Water under the Dam

“There is no longer a Christian mind." -Blamires

What did Blamires mean? To say that there is no Christian mind means that believers may be highly educated in terms of technical proficiency, and yet have no biblical worldview for interpreting the subject matter of their field.

"We speak of the 'modern mind', and of the 'scientific mind', using that word 'mind' of a collectively accepted set of notions and attitudes," Blamires explains.

But we have lost the Christian mind. There is now no shared, biblically based set of assumptions on subjects like law, education, economics, politics, science, or the arts. As a moral being, the Christian follows the biblical ethic. As a spiritual being, he prays and attends worship services. But as a thinking Christian, he has succumbed to secularism.”

― Nancy Pearcey

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Dear Kate,

I am acutely aware what I've written in the last two weeks shouldn't have been written the way they're written, like homilies, all expositions.  They should be narrated as stories, shown not told.

Last night I watched Scorsese's "The Irishman" for the second time and this time watched it right, in solitude, enveloped in deep darkness, plunged into the black magic of pure cinema.  The filmmakers asked for greatness and God granted them as wished and a few sprinkles more.

Earlier this month when Tarantino was asked to "address" Scorsese's view that Marvel movies aren't cinema, he (a big comic book fan) made only one point without even whispering the Master's name, "Generationally, does anyone think [Scorsese’s] going to be a big fan of ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘Doctor Strange,’ and [‘Ant-Man & the Wasp‘]?  You could have guessed that was going to be his reaction."

Yes and No, I think.  He's right that there is a gap.  But I am not sure it's merely a generational gap, though it certainly does have to do with the zeitgeist of different times and spaces, different stories we're telling ourselves and each other.  Instead of giving the gap a name and thus simplifying the matter, why don't we ask: Why the gap?

Priest: Do you feel anything for what you’ve done?
Frank: I don’t. I mean, maybe that, because I’m here now talking to you, that in itself is, you know, an attempt to…
Priest: But you don’t feel anything at all?
Frank: No. Water under the dam.
Priest: Any remorse for the families?
Frank: I didn’t know the families. I didn’t know them. Except one I knew.
Priest: I think we can be sorry. We can be sorry, even when we don’t feel sorry. Well, for us to say, to make a decision of the will, “God, I am sorry. God, forgive me.” And that’s a decision of the will.

What do you think this is?  A sermon illustration?  An altar call with soft lights and softer music?  It's from the final movement of the grand symphony that is "The Irishman," which wasn't experienced by 82% of its first viewers.  (Why?)

If you've been to church lately you should know we don't do that cringy stuff no more.  We've repented of our old way of shoving it down people's throat about sins and redemption and authority and awareness of evil or concept of truth.  Now it's all about empowering people to do good, sending them off to have fun and do neat things, making sure everyone can be what they want to be in and outside of church, giving out bandages for people's anxiety and disappointments and what have you.  None of these are petty or without value; it's just a fundamentally different story we are telling, that's all.  One thing for sure, we are very ashamed of ourselves being ashamed of anything at all.

“There is no longer a Christian mind. It is a commonplace that the mind of modern man has been secularized. For instance, it has been deprived of any orientation towards the supernatural. Tragic as this fact is, it would not be so desperately tragic had the Christian mind held out against the secular drift. But unfortunately the Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century Church. One cannot characterize it without having recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic.”

“There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. As a moral being, the modern Christian subscribes to a code other than that of the non-Christian. As a member of the Church, he undertakes obligations and observations ignored by the non-Christian. As a spiritual being, in prayer and meditation, he strives to cultivate a dimension of life unexplored by the non- Christian. But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion - its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal view which relates all human problems - social, political, cultural - to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God’s supremacy and earth’s transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell.”

That's Harry Blamires speaking yesterday.

No, he wrote that in 1963.

So there's a gap, but I am not sure it's merely a generational one.

Yours, Alex