Embracing a Post-Christian America

To be post-Christian is to embrace the new Copernican ethos. This means that one is intuitively post-Enlightenment and post-secular. One is no longer animated by abstract left-brain either/or categories or hold to one's convictions with a kind of fundamentalist certainty.

At the same time as one tends to live life within secular assumptions, one remains open to the possibility of something more—a larger transcendent reality that gives meaning to life. While one may be clueless as to what this may be, one lives with the fear of missing out. Moreover, one positions one's life in terms of an ongoing exploration of spiritual seeking. This seeking is rarely within the immediate context of the Christian church. This is because the church—particularly the evangelical church—continues to frame faith within Enlightenment categories. New Copernicans do not have a faith problem as much as a framing problem.

A manifesto for post-Christian thinking is the Dalai Lama's book, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. It is also why post-Christians are attracted to the nondualistic perspective of Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr. It is time to listen to these voices.

This post-Christian perspective is a prophetic critique of the church's uncritical accommodation to an Enlightenment viewpoint. As such it is an opportunity to embrace more ancient forms of Christian spirituality as a means of addressing the immediate and future longings of post-Christian spiritual pilgrims. The opportunity for the church is less among atheist university philosophy and biology professors and more among woke Wiccan witches. It is high time to prepare for and engage with these fellow spiritual pilgrims. It is time for the church to embrace a post-Christian America.