational, and groups of humans, with decreasing rationality as the group gets bigger; but I think the species is far past the threshold where it is meaningless to think of it as an agent. It is more like a forest fire than a foolish man.
Humility first and foremost is surely a recognition of our humus? ‘Adam’ is created from the dust of the earth, his name may be literally be rendered ‘mud man’,and on the sixth day. Jesus in a sense calls us ‘home’ asking his disciples to consider the non human creation - lilies of the field, etc. - in order to orient their lives. The ‘power’ such as it is is the Life God breathes into the mud, but again in the pattern of Jesus is to be exercised through sacrificial Service. This is refusal of Power Over, primarily over one’s very being, a recognition that one doesn’t ‘make a life of one’s own’, but lives a received life. Making a life of one’s own is a radical disconnection from the Life of all things as expressed by choosing knowledge for one’s own ends (eating the fruit of the wrong tree), over Life (the other tree). So we find ourselves alienated from and at war with the Creation which is our earth(l)y beginning and end. Knowledge is Power, but Power is also separation from Life.
I really enjoyed reading your comments after this post. I share many of your questions even if might come down closer to Jerusalem than yourself. I remain an animist at core though and refuse any thought form that would seek to "thing" the Others.
It is odd to me to speak of Christianity when it comes to this sort of question as obviously despite the wishes of many there are many Christianities. To complicate the nesting I think the Christianities are forkings off of Judaism in the sense that they rely on the Jewish texts and history for so much of their theologies.
Your question seems housed in two regions. The first would be the early mythic material of Genesis and related Psalms and some of the Wisdom literature that unpacks the custodial role of the human as well as the relation to the Others. The second would be the business about the ending of this world as it is pictured in various biblical texts (old and new) as well as related extrapolations which I see as a spectrum that runs from illuminating midrash to misunderstood mischief that others see as the teachings of the Church.
A recent post in the Perennial Digression's substack unpacked convncingly how much fluctuations in Christology there are just moving through the various writers of the Gospels and Paul's stuff. David Bentley Hart has also, I think, done some work on this. If even there, at the more historical and tangible strata of all these imaginings there is so much diversity and breathing room how much more so in deep past and the Not Yet. Any firm certainties about what sort of views on ths sort of business are Christ-like are likely to be bullshit.
These, being areas that have either not happened yet or are part of deep time would (taken theism as a truth for the sake of thinking about this) be areas that only G-d or his angels could speak clearly of. Interesting that the three areas were the texts do speak more exhaustively about deep time (Genesis, Job and the Psalms as well as Sophianic bits) the form that speech takes is poetic and according to the experts (the Yids whose books these are) multivocal and of many layers of meaning/metaphor/mysticism.
The incarnation only adds to the sense that the deepest truths are more poetic, more wild in that dreadfully free sense of a later comment, in that Yeshua speaks almost exclusively in story and metaphor and image.
All that blather to say these are surely open questions.
I do love the Lurianic Kabbalah's take on the custodial vocation of the human. And who knows Genesis better than these menschen. The idea of the shattering of the vessels and the holy sparks of the divine this scattered through this creation now in need of redemption with the human as the beings called to raise the sparks and restore the broken.
Kafka riffed on te human role in his parable saying that the messiah will come only when he is no longer needed. He will come only on the day after his arrivlal, not on the last day but on the very last day.
I wonder if the most interesting takes on this see suggest that all species have their roles but the human is the species most inimately bound up with language. And language being the heart of creation itself puts us in a vital place but not necessarily in a hierarchical sense. We are the namers. if we really grasped what that gift was all about maybe some hint about this business would show clear.
Just a ramble at the end of a long day. I have been wanting to work on this question with more substance and thought in an essay but it is tough gig.
The Novalis quote that Robert K put up is really attractive. Interesting that at the baptism of Yeshua the Spirit of God is embodied (incarnated) as a bird.
Less than two cents and way late in the game of this post. No need to respond to such a rant after the fact. Just thinking (kinda) out loud.
It seems to me that humility is more about honest assessment of one's predicament and a submission to the duties that follow. The humble father disciplines his children. The proud man, thinks he can transcend his duty, and let the children do as they please. Humility is the virtue the Roman Centurion had. While being a man of great power…he knew when it was his turn to bow.
> how could you have that much power and also be humble?
You decide so. :)
Assume you have perfect power. Then, necessarily, you have the power to rule over your passions. Therefore, whether you will be humble or not depends solely on your free decision and not on your makeup or on the force of law or on society and - shockingly - not even on God Almighty.
Interestingly, if you have perfect power and can rule over your passions, then your freely-chosen humility is also perfect humility because it isn't brought about by your passions, it's brought about by your will - the content of who's decisions aren't caused by anything. Therefore whatever will decides is perfect - like perfect humility. Or perfect evil. ;)
As to your question about Christianity and the fate of humanity, there is an interesting short essay by C. S. Lewis titled 'Dogma and the Universe'. It is not long and worthy of being read entirely, but let me quote the relevant lines:
'As far as I understand the latter, Christianity is not wedded to an anthropocentric view of the universe as a whole. [...]
'It is, of course, the essence of Christianity that God loves man and for his sake became man and died. But that does not prove that man is the sole end of nature. In the parable, it was the one lost sheep that the shepherd went in search of: it was not the only sheep in the flock, and we are not told that it was the most valuable — save in so far as the most desperately in need has, while the need lasts, a peculiar value in the eyes of Love. The doctrine of the Incarnation would conflict with what we know of this vast universe only if we knew also that there were other rational species in it who had, like us, fallen, and who needed redemption in the same mode, and that they had not been vouchsafed it. But we know none of these things. It may be full of life that needs no redemption. It may be full of life that has been redeemed. It may be full of things quite other than life which satisfy the Divine Wisdom in fashions one cannot conceive. We are in no position to draw up maps of God’s psychology, and prescribe limits to His interests. [...]
