I would like to make a plea that we not use the word enchantment. It means to be under a magic spell, and our faith is about mystery or mysticism, the revelation of reality, not its manipulation which is what magic is. It's just misleading and the difference is really important.
In his book Living in Wonder, Rod Dreher writes "C.S. Lewis wrote of the mental model of medieval Christians... in the medieval model, everything in the visible and invisible world is connected through God. All things have ultimate meaning because they participated in the life of the creator... this is what sociologists and religion scholars mean when they say the world of the past was enchanted."
Dreher continues: "... to call that age 'enchanted' in the academic sense - and in the sense I mean in this book - is to refer to the widespread belief that, in the words of an Orthodox prayer, God is everywhere present and fills all things" [...] "... true enchantment is simply living with the confident belief that there is deep meaning to life, meaning that exists in the world independent of ourselves."
I too was initially uneasy with the use of the word "enchantment" in relation to Christianity for its common association with magic, but the way Dreher frames it makes sense. Perhaps another analogy could be how a man could be enchanted by the beauty of his wife, for example - nothing magical about it per se, but deeply moving.
Yes, I understand that. But that is simply asserting a different definition of the word from the common definition. Enchantment's roots are in magic, not the Holy Spirit "everywhere present and filling all things." The energies of God and our noetic perception of such are something else. It just feels uncomfortable and worrisome to conflate the two
PS Generally speaking I frequently find much that either verges into over-sentimentality or romanticism in modern Christian expression, and I don't find it trustworthy. That "sharper than a two-edged sword" truth of Hebrews 4:12 that pierces and discerns the heart speaks of something more precise and powerful
Yes, Janine, I'm with you in Hebrews and the sad state of performance church. I had used the NIV until discovering the NKJV about 15 years ago. But recently have been rediscovering the KJV, much to my surprise. Today, for example, in Chapter 2, "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Now the NKJV, which I had thought was just getting rid of the thees and thous, "For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham." What? And the NIV, "For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants." Wait another minute! This is the third or fourth time in the last couple of weeks that I've been blown away by the KJV. An eternal perspective replaced by a human one. Awe and wonder being replaced by ancestry.com.
I'm still not sure about it myself. Rod has made a good case for it, but I'm still not sure he chose the right word. He uses it in the Weberian sense, but I also takes Janine's point and she words it well. Enchantment is a word quite specifically associated with magic, while Christianity, as Janine says, is more about mysticism and revelation. 'Enchanting' the world suggests spreading something false over it, rather than revealing its reality.
Back when Rod was working on the book this subject came up in his Substack comments. Iirc the consensus was that while the word had problems there really wasn't a better one available given that he was explicitly dealing with the Weberian "academic" understanding of the word/phenomenon (i.e., as a counter to disenchantment). He was clear that the book itself would explain this. I still don't think it's the ideal word, but I have trouble coming up with a better one.
Thank you Paul. I suppose with the Holy Spirit we will work toward that. I think of the speech you made in London a while back (I can't remember the precise occasion, perhaps a year ago). You spoke of all the sort of "hidden in plain sight" glimpses of that holiness all around in the things we pass everyday and take for granted, but are all there. I remember you wrote that you spoke off the cuff on that occasion, and you wanted people's opinions. It really captured something important for me, and I repeatedly think back on it.
I've recently read "Living in Wonder" and found much to commend. However, I can see the point of caution about using the word re-enchantment to describe bringing back into fullness the sense of the mystical presence of God that we've lost in the modern age.
My concern is two-fold. First, we Christians (though perhaps not the Orthodox) love to categorize and commodify trends. That in turn strips the meaning from the movement. Or at least that's been my observation over my 50+ years of walking with Jesus. We put a price tag on everything!
Second, and by far the most important thing on my heart, is a question. I'm asking this as an ordained deacon in the Anglican Church. Can we actually 're-enchant' the world, or 're-mystify' the world, without starting with the Eucharist. By that I mean, can anything change fundamentally so long as a large portion of the church (Evangelical, non-denominational, and even some Anglican churches) practice a non-mystical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Perhaps what I'm trying to say ask is, do people simply want to 'feel' re-enchanted, but not to actually believe it makes a material difference? Recognizing the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, seems absolutely central to anything significant happening to actually turn the tide of our materialistic modern world.
To all: It strikes me we are talking about "re-sacralizing" (if that's the word I'm looking for), where the world becomes sacrament. "Everywhere present and filling all things." Recovering what is sacred and holy.
That’s a very interesting point. You are probably right. Having come straight into Orthodoxy, I have no experience of such ‘churches’ but I think it would be right to use inverted commas for them. That is probably the burning heart of the matter.
I think it's the best word word out there to convey the unique flavor of what Rod is getting at. You're thinking of the "technical" sense of magic as a system for control, not the much more widespread way it has long been used in popular culture as a synonym for something wonderful and mysterious and beautiful.
"Magic" has the connotation of something beautiful, mysterious, full of wonder, overwhelming. The "magic" of nature, etc.
Interestingly, I'd say the colloquial use of magic conveys the exact opposite of its technical use - the opposite of control, but an energy that is mysterious and cannot be captured through mathematical calculations but somehow has to do with beauty and wonder. This is why I always prefer fantasy with its wizards rather than scifi with its technology.
To be "under a spell" can be a good thing, as in "I was under the spell of her beauty", or I was "under the spell of that landscape".
The thing that comes to me when I see a divinely beautiful natural landscape is "why, this is pure magic!"
That enchantment can also be "bad" as Rod admits is also an advantage, as there are also mysterious forces out there that are malign.
Anyways much more can be written about this but I think it's the perfect word for this personally.
Another answer is that God is neither male nor female. Many churches do refer to God as she sometimes, "it" doesn't seem very reverent. Plus Christians derived from Jews and Jews also have complex views (some noted in this Wikipedia article (yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but still). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_God_in_Judaism
For what it's worth, in Greek the name for God the Father is masculine, for the Son is masculine, for the Holy Spirit is neuter, and for the Holy Trinity is feminine.
In my Orthodox church, it is said that God is beyond all categories and also that Jesus is a man. The holy Spirit is always a He And the Trinity as a whole is also He.
I've explained it by the idea that in Christianity patriarchy has to do fundamentally with fatherhood, not maleness as such (the word itself indicates this). God has revealed himself through Christ as Father, and fathers are male. But the main revelation is that of family, so to speak, not male domination. One could say that Christianity is patriarchal not because it's "male based," but because its revelation is rooted in fatherhood (cf. Ephesians 3:15).
Well before the internet, social media, and AI there was the automobile. In the US especially we built our cities around them such that it's difficult to walk anywhere anymore and even if there is a sidewalk it's at least unpleasant and often dangerous. In the US, at least, this has led to the uglification of our suburban, urban and even many rural areas. While it's fashionable to want to talk about the dangers of AI (and we certainly need to be thinking about these dangers) we often seem to forget that we'd already turned most of our countryside into a wasteland to accommodate the automobile some 70 years ago for the sake of convenience and "freedom" (and this isn't even taking the pollution aspect into account - the aesthetic and psychic damage is bad enough). Now, perhaps part of our problem is that people don't find outside spaces compelling anymore (largely because of what we've done to those spaces) and thus it doesn't seem too surprising that people want to retreat into a more disembodied existence. And then comes along television and then the internet and then social media and now AI and here we are. Humans are more than willing to sacrifice well being for convenience. I think a lot of us want to be able to resist the allure of convenience, but it's very difficult - and the great majority of people don't seem to be inclined to even try to resist. How can this change?
AI is just the latest technology offering convenience in a long line of such technologies. Of course, it has the possibility of surpassing all of the previous ones in that it could become self-replicating and self-improving. We haven't done very well in resisting the convenient technologies of the past and I guess I'm not very optimistic that we'll be able to resist going forward.
Good point, and I agree. Why go outside if nobody else is there and the place is ugly or degraded anyway? When VR headsets can help you create something more enticing. That's the trap now. I don't know how it changes at any scale, short of a collapse, which still seems likely to me.
In The Life We're Looking For, Andy Crouch makes similar points re: the automobile and convenience, and that it goes beyond that. Ultimately, it boils down to money (mammon, in his terminology) - it's about efficiency, centralization connected by highways makes things cheaper and easier to produce, transport, distribute, etc.
Most people would probably love, in theory, to live in neighborhoods where they could walk to get and do most of what they wanted and needed. But it would cost more and take a lot more planning. It's simpler to be entertained within one's home...
This was timely for me. I believe that internet culture has destroyed my 13 year old son's soul. And he doesn't even have a phone or social media accounts. Just occasional use of a tablet provided by his father against my wishes. His favorite YouTuber is especially horrifying. It's just this guy yelling stuff interspersed with flashy graphics that mean nothing. He has 33 million subscribers, and presumably makes millions of dollars by robbing children of their time and degrading their souls. I am with you in calling that evil. My son is unrecognizable from what he was a few years ago, when he loved birds, fishing, and climbing trees. I suppose adolescence would have been rough in any case, but since he started having internet access, it has become a living nightmare; he has no other interests now. The sitcoms I watched as a child in the 80's are like Shakespeare compared to this stuff.
I'm sorry to hear this. My son is the same age and I know the pressures. It's true that adolescence takes them away from their nature-loving little selves anyway, but yes, these pits of addiction are often terrible for them, and they have no filters against them.
I have seen a child on her first birthday, whining, complaining, fussing -- and the minute her mother's phone came out to make a video call to Grandma, all of a sudden posing, smiling, beaming for that camera in the phone. It was remarkable (back to screaming and fussing the second it went off). It's as if the very circuitboards interlock with children's minds immediately.
My family has never put any of its photos, moments or personal life on social media. We don't have accounts for that anyway. Almost everyone else we know puts a lot of their lives online, which means being a bit more socially isolated as a result. There are so many tech traps to avoid. My daughter had a mega disaster with Snapchat as soon as she had a phone, involving school admin, bullying, videos floating around,reacting to bullying and much worse. A real demonic buffet. Some girl social environments are more like social shark tanks than friend groups. Social media and phones provide instant blood in the water to get the predators circling. There is no easy way out of this dire scenario.
Since this is an Open Thread, I hope y'all forgive me for promoting my other Substack, simply because I started this only a week ago. It's called 'Divertimenti' and is a collection of music from the Baroque to the Romantics which have enhanced my life for decades. My choices are personal, eclectic and, according to modern views, terribly ‘elitist’. I make no excuses for that!
Music has been my constant companion throughout my life. I simply wish to share the riches, the joy, which music has given me, and hope that perhaps one or the other might discover that such music isn't scary, stressful or demanding. So please take a look, listen to the pieces I've put up so far - there are only two articles, one is coming tomorrow - and see what you think.
Thanks for allowing me to post this! Here's the link:
Since it's an open thread and you mentioned Baroque music, I'll use it as an excuse to share one of my favorite Baroque composers: Francesco Venturini. When we first heard this song, we thought something was wrong with the recording. Nope, just some Furies making noises. https://youtu.be/NcY6meErYIw?si=sjMC4uziNOYf7wok It was a real hit with the kids. (I personally like his other songs better.) Not much of Venturini's work has survived, which makes you wonder about all the beautiful music we've lost to time.
Thank you very much for that link - extraordinary, isn't it! I confess: I've never heard this before, so it was a real treat.
I agree: there's so much beautiful music lost to time. Some dedicated musicians have been digging scores out simply to find new music to play with their original instruments.
Thats one reason I've started my little Substack: bring some of this music to a wider audience. So thank you again for the link - much appreciated.
I found myself falling into the don't trap with technology. Don't do this, don't do that, and don't do that either, and on an on. It's all reaction. I'm just going to hold my breath until all of this technology and AI stuff just goes away. When my children said Dad, you don't like anything new do you? I had to do a bit of rethink. I'm working on new tactics.
The most serious mistakes I made as a father were a result of running away from things instead of looking for something to run to and leading my family in positive direction. There are so many directions towards beauty that it was a shame to spend time concentrating on barricading against the bad.
I write this as a 62 year old father of 9 adult children (17 grandchildren). Recently widowed (wife of 39 years passed away in July, I've been reflecting on this recently.
This is a good point. I often find myself in the same place. It's not necessarily effective. On the other hand, there are some things that have to be resisted. It's a tricky balance.
