Worldview Wednesday: Paganism is Back

We usually think of our secular society as strictly materialistic. There is no spiritual world; reality is only what we can see, hear, touch, and measure. But we are spiritual creatures, and suppressing the spiritual is not sustainable. When we reject theism, the worldview that there is a Creator God, the only other option is to worship the creation, and we can do that through materialism or pantheism. Pantheism sees everything as god; everything is spirit, and we are all a part of god.

The old, pagan religions were pantheistic because they were worshipping creatures; the gods were products of nature; they didn’t stand outside nature and create nature. By the time of the Middle Ages, Christianity had stamped out paganism in the Western world, but now we have rejected the Creator, and paganism is on the rise. Religion is just a means to connect to the spiritual world; practices such as mindfulness and meditation connect one to the spiritual world; and many people are even open about consulting with spirits and mediums. Another more subtle version of pantheism is the impulse toward collectivism in society.

Peter Jones’ book The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat argues that our entire culture has embraced a pantheistic worldview of “Oneism.” If you want to understand your culture, yourself, and the people we want to give the gospel to, we need to understand the lens through which we are viewing the world. You can also listen to a talk by Peter Jones here.