February 10, 2004
Human Yearning for God
The other day Mark Shea pointed out this Zenit article on the growth of paganism. I keep running through the implications in my mind.
The article simply discusses the rise of paganism (essentially nature worship) in today’s world, particularly in European and American society. As Shea alluded to, we all have a need to seek out God. So when we dump Christianity because of its “restrictions” or “morality” that grates against our concupiscent desires, we yearn for a replacement. This is essentially the definition of idolatry: often nature replaces God and naturalistic (sometimes demonic) worship attempts to fill the void. Unfortunately for those participating, it will never suffice.
The ramifications are interesting. Chesterton once noted that those who believe in nothing will believe in anything. I think this is the perfect example. Within Christianity, commandments, rules, etc. are all designed to develop a happier, more fruitful existence in addition to preparing us for the next world. In these pagan religions, you often receive the opposite: sinful things aren’t prohibited and these sinful things often lead to sorrow, despair and even worse. As a society delves further in, that society seeks joy from life on earth, which is often inherently sorrowful (suffering is a reality of our existence). It seems that a society would be redefined by its misery. What do you think? And what is the best approach to evangelizing a pagan? In our times, this is a question we should ponder.
God bless,
Jay
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Misery breeds company. I think the best way to point out the inherent flaws in such systems as nature worship, pagan practices, etc is to point to the numerous studies (especially on things like marriage) which indicate that those people who not only believe, but live out in a practical way their faith in God have something to show for it. I.E. they still have a marriage to talk about, and more often than not a great one at that.
Similar studies show the results of raising children within faithful homes vs. pagan or "believe anything" homes persay. Less drugs, less out of wedlock pregnancies, less propensity to crime, etc. Even the average pagan in principle is still mindfull of what is acceptable behavior within a societal network, and would tend to agree that things that are *not* bad are in fact good for one, and hopefully as a corrolary that there is a Reason for such action which the world does not supply.
Posted by: savrx at February 10, 2004 02:57 PM