I am in the same position and my son said the same thing! The more I try to limit his tech use, the more he wants to use it, because it becomes alluring and forbidden. There are those who advocate unlimited screen time and say that kids will learn to self-regulate, but even adults have a hard time with that, because it's designed to be addictive. If you come up with any successful tactics, I would love to hear them!
Yes! You need something positive and hopeful to walk toward. Then also it is maybe easier to spot the traps, because you can ask yourself if this will help or hinder your goal.
For my family, I try to find and expand on real life opportunities for community. Sometimes this is uncomfortable because I tend to be introverted and reading articles on the internet (even ones critical of the internet) is easier than showing up day after day to make and maintain real connections. But I make myself do it, and I do enjoy myself too ultimately. We are not screen free but screens are limited to short periods of downtime. As long as my kids are spending most of their time pursuing real life goals, meeting and befriending real people, and developing talents they will appreciate later, I think it’s going ok. I’m especially happy to see the oldest finding some girls a few years older than her who are strong role models for real life teens and young women. These are young women in her folk dance organization whom we hired (on the request of my daughter and two friends) to choreograph a special dance for them.
I struggle to imagine what youth without phones and the internet would have been like, though I feel a sense of loss reading you're description of it. I wonder if this deprival will help inspire my generation to take another path.
I feel more disgusted by my phone and screen time each day
I grew up in the time just before smartphones (born 1990). Internet was already around, but it only became a concern of mine after my best friends next door moved away when I was 11. I lived on the outer boundary of a small rural town in middle America, so I was pretty isolated after they left, and internet sucked me in. Before that, we spent all day roaming the woods behind our houses, building tree forts and riding our bikes up and down the biggest hill near us. I’m grateful that smartphones weren’t around yet, because at least my school experience was still more natural. The only classes that used computers were courses specifically related to computer technology.
I sometimes wonder to what extent the internet can still be good. Obviously, as Freya mentioned in the posted interview, it enabled her to start tunneling outward and finding new people and ideas. At the time my friends next door moved away, it felt like a godsend to me. I was still able to chat and play games with my friends, and I am still very close with one of them to this day. I most likely would have lost their friendship entirely if not for the internet.
I think limiting the portability of things goes a long way to limiting their more evil influences. A talk-and-text phone and a hardwired desktop PC in a non-private part of the home seems like a decent starting point.
That's a very simple but excellent point, I agree.
In my work I have a rule that I don't open or answer emails or take calls at the weekend. The weekend is family time, not work time. When at work I make a point of only answering from my desktop. My phone is just that, a phone, and if I'm away from my desk or doing other things I'll simply tell folk I'll respond when back in my office.
It causes minimal issues and people generally appear to accept it.
It comes down to setting clear personal boundaries and limits. I simply treat it as part of my Christian self discipline.
Precisely. It's the smartphone which is the real killer. Ever social media, if you had to sit at a desktop computer to use it, would be something you could walk away from. The smartphone is like a drug in the pocket. It's why I don't have one.
I hope you have enjoyed Voyage to Alpha Centauri. When you finish it let me know your thoughts. I think you might like the space shuttle subplot at the very end.
About the jellyfish pins: I could afford only 20, and so the first 19 people who told me that they were your subscribers got them. I gave up my own. The best story: I approached a young couple and asked if they were subscribers, they said no, and when they found out what I was doing they whipped out their phones and subscribed! They got their pins.
Around the new agey social groups I encounter, there is something like a cult of kindness. I think if I prodded far enough nobody could give a could reason why kindness si right other than that it is obviously a good. But when you don't have a proper theology or metaphysic underwriting this it makes kindness turn out weird and googly eyed. Is this cult of kindness bad and should be questioned or is it harmless?
The Baruffi piece that was linked here was sadly believable. I don't think it's 20 years out, either, but maybe 10?
Why would people turn to some of these technologies as human substitutes? Perhaps, in part at least, because the church is not always doing its best to help meet the relational needs that the AI substitutes (poorly) meet.
Perhaps related, tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen had predicted that down the road AI would potentially eliminate the need for most people to work; if true, it seems ominous to me. Meaningful work, I believe, is something we are divinely designed for, and I wonder what becomes of humanity if it is not required of us?
I agree that we are put upon this earth (in part) to contribute to it via the labor of meaningful work, but I wonder to what extent much of mankind is already cut off from a sense of having meaningful work. So much of the “work” performed in the modern economy is disaggregated and abstracted from the end result of one’s labor, it can feel (rightly or wrongly) as though one isn’t really contributing anything, no matter how hard one works or (ironically) even how much money one makes. I think there is always going to be a visceral connection that those who work with their hands and can see the end result of their labor feel that the office worker is unlikely to ever get. That being said, even for the office worker (my job, I’m a corporate attorney) there is a difference in working for a small team where the individual personalities are known and you are working to support these embodied humans who are your friends and compatriots, and working for an organizational so large and diffuse that you might as well be a cog in a dysfunctional machine. The way to fight AI and the machine is to mold the societal levers of law and finance such that the preferred default is small and medium sized organizations rather than corporate giants. We have been doing the opposite for the last 200 years and this is why we now live in a world surrounded by giants who are eating us.
I’m planning to drastically reduce my machine connection in the new year. Does anyone have recommendations for a good dumb phone? I’ve considered using the light phone so I could still listen to music and podcasts, but I’m not sure that’s even really necessary. Has anyone else tried going down this (or a similar) route?
I work helping people leaving prison readjust and navigate the world outside the wire. Many of them are not allowed to have phones that access the internet. WalMart ( I hate to promote people but it's necessary here) has a flip phone for $40 and you purchase minutes. It does exactly one thing, makes phone calls. That is the solution I use for my clients. Some of the companies like Jitterbug and Cricket have dumb phones too.
Thanks for your interesting comments, Nathaniel. I said no to the iPhone from the beginning and have continued using a Sanyo flip-phone. I use it for calls and texts only, keep it on 'silent' mode, and check it when I remember to. All that said, I'm highly reliant on my laptop for e-mail and internet usage, but, as has been said, can simply walk away from it.
I've used a Nokia 2780, which isn't really a dumb phone in that it has an internet browser. The phone then has "apps" that are really just links to sites on the browser, some of which are social media-y. I've never been tempted to use them for anything but listening to music in the Youtube "app" simply because the screen is so dingy and small and the browser so unworkable.
