Symbiotic Economics: The day that Religion died!
07/November/2007 12:14 Filed in: Weekly Column
7 November 2007; Volume 9, Issue 37
PDF copy
The main problem in the world today is that religion is dead. In that regard what I mean is that religion has lost it’s transcendence, and therefore it’s link with the eternal and the divine. Religion has become a domain of man, not of God. I know the day in which religion died, it is the same day that Don McLean sang about in his famous song “American Pie.” In the song the line: “The three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, caught the last train for the coast, the day that music died.” refers to the same day.
This is not a day in the literal period of 24 hours, like we referred to last week describing the Genesis creation account. Maybe this is where the gap theory truly applies. Seriously, this is really a series of days, little by little in which religion lost it’s transcendent nature. The day varied with locale, with doctrine, and with the religious worshippers, but eventually the religion of Christianity (and to a lesser extent the Jewish faith) died. Since it is our contention that the Jewish - Christian God is the one and only true God, when those religions lost their transcendence, these religions died in the context that they no longer did what they were created to do.
I did not create the concept of the day that religion died, I learned it from a friend, Jim. Where he got it I do not know, maybe God let him figure it out, maybe he found it somewhere in his readings, for he is an avid reader. I do know amongst all the comments that I have heard considering the declining influence of the church in western society, and the west’s demoralizing influence on the rest of the world, his comment is the only one, that gives the actual date for when the Christian religion died in the mission to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The day that the Christian religion died, was the day that Christians took the Ten Commandments out of the church. The Ten Commandments were the last vestige of God’s transcendency left in the church in the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s. These were the days that transformed the church from eternal absolutes of eternal truth, to good moral teachings then religion and religious truth died.
Shortly thereafter, with no absolutes in churches, there was no reason to have them in schools, and so on. The collapse of morality throughout society continued and continues. Today American evangelicalism teaches a dead religion, because the real Father, Son and Holy Ghost, caught the last train for the coast a few decades ago.
This loss of the transcendent nature of God did not begin suddenly, it was a systematic attack, starting even with the humanism that fostered the Protestant Reformation, but continued through Pietism, the Enlightenment, Revivalism, Dispensationalism, Protestant Liberalism, Pentecostalism, and now Relativism, for lack of a better name to describe the entropic state of pending moral catastrophe facing civilization and culture as we know it.
At one time all the religions of mankind were focused upon the transcendent nature of eternity and the accountability in that future life. Slowly they too accommodated humanist materialism, slowly evolving a non transcendent nature. Today only as a general rule, only militant Islam, and the terrorism it promotes, continues within that transcendent hope. As misguided and degenerate as I think this religion is, I do understand why they consider westerners as infidels. The west will not defeat the Islamic terrorists by bribing them with stuff, only through a more vibrant transcendent faith. Something we do not believe exist anymore, and surely have no concept of where to find it if we wanted.
So what does this have to do with economics? A few months ago, when I wrote on the end of cheap oil, the general consensus was that the true production cost of a barrel of crude oil was in the range of forty five to fifty dollars a barrel. At that time it was speculated that the other twenty dollars was due to speculation and profiteering. Today that price is about twice that production cost, just about ninety seven dollars, as I just checked. That price is not based on “supply and demand” or any moral grounds for a capitalist return on investment, that price is based upon hyped-fear, greed, and immorality.
Well none of us really had any influence on the day that religion died. For the most part we were not old enough to have any grip on how the world worked in the 1950’s - 60’s. Some of us were aware of the death of music that Don McLean prophesied about, but just like the death of religion it took some years for this death to be acknowledged.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s (before disco) we saw the greatest revival of music perhaps in history. A lot of this music really celebrated in a somewhat transcendental way the death of art, music, and historic Christianity. That began with the Beatles, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, the list is almost limitless. That music is still the choice of the young today. Not because it is really that good in the artistic sense, it is just in a world in which art is not defined, because transcendence is not defined, a little art is better than no art at all. For art like no other human endeavor can transcend reality and bring us into the reality of eternity and God.
