Reddit mentions of An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America

Bsp Barron says that during times of hardship we should “hunker down,” to keep the faith alive. He cites John Paul II as an example of this where, as a younger man, Wojtyla kept himself hidden from Communist oppression, studying the faith intensively, thus allowing him to bring it back to people later in life as Pope. Without that period of hiding, Wojtyla may never have become Pope.

We may be so inclined to do the same again. In this period of modern spiritual and social anxiety, an “Anxious Age” in a Post-Protestant America, we may indeed again might have to hunker-down to keep the faith alive, allowing us to bring it back to the world when time permits. Or perhaps we could take the “Benedict Option” approach by simply retreating into our own self-sustaining communities of faith - something the Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, and even Mormons have accomplished quite well. In self-isolation, these groups are able to maintain identity against a hyper-liberalized consumer culture which tells us that religion “can be whatever you want.” They maintain their sense of purpose by leaving those who have none.

Of course, that’s an extreme. But it’s something to consider.

That being said, we must remember that this spiritual anxiety has very much been caused not because we, as a society, have intellectually “outgrown God,” as many modern secular thinkers posit, like Steven Pinker or Yuval Harari. Rather, it is that a sense of language, a language that allowed us to discuss and believe in the transcendent. has been lost in the wake of modernity. Hyper-liberalism, with its mixing of a consumer lead culture and a focus on the needs of the individual above all else, along with the denial of the value of authority (especially so as it relates to the church) has bred an extreme relativism that would be unthinkable several decades ago.

When we read the words of the spiritually drifting Nones who make up so much of our generation, we do not find individuals who are extremely well educated about religion, philosophy, history or science. They are in many respects simply basic with their understanding of the world in that they are not extraordinarily well educated about any particular subject as it relates to the faith. Many millennial Christians themselves espouse outright heresy, though it’s usually inadvertent.

We are not dealing with some sort of grand atheistic intellectual movement in the halls of American high schools and colleges. It’s not as though such students are all huddling together sharing essays from David Hume, since the majority don’t even know his name. They are spiritually lost because of ignorance, and because of cultural reasons, like the increasing rates of religious and ethnic diversity which pressure us when it comes to stating objective truths (since sharing the Gospel as a factual reality would make our non-Christian neighbor uncomfortable). It is our job to “re-educate” our peers on Mere Christianity. No one else will do it.

It’ll be hard struggle.

1. A liberal, consumer centered democratic society impacts how we view ourselves as the “center” of things, and impacts how we choose what we affiliate or don’t affiliate with. American consumer culture has changed very much over the past 50 years.
   
   
2. Declining participation in other social institutions, “bowling alone,” as Robert Putnam put it, where various non-religious groups have had the same issue (ie, bowling leagues, Freemasons, Elks Lodge). We’re more individualistic as technology (TV, phones, etc) lets us stay indoors. This causes a “delayed adulthood” for especially Millennials, who now have “adult experiences” at a later age than their parents, like getting a part-time job, having sex, or getting a driver’s license (see the work of sociologist Jean Twenge on this)
   
   
3. Increase in toleration as communities diversify on ethnic, sexual and religious grounds. This has lead to “Moral Therapeutic Deism” (coined by sociologist Christian Smith) who found that most “Nones” believe in very vague, “safe” spiritual concepts, ie, God loves everyone, all religion is the same. Relativism, and cultural confusion has played a part in this. MTD, as a “religious” system, is incredibly inoffensive, which coincides with American’s acceptance of “extremes” (homosexuality, communism, anti-theism - again, Twenge has done some research on this that shows we are more accepting of ‘extreme ideologies’).
   
   
4. The sexual revolution and its impact on how we view individual autonomy. Think of the two most contended issues in America between the faithful and the secular: abortion and LGBT. The liberation of the “other half” has changed how we view relationships.
   
   
5. The mixing of politics and religion, starting especially with Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel.
   
   
6. Decline of humanities in favor of STEM, though this is a more recent phenomenon.
   
   It’s generally assumed by armchair sociologists that “access to information,” is the driving wedge. Data tells us this is not necessarily the case. Most research shows that especially younger people do not possess fantastic research skills. Plus, the issue of “moral relativism” and the problem of hyper liberalism goes back even to Tocqueville, who noticed individualistic Americans would not be able to act properly in a moral sense, rather choosing indulgences than virtue. Writers like Alan Bloom and Christopher Lasch echoed something like this in the 70s.
   
   Sources:
   
   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-changing-culture/201603/the-decline-in-religion-comes-home
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Age-Post-Protestant-Spirit-America-ebook/dp/B004FGMD4G
   
   https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/the-death-of-protestant-america
   
   http://tonyj.net/blog/2005/02/16/in-praise-of-christian-smith/#sthash.pjq9cu5k.dpbs
   
   https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/
   
   https://www.barna.com/spiritualconversations/