COMMENTARY // A THEOLOGY OF FAILURE
Has Christianity Failed?
by Matthew E. Burdette
art by Andrew Pinkham
EXCERPT //
As Christianity spread in the West, it relegated pagan religions to the past, and the former objects of religious devotion became objects of scientific study: Christianity made the world secular, not sacred. Because of the religion of Jesus, the stars and planets were no longer (for most people) signs to be read by astrologers, but fellow creatures: brother sun, sister moon, a new frontier to explore scientifically. The irony is that these astrologers were led to Jesus by a star but, as Matthew’s Gospel puts it with many layers of meaning, they left by another route.
And this same irony now afflicts Christianity. It’s exactly because Christianity is a secularizing force that it finds itself in a situation of decline. The scientific research that Christianity engendered eventually freed itself from the constraints of ecclesiastical authority, and now people regularly assume that they must choose between science and faith. The great tradition of Western art overcame its dependence on the patronage of the church. The humanism and moral intuitions that are foundational for Western societies, such as the dignity of the weak and vulnerable—convictions that Christianity instilled in the West—have now become the basis for a thorough and rightful indictment of the church’s crimes.
Which is to say: Christianity’s success has occasioned its failure.
For full text and images, consider reading RQ in print, on a Sunday afternoon, sun streaming through your window, coffee in hand, and nary a phone alert within sight or in earshot… just fine words, fine design, and the opportunity to make a stitch in time. // Subscribe or buy a single issue today. // Print is dead. Long live print. //