David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

church

Separating religion, spirituality makes it harder to find the Truth

By ·

I had a spiritual experience Wednesday evening, but I was nowhere near a church or a religious service.

I was looking through beautiful trees at sunset near my house and as I saw the sun break through the clouds and shine brightly through the branches, I was filled with the awe and joy which I experience so often when I’m close to Nature and the God of Nature.

I felt close to the Creator. I felt the joy of being connected to the Divine. I felt God’s presence in a powerful way. But there was nothing religious about the experience.

One of the saddest and most awful realizations of my adult life has been that religion and spirituality so rarely intersect in a direct way. I grew up immersed in religion and occasionally having spiritual experiences, but I’ve seen modern culture doing its best to separate these two things — and that hurts everyone who’s genuinely searching for the Truth.

Keep Reading

Related Posts

We who believe life has meaning have lost war for modern culture

By ·

My side lost the great culture war.

Who is it exactly who lost, though? At one time, I would have been myopic enough to say it was the Christian church that lost the battle, but I now see it as much broader. The people on my side — at least in the broadest sense — could come from various religions or no real religion at all. They might be humanists or New Agers or label themselves in other ways.

The only thing that unites all of these people — many of whom are barely on speaking terms — is that we believe life has meaning. We believe the culture ought to reflect positive values and provide an alternative to nihilism, even if many among that group would strongly disagree about what values they would like culture to reflect.

Modern popular culture reflects nihilism and death. It broadly presents the idea that life has no meaning — and that the only rational response to the world is to engage in the most selfish and cynical pursuit of pleasure that’s possible. The culture sends the message, “Life has no purpose; get over it.” And if you have children, this message is going to be pushed on them over and over by popular culture.

Keep Reading

Related Posts

Almost all of us feel alienation if
we don’t find a place to call home

By ·

As I observed the people around me in the restaurant Sunday afternoon, I felt annoyed. I didn’t like these people — and I don’t figure they would really like me.

If I described the things I didn’t like about these folks, you would probably feel as though I was being petty. Maybe even judgmental. They didn’t look like me, talk like me, or act like me. Everything about them rubbed me the wrong way.

I feel this way a lot lately. I suspect most Americans feel the same. In our own varied ways, most of us are asking, “How could this be possible in my country?”

Conservatives might look at gay marriage and marijuana legalization and an apparent flood of immigrants in their cities — and wonder what went wrong for the world they believe in. Progressives might look at neo-Nazis marching and “voter suppression” in elections and a flood of hatred for immigrants — and wonder what went wrong for the world they believe in.

In a world where the words and actions of people who disagree with us are slammed into our faces by 24-hour news media, most of us have a vague sense that something’s wrong. Some react by saying, “I want my country back,” but what they’re really saying is what we all feel. We all long for a place that feels like home.

Keep Reading

Related Posts