The doctrines that God is love and that He delights in men, are positive doctrines, not limiting doctrines. He is not less than this. What more He may be, we do not know; we know only that He must be more than we can conceive. It is to be expected that His creation should be, in the main, unintelligible to us.
Christians themselves have been much to blame for the misunderstanding on these matters. They have a bad habit of talking as if revelation existed to gratify curiosity by illuminating all creation so that it becomes self-explanatory and all questions are answered. But revelation appears to me to be purely practical, to be addressed to the particular animal, Fallen Man, for the relief of his urgent necessities —- not to the spirit of inquiry in man for the gratification of his liberal curiosity.'
Passages from Lewis are always welcome, especially ones that are new to me!
He makes a distinction between 'rational species' (man, perhaps aliens) and others, though; and I think biblically he *has* to preserve some distinction between humanity and other terrestrial creatures (based on my not particularly sophisticated reading of Genesis 1).
The difference between my view and the Christian one is more or less precisely on that point: I don't find our rationality to be a *significant* difference between ourselves and other creatures. This is for a couple of reasons. First, we constantly overestimate our own rationality and are systematically uninterested in the rationality of other creatures (or are hostile to the very concept: Descartes). Second, and more importantly, I see no evidence that humanity can be rational at the species scale. Humans act for reasons and respond with (limited) rationality to their environment, and so can quite large groups (at cost and with rationality decreasing with scale); but humanity as a whole is, I think, a long way beyond the threshold of any residual rationality.
This puts me in a different camp to both Christianity and the secularists. Secular culture is much more invested in rationality than Christians, on the whole; and *needs* it to work on a co-ordinated species level in a way that I don't think Christians do. This is one of many reasons why, despite not being Christian, my views about many things are closer to Christianity than to the secular mainstream.
It's still a wonderful passage, though, and has expanded my understanding of the Christian view. Thanks
Mar 16, 2023·edited Mar 16, 2023Liked by FFatalism
I also have problems with the idea of rationality as something that puts humanity aside from the rest of creation. But I am a Christian as well, so I try to reconcile both points of view. The crucial question for me is: if there dwells an image of God in us, where is it to be found? The traditional Western view tacitly assumes that the divine spark in us is precisely what sets us apart from the other living beings. One root of this is certainly Genesis, another is Aristotle. But I do not think (here I may open myself to the charge of heresy) this doctrine is essential to the Christian faith. In my own view, our 'highest' or most God-like faculties are those by which we orient ourselves to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, and I think we do share them in some way with other animals. Certainly many of them are capable of love.
Lewis, in this essay, is speaking of man as compared with hypothetical 'rational' species on other planets. But I think a lot of what he says also makes sense if we compare man with the other forms of life on this planet.
In this spirit, another quote comes to my mind, by the German poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg): „Wenn Gott Mensch werden konnte, kann er auch Stein, Pflanze, Tier und Element werden. Und vielleicht gibt es auf diese Art eine fortwährende Erlösung in der Natur.“ This is from his posthumously published 'fragments', and an English translation would be this: 'If God was able to become man, He can also become stone, plant, animal, and element. And perhaps there is thus a continual redemption in nature.'
That's a really interesting perspective. I think you're at least right that the doctrine is not *obviously* essential to Christianity in the same way that, for instance, the doctrine of the Incarnation is. I don't think I'm qualified to judge whether or not it's less obviously inherent (so there'll be no accusations of heresy from me!).
I suppose in practice a lot of this will then depend on the amount of weight you place on the precise words of the scriptures, and there seems to be a very wide range of answers to that question too.
Christianity is millenarian. ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ means, in effect, a closing of the gap between realms of existence and a redemptive transformation. Maybe it sounds crazy, but so is the metaverse, reincarnation, or the fervent belief that everything is pure chance.
There is a temptation to think of the adjective “wild” as meaning free to interpret things any which way. Wild in the context of Christianity (in my view anyway) has a different connotation. Wild means approaching Reality without defenses; coming psychologically and spiritually naked before the Creator. It is not Jean-Jacques Rousseau religion.
“…is it possible for a Christian to interpret that as a merely ‘local’ event, like of rise and fall of empires…?”
Yes. I am not convinced we are in the end times, not because I don’t believe there will be an end times, but because any cursory reading of history will reveal innumerable periods when everything just sort of fell apart.
However, I have met a great many Christians who are convinced that we are in the end times. I’ve also met some Muslims who feel the same way. Perhaps a part of this tendency isn’t merely doctrinal, but an instinctive inclination to see one’s own historical period as the most significant, and the most climactic. The proliferation of dystopian and zombie-type movies suggest that even non-religious people have this inclination. The best part of every story is the climax; who wouldn’t want to live in the climax?
It hadn't occurred to me that wild Christianity might be read in a free-and-easy way! I don't think there's a trace of that in Paul's article. I think you're right that the phrase carries the risk though.
It's interesting that all the Christians who have answered so far - all of whom think there are civilizational bumps ahead - are of the view that it is probably not the end times (although all are, of course, open to the possibility).
“It hadn't occurred to me that wild Christianity might be read in a free-and-easy way! I don't think there's a trace of that in Paul's article.”
I don’t think that is what Paul meant either. Rather, it’s the “risk” you mentioned, particularly in the question “Must wild Christianity be millenarian?”
