The revalorisation of Christianity

It has become commonplace to disparage “religion”, and of course “religion” is vast enough to be an easy target for complaint and valid criticism. Political correctness prevents us from calling out one as terrible while countenancing others as okay; fear of reprisals keeps us from denouncing one faith whose extremist followers might be capable of terrorist attacks in response, for example. We seek to treat “faith” with respect, while caring little about the content of the various faiths, unless they are totally abhorrent.

The result is that a secular society is quite happy to become irreligious; all religious convictions are side-lined and no particular attention paid to their moral values. People don’t care about what religion teaches about morality. Agnosticism, unbelief, scepticism and atheism influence people’s moral choices by the very absence of absolutes. The result is a general easy-going relativism. In the absence of high moral ideals, hedonism dominates people’s way of life; but having a good time is not necessarily having a good life.

The usefulness of “religion” is its appeal to Transcendence to buttress its moral standards. And we only have to consider the discouraging effects on modern secular society of the lack of such transcendent values to realise that, after all, religion may have some usefulness. Or maybe we prefer to let our selfish hedonism pursue its course, but in that case things will keep on going from bad to worse, with further family breakdown, increasing numbers of  teenagers suffering mental illness due to lack of guidelines, yet more children knifing each other in school and many other kinds of societal breakdown… 

What we need is a good religion, widely accepted, bringing wise guidelines, hope, and answers to our deep existential questions. Lack of reasonable answers is the underlying cause of our society’s malaise. This is why we cry out our anguish, our quest unsatisfied for anything we can cling on to as truly believable and good. It is my conviction that only Christianity – in its fullness and in faithfulness to its origins – that can provide our society with the wise balance of well-proven values that our society so desperately needs. Jesus remains the great moral master of all time and his words of wisdom still guide many believers into the paths of righteousness, peace and stability that so many lack today. 

It is time to revaluate Christianity and re-examine its life-affirming message of hope and love.

Clive Every-Clayton