Thank you for this excellent, essay, Mr. Seel. It captures many elements of our current moment in a succinct and clear way.
Your comment on the evangelical response of digging in to the anti-intellectualism and anti-elite tendencies seems right on point. These are the very same tendencies driving Christians out of protestantism into Orthodoxy or Rome.
I recommend Michael Horton's Shaman and Sage. His first volume on the roots of this movement in antiquity into Christianity is very useful. There is a common religious thread among the major wold religions that have its roots in antiquity. If anything, much of the West is now returning to an Orphic theology. For that reason, I don't like the word "Enchantment" because it assumes that what the West needs is to be re-enchanted. It already is enchanted.
Does Horton offer any good analysis of the calls for re-enchantment?
I ask because I have read about the re-enchantment idea several times here. It was mentioned with respect to Paul Kingsnorth, for example. I followed Kingsnorth's Substack for a while, and found that I was being asked to admire a bunch of superstitious hooey from the past. I am a committed Christian, but that does not mean I believe every report of bleeding or weeping icons, etc.
Has anyone in the re-enchantment movement come up with something credible that an intelligent Christian could be interested in?
That's not really the purpose of his series. He's dealing with the "Spiritual but not Regligious" phenomena. It is not really a new phenomenom at all but an old story grounded in a pagan cosmology he called Supernatural Naturalism. It is essentially the idea that all is God and aht the human spirit is eternal. The goal of this religion is (variously) to rid oneself of all the things that hold one back form achieving enlightnment/Nirvana/progress. It eschews formal religion.
A lot to agree with, but if I was going to challenge any of these points, it would be "West to East". If I understand the point correctly, it's that Russia and China and perhaps some other Asian societies offer some sort of global model amidst the West's decadence. I do think they offer a political model and alliance structure for autocrats, but their decadence is as deep as ours, if not deeper. In that sense, maybe the danger of focusing exclusively on the challenges of Western civilization is that much of the present civilizational crisis is, in fact, global.
The Ukraine War has done a lot to tarnish Russia's image. Not only for its aggression, but perhaps even more so, for its incompetence. Whatever there was to admire in fascism or Communism prior to WW2 (and for many people, there was a lot), there is far, far less of it in today's Russia. Or for that matter China. In terms of state capacity, Russia is vastly diminished compared to its capabilities for most of the Cold War, and this has little to do with its reduced population. Their system simply doesn't work.
Something missing in this discussion is fertility. Which I expect to be one of the defining features of the age to come, if not THE defining feature. China is already facing a declining population. It's looking as though the East (or at least the Far East) will be hit harder than the West on this dimension, and in short order, the West will look to the East primarily as a picture of its own future as a senescent and dwindling people.
This is actually where "the Global South" is still a relevant way to think about things, because while sections of it have been hit as hard by the fertility collapse as the "Global North", many other sections have not, and they will perhaps bottom out at a higher level.
I believe that the critique of the West's decadence is not on politics, but primarily on social issues that touch on the family and sexuality -- particularly LGBTQIA+ rights and the rise of transgender ideology. This is where Asian Communist and Muslims are finding common ground in their critique of the West. It is over the kinds of displays that were considered normative at the 2024 Olympic's Opening Ceremony. These issues are primarily not about politics or political ideology. They are on issues far more fundamental. The fertility collapse as you rightly point out is actually plaguing both East and West. It is a real problem, which to date is not easily amenable to political solutions.
Alright, that's fair. But when we talk about that critique coming from China, I think it's borne of a few things. Opportunism, for one (just as the USSR also liked to score points against "Western decadence" whenever it could). But also insecurity about the collapse of fertility and the family in their own countries. The critiques aren't coming from the grassroots; they are attempts to influence their own domestic grassroots out of the recognition that the idealized core of the Western lifestyle is still very appealing to young people all over the world: a carefree, consumption-oriented, atomized, single, urban existence. Reruns of "Friends" are reportedly very popular among young people in urban China.
Wherever that sort of lifestyle is adopted, support for -- or at least tolerance of -- LGBT tends to follow.
I think most of the world that opposes LGBT for non-religious reasons does so out of a pure reactionary disgust. That disgust is honestly probably the primary motivator even for many nominally religious people. But that reaction doesn't have much hold over globalized, smartphone-wielding younger generations. The world will have to relearn the reasons for the old taboos, and I suspect it won't do so until we're on the other side of the fertility collapse.
I think this is generally correct. Something I’ve been ruminating on is whether or not we will see the return of the holy man in the spirit of Elijah, John the Baptist, or Anthony of the Desert. They were living rebukes to worlds that stood apart from.
Seel’s is a worthwhile summary of the conversation as it currently stands. There is no question that western civilization has reached an inflection point. Moreover, it appears that the Negative world of a decade ago rapidly morphed into the Hostile world in which we now live — a world of drugged-out memes and kumbaya in which any reference to the transcendent is immediately denounced as an existential threat and treated accordingly. In that, Seel is correct: many of us will probably be long dead before this transition into whatever comes next is complete. Solutions will be neither easy nor quick. Rather, they will come in God’s time. That is not an excuse for Christians to sit idly by. We must recognize the situation for what it is as it evolves, call it out, and prepare our children and grandchildren to deal with the then-current situation. And with humble, continual reliance upon God, we must follow Paul’s final instructions to the Ephesians (Eph. 6:10-18).