Quite possibly, wild Christianity would be more, not less, millenarian. Most of the early Christians thought they were in the end times, and I know one person who, right after her dramatic conversion, felt this way.
From a strictly theological point of view, my understanding is that we have been in the “end times” for about 2000 years. Obviously that can sound like post hoc reasoning. I know one pastor who interestingly that suggested Jesus’s Crucifixion split human history. So, however many years of “human” history preceded Jesus, there must be just the same number of years that pass before the end comes.
I recall how 2012 was supposed to be the end times or a transitional time based on the Mayan calendar. I dismissed it then, but looking back, that was the year (according to Jon Haidt and others) when social media really took off, and triggered the mental health crisis among youth (and perhaps much of the social and political convulsions that followed).
I think we're partly talking at cross purposes here. I don't think millenarianism (in the imminent end-times sense or the broader sense) is a bad thing. As non-Christian it's simply not my battle. 'Must wild Christianity be millenarian?' was intended in the sense 'Does A follow from B?' rather than 'Millenarianism is obviously bad, can wild Christianity avoid it?'
The only 'risk' I referred to is the risk of 'wild Christianity' being misinterpreted as 'free-and-easy Christianity' that you brought up.
Anyhow, it's interesting that you think wild Christianity might be more Millenarian and are clearly sympathetic to it while not yourself being Millenarian in that sense. Is this something a bit like "I am not a saint, but we need saints" as a rough approximation?
I encountered the term "wild Christian" as an antipode to "domesticated Christian". xD A "domesticated Christian" is one of those creatures that is nominally a Christian but they don't in any meaningful way threaten the status quo. They go to church, they give their alms, they pray, they fast, they are very corteous and "goody" and they NEVER EVER get into a fistfight with infidels over anything, no matter how serious. They have been domesticated, like cattle - originally a ferocious beast. On the other end of the spectrum, you have wild Christians that Society can't put to use like their domesticated cousins. Wild Christians *might* tear down Society if Society warrants it. Domesticated Christians would never dream of doing such a thing.
thanks so much for the link and the kind words! i'm very glad to hear that you've found something to enjoy in my work: it feels more like a exorcism than an exercise when i sit down to write, so feedback from normal people is always deeply appreciated.
and if anybody ever wants to explore the gnosticism of Wild Christianity—i am enthusiastically available.
My own 'apocalyptic imaginary' so to speak is greatly informed by A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller; by The Road, by Cormac McCarthy; and, more recently, by A Descent into the Maelstrom, by Edgar Allen Poe. All highly recommended reading, for what it is worth.
That said, I have no idea how this catastrophe unfolds. My intuition and my (dark) hope is that though it will be planetary in scope, it will be limited in time (though might last a long time). And that humans will survive it. But it will be excruciating, to say the least, to go through.
If so, it would be wise to begin fathoming how to start living on the other side of this catastrophe now. Not because any one of us--or group of us--will survive it. Most likely we won't. But so that perhaps what is the best of wisdom and practices of wisdom (to speak generically) might possibly and more likely survive what is coming and already upon us. So maybe those who do survive it, won't have to start over from scratch. This is what in The Road is called 'carrying the fire'.
Maybe that is utterly futile. But it is something that gives me hope and purpose.
That's interesting because you are certainly on the more apocalyptic side of those who have written on wild Christianity; but I think 'limited in time' probably means that you don't see collapse as an eschatological event?
I also hope and suspect humans will scrape through, for what it's worth!
A good distinction, and one that I think still puts you on the not-millenarian side of things (I'm assuming here that Christians are always be open to the *possibility* of the millennium).
Out of interest, did the desert fathers view things as very imminent?
That's a good question. I don't really know, but I don't think so. I don't recall a lot of talk about an imminent apocalypse in the sayings of the desert fathers. There is a lot more talk about one's own behavior and facing the judgement.
One of the standard explanations of desert monasticism is that it was a response to the end of the age of martyrs and the inclination to seek a new kind of martyrdom. A way to radically live out the Gospels both within and outside of the empire (though St. Anthony does precede Constantine, etc).
If anyone has evidence to the contrary I would love to hear.
I'd just like to say that I am one of the (few? many?) non-Christians who came here via Paul Kingsnorth. If I had a larger/more stable income I do applaud your approach to this issue, which is refreshingly different from the popular view of blogging and its variants as some klnd of cash cow. I would certainly be pledging my support but cannot do so in all conscience right now. Maybe later this year, if things work out...
I suspect it was a very mixed contingent who have come here via Paul; but it's impossible to know of course. Very few people comment as a proportion of readers.
Thanks for the kind words too, and I hope things do work out for you.
Interesting; I will try to check out some of those links.
I may be missing something, but I haven’t interpreted the “Wild Christianity” articles as millenarian. I am not anticipating that all society will collapse at once. I think it more likely that many “small” disasters will happen (are happening) at once, requiring an increasing number of “small” course corrections on the part of alert individuals and organizations. Of course, these “small” disasters may not feel at all small to those involved and the “small” changes may end up being quite significant over time.
Now I could be completely wrong, of course. But I live within the scope of what I can do to keep my corner of society functioning, and there’s still more than enough for me to do every day. My perception of the larger picture is also biased by my experience, obviously: I have witnessed and experienced disturbing things, but me and my family are still here living and working, and I like to think making a positive impact.
Are humans “special?” To ourselves we are anyway. It’s always seemed to me intuitively that human consciousness serves some purpose in the big picture. I can perceive beauty and have a need to create and speak truth. That has to mean something. Recently I’ve found that at least some strands of Christian thinking dig into this, and explain it in a rational manner. That is powerful to me: it’s like discovering the grammar and vocabulary of a language I’ve never been properly taught. Some people talk about religious belief as if one is forcing oneself to believe something stupid and implausible (which no one should ever do), but that is not what is happening with me. I am trying to understand something I have always experienced.