The same is true, within the church and the Jesus Movement. Artists such as Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, Terry Clark, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Honeytree, Love Song, Annie Herring and many more, found in their music, the Jesus of the Bible was not the Jesus of the dead religion of the church. The problem with art is that because it transcends reality, it must be focused to put that reality into natural practice. In other words, a movement founded upon no (dead) denominations is going to produce an infrastructure of lasting importance. In short order it will also loose it’s transcendence as natural entropy makes and takes it’s wages.
While these musical artists were the founders of what has become known as “Contemporary Christian Music,” contemporary Christian music today, reflects not the Jesus Movement, but an evangelical church that makes up it’s illusion of transcendency as it muddles along in human reason and efforts. In other words, it is plastic consumerist music, in a world of plastic consumerism. To put it in truly relevant terms, it is an industry that will only last in the era of cheap oil and cheap plastic.
I have a song in my library by Blackfoot Indian, Jack Gladstone, entitled, “When the Land Belongs to God.” The song is based upon the art of photographer Charles Russell. The essence of the bridge of that song is that, “The Purest gift is not of gold but in art that awakens the soul.” The song points to the sacredness between earth and sky (transcendence), where in eternity the land belongs to God.
This is really just another more artistic rendition of Thoreau’s Wildness that we touched upon last week. In the world of today’s materialism, Creation or Nature is the only true source of transcendence left. Thoreau, Emerson and other Transcendentalists could not find the God of nature within the church of their day. I have met a number of Jesus Movement artists personally and they too find significant problems with today’s church, but they as artists still work within the church because that is the venue they helped, more than any other group of people, create out of dead religion.
I have not met Jack Gladstone personally, but someone raised in Seattle, and played football at the University of Washington when it was a football powerhouse, and moved to western Montana to become more in touch with his ethnic roots, has a lot going for him.
It is reported that the Reformation produced something like five hundred thousand songs. Only a few we still have with us today, probably for good reason, they were not very good. But hymns such as Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” continue to this day. The main reason we don’t hear it more outside Lutheran circles, is pretty much because the church not only has lost it’s transcendent future, but in searching for today’s relevance, the church has not just lost touch with it’s past, but again purposely discarded it because it might help answer questions that today’s pastors and teachers (theologians are now an extinct species within the church) cannot answer.
If true religion is dead, can the dead live again? The justification of Christianity is that is a transcendent reality. That is talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of his believers at the end of time as the church. But if the Christian religion is dead today because it has lost its transcendental union with the risen Christ, then can it be not just Reformed, but Resurrected before Jesus returns.
Dispensationalists teach that Ezekiel 37 refers to the restoration of the natural nation of Israel. A more universal or historic Christian rendering of that passage would refer to the restoration of the church before the end of time. “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)
Can a dead church be brought back to life? Not only in the context of the Bible, but also in the natural sense of the resurrection of the nation of Israel from the valley of dry bones in the Middle East. The answer is in the affirmative. The restoration of Israel is perhaps the greatest transcendental miracle since the Jewish diaspora in 70 AD. The restoration of the church would fit right in that miraculous genre. Perhaps just following a generation in arrears.
If this Resurrection is an indicative from God, then what should be our imperative response (application)? In the context of the Ezekiel prophesy, put some meat on the bones. Israel was formed out of the Zionist movement, Jewish people all over the world were seeking a national homeland for the Jews and put some meat to the rhetoric. It still took a transcendental miracle from God to pull it off, but for almost 60 years now the nation of Israel has been a reality.
Putting this into the context of the church, all creation is the homeland of the church of the risen Lord. Therefore, even in the valley of the dry bones, meat and life can be restored. Christianity, as a religion, died right after Israel came to life as a nation. Just as the visible church came to life after the resurrection of Jesus in the Holy Land, perhaps now is the time for the church to come to life in the land left by the return of the Jews to natural Israel. To make the name Holy Land in the total creation concept mean something is the outcome. This transcendental dwelling place, an eternal creation, no longer settles for dead church and dead religion but makes the church a land that belongs to God.