Those little barriers to convenience have done wonders to wean me off the Machine!
After fifteen years of good work, our old flip phone took a dive in the potty, and it couldn't be resurrected after its swim, so with heavy hearts, we had to face the fact that we were in the market for a new phone. We ended up with the Sunbeam phone (this is for the United States. It doesn't look like it works great outside of the States). You can get a super stripped-down basic phone or add in capabilities as you wish. We only get calls, texts, and pictures. No videos. No internet. We use the F1 Pro. It's more expensive than Sunbeam's other phone, but it holds up better. (We busted through two of those cheaper models pretty fast. Possibly that model is better now since they have made some changes, but we didn't want to deal with that again.) It even has a touch screen, for times when you don't want to fiddle with buttons. The camera isn't great, but we aren't trying to document our lives, so we don't care. We don't love the texting capabilities, but we've adapted. The texting capabilities of our decades' old phone were way, way better, but you couldn't do group texts, which has worked much better with the Sunbeam. The positive is, the clunky nature of our newer phone is helpful for keeping us from doing so much asynchronous communication. You get tired of texting and prefer to talk to the person. There is a speech-to-text subscription that is supposed to be pretty good, but we're too cheap to pay for that. Good luck with figuring things out!
Another vote for a Sunbeam F1 Pro here. I weaned off of iPhone for a long while-- first eliminated all "unnecessary" apps (I left social media years ago so that wasn't so difficult) and made the screen grayscale (incredible how much less interesting that makes it!). Then eventually I eliminated email, then music, and got to the point where I kept it in a drawer and only used it for texts and calls. I switched to Sunbeam with their voice to text subscription in August and have been happy with it-- sometimes the voice to text doesn't pick up exactly what I'm saying but I've warned friends not to be concerned about strange grammar or spelling, and it's often good for laughs. Using Tello and the voice to text sub. through Sunbeam is around $10 a month total--my data usage is microscopic.
I still use my laptop for music but I have stopped playing it all the time and try to be more intentional about listening to something specific when I do. I don't take photos anymore, but if I decide to start again, I will find a used camera. I haven't even tried using the camera on the Sunbeam. The only thing I've had to purchase as a replacement is a kitchen timer!
The Sunbeam stays on its charging dock on the kitchen counter anytime I'm home. It lights up on the front if there is a call or text, so there's no need for me to even pick it up to see if I've "missed" a message. I can't believe I used to carry around a phone with me everywhere all the time-- bed time, wake time, outside, upstairs, downstairs, on a walk, etc.
I did get the map feature on my Sunbeam, but I don't really leave my county and the one time I've needed directions, I read through them online beforehand and printed them out like it was 2004. Even then, I got turned around on back roads, called my friend for better directions, and arrived safely. No big deal.
I am dismayed by how many QR codes and other "requirements" for using a smart phone there are when I'm out and about-- but so far there's always a way around them. I encourage my husband (still a stripped down iPhone user) not to use them-- using a smart phone at every opportunity is a vote for a world in which one becomes necessary. I want my tiny actions to lead to a world in which ubiquitous smart phone use is just a bad memory.
I'm trying to reply to The Saxon Cross, but the Reply button won't work.
I lived more than half of my life before cordless phones were invented, and I can barely remember what it was like, what I was like, in those long ago days. I didn't get a smart phone until I became a widow; I think I still wouldn't have one if my husband hadn't died. But I miss my former self, who wasn't so connected and available and dependent. I'm afraid there is no getting her back at this point, and when I look back at her life it's hard to imagine, to believe I am remembering me. I am terribly envious of her.
I have been trying to reply to JR Meyers' comment on new-agey kindness, but the Reply button isn't working (slightly relieved to see it's not just me).
I think kindness is not always kindness, especially if it is an uncritical type of kindness. Sometimes people just want to think of themselves as a 'nice person' and won't criticise things that need to be criticised for fear of looking mean.
People have been socially engineered into superficial kindness, one might say. For example, 'validating' a male person who thinks they're a female person is superficial kindness. Before the social engineering was so intense, the nearest equvalent might have been an anorexic person. But back then nobody thought it kind to validate the perceptions of a pathologically skinny person looking in the mirror and seeing a fat person. Or, as one would say now, identifying as fat. It was recognised as mental illness and treated as such, and not with superficial kindness of indulging a perverted perception that was going to do the person harm. You don't have to be cruel to be genuinely kind, but you do have to think a bit more deeply.
You could shutdown the net and destroy all semiconductor factories and still have all these same problems. We should be careful and ecspecially not allow an anything goes mentality but the Machine can inhabit anything. From an idea to a pill, an app , a person or an AI abomination created in a lab. If the Devil can transform into an angel of light, light to us is good and powerful, then who can not be deceived? We need outside help, God , Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to survive and help others. Our weapons are Prayer and Faith, Scripture and Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Anything else is a inadequate.
I would like to make a plea that we not use the word enchantment. It means to be under a magic spell, and our faith is about mystery or mysticism, the revelation of reality, not its manipulation which is what magic is. It's just misleading and the difference is really important.
Blame Max Weber, who described our institutions and our era (in the early 1900s) with the term 'disenchantment'.
In his book Living in Wonder, Rod Dreher writes "C.S. Lewis wrote of the mental model of medieval Christians... in the medieval model, everything in the visible and invisible world is connected through God. All things have ultimate meaning because they participated in the life of the creator... this is what sociologists and religion scholars mean when they say the world of the past was enchanted."
Dreher continues: "... to call that age 'enchanted' in the academic sense - and in the sense I mean in this book - is to refer to the widespread belief that, in the words of an Orthodox prayer, God is everywhere present and fills all things" [...] "... true enchantment is simply living with the confident belief that there is deep meaning to life, meaning that exists in the world independent of ourselves."
I too was initially uneasy with the use of the word "enchantment" in relation to Christianity for its common association with magic, but the way Dreher frames it makes sense. Perhaps another analogy could be how a man could be enchanted by the beauty of his wife, for example - nothing magical about it per se, but deeply moving.