Anyway maybe that went off topic. And also I’m not Christian either, so can’t actually answer your question. And I may never be, but we live in strange times, so who knows. I think the most useful ideas are those that can be grasped but also adapt to many different situations, and this “wild Christianity” idea seems to be working for a few people. It has sort clicked for me too, but it wasn’t exactly Paul’s essay that clicked, but Peco’s at Pilgrims in the Machine:
I liked Peco's piece and your response too. Both, I think, moved things towards practice, the everyday, and that is always good.
You are, I think, more optimistic than me (most people are). I see a large collapse as inevitable and only hope it will be a relatively slow and controlled one.
For me, though, collapse cannot threaten the small acts of goodness that we can achieve. If you saved a young man from a fire and a few years later he was killed in a war, would that have somehow rendered what you did any less good or valuable? For me the answer is a resounding 'no'.
This link, I feel, provides a better answer than I gave. The question of escatology, or the end times, requires an understanding of the power of God, which is either totally controlling, which removes free will, or of limited control.
After many decades of seeking the Way of Jesus, I find that the onrushing collapse of society is a very spiritual, very human, failing. I do not see it as a version of some Hollywood apocalyptic movie. I do not see a need to retreat into walled, fortified monastaries. We do need to rediscover our spiritual connection to Creation and the Creator.
There are two perils contemplated here. One is human extinction, the other is some sort of total technocracy that subjugates the human spirit.
I see both as spiritually perilous from a wild or esoteric Christian perspective. Humans have a particular role to play in terms of elevating consciousness. Anything that either wipes out humanity or welds large portions of humanity to technocratic / materialist forces is of spiritual peril in a much broader frame than merely personal spiritual peril.
This for me is fundamentally different to a materialist view, which might find it harder to go beyond that it is a real shame if the particles that make up this corner of the universe are no longer quite so full of life, due to human actions.
I hope it's OK to jump in here because I really appreciate this question and thread. To me, what leaps out when I look at those two options is the fact that, for many animal species, extinction or total subjugation are things that have already happened.
My question was more directed to the 'extinction' (or at least massive suffering and loss) peril, although I don't think I was clear about that; so thanks for doing some disambiguation for me!
As a non-materialist non-Christian, I agree that both are bad.
Hi! I dropped by after seeing you comment on Barsoom.
> Must wild Christianity be millenarian?
I've read the article by Kingsnorth you linked to, and I suspect I understood it. I'm a Catholic for the majority of my life (decades) and I'll answer the question thus: No.
Simply: civilizations rise and fall. It's almost a cycle. Go to Wikipedia and list out the numerous cultures that inhabited Europe since agriculture entered 8000 years ago. Rise and fall, rise and fall... There is no reason to belive the current fall of the West is in any way special, or that there is anything eschatological about it. It does riff on the End times, but then again almost everything riffs on almost everything. You can find connections almost everywhere.
The future journey of the West is monumental... from the West's perspective. But historically, it's just another turn of the cycle - or perhaps better said, it's just another turn of the spiral. ;)
I think, on my understanding, 'not speculating on the timing' is a very orthodox position among Christians; so I suppose my question perhaps lacked tact. Sorry for that.
The idea that we have an even more profound bout of, presumably millennia-long, messing up ahead of us is less than cheering!
Your question to 'Wild Christians' is a good one, very searching. I arrived in Christianity fairly recently, after a long sojourn through paganism, and I am still hovering on its stranger fringes for the most part. My attempt at an answer might seem slippery, but I came by it honestly: whatever the world is, as we know it, we are part of it; without us, it would not be 'the world', it would be something else. And I think that matters. It puts me in mind of the end of The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (a writer I thought I had outgrown but always end up coming back to): if the ceremonies are not observed, the sun will not rise. Instead, a ball of flaming gas will illuminate the globe. I am beginning to think that difference is more profound and less semantic than I initially assumed. If we live in a way which honours that difference, things might be better for all creation, and not just ourselves.
I used to believe that life would go on largely unaffected by the demise of humanity, and probably for the best. That belief is still in the process of shifting, and I lean heavily on the words and ideas of others to describe my thoughts while I am still finding my feet. I recently read Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta and it has helped me understand the concept - and reality - of humans as a custodial species, a role sustained by the practice of ceremony, which only we can fulfil. Of course, almost nobody believes this; of the few that do, almost nobody has the knowledge or memory of how to perform this role, how to live in this way. I certainly don't, but I am trying to learn what I can.
I am sure that someone better versed in theology than I am will find a way to express a more insightful and Christian version of these observations. All I can say is that the ritual framework of Christianity has been useful for me to navigate the spiritual reality of the experiences which have led me here.
Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective.
Even from a pragmatic point of view, I think humanity adopting a custodial role would be better for humanity (in addition to particular other species).
I'm just thinking as I go here, so don't feel any need to answer unless you want to; but, putting aside the practical issues, I wonder how we could square such a role with the very strong emphasis Christianity places on humility?
Also thinking as I go... but from my perspective humility is an essential part of being in service, and custodianship is essentially a role of service. I genuinely believe that humility about what we can achieve is essential for us to achieve anything of value in addressing these vast and largely self-created problems; it is what allows us (or me, at least) to let go of the need to solve everything and have all the answers, and just get on with doing the small good that we can.
True, humility would also be essential to the role; I suppose my question was more along the lines of 'how could you have that much power and also be humble?'
When I put it that way, I suppose the Christian answer would be something like 'by attending to God rather than yourself'.
