Why current interest in Church and sacred has me concerned

 By Carl R. Trueman - Posted at The Christian Post:

"And yet, while encouraged by the renewed interest in historic Christianity, I am concerned that we might conflate an interest in the sacred with an interest in the truth. They are not the same..."

The current interest in the Church and the sacred is cause for celebration, as Christianity offers the truth about what it means to be human: a creature made in God’s image in need of redemption through Christ. As Rusty Reno highlighted in these pages, there are interesting developments taking place in England and Wales, countries marked by a deep and rapid secularization over the last century. And the U.K.’s Spectator is to host a live discussion on the recovery of the sacred among young Christians. Strange times for those of us who assumed the world was simply going to the irreligious dogs.

While the specifically Christian orientation of the trends was not predictable, the move toward seeking some kind of transcendent context is. The quest for significance characterizes the human condition. We find it hard to think of ourselves as mere flotsam and jetsam randomly cast into existence in this vast universe by some aimless process. Like Pascal, too much reflection on that can leave us feeling alone and afraid. Indeed, Nietzsche’s insight about suffering can be extrapolated to our existence as a whole: It is not existence itself but meaningless existence that we find unbearable. It is no surprise, therefore, that we are intensifying our quest for meaning at a time when the shortcomings of the post-industrial, bureaucratized, consumerist West are becoming clear.

However, this new search for the sacred does have certain shortcomings.

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