Yes, I understand that. But that is simply asserting a different definition of the word from the common definition. Enchantment's roots are in magic, not the Holy Spirit "everywhere present and filling all things." The energies of God and our noetic perception of such are something else. It just feels uncomfortable and worrisome to conflate the two
PS Generally speaking I frequently find much that either verges into over-sentimentality or romanticism in modern Christian expression, and I don't find it trustworthy. That "sharper than a two-edged sword" truth of Hebrews 4:12 that pierces and discerns the heart speaks of something more precise and powerful
Yes, Janine, I'm with you in Hebrews and the sad state of performance church. I had used the NIV until discovering the NKJV about 15 years ago. But recently have been rediscovering the KJV, much to my surprise. Today, for example, in Chapter 2, "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Now the NKJV, which I had thought was just getting rid of the thees and thous, "For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham." What? And the NIV, "For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants." Wait another minute! This is the third or fourth time in the last couple of weeks that I've been blown away by the KJV. An eternal perspective replaced by a human one. Awe and wonder being replaced by ancestry.com.
Thanks for that. It seems to me the KJV is a brilliant translation in many ways.
This thread helps me realise how sloppy I am in my use of language. Thank you everyone.
I'm still not sure about it myself. Rod has made a good case for it, but I'm still not sure he chose the right word. He uses it in the Weberian sense, but I also takes Janine's point and she words it well. Enchantment is a word quite specifically associated with magic, while Christianity, as Janine says, is more about mysticism and revelation. 'Enchanting' the world suggests spreading something false over it, rather than revealing its reality.
Back when Rod was working on the book this subject came up in his Substack comments. Iirc the consensus was that while the word had problems there really wasn't a better one available given that he was explicitly dealing with the Weberian "academic" understanding of the word/phenomenon (i.e., as a counter to disenchantment). He was clear that the book itself would explain this. I still don't think it's the ideal word, but I have trouble coming up with a better one.
Thank you Paul. I suppose with the Holy Spirit we will work toward that. I think of the speech you made in London a while back (I can't remember the precise occasion, perhaps a year ago). You spoke of all the sort of "hidden in plain sight" glimpses of that holiness all around in the things we pass everyday and take for granted, but are all there. I remember you wrote that you spoke off the cuff on that occasion, and you wanted people's opinions. It really captured something important for me, and I repeatedly think back on it.
I've recently read "Living in Wonder" and found much to commend. However, I can see the point of caution about using the word re-enchantment to describe bringing back into fullness the sense of the mystical presence of God that we've lost in the modern age.
My concern is two-fold. First, we Christians (though perhaps not the Orthodox) love to categorize and commodify trends. That in turn strips the meaning from the movement. Or at least that's been my observation over my 50+ years of walking with Jesus. We put a price tag on everything!
Second, and by far the most important thing on my heart, is a question. I'm asking this as an ordained deacon in the Anglican Church. Can we actually 're-enchant' the world, or 're-mystify' the world, without starting with the Eucharist. By that I mean, can anything change fundamentally so long as a large portion of the church (Evangelical, non-denominational, and even some Anglican churches) practice a non-mystical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Perhaps what I'm trying to say ask is, do people simply want to 'feel' re-enchanted, but not to actually believe it makes a material difference? Recognizing the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, seems absolutely central to anything significant happening to actually turn the tide of our materialistic modern world.
As you might imagine, I'm in a bit of a crisis.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, terri.
To all: It strikes me we are talking about "re-sacralizing" (if that's the word I'm looking for), where the world becomes sacrament. "Everywhere present and filling all things." Recovering what is sacred and holy.
That’s a very interesting point. You are probably right. Having come straight into Orthodoxy, I have no experience of such ‘churches’ but I think it would be right to use inverted commas for them. That is probably the burning heart of the matter.
yes, as a charismatic Christian, I never saw the presence of Christ in Communion. That's all I embrace now! Well said.
I think it's the best word word out there to convey the unique flavor of what Rod is getting at. You're thinking of the "technical" sense of magic as a system for control, not the much more widespread way it has long been used in popular culture as a synonym for something wonderful and mysterious and beautiful.
"Magic" has the connotation of something beautiful, mysterious, full of wonder, overwhelming. The "magic" of nature, etc.
Interestingly, I'd say the colloquial use of magic conveys the exact opposite of its technical use - the opposite of control, but an energy that is mysterious and cannot be captured through mathematical calculations but somehow has to do with beauty and wonder. This is why I always prefer fantasy with its wizards rather than scifi with its technology.
To be "under a spell" can be a good thing, as in "I was under the spell of her beauty", or I was "under the spell of that landscape".
The thing that comes to me when I see a divinely beautiful natural landscape is "why, this is pure magic!"
That enchantment can also be "bad" as Rod admits is also an advantage, as there are also mysterious forces out there that are malign.
Anyways much more can be written about this but I think it's the perfect word for this personally.
I wonder how anybody explains to the women in their lives the patriarchal nature of Christianity, why we only refer to God as He, etc?
There are two sexes. Jesus is male and part of the Trinity, a 1 in 3 divinity, so God has a male body and is a man.
Another answer is that God is neither male nor female. Many churches do refer to God as she sometimes, "it" doesn't seem very reverent. Plus Christians derived from Jews and Jews also have complex views (some noted in this Wikipedia article (yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but still). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_God_in_Judaism
For what it's worth, in Greek the name for God the Father is masculine, for the Son is masculine, for the Holy Spirit is neuter, and for the Holy Trinity is feminine.
Trinity is a female name in the Matrix movie, and any other place I've seen the name used.
In my Orthodox church, it is said that God is beyond all categories and also that Jesus is a man. The holy Spirit is always a He And the Trinity as a whole is also He.
I've explained it by the idea that in Christianity patriarchy has to do fundamentally with fatherhood, not maleness as such (the word itself indicates this). God has revealed himself through Christ as Father, and fathers are male. But the main revelation is that of family, so to speak, not male domination. One could say that Christianity is patriarchal not because it's "male based," but because its revelation is rooted in fatherhood (cf. Ephesians 3:15).
