I have heard the United Kingdom described as a "Post-Christian society". This description relating to the general decline in the Christian religion post World War One and especially since the 1960's. I have pondered this term for many years trying to fit it with my own experiences and evidence. Actually I believe that it would be more accurate to call the United Kingdom "Pagan" rather than merely "Post-Christian".
"Post-Christian" seems to indicate a passive situation whereby the people of these isles have merely forgotten about their Christian roots and origins. While this may have been the case a few decades ago I no longer believe that to be the case today. Then it was fashionable to believe that their was nothing beyond the present life; no God in Heaven. Self regard became the dominant faith; in other words worship of the self, the Ego. This helps to explain the obsession with personal looks and