"how could you have that much power and also be humble" My answer is we do have that much power, have been exercising it and haven't been humble. Typically the birth of humility is midwifed by repeated smacks of failure, perhaps that is in the offing and finally we will end up as positive custodians and as Genesis says of Adam will "dress and keep" the garden. The Hebrew words for "dress and keep" could also be translated to serve and observe closely. Truly attending to the complex needs of the biosphere will be difficult, a journey of discovery with failures and missteps along the way, more humility inducements. I have experienced these challenges in small scale ecosystem restorations. Things don't turn out as hoped and planned!
I think that's part of where my view diverges from both Christianity and mainstream secular thought.
I don't think we do have that much power at species level, if 'power' roughly equates to 'within rational control'. I simply don't think humanity as a whole is capable of being a rational agent. Individual humans can be rational, and groups of humans, with decreasing rationality as the group gets bigger; but I think the species is far past the threshold where it is meaningless to think of it as an agent. It is more like a forest fire than a foolish man.
Of course, that's also a reason to be humble!
Humility first and foremost is surely a recognition of our humus? ‘Adam’ is created from the dust of the earth, his name may be literally be rendered ‘mud man’,and on the sixth day. Jesus in a sense calls us ‘home’ asking his disciples to consider the non human creation - lilies of the field, etc. - in order to orient their lives. The ‘power’ such as it is is the Life God breathes into the mud, but again in the pattern of Jesus is to be exercised through sacrificial Service. This is refusal of Power Over, primarily over one’s very being, a recognition that one doesn’t ‘make a life of one’s own’, but lives a received life. Making a life of one’s own is a radical disconnection from the Life of all things as expressed by choosing knowledge for one’s own ends (eating the fruit of the wrong tree), over Life (the other tree). So we find ourselves alienated from and at war with the Creation which is our earth(l)y beginning and end. Knowledge is Power, but Power is also separation from Life.
Just a few thoughts
Thanks for the question!
I really enjoyed reading your comments after this post. I share many of your questions even if might come down closer to Jerusalem than yourself. I remain an animist at core though and refuse any thought form that would seek to "thing" the Others.
It is odd to me to speak of Christianity when it comes to this sort of question as obviously despite the wishes of many there are many Christianities. To complicate the nesting I think the Christianities are forkings off of Judaism in the sense that they rely on the Jewish texts and history for so much of their theologies.
Your question seems housed in two regions. The first would be the early mythic material of Genesis and related Psalms and some of the Wisdom literature that unpacks the custodial role of the human as well as the relation to the Others. The second would be the business about the ending of this world as it is pictured in various biblical texts (old and new) as well as related extrapolations which I see as a spectrum that runs from illuminating midrash to misunderstood mischief that others see as the teachings of the Church.
A recent post in the Perennial Digression's substack unpacked convncingly how much fluctuations in Christology there are just moving through the various writers of the Gospels and Paul's stuff. David Bentley Hart has also, I think, done some work on this. If even there, at the more historical and tangible strata of all these imaginings there is so much diversity and breathing room how much more so in deep past and the Not Yet. Any firm certainties about what sort of views on ths sort of business are Christ-like are likely to be bullshit.
These, being areas that have either not happened yet or are part of deep time would (taken theism as a truth for the sake of thinking about this) be areas that only G-d or his angels could speak clearly of. Interesting that the three areas were the texts do speak more exhaustively about deep time (Genesis, Job and the Psalms as well as Sophianic bits) the form that speech takes is poetic and according to the experts (the Yids whose books these are) multivocal and of many layers of meaning/metaphor/mysticism.
The incarnation only adds to the sense that the deepest truths are more poetic, more wild in that dreadfully free sense of a later comment, in that Yeshua speaks almost exclusively in story and metaphor and image.
All that blather to say these are surely open questions.
I do love the Lurianic Kabbalah's take on the custodial vocation of the human. And who knows Genesis better than these menschen. The idea of the shattering of the vessels and the holy sparks of the divine this scattered through this creation now in need of redemption with the human as the beings called to raise the sparks and restore the broken.
Kafka riffed on te human role in his parable saying that the messiah will come only when he is no longer needed. He will come only on the day after his arrivlal, not on the last day but on the very last day.
I wonder if the most interesting takes on this see suggest that all species have their roles but the human is the species most inimately bound up with language. And language being the heart of creation itself puts us in a vital place but not necessarily in a hierarchical sense. We are the namers. if we really grasped what that gift was all about maybe some hint about this business would show clear.
Just a ramble at the end of a long day. I have been wanting to work on this question with more substance and thought in an essay but it is tough gig.
The Novalis quote that Robert K put up is really attractive. Interesting that at the baptism of Yeshua the Spirit of God is embodied (incarnated) as a bird.
Less than two cents and way late in the game of this post. No need to respond to such a rant after the fact. Just thinking (kinda) out loud.
It seems to me that humility is more about honest assessment of one's predicament and a submission to the duties that follow. The humble father disciplines his children. The proud man, thinks he can transcend his duty, and let the children do as they please. Humility is the virtue the Roman Centurion had. While being a man of great power…he knew when it was his turn to bow.
> how could you have that much power and also be humble?
You decide so. :)
Assume you have perfect power. Then, necessarily, you have the power to rule over your passions. Therefore, whether you will be humble or not depends solely on your free decision and not on your makeup or on the force of law or on society and - shockingly - not even on God Almighty.