Well before the internet, social media, and AI there was the automobile. In the US especially we built our cities around them such that it's difficult to walk anywhere anymore and even if there is a sidewalk it's at least unpleasant and often dangerous. In the US, at least, this has led to the uglification of our suburban, urban and even many rural areas. While it's fashionable to want to talk about the dangers of AI (and we certainly need to be thinking about these dangers) we often seem to forget that we'd already turned most of our countryside into a wasteland to accommodate the automobile some 70 years ago for the sake of convenience and "freedom" (and this isn't even taking the pollution aspect into account - the aesthetic and psychic damage is bad enough). Now, perhaps part of our problem is that people don't find outside spaces compelling anymore (largely because of what we've done to those spaces) and thus it doesn't seem too surprising that people want to retreat into a more disembodied existence. And then comes along television and then the internet and then social media and now AI and here we are. Humans are more than willing to sacrifice well being for convenience. I think a lot of us want to be able to resist the allure of convenience, but it's very difficult - and the great majority of people don't seem to be inclined to even try to resist. How can this change?
AI is just the latest technology offering convenience in a long line of such technologies. Of course, it has the possibility of surpassing all of the previous ones in that it could become self-replicating and self-improving. We haven't done very well in resisting the convenient technologies of the past and I guess I'm not very optimistic that we'll be able to resist going forward.
This latest article from LM Sacasas seems relevant: The Enclosure of the Human Psyche https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-enclosure-of-the-human-psyche
Good point, and I agree. Why go outside if nobody else is there and the place is ugly or degraded anyway? When VR headsets can help you create something more enticing. That's the trap now. I don't know how it changes at any scale, short of a collapse, which still seems likely to me.
In The Life We're Looking For, Andy Crouch makes similar points re: the automobile and convenience, and that it goes beyond that. Ultimately, it boils down to money (mammon, in his terminology) - it's about efficiency, centralization connected by highways makes things cheaper and easier to produce, transport, distribute, etc.
Most people would probably love, in theory, to live in neighborhoods where they could walk to get and do most of what they wanted and needed. But it would cost more and take a lot more planning. It's simpler to be entertained within one's home...
This was timely for me. I believe that internet culture has destroyed my 13 year old son's soul. And he doesn't even have a phone or social media accounts. Just occasional use of a tablet provided by his father against my wishes. His favorite YouTuber is especially horrifying. It's just this guy yelling stuff interspersed with flashy graphics that mean nothing. He has 33 million subscribers, and presumably makes millions of dollars by robbing children of their time and degrading their souls. I am with you in calling that evil. My son is unrecognizable from what he was a few years ago, when he loved birds, fishing, and climbing trees. I suppose adolescence would have been rough in any case, but since he started having internet access, it has become a living nightmare; he has no other interests now. The sitcoms I watched as a child in the 80's are like Shakespeare compared to this stuff.
I'm sorry to hear this. My son is the same age and I know the pressures. It's true that adolescence takes them away from their nature-loving little selves anyway, but yes, these pits of addiction are often terrible for them, and they have no filters against them.
I have seen a child on her first birthday, whining, complaining, fussing -- and the minute her mother's phone came out to make a video call to Grandma, all of a sudden posing, smiling, beaming for that camera in the phone. It was remarkable (back to screaming and fussing the second it went off). It's as if the very circuitboards interlock with children's minds immediately.
My family has never put any of its photos, moments or personal life on social media. We don't have accounts for that anyway. Almost everyone else we know puts a lot of their lives online, which means being a bit more socially isolated as a result. There are so many tech traps to avoid. My daughter had a mega disaster with Snapchat as soon as she had a phone, involving school admin, bullying, videos floating around,reacting to bullying and much worse. A real demonic buffet. Some girl social environments are more like social shark tanks than friend groups. Social media and phones provide instant blood in the water to get the predators circling. There is no easy way out of this dire scenario.
Since this is an Open Thread, I hope y'all forgive me for promoting my other Substack, simply because I started this only a week ago. It's called 'Divertimenti' and is a collection of music from the Baroque to the Romantics which have enhanced my life for decades. My choices are personal, eclectic and, according to modern views, terribly ‘elitist’. I make no excuses for that!
Music has been my constant companion throughout my life. I simply wish to share the riches, the joy, which music has given me, and hope that perhaps one or the other might discover that such music isn't scary, stressful or demanding. So please take a look, listen to the pieces I've put up so far - there are only two articles, one is coming tomorrow - and see what you think.
Thanks for allowing me to post this! Here's the link:
https://vivianevansdivertimenti.substack.com
Since it's an open thread and you mentioned Baroque music, I'll use it as an excuse to share one of my favorite Baroque composers: Francesco Venturini. When we first heard this song, we thought something was wrong with the recording. Nope, just some Furies making noises. https://youtu.be/NcY6meErYIw?si=sjMC4uziNOYf7wok It was a real hit with the kids. (I personally like his other songs better.) Not much of Venturini's work has survived, which makes you wonder about all the beautiful music we've lost to time.
Thank you very much for that link - extraordinary, isn't it! I confess: I've never heard this before, so it was a real treat.
I agree: there's so much beautiful music lost to time. Some dedicated musicians have been digging scores out simply to find new music to play with their original instruments.
Thats one reason I've started my little Substack: bring some of this music to a wider audience. So thank you again for the link - much appreciated.
Glad you liked it! And yes, Venturini is really quite obscure, so I'm happy it was an enjoyable treat.
Thanks for sharing the link. I listned to Noctourne No. 20. Autumal indeed.
I found myself falling into the don't trap with technology. Don't do this, don't do that, and don't do that either, and on an on. It's all reaction. I'm just going to hold my breath until all of this technology and AI stuff just goes away. When my children said Dad, you don't like anything new do you? I had to do a bit of rethink. I'm working on new tactics.
The most serious mistakes I made as a father were a result of running away from things instead of looking for something to run to and leading my family in positive direction. There are so many directions towards beauty that it was a shame to spend time concentrating on barricading against the bad.
I write this as a 62 year old father of 9 adult children (17 grandchildren). Recently widowed (wife of 39 years passed away in July, I've been reflecting on this recently.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
This is a good point. I often find myself in the same place. It's not necessarily effective. On the other hand, there are some things that have to be resisted. It's a tricky balance.
I am in the same position and my son said the same thing! The more I try to limit his tech use, the more he wants to use it, because it becomes alluring and forbidden. There are those who advocate unlimited screen time and say that kids will learn to self-regulate, but even adults have a hard time with that, because it's designed to be addictive. If you come up with any successful tactics, I would love to hear them!