Thank you for this excellent, essay, Mr. Seel. It captures many elements of our current moment in a succinct and clear way.
Your comment on the evangelical response of digging in to the anti-intellectualism and anti-elite tendencies seems right on point. These are the very same tendencies driving Christians out of protestantism into Orthodoxy or Rome.
I recommend Michael Horton's Shaman and Sage. His first volume on the roots of this movement in antiquity into Christianity is very useful. There is a common religious thread among the major wold religions that have its roots in antiquity. If anything, much of the West is now returning to an Orphic theology. For that reason, I don't like the word "Enchantment" because it assumes that what the West needs is to be re-enchanted. It already is enchanted.
Does Horton offer any good analysis of the calls for re-enchantment?
I ask because I have read about the re-enchantment idea several times here. It was mentioned with respect to Paul Kingsnorth, for example. I followed Kingsnorth's Substack for a while, and found that I was being asked to admire a bunch of superstitious hooey from the past. I am a committed Christian, but that does not mean I believe every report of bleeding or weeping icons, etc.
Has anyone in the re-enchantment movement come up with something credible that an intelligent Christian could be interested in?
That's not really the purpose of his series. He's dealing with the "Spiritual but not Regligious" phenomena. It is not really a new phenomenom at all but an old story grounded in a pagan cosmology he called Supernatural Naturalism. It is essentially the idea that all is God and aht the human spirit is eternal. The goal of this religion is (variously) to rid oneself of all the things that hold one back form achieving enlightnment/Nirvana/progress. It eschews formal religion.
A lot to agree with, but if I was going to challenge any of these points, it would be "West to East". If I understand the point correctly, it's that Russia and China and perhaps some other Asian societies offer some sort of global model amidst the West's decadence. I do think they offer a political model and alliance structure for autocrats, but their decadence is as deep as ours, if not deeper. In that sense, maybe the danger of focusing exclusively on the challenges of Western civilization is that much of the present civilizational crisis is, in fact, global.
The Ukraine War has done a lot to tarnish Russia's image. Not only for its aggression, but perhaps even more so, for its incompetence. Whatever there was to admire in fascism or Communism prior to WW2 (and for many people, there was a lot), there is far, far less of it in today's Russia. Or for that matter China. In terms of state capacity, Russia is vastly diminished compared to its capabilities for most of the Cold War, and this has little to do with its reduced population. Their system simply doesn't work.
Something missing in this discussion is fertility. Which I expect to be one of the defining features of the age to come, if not THE defining feature. China is already facing a declining population. It's looking as though the East (or at least the Far East) will be hit harder than the West on this dimension, and in short order, the West will look to the East primarily as a picture of its own future as a senescent and dwindling people.
This is actually where "the Global South" is still a relevant way to think about things, because while sections of it have been hit as hard by the fertility collapse as the "Global North", many other sections have not, and they will perhaps bottom out at a higher level.
I believe that the critique of the West's decadence is not on politics, but primarily on social issues that touch on the family and sexuality -- particularly LGBTQIA+ rights and the rise of transgender ideology. This is where Asian Communist and Muslims are finding common ground in their critique of the West. It is over the kinds of displays that were considered normative at the 2024 Olympic's Opening Ceremony. These issues are primarily not about politics or political ideology. They are on issues far more fundamental. The fertility collapse as you rightly point out is actually plaguing both East and West. It is a real problem, which to date is not easily amenable to political solutions.
Alright, that's fair. But when we talk about that critique coming from China, I think it's borne of a few things. Opportunism, for one (just as the USSR also liked to score points against "Western decadence" whenever it could). But also insecurity about the collapse of fertility and the family in their own countries. The critiques aren't coming from the grassroots; they are attempts to influence their own domestic grassroots out of the recognition that the idealized core of the Western lifestyle is still very appealing to young people all over the world: a carefree, consumption-oriented, atomized, single, urban existence. Reruns of "Friends" are reportedly very popular among young people in urban China.
Wherever that sort of lifestyle is adopted, support for -- or at least tolerance of -- LGBT tends to follow.
I think most of the world that opposes LGBT for non-religious reasons does so out of a pure reactionary disgust. That disgust is honestly probably the primary motivator even for many nominally religious people. But that reaction doesn't have much hold over globalized, smartphone-wielding younger generations. The world will have to relearn the reasons for the old taboos, and I suspect it won't do so until we're on the other side of the fertility collapse.
I think this is generally correct. Something I’ve been ruminating on is whether or not we will see the return of the holy man in the spirit of Elijah, John the Baptist, or Anthony of the Desert. They were living rebukes to worlds that stood apart from.
Seel’s is a worthwhile summary of the conversation as it currently stands. There is no question that western civilization has reached an inflection point. Moreover, it appears that the Negative world of a decade ago rapidly morphed into the Hostile world in which we now live — a world of drugged-out memes and kumbaya in which any reference to the transcendent is immediately denounced as an existential threat and treated accordingly. In that, Seel is correct: many of us will probably be long dead before this transition into whatever comes next is complete. Solutions will be neither easy nor quick. Rather, they will come in God’s time. That is not an excuse for Christians to sit idly by. We must recognize the situation for what it is as it evolves, call it out, and prepare our children and grandchildren to deal with the then-current situation. And with humble, continual reliance upon God, we must follow Paul’s final instructions to the Ephesians (Eph. 6:10-18).