Interestingly, if you have perfect power and can rule over your passions, then your freely-chosen humility is also perfect humility because it isn't brought about by your passions, it's brought about by your will - the content of who's decisions aren't caused by anything. Therefore whatever will decides is perfect - like perfect humility. Or perfect evil. ;)
> I am sure that someone better versed in theology than I am will find a way to express a more insightful and Christian version of these observations.
https://www.usccb.org/committees/evangelization-catechesis/stewardship And so on and so on. What you discovered is basically the essential God-Man relation. God created the World and entrusted it to Man. Man and God are to be harmonious in growing the World.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ascensionfromdarkness/p/welcome-to-the-great-tribulation?r=25fg9s&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
As to your question about Christianity and the fate of humanity, there is an interesting short essay by C. S. Lewis titled 'Dogma and the Universe'. It is not long and worthy of being read entirely, but let me quote the relevant lines:
'As far as I understand the latter, Christianity is not wedded to an anthropocentric view of the universe as a whole. [...]
'It is, of course, the essence of Christianity that God loves man and for his sake became man and died. But that does not prove that man is the sole end of nature. In the parable, it was the one lost sheep that the shepherd went in search of: it was not the only sheep in the flock, and we are not told that it was the most valuable — save in so far as the most desperately in need has, while the need lasts, a peculiar value in the eyes of Love. The doctrine of the Incarnation would conflict with what we know of this vast universe only if we knew also that there were other rational species in it who had, like us, fallen, and who needed redemption in the same mode, and that they had not been vouchsafed it. But we know none of these things. It may be full of life that needs no redemption. It may be full of life that has been redeemed. It may be full of things quite other than life which satisfy the Divine Wisdom in fashions one cannot conceive. We are in no position to draw up maps of God’s psychology, and prescribe limits to His interests. [...]
The doctrines that God is love and that He delights in men, are positive doctrines, not limiting doctrines. He is not less than this. What more He may be, we do not know; we know only that He must be more than we can conceive. It is to be expected that His creation should be, in the main, unintelligible to us.
Christians themselves have been much to blame for the misunderstanding on these matters. They have a bad habit of talking as if revelation existed to gratify curiosity by illuminating all creation so that it becomes self-explanatory and all questions are answered. But revelation appears to me to be purely practical, to be addressed to the particular animal, Fallen Man, for the relief of his urgent necessities —- not to the spirit of inquiry in man for the gratification of his liberal curiosity.'
Passages from Lewis are always welcome, especially ones that are new to me!
He makes a distinction between 'rational species' (man, perhaps aliens) and others, though; and I think biblically he *has* to preserve some distinction between humanity and other terrestrial creatures (based on my not particularly sophisticated reading of Genesis 1).
The difference between my view and the Christian one is more or less precisely on that point: I don't find our rationality to be a *significant* difference between ourselves and other creatures. This is for a couple of reasons. First, we constantly overestimate our own rationality and are systematically uninterested in the rationality of other creatures (or are hostile to the very concept: Descartes). Second, and more importantly, I see no evidence that humanity can be rational at the species scale. Humans act for reasons and respond with (limited) rationality to their environment, and so can quite large groups (at cost and with rationality decreasing with scale); but humanity as a whole is, I think, a long way beyond the threshold of any residual rationality.
This puts me in a different camp to both Christianity and the secularists. Secular culture is much more invested in rationality than Christians, on the whole; and *needs* it to work on a co-ordinated species level in a way that I don't think Christians do. This is one of many reasons why, despite not being Christian, my views about many things are closer to Christianity than to the secular mainstream.
It's still a wonderful passage, though, and has expanded my understanding of the Christian view. Thanks
I also have problems with the idea of rationality as something that puts humanity aside from the rest of creation. But I am a Christian as well, so I try to reconcile both points of view. The crucial question for me is: if there dwells an image of God in us, where is it to be found? The traditional Western view tacitly assumes that the divine spark in us is precisely what sets us apart from the other living beings. One root of this is certainly Genesis, another is Aristotle. But I do not think (here I may open myself to the charge of heresy) this doctrine is essential to the Christian faith. In my own view, our 'highest' or most God-like faculties are those by which we orient ourselves to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, and I think we do share them in some way with other animals. Certainly many of them are capable of love.
Lewis, in this essay, is speaking of man as compared with hypothetical 'rational' species on other planets. But I think a lot of what he says also makes sense if we compare man with the other forms of life on this planet.
In this spirit, another quote comes to my mind, by the German poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg): „Wenn Gott Mensch werden konnte, kann er auch Stein, Pflanze, Tier und Element werden. Und vielleicht gibt es auf diese Art eine fortwährende Erlösung in der Natur.“ This is from his posthumously published 'fragments', and an English translation would be this: 'If God was able to become man, He can also become stone, plant, animal, and element. And perhaps there is thus a continual redemption in nature.'
That's a really interesting perspective. I think you're at least right that the doctrine is not *obviously* essential to Christianity in the same way that, for instance, the doctrine of the Incarnation is. I don't think I'm qualified to judge whether or not it's less obviously inherent (so there'll be no accusations of heresy from me!).
I suppose in practice a lot of this will then depend on the amount of weight you place on the precise words of the scriptures, and there seems to be a very wide range of answers to that question too.
That was a good quote. A reminder not to use faith to drain the mystery out of life.
“Must wild Christianity be millenarian?”
Christianity is millenarian. ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ means, in effect, a closing of the gap between realms of existence and a redemptive transformation. Maybe it sounds crazy, but so is the metaverse, reincarnation, or the fervent belief that everything is pure chance.
There is a temptation to think of the adjective “wild” as meaning free to interpret things any which way. Wild in the context of Christianity (in my view anyway) has a different connotation. Wild means approaching Reality without defenses; coming psychologically and spiritually naked before the Creator. It is not Jean-Jacques Rousseau religion.