The purest gift is not of gold, but in art that awakens the soul.
PDF copy
The main problem in the world today is that religion is dead. In that regard what I mean is that religion has lost it’s transcendence, and therefore it’s link with the eternal and the divine. Religion has become a domain of man, not of God. I know the day in which religion died, it is the same day that Don McLean sang about in his famous song “American Pie.” In the song the line: “The three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, caught the last train for the coast, the day that music died.” refers to the same day.
This is not a day in the literal period of 24 hours, like we referred to last week describing the Genesis creation account. Maybe this is where the gap theory truly applies. Seriously, this is really a series of days, little by little in which religion lost it’s transcendent nature. The day varied with locale, with doctrine, and with the religious worshippers, but eventually the religion of Christianity (and to a lesser extent the Jewish faith) died. Since it is our contention that the Jewish - Christian God is the one and only true God, when those religions lost their transcendence, these religions died in the context that they no longer did what they were created to do.
I did not create the concept of the day that religion died, I learned it from a friend, Jim. Where he got it I do not know, maybe God let him figure it out, maybe he found it somewhere in his readings, for he is an avid reader. I do know amongst all the comments that I have heard considering the declining influence of the church in western society, and the west’s demoralizing influence on the rest of the world, his comment is the only one, that gives the actual date for when the Christian religion died in the mission to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The day that the Christian religion died, was the day that Christians took the Ten Commandments out of the church. The Ten Commandments were the last vestige of God’s transcendency left in the church in the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s. These were the days that transformed the church from eternal absolutes of eternal truth, to good moral teachings then religion and religious truth died.
Shortly thereafter, with no absolutes in churches, there was no reason to have them in schools, and so on. The collapse of morality throughout society continued and continues. Today American evangelicalism teaches a dead religion, because the real Father, Son and Holy Ghost, caught the last train for the coast a few decades ago.
This loss of the transcendent nature of God did not begin suddenly, it was a systematic attack, starting even with the humanism that fostered the Protestant Reformation, but continued through Pietism, the Enlightenment, Revivalism, Dispensationalism, Protestant Liberalism, Pentecostalism, and now Relativism, for lack of a better name to describe the entropic state of pending moral catastrophe facing civilization and culture as we know it.
At one time all the religions of mankind were focused upon the transcendent nature of eternity and the accountability in that future life. Slowly they too accommodated humanist materialism, slowly evolving a non transcendent nature. Today only as a general rule, only militant Islam, and the terrorism it promotes, continues within that transcendent hope. As misguided and degenerate as I think this religion is, I do understand why they consider westerners as infidels. The west will not defeat the Islamic terrorists by bribing them with stuff, only through a more vibrant transcendent faith. Something we do not believe exist anymore, and surely have no concept of where to find it if we wanted.
So what does this have to do with economics? A few months ago, when I wrote on the end of cheap oil, the general consensus was that the true production cost of a barrel of crude oil was in the range of forty five to fifty dollars a barrel. At that time it was speculated that the other twenty dollars was due to speculation and profiteering. Today that price is about twice that production cost, just about ninety seven dollars, as I just checked. That price is not based on “supply and demand” or any moral grounds for a capitalist return on investment, that price is based upon hyped-fear, greed, and immorality.
Well none of us really had any influence on the day that religion died. For the most part we were not old enough to have any grip on how the world worked in the 1950’s - 60’s. Some of us were aware of the death of music that Don McLean prophesied about, but just like the death of religion it took some years for this death to be acknowledged.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s (before disco) we saw the greatest revival of music perhaps in history. A lot of this music really celebrated in a somewhat transcendental way the death of art, music, and historic Christianity. That began with the Beatles, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, the list is almost limitless. That music is still the choice of the young today. Not because it is really that good in the artistic sense, it is just in a world in which art is not defined, because transcendence is not defined, a little art is better than no art at all. For art like no other human endeavor can transcend reality and bring us into the reality of eternity and God.
