Post-Christian Society
What is Meant by the term "Post-Christian"?
The term ‘post-Christian’ was first used by Mary Daly in a paper given to the American Academy of Religion in 1973. It was a term to describe the time in her career when on one hand she wanted to see renewal in the Catholic Church, and on the other she did not want to refer to Christianity. In the 1980’s in Britain, Daphne Hampson came to use the term to designate a religious position that was definitely theistic, but which abandoned the Christian myth. Those who come to a post-Christian position abandon Christianity. Although the culture is nominally Christian, the values of society are more antithetical to that of the gospel.
Paul Heelas points to this age as being one of post-Christianity, one where history has ended, there is no form of the old belief in progress or linear eschatological time, and where Christian stories have lost their strength, and the institutions continue to evaporate in crisis, not knowing how to respond. Gallagher quotes Ofstad who describes a ‘post-Christian culture’ as one involving not only fragmentation of a previous Christian coherence but as characterized by the presence of Christian symbols that have lost any reference to their original meaning.
Kurt Bowen notes that in the last fifty years, Canada has transformed into a predominantly post-Christian, secular society where active adherents are now a minority. He says, “Canadians live in a secular world where there is little to be gained from trying to preserve the occasional symbol of an earlier era when the Christian character of the nation was an irrefutable premise.”
Bowen predicts that in Canada life satisfaction will decline; concern for others will diminish; marriage will grow more fragile, family and friendship networks will shrink, volunteering will become less frequent, and will become less generous. Civility would be threatened. ‘If this is the victory that secularism and the enlightenment have wrought, and we have no cause to celebrate’
We believe that if post-Christian means the loss of Christian memory; the loss of the reason to think religious (Christian) practice is important; the loss of an understanding about what it means ‘to be a Christian’; and the dominant forces (government and the people) basically ignoring the church; We would then postulate that a majority of Canadians live as ‘nominal Christians’; in name only, choosing to live life outside of the influence or care of church.
Hastings, Adrian, Alistair Mason, and Hugh S. Pyper. The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, Page 550.
John F. Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance, Rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991)., 165.
Paul Heelas, David Martin, and Paul Morris, Religion, Modernity, and Postmodernity, Religion and Modernity (Oxford, UK; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1998).
Gallagher, Michael Paul. "The Bible and Post-Christian Culture." Month -London- Review of Christian Thought and World Affairs CCLIX, no. 12 (1998): 65., Page 463 ff.
Bowen, Kurt Derek. Christians in a Secular World: The Canadian Experience. Mcgill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion. Series Two, 27. Montréal ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004., page 30.
Bowen, Kurt Derek. Christians in a Secular World: The Canadian Experience. Mcgill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion. Series Two, 27. Montréal ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004., page 287.
Bowen, Kurt Derek. Christians in a Secular World: The Canadian Experience. Mcgill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion. Series Two, 27. Montréal ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004., page, 288.
Bowen predicts that in Canada life satisfaction will decline; concern for others will diminish; marriage will grow more fragile, family and friendship networks will shrink, volunteering will become less frequent, and will become less generous. Civility would be threatened. ‘If this is the victory that secularism and the enlightenment have wrought, and we have no cause to celebrate’