“…is it possible for a Christian to interpret that as a merely ‘local’ event, like of rise and fall of empires…?”
Yes. I am not convinced we are in the end times, not because I don’t believe there will be an end times, but because any cursory reading of history will reveal innumerable periods when everything just sort of fell apart.
However, I have met a great many Christians who are convinced that we are in the end times. I’ve also met some Muslims who feel the same way. Perhaps a part of this tendency isn’t merely doctrinal, but an instinctive inclination to see one’s own historical period as the most significant, and the most climactic. The proliferation of dystopian and zombie-type movies suggest that even non-religious people have this inclination. The best part of every story is the climax; who wouldn’t want to live in the climax?
It hadn't occurred to me that wild Christianity might be read in a free-and-easy way! I don't think there's a trace of that in Paul's article. I think you're right that the phrase carries the risk though.
It's interesting that all the Christians who have answered so far - all of whom think there are civilizational bumps ahead - are of the view that it is probably not the end times (although all are, of course, open to the possibility).
“It hadn't occurred to me that wild Christianity might be read in a free-and-easy way! I don't think there's a trace of that in Paul's article.”
I don’t think that is what Paul meant either. Rather, it’s the “risk” you mentioned, particularly in the question “Must wild Christianity be millenarian?”
Quite possibly, wild Christianity would be more, not less, millenarian. Most of the early Christians thought they were in the end times, and I know one person who, right after her dramatic conversion, felt this way.
From a strictly theological point of view, my understanding is that we have been in the “end times” for about 2000 years. Obviously that can sound like post hoc reasoning. I know one pastor who interestingly that suggested Jesus’s Crucifixion split human history. So, however many years of “human” history preceded Jesus, there must be just the same number of years that pass before the end comes.
I recall how 2012 was supposed to be the end times or a transitional time based on the Mayan calendar. I dismissed it then, but looking back, that was the year (according to Jon Haidt and others) when social media really took off, and triggered the mental health crisis among youth (and perhaps much of the social and political convulsions that followed).
I think we're partly talking at cross purposes here. I don't think millenarianism (in the imminent end-times sense or the broader sense) is a bad thing. As non-Christian it's simply not my battle. 'Must wild Christianity be millenarian?' was intended in the sense 'Does A follow from B?' rather than 'Millenarianism is obviously bad, can wild Christianity avoid it?'
The only 'risk' I referred to is the risk of 'wild Christianity' being misinterpreted as 'free-and-easy Christianity' that you brought up.
Anyhow, it's interesting that you think wild Christianity might be more Millenarian and are clearly sympathetic to it while not yourself being Millenarian in that sense. Is this something a bit like "I am not a saint, but we need saints" as a rough approximation?
Yes, that is the rough approximation. More clearly put than I had it!
I encountered the term "wild Christian" as an antipode to "domesticated Christian". xD A "domesticated Christian" is one of those creatures that is nominally a Christian but they don't in any meaningful way threaten the status quo. They go to church, they give their alms, they pray, they fast, they are very corteous and "goody" and they NEVER EVER get into a fistfight with infidels over anything, no matter how serious. They have been domesticated, like cattle - originally a ferocious beast. On the other end of the spectrum, you have wild Christians that Society can't put to use like their domesticated cousins. Wild Christians *might* tear down Society if Society warrants it. Domesticated Christians would never dream of doing such a thing.
thanks so much for the link and the kind words! i'm very glad to hear that you've found something to enjoy in my work: it feels more like a exorcism than an exercise when i sit down to write, so feedback from normal people is always deeply appreciated.
and if anybody ever wants to explore the gnosticism of Wild Christianity—i am enthusiastically available.
I'm not sure I can offer you feedback from a normal person, but maybe one of my readers knows one?
it's all relative!
My own 'apocalyptic imaginary' so to speak is greatly informed by A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller; by The Road, by Cormac McCarthy; and, more recently, by A Descent into the Maelstrom, by Edgar Allen Poe. All highly recommended reading, for what it is worth.
That said, I have no idea how this catastrophe unfolds. My intuition and my (dark) hope is that though it will be planetary in scope, it will be limited in time (though might last a long time). And that humans will survive it. But it will be excruciating, to say the least, to go through.
If so, it would be wise to begin fathoming how to start living on the other side of this catastrophe now. Not because any one of us--or group of us--will survive it. Most likely we won't. But so that perhaps what is the best of wisdom and practices of wisdom (to speak generically) might possibly and more likely survive what is coming and already upon us. So maybe those who do survive it, won't have to start over from scratch. This is what in The Road is called 'carrying the fire'.
Maybe that is utterly futile. But it is something that gives me hope and purpose.
Or more concisely, to quote St. Silouan the Athonite: Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.
That's a very nice quote. One I'm going to do my best to keep in a corner of my mind.
That's interesting because you are certainly on the more apocalyptic side of those who have written on wild Christianity; but I think 'limited in time' probably means that you don't see collapse as an eschatological event?
I also hope and suspect humans will scrape through, for what it's worth!
I don't see it *necessarily* as an eschatological event. I have no idea. It may very well be.
A good distinction, and one that I think still puts you on the not-millenarian side of things (I'm assuming here that Christians are always be open to the *possibility* of the millennium).
Out of interest, did the desert fathers view things as very imminent?
That's a good question. I don't really know, but I don't think so. I don't recall a lot of talk about an imminent apocalypse in the sayings of the desert fathers. There is a lot more talk about one's own behavior and facing the judgement.
One of the standard explanations of desert monasticism is that it was a response to the end of the age of martyrs and the inclination to seek a new kind of martyrdom. A way to radically live out the Gospels both within and outside of the empire (though St. Anthony does precede Constantine, etc).
