You may be one of those people of a certain age who do not know who Russell Grant is; in that case I will briefly fill you in. He is an English comedian, actor, presenter, activist and campaigner according to his entry in Wikipedia; he is not a person in whom I am normally interested, as I am sure you will agree. I have never followed his popular (but now demonetised) Youtube channel. However he recently made something of a splash (pun intended) by getting baptised in the river Thames by the the explorer and devout Christian Bear Grills. For Russell Grant this is something of a turnaround apparently; his previous life was not at all overtly Christian; quite the reverse in fact. He had been pursuing numerous young women for sex for many years. Demographics has its part to play in turning the country back to religion - religious couples have much bigger families than secular ones - but this has nothing to do with Russell Grant's turning to God. This may, as the cynics assert, have more to do with his recent arrest and interview by the police than with any deep-seated conversion experience (some of his inamorata may have been under age), but I should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Are we seeing a retreat from our secular age? The prominent historian Niall Ferguson (currently senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Institution) was raised as an atheist from birth. Recently however he has started attending church services with his wife and young family. The journey of his wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from Muslim through the "New Atheism" community to Christianity may have a lot to do with this. Is this a trend, or are these just isolated instances?
Undoubtedly something is happening in the world at large. When I was a young man, there was popular academic from Canada called Marshall McLuhan. He was the same age as my father and passed away in 1980. His special field was Media Studies, which became a feature of our world largely through his promotion of the subject. Today we have another even more popular Canadian thinker, Jordan Peterson; his forthcoming book is entitled "We Who Wrestle With God". Can you imagine Marshall McLuhan producing such a book fifty years ago, and if he had, can you imagine it getting read by anyone? Jordan Peterson's book on the contrary promises to be another best seller of epic proportions.
The book "Dominion" (published in 2019) has also been a best seller. It is a sympathetic history of the significance of Christianity. The writer (Tom Holland) is not himself a believer, but he stresses that without Christianity the whole environment that we inhabit, our politics and interpersonal relationships, would be utterly different. Again, this work is sign of the times; I cannot image a hefty tome on any religious topic being a best seller, in eve in the recent past. It is true that the works of C. S. Lewis have long and impressive publication history, but the readership of his devotional works has been specifically Christian. The appeal of Dominion is to the general reader.
I see two complimentary trends at work here. One is an intellectual inquiry into the nature of faith and the meaning of life, and this is typified by Jordan Peterson. Great though his appeal is to many seekers after truth he lacks the humility of acceptance. The other trend is pastoral; this has nothing to do with the appeal to the intellect. An example of the second trend is Jordan Peterson's wife, who following a serious cancer diagnosis, has recently converted to Roman Catholicism. Tammy Peterson (his wife's name) has a particular devotion to the Rosary. I know very little about the operation of the Rosary, but I am sure it is concerned with the heart and not the mind. Although I am very attracted to the more cerebral arguments for belief in a creator, I must acknowledge that the instinctive approach, Tammy's rather than Jordan's is the right one.
JOSEPH MASON
THE BLOG FOR MEMORIES OF EAST ANGLIAN LIFE
joemasonspage@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment