21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

immanence — embodiment — seems to make the Christian message unique and would imply a much deeper presence and connection with the world. The Christian faith, as well as the message of immanence, has something to teach us by putting relationship above abstract truth (although I’m guessing a lot of Christians may be disagreeing with me here). The relationship with others, with nature and with the wider universe (related very much to Cahoone’s pernicious dichotomies) need to be given special emphasis. Without this there is just abstraction. Religion is always in danger of worshipping an abstraction — and often seems to prefer the abstract to the natural, embodied, messy world. My hope for the churches is that they look less at transcendence and more at immanence. But still some of that transcendence —the relationship with the universe — needs to be retained.

The secular world, being mainly based on Christian culture in the West, has largely taken up Christian values and transposed them into worldly interests. The Protestant tradition, with its emphasis on personal salvation, has led inexorably to the cult of the self. So the world is interested in progress, always aiming for a Heaven that cannot quite be reached. The split with nature has been especially pernicious, reaching right into our minds, with our own wild minds and souls of dreams and imagination somehow a bit too free and dangerous to be let loose in polite society. So, to summarise, as far as Western secular culture goes, it worships abstractions — progress, prosperity, unachievable perfection, a distant god.

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