(Charisma) – Last week, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote a provocative article entitled “Post-Christian Paganism Begins to Emerge” where he sees a new pagan religion beginning to take shape in America. While 40 percent of Americans now claim to have had a religious awakening, double the number from the 1950s, there has been a splintering of the Christian consensus which prevailed in the 1950s. At the same time, the spiritless secularism that is so prevalent in modern times has not met the spiritual needs which are built into all humans. Douthat sees a new belief system arising which mixes spirituality into a secular world view.
This new spirituality denies a transcendental creator God and proposes that its gods are part of the natural world. The new belief system invites adherents to harmonize, that is, conform, to the world instead of rising above it and imposes no higher law or moral standards. In Douthat’s view, the denial of the transcendental God is why he considers the new spirituality to be pagan. The new spirituality also invites followers to seek out spirits for aid and communion. We have seen increasing interest in ancient pagan sites like Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, Chitzen Itza and Chaco Canyon, READ MORE
