Personally, I am now far more certain and far more committed to the notion and the undertaking of *restoration* and *revivification* of that relationship to what I (somewhat abstractly of course) refer to as *metaphysical reality*. I am certain -- more certain in any case -- that it is the inner relationship that determines if there is relationship at all. What this means, in the most essential sense, is that the individual has, or does not have, that relationship. Everything begins from that point. Or put another way, it comes to an end when the relationship is broken or inhibited.
If we recognize, and I do, that our culture is sick, we must also understand that we manifest this sickness in one way or another, in one degree or another. Obviously then, I am an advocate for defining "A way to the renewal of Christian culture" which, necessarily, involves an inner renewal.
So what I propose -- it remains to be seen if the topic will gain any traction -- is an examination, from the perspective of Christopher Dawson and other apologists of his sort, of just what happens when the conceptual pathway to that *supernatural* world of metaphysical reality is broken and shattered, as is occurring strongly and noticeably in our culture(s) and then, if this is established, to ask the question and examine what such *renewal* would involve -- and if it is even possible.
Here is a selection from the above-mentioned book for your examination:
The average man's 'objection to Christian civilization is no an objection to medieval culture, which incorporated every act of social life in a sacred order of sacramental symbols and liturgical observances — such a culture is too remote from our experience to stir our emotions one way or the other: it is the dread of moral rigorism, of alcoholic prohibition or the censorship of books and films or of the fundamentalist banning of the teaching of biological evolution.
But what the advocates of a Christian civilization wish is not this narrowing of the cultural horizons, but just the reverse:the recovery of that spiritual dimension of social life the lack of which has cramped and darkened the culture of the modern world. We have acquired new resources of power and of which the old Christian civilization had hardly dreamed. Yet at the same time, we have lost that spiritual vision man formerly possessed-the sense of an eternal world on which the transitory temporal world of human affairs was dependent. This vision is not only a Christian insight: for it is intrinsic to the great civilizations of the ancient East and to the pagan world as well, so that it is not Christian civilization alone·that is at stake.
Here I think John Baillie, in his little book on What is Christian Civilization, makes a useful and necessary distinction when he objects to the use of the word "pagan” to describe the dominant spirit of a secularist society:
I think this is surely true as a diagnosis of our present civilization. But society cannot remain stationary in this kind of spiritual no man's land. It will inevitably become a prey to the unclean spirits that seek to make their dwelling in the empty human soul. For a secular civilization that has no end beyond its own satisfaction is a monstrosity -- a cancerous growth which will ultimately destroy itself. The only power that can liberate man from this kingdom of darkness is the Christian faith.“The word pagan [he says] is often unthinkingly used as if it meant a man who was devoid of all religious sentiment and worshipped no gods. But all real pagans are full of religious sentiment and their fundamental error rather lies in worshipping too many gods. The alternative today is not between being Christian or being pagan, but between being Christian and being nothing in particular, not between belonging to the Church and belonging to some social spiritual community that claims an equally wholehearted allegiance, but between belonging to the Church and belonging nowhere, giving no wholehearted allegiance to anything. Such is the tragedy that has overtaken so much of our common life that it belongs nowhere, has no spiritual home, no ultimate standards of reference and little definite conception of the direction in which it desires to move.”
For in the modern Western world there are no alternative solutions, no choice of possible other religions. It is a choice between Christianity or nothing. And Christianity is still a live option. The scattered elements of Christian tradition and Christian culture still exist in the modern world, though they may be temporarily forgotten or neglected. Thus the revival of Chris-tian civilization does not involve the creation of a totally new civilization, but rather the cultural reawakening or reactivation of the Christian minority.
Our civilization has become secularized largely because the Christian element has adopted a passive attitude and allowed the leadership of culture to pass to the non-Christian minority. And this cultural passivity has not been due to any profound existentialist concern with the human predicament and divine judgment, but on the contrary to a tendency toward social conformity and too ready an acceptance of the values of a secularized society. It is the intellectual and social inertia of Christians that is the real obstacle to a restoration of Christian culture. For if it is true that more than half the population of this country are church members, Christians can hardly say that they are powerless to influence society. It is the will, not the power, that is lacking.
