In his The Future of Faith Harvey Cox proffers
that there is an unexpected resurgence of religion around the world and in the
various religious traditions. The marginalization and even disappearance of
religion that many predicted in the1960s didn’t happen.
Cox in fact, believes the phenomena are widespread,
‘in various religious traditions, almost all of them, there’s been a resurgence’.
(Archbishop of
Canterbury Rowan William; “Culturally
speaking, the Christian religion is one of those subjects about which it is
cool to be ignorant. Spong’s account of classical Christian faith simply
colludes with such ignorance in a way that cannot surely reflect his own
knowledge of it. I think I understand the passion behind all this, the passion
to make sense to those for whom the faith is at best quaint and at worst
oppressive, nonsense.” 7 July 1998 edition of Church Times)
It’s a change Cox defines as “the nature of
religiousness, that what it means to be a religious person, or frequently now
people will say a spiritual person, they have some questions, occasionally, or
often, about the word religion. We’re seeing a fundamental change there so that
it means something now different than it did 50 years ago”.
In a 2009 interview Cox was asked what were the
main issues addressed in his book. “The most important development in the world
is the Pentecostal movement toward social ministries.” A study of ‘progressive
Pentecostalism’ was conducted. “They went around and studied congregations all
over the world, especially in the nonwestern world, and found that the ones
that were involved in community service, in clinics, in hospitals and schools
and all of that mainly were Pentecostal and charismatic churches. And they said
this is the major trend now.”
He points to the decline suffered by the
mainline Protestants over the last 20, 30 years as being “caused by a drift
toward a more hierarchical, less communitarian structure. People need to have a
sense of belonging, and that wasn’t there.”
The Future of Faith charts the three major
periods in the history of Christianity and the shift that is taking place today
away from religious beliefs and dogma to an emphasis on spirituality and social
justice.
One of the things he resolves in his earlier, 'The
Secular City' is "who owns theology” It’s no longer theologian experts
deciding on the answers; “the populace was now demanding to be part of the
discussion, and I think that's still going on.”
Sven Ljungholm
Liverpool
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