Yes! You need something positive and hopeful to walk toward. Then also it is maybe easier to spot the traps, because you can ask yourself if this will help or hinder your goal.
For my family, I try to find and expand on real life opportunities for community. Sometimes this is uncomfortable because I tend to be introverted and reading articles on the internet (even ones critical of the internet) is easier than showing up day after day to make and maintain real connections. But I make myself do it, and I do enjoy myself too ultimately. We are not screen free but screens are limited to short periods of downtime. As long as my kids are spending most of their time pursuing real life goals, meeting and befriending real people, and developing talents they will appreciate later, I think it’s going ok. I’m especially happy to see the oldest finding some girls a few years older than her who are strong role models for real life teens and young women. These are young women in her folk dance organization whom we hired (on the request of my daughter and two friends) to choreograph a special dance for them.
I struggle to imagine what youth without phones and the internet would have been like, though I feel a sense of loss reading you're description of it. I wonder if this deprival will help inspire my generation to take another path.
I feel more disgusted by my phone and screen time each day
I grew up in the time just before smartphones (born 1990). Internet was already around, but it only became a concern of mine after my best friends next door moved away when I was 11. I lived on the outer boundary of a small rural town in middle America, so I was pretty isolated after they left, and internet sucked me in. Before that, we spent all day roaming the woods behind our houses, building tree forts and riding our bikes up and down the biggest hill near us. I’m grateful that smartphones weren’t around yet, because at least my school experience was still more natural. The only classes that used computers were courses specifically related to computer technology.
I sometimes wonder to what extent the internet can still be good. Obviously, as Freya mentioned in the posted interview, it enabled her to start tunneling outward and finding new people and ideas. At the time my friends next door moved away, it felt like a godsend to me. I was still able to chat and play games with my friends, and I am still very close with one of them to this day. I most likely would have lost their friendship entirely if not for the internet.
I think limiting the portability of things goes a long way to limiting their more evil influences. A talk-and-text phone and a hardwired desktop PC in a non-private part of the home seems like a decent starting point.
That's a very simple but excellent point, I agree.
In my work I have a rule that I don't open or answer emails or take calls at the weekend. The weekend is family time, not work time. When at work I make a point of only answering from my desktop. My phone is just that, a phone, and if I'm away from my desk or doing other things I'll simply tell folk I'll respond when back in my office.
It causes minimal issues and people generally appear to accept it.
It comes down to setting clear personal boundaries and limits. I simply treat it as part of my Christian self discipline.
Precisely. It's the smartphone which is the real killer. Ever social media, if you had to sit at a desktop computer to use it, would be something you could walk away from. The smartphone is like a drug in the pocket. It's why I don't have one.
Hello Paul!
I hope you have enjoyed Voyage to Alpha Centauri. When you finish it let me know your thoughts. I think you might like the space shuttle subplot at the very end.
About the jellyfish pins: I could afford only 20, and so the first 19 people who told me that they were your subscribers got them. I gave up my own. The best story: I approached a young couple and asked if they were subscribers, they said no, and when they found out what I was doing they whipped out their phones and subscribed! They got their pins.
God bless
I really appreciated this surprise gesture. I saw a lot of people wearing them. You have started something!
Around the new agey social groups I encounter, there is something like a cult of kindness. I think if I prodded far enough nobody could give a could reason why kindness si right other than that it is obviously a good. But when you don't have a proper theology or metaphysic underwriting this it makes kindness turn out weird and googly eyed. Is this cult of kindness bad and should be questioned or is it harmless?
‘Tis the season for Christmas songs and, accordingly, would like to submit my favorite Orthodox one.
It is an Orthodox Christian Chant called "In the Dark Night" about the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Monks of Svetogorskaya Lavra in Ukraine.
Hauntingly beautiful, this chant must only be listened to once a year(twice at most) in order to maintain the impact of its stunning beauty.
Here is the link-scroll down the page on the link to see the translation:
https://www.sthermansoca.org/spirituality/in-the-dark-night/
Thank you! I also love that one so much, but hadn't listened yet this year until you posted it.
That's truly lovely; thanks for sharing!
In the spirit of sharing, here are some lovely Czech Christmas carols we've come to enjoy around here:
https://youtu.be/fGkfuqVyfk4?si=HSPhMqyU2gJaWG6b
Fantastic, thank you
Very nice. But since I just encountered it I will risk a few more listenings this season.
Of course, and as an added bonus, here in my opinion, is the best version I've found of O, Holy Night. Chills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z92gnN0lDx8&list=PL02EFF3FF44123DFF
The Baruffi piece that was linked here was sadly believable. I don't think it's 20 years out, either, but maybe 10?
Why would people turn to some of these technologies as human substitutes? Perhaps, in part at least, because the church is not always doing its best to help meet the relational needs that the AI substitutes (poorly) meet.
Perhaps related, tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen had predicted that down the road AI would potentially eliminate the need for most people to work; if true, it seems ominous to me. Meaningful work, I believe, is something we are divinely designed for, and I wonder what becomes of humanity if it is not required of us?
I agree that we are put upon this earth (in part) to contribute to it via the labor of meaningful work, but I wonder to what extent much of mankind is already cut off from a sense of having meaningful work. So much of the “work” performed in the modern economy is disaggregated and abstracted from the end result of one’s labor, it can feel (rightly or wrongly) as though one isn’t really contributing anything, no matter how hard one works or (ironically) even how much money one makes. I think there is always going to be a visceral connection that those who work with their hands and can see the end result of their labor feel that the office worker is unlikely to ever get. That being said, even for the office worker (my job, I’m a corporate attorney) there is a difference in working for a small team where the individual personalities are known and you are working to support these embodied humans who are your friends and compatriots, and working for an organizational so large and diffuse that you might as well be a cog in a dysfunctional machine. The way to fight AI and the machine is to mold the societal levers of law and finance such that the preferred default is small and medium sized organizations rather than corporate giants. We have been doing the opposite for the last 200 years and this is why we now live in a world surrounded by giants who are eating us.
I’m planning to drastically reduce my machine connection in the new year. Does anyone have recommendations for a good dumb phone? I’ve considered using the light phone so I could still listen to music and podcasts, but I’m not sure that’s even really necessary. Has anyone else tried going down this (or a similar) route?
