Some time ago I posted about the lectures of Christian Smith at Westminster Presbyterian Church's 2010 Renew Conference. Then I went on to read Smith's book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers and posted several entries about it as well (here and here). In brief, based on hundreds of in-depth surveys and follow-up interviews, Smith demonstrates that the actual religion of American teens and twenty-somethings (a/k/a emerging adults) can be summarized in three words: moral therapeutic deism. With perhaps a veneer of Christianity or, better, "spirituality," moral therapeutic deism is a watered-down faith that portrays God as a "divine therapist" whose chief goal is to boost people's self-esteem.
But what's the political connection? Go here to read Carl Trueman's post "McClay, Marcuse, and My Grandfather" to read how folks like Herbert Marcuse turned traditional economic oppression, the staple of Marxism, into a psychological oppression that finds its application in hate-speech codes and the general contemporary notion that anything that makes someone feel bad is oppressive.
This psychologizing of oppression has an even darker side, according to Trueman: "That oppression is now seen as a psychological/sexual category explains various modern tendencies" including gay identity politics. For example, there have been people with same-sex attraction since time immemorial but until the very recent past such people, even if they lived in a homosexual relationship, did not identify themselves with their attraction. Identification of oneself with--and virtually only with--one's sexual desires coupled with identification of political praxis with therapy writ large helps explain why the move to legitimize homosexual relationships has proved so spectacularly successful.
Even those who cognitively identify themselves as Christians, the psychologization of faith has effectively led to a therapeutitization of politics. Thus for now and the foreseeable future conservative focusing on teaching truth, whether as a matter of specific doctrine or general worldview, will make little difference. Unless people begin to desire the Kingdom, all the doctrine in the world will be bracketed out of personal, social, and political significance.
But what's the political connection? Go here to read Carl Trueman's post "McClay, Marcuse, and My Grandfather" to read how folks like Herbert Marcuse turned traditional economic oppression, the staple of Marxism, into a psychological oppression that finds its application in hate-speech codes and the general contemporary notion that anything that makes someone feel bad is oppressive.
This psychologizing of oppression has an even darker side, according to Trueman: "That oppression is now seen as a psychological/sexual category explains various modern tendencies" including gay identity politics. For example, there have been people with same-sex attraction since time immemorial but until the very recent past such people, even if they lived in a homosexual relationship, did not identify themselves with their attraction. Identification of oneself with--and virtually only with--one's sexual desires coupled with identification of political praxis with therapy writ large helps explain why the move to legitimize homosexual relationships has proved so spectacularly successful.
Even those who cognitively identify themselves as Christians, the psychologization of faith has effectively led to a therapeutitization of politics. Thus for now and the foreseeable future conservative focusing on teaching truth, whether as a matter of specific doctrine or general worldview, will make little difference. Unless people begin to desire the Kingdom, all the doctrine in the world will be bracketed out of personal, social, and political significance.
No comments:
Post a Comment