I went to the Touchstone Conference last week. The theme, “At Cross Purposes: Life and Death in the Negative World,” came from Aaron Renn’s First Things article, “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.” Renn, who opened the conference, argues that after a high point in the 1950s, Christianity’s influence in America has been waning. Nonetheless, 1964-1994 was a “Positive World” in which Christian values and morals were considered the norm in the country and being a Christian was considered a good thing. From 1994 to 2014, we were in a “Neutral World,” where being a Christian wasn’t an asset, but it wasn’t a liability either. Since 2014, we have been in a “Negative World,” where Christian values and morals have been definitively rejected and Christian identity is seen as a negative.

The End of Christendom

The speakers generally agreed with this assessment. Christendom—a society where Christian values and morality is normative—is gone and will not come back in our lifetime. It will take several generations to bring it back, if it returns at all. And with the loss of Christian foundations, everything that depended on Christian belief—free speech, the inherent dignity and value of all persons, limited government, etc.—will erode and disappear.

We are thus going to face increasing disfavor and even persecution, and we need to prepare for it. Building strong communities, worship, and spiritual disciplines of prayer, internalizing the Word, fasting, and the like will be necessary if we are going to be ready for what’s coming.

The Resurgence of the Occult

What has replaced Christianity is the occult. Several speakers cited C.S. Lewis’s idea of the materialist magician from The Screwtape Letters number 7, but there are a multitude of other forms this turn to the occult can take. In many cases, it simply forms the framework through which people see the world, but it can include a range of spiritual practices, various forms of paganism, as well as a new kind of techno-paganism involving AI or UAPs (formerly called UFOs).

For example, Rod Dreher spoke about Santa Muerte, Saint Death, a parody of the Virgin Mary with probable connections to an ancient Aztec death goddess. Although associated with death, Santa Muerte is known for healing, protection, and performing miracles. One adherent said he followed her because she gave him everything he asked her for. Significantly, Santa Muerte is the fastest growing new religious movement in America as well as in the world as a whole.

Were all the worshipper’s prayers actually answered? He certainly thought so, and it would be unwise to dismiss his claim out of hand. It is helpful to think of this in terms of magic. Magic s about imposing your will upon reality. Historically, this has often been done or attempted by invoking demons. Praying to Santa Muerte is a form of demonic magic, and as Dreher points out, when you call on demons, they often answer. This then becomes a means to seduce their adherents into following them to Hell.

Christianity is exactly the opposite of magic: properly understood, it involves conforming our will to the will of God rather than imposing our will on the world. Thus, unlike Santa Muerte’s worshipper, we accept that God will answer our prayers when and how he wills rather than measuring how worthy he is of our allegiance by how much he gives us what we want.

Re-enchantment

The challenge that’s facing us is how to respond to all of this. In addition to preparing ourselves, our communities, and our children for the increasing social and legal pressures we’ll be facing, we also need to recover a supernatural worldview. Many people who advocate this refer to it as re-enchantment. This involves a deeper awareness of the reality of spiritual warfare beyond dealing with personal temptation, learning about and practicing deliverance ministries (i.e. exorcism), and recovering what Hans Boersma calls a sacramental ontology—seeing the world around us as imbued with spiritual meaning.

For many of us, particularly those in the very rational Reformed tradition, we’ve frankly got a lot of catching up to do.

I will be doing a series of videos starting in October dealing with enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment. These will be available to Patreon members at the $15 level.