I work helping people leaving prison readjust and navigate the world outside the wire. Many of them are not allowed to have phones that access the internet. WalMart ( I hate to promote people but it's necessary here) has a flip phone for $40 and you purchase minutes. It does exactly one thing, makes phone calls. That is the solution I use for my clients. Some of the companies like Jitterbug and Cricket have dumb phones too.
same. I'd like some recommendations too.
Thanks for your interesting comments, Nathaniel. I said no to the iPhone from the beginning and have continued using a Sanyo flip-phone. I use it for calls and texts only, keep it on 'silent' mode, and check it when I remember to. All that said, I'm highly reliant on my laptop for e-mail and internet usage, but, as has been said, can simply walk away from it.
I've used a Nokia 2780, which isn't really a dumb phone in that it has an internet browser. The phone then has "apps" that are really just links to sites on the browser, some of which are social media-y. I've never been tempted to use them for anything but listening to music in the Youtube "app" simply because the screen is so dingy and small and the browser so unworkable.
Those little barriers to convenience have done wonders to wean me off the Machine!
After fifteen years of good work, our old flip phone took a dive in the potty, and it couldn't be resurrected after its swim, so with heavy hearts, we had to face the fact that we were in the market for a new phone. We ended up with the Sunbeam phone (this is for the United States. It doesn't look like it works great outside of the States). You can get a super stripped-down basic phone or add in capabilities as you wish. We only get calls, texts, and pictures. No videos. No internet. We use the F1 Pro. It's more expensive than Sunbeam's other phone, but it holds up better. (We busted through two of those cheaper models pretty fast. Possibly that model is better now since they have made some changes, but we didn't want to deal with that again.) It even has a touch screen, for times when you don't want to fiddle with buttons. The camera isn't great, but we aren't trying to document our lives, so we don't care. We don't love the texting capabilities, but we've adapted. The texting capabilities of our decades' old phone were way, way better, but you couldn't do group texts, which has worked much better with the Sunbeam. The positive is, the clunky nature of our newer phone is helpful for keeping us from doing so much asynchronous communication. You get tired of texting and prefer to talk to the person. There is a speech-to-text subscription that is supposed to be pretty good, but we're too cheap to pay for that. Good luck with figuring things out!
Nathaniel--you can do it!
Another vote for a Sunbeam F1 Pro here. I weaned off of iPhone for a long while-- first eliminated all "unnecessary" apps (I left social media years ago so that wasn't so difficult) and made the screen grayscale (incredible how much less interesting that makes it!). Then eventually I eliminated email, then music, and got to the point where I kept it in a drawer and only used it for texts and calls. I switched to Sunbeam with their voice to text subscription in August and have been happy with it-- sometimes the voice to text doesn't pick up exactly what I'm saying but I've warned friends not to be concerned about strange grammar or spelling, and it's often good for laughs. Using Tello and the voice to text sub. through Sunbeam is around $10 a month total--my data usage is microscopic.
I still use my laptop for music but I have stopped playing it all the time and try to be more intentional about listening to something specific when I do. I don't take photos anymore, but if I decide to start again, I will find a used camera. I haven't even tried using the camera on the Sunbeam. The only thing I've had to purchase as a replacement is a kitchen timer!
The Sunbeam stays on its charging dock on the kitchen counter anytime I'm home. It lights up on the front if there is a call or text, so there's no need for me to even pick it up to see if I've "missed" a message. I can't believe I used to carry around a phone with me everywhere all the time-- bed time, wake time, outside, upstairs, downstairs, on a walk, etc.
I did get the map feature on my Sunbeam, but I don't really leave my county and the one time I've needed directions, I read through them online beforehand and printed them out like it was 2004. Even then, I got turned around on back roads, called my friend for better directions, and arrived safely. No big deal.
I am dismayed by how many QR codes and other "requirements" for using a smart phone there are when I'm out and about-- but so far there's always a way around them. I encourage my husband (still a stripped down iPhone user) not to use them-- using a smart phone at every opportunity is a vote for a world in which one becomes necessary. I want my tiny actions to lead to a world in which ubiquitous smart phone use is just a bad memory.
This thing is apparently on the way:
https://www.thebalancephone.com/
I'm trying to reply to The Saxon Cross, but the Reply button won't work.
I lived more than half of my life before cordless phones were invented, and I can barely remember what it was like, what I was like, in those long ago days. I didn't get a smart phone until I became a widow; I think I still wouldn't have one if my husband hadn't died. But I miss my former self, who wasn't so connected and available and dependent. I'm afraid there is no getting her back at this point, and when I look back at her life it's hard to imagine, to believe I am remembering me. I am terribly envious of her.
I have been trying to reply to JR Meyers' comment on new-agey kindness, but the Reply button isn't working (slightly relieved to see it's not just me).
I think kindness is not always kindness, especially if it is an uncritical type of kindness. Sometimes people just want to think of themselves as a 'nice person' and won't criticise things that need to be criticised for fear of looking mean.
People have been socially engineered into superficial kindness, one might say. For example, 'validating' a male person who thinks they're a female person is superficial kindness. Before the social engineering was so intense, the nearest equvalent might have been an anorexic person. But back then nobody thought it kind to validate the perceptions of a pathologically skinny person looking in the mirror and seeing a fat person. Or, as one would say now, identifying as fat. It was recognised as mental illness and treated as such, and not with superficial kindness of indulging a perverted perception that was going to do the person harm. You don't have to be cruel to be genuinely kind, but you do have to think a bit more deeply.
I think there is a problem with Substack because this is evident elsewhere too.
Thanks, Paul. I had the same experience on a couple of other Substacks, and thought it was a problem at my end (or the interference of the 77th!).
Weird that I can reply to your comment!
1) Bried replies are possible.
2) To make a longer reply, first write it elsewhere, then post a short phrase such as "to be edited" - - Then, as your edit, post your longer replay.
Thanks, Linda!
You could shutdown the net and destroy all semiconductor factories and still have all these same problems. We should be careful and ecspecially not allow an anything goes mentality but the Machine can inhabit anything. From an idea to a pill, an app , a person or an AI abomination created in a lab. If the Devil can transform into an angel of light, light to us is good and powerful, then who can not be deceived? We need outside help, God , Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to survive and help others. Our weapons are Prayer and Faith, Scripture and Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Anything else is a inadequate.