The same is true, within the church and the Jesus Movement. Artists such as Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, Terry Clark, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Honeytree, Love Song, Annie Herring and many more, found in their music, the Jesus of the Bible was not the Jesus of the dead religion of the church. The problem with art is that because it transcends reality, it must be focused to put that reality into natural practice. In other words, a movement founded upon no (dead) denominations is going to produce an infrastructure of lasting importance. In short order it will also loose it’s transcendence as natural entropy makes and takes it’s wages.
While these musical artists were the founders of what has become known as “Contemporary Christian Music,” contemporary Christian music today, reflects not the Jesus Movement, but an evangelical church that makes up it’s illusion of transcendency as it muddles along in human reason and efforts. In other words, it is plastic consumerist music, in a world of plastic consumerism. To put it in truly relevant terms, it is an industry that will only last in the era of cheap oil and cheap plastic.
I have a song in my library by Blackfoot Indian, Jack Gladstone, entitled, “When the Land Belongs to God.” The song is based upon the art of photographer Charles Russell. The essence of the bridge of that song is that, “The Purest gift is not of gold but in art that awakens the soul.” The song points to the sacredness between earth and sky (transcendence), where in eternity the land belongs to God.
This is really just another more artistic rendition of Thoreau’s Wildness that we touched upon last week. In the world of today’s materialism, Creation or Nature is the only true source of transcendence left. Thoreau, Emerson and other Transcendentalists could not find the God of nature within the church of their day. I have met a number of Jesus Movement artists personally and they too find significant problems with today’s church, but they as artists still work within the church because that is the venue they helped, more than any other group of people, create out of dead religion.
I have not met Jack Gladstone personally, but someone raised in Seattle, and played football at the University of Washington when it was a football powerhouse, and moved to western Montana to become more in touch with his ethnic roots, has a lot going for him.
It is reported that the Reformation produced something like five hundred thousand songs. Only a few we still have with us today, probably for good reason, they were not very good. But hymns such as Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” continue to this day. The main reason we don’t hear it more outside Lutheran circles, is pretty much because the church not only has lost it’s transcendent future, but in searching for today’s relevance, the church has not just lost touch with it’s past, but again purposely discarded it because it might help answer questions that today’s pastors and teachers (theologians are now an extinct species within the church) cannot answer.
If true religion is dead, can the dead live again? The justification of Christianity is that is a transcendent reality. That is talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of his believers at the end of time as the church. But if the Christian religion is dead today because it has lost its transcendental union with the risen Christ, then can it be not just Reformed, but Resurrected before Jesus returns.
Dispensationalists teach that Ezekiel 37 refers to the restoration of the natural nation of Israel. A more universal or historic Christian rendering of that passage would refer to the restoration of the church before the end of time. “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)
Can a dead church be brought back to life? Not only in the context of the Bible, but also in the natural sense of the resurrection of the nation of Israel from the valley of dry bones in the Middle East. The answer is in the affirmative. The restoration of Israel is perhaps the greatest transcendental miracle since the Jewish diaspora in 70 AD. The restoration of the church would fit right in that miraculous genre. Perhaps just following a generation in arrears.
If this Resurrection is an indicative from God, then what should be our imperative response (application)? In the context of the Ezekiel prophesy, put some meat on the bones. Israel was formed out of the Zionist movement, Jewish people all over the world were seeking a national homeland for the Jews and put some meat to the rhetoric. It still took a transcendental miracle from God to pull it off, but for almost 60 years now the nation of Israel has been a reality.
Putting this into the context of the church, all creation is the homeland of the church of the risen Lord. Therefore, even in the valley of the dry bones, meat and life can be restored. Christianity, as a religion, died right after Israel came to life as a nation. Just as the visible church came to life after the resurrection of Jesus in the Holy Land, perhaps now is the time for the church to come to life in the land left by the return of the Jews to natural Israel. To make the name Holy Land in the total creation concept mean something is the outcome. This transcendental dwelling place, an eternal creation, no longer settles for dead church and dead religion but makes the church a land that belongs to God.
The purest gift is not of gold, but in art that awakens the soul.