If anyone has evidence to the contrary I would love to hear.
I'd just like to say that I am one of the (few? many?) non-Christians who came here via Paul Kingsnorth. If I had a larger/more stable income I do applaud your approach to this issue, which is refreshingly different from the popular view of blogging and its variants as some klnd of cash cow. I would certainly be pledging my support but cannot do so in all conscience right now. Maybe later this year, if things work out...
More power to your elbow.
I suspect it was a very mixed contingent who have come here via Paul; but it's impossible to know of course. Very few people comment as a proportion of readers.
Thanks for the kind words too, and I hope things do work out for you.
Interesting; I will try to check out some of those links.
I may be missing something, but I haven’t interpreted the “Wild Christianity” articles as millenarian. I am not anticipating that all society will collapse at once. I think it more likely that many “small” disasters will happen (are happening) at once, requiring an increasing number of “small” course corrections on the part of alert individuals and organizations. Of course, these “small” disasters may not feel at all small to those involved and the “small” changes may end up being quite significant over time.
Now I could be completely wrong, of course. But I live within the scope of what I can do to keep my corner of society functioning, and there’s still more than enough for me to do every day. My perception of the larger picture is also biased by my experience, obviously: I have witnessed and experienced disturbing things, but me and my family are still here living and working, and I like to think making a positive impact.
Are humans “special?” To ourselves we are anyway. It’s always seemed to me intuitively that human consciousness serves some purpose in the big picture. I can perceive beauty and have a need to create and speak truth. That has to mean something. Recently I’ve found that at least some strands of Christian thinking dig into this, and explain it in a rational manner. That is powerful to me: it’s like discovering the grammar and vocabulary of a language I’ve never been properly taught. Some people talk about religious belief as if one is forcing oneself to believe something stupid and implausible (which no one should ever do), but that is not what is happening with me. I am trying to understand something I have always experienced.
Anyway maybe that went off topic. And also I’m not Christian either, so can’t actually answer your question. And I may never be, but we live in strange times, so who knows. I think the most useful ideas are those that can be grasped but also adapt to many different situations, and this “wild Christianity” idea seems to be working for a few people. It has sort clicked for me too, but it wasn’t exactly Paul’s essay that clicked, but Peco’s at Pilgrims in the Machine:
https://pilgrimsinthemachine.substack.com/p/a-fire-that-purifies
This was my response:
https://torthuilexplores.blogspot.com/2023/03/calling-up-other-worlds.html?m=0
Maybe millenarian doesn’t have to be only large scale? Though it could be. Maybe the endings and beginnings could be happening within us.
I liked Peco's piece and your response too. Both, I think, moved things towards practice, the everyday, and that is always good.
You are, I think, more optimistic than me (most people are). I see a large collapse as inevitable and only hope it will be a relatively slow and controlled one.
For me, though, collapse cannot threaten the small acts of goodness that we can achieve. If you saved a young man from a fire and a few years later he was killed in a war, would that have somehow rendered what you did any less good or valuable? For me the answer is a resounding 'no'.
This link, I feel, provides a better answer than I gave. The question of escatology, or the end times, requires an understanding of the power of God, which is either totally controlling, which removes free will, or of limited control.
https://thinkingpacifism.net/2023/03/28/is-love-weak-questioning-faith-16/
After many decades of seeking the Way of Jesus, I find that the onrushing collapse of society is a very spiritual, very human, failing. I do not see it as a version of some Hollywood apocalyptic movie. I do not see a need to retreat into walled, fortified monastaries. We do need to rediscover our spiritual connection to Creation and the Creator.
You made my day *and* brought several new sign-ups. Thank you for reading, writing and sharing what you do.
There are two perils contemplated here. One is human extinction, the other is some sort of total technocracy that subjugates the human spirit.
I see both as spiritually perilous from a wild or esoteric Christian perspective. Humans have a particular role to play in terms of elevating consciousness. Anything that either wipes out humanity or welds large portions of humanity to technocratic / materialist forces is of spiritual peril in a much broader frame than merely personal spiritual peril.
This for me is fundamentally different to a materialist view, which might find it harder to go beyond that it is a real shame if the particles that make up this corner of the universe are no longer quite so full of life, due to human actions.
I hope it's OK to jump in here because I really appreciate this question and thread. To me, what leaps out when I look at those two options is the fact that, for many animal species, extinction or total subjugation are things that have already happened.
My question was more directed to the 'extinction' (or at least massive suffering and loss) peril, although I don't think I was clear about that; so thanks for doing some disambiguation for me!
As a non-materialist non-Christian, I agree that both are bad.
Hi! I dropped by after seeing you comment on Barsoom.
> Must wild Christianity be millenarian?
I've read the article by Kingsnorth you linked to, and I suspect I understood it. I'm a Catholic for the majority of my life (decades) and I'll answer the question thus: No.
Simply: civilizations rise and fall. It's almost a cycle. Go to Wikipedia and list out the numerous cultures that inhabited Europe since agriculture entered 8000 years ago. Rise and fall, rise and fall... There is no reason to belive the current fall of the West is in any way special, or that there is anything eschatological about it. It does riff on the End times, but then again almost everything riffs on almost everything. You can find connections almost everywhere.
The future journey of the West is monumental... from the West's perspective. But historically, it's just another turn of the cycle - or perhaps better said, it's just another turn of the spiral. ;)
I think, on my understanding, 'not speculating on the timing' is a very orthodox position among Christians; so I suppose my question perhaps lacked tact. Sorry for that.
The idea that we have an even more profound bout of, presumably millennia-long, messing up ahead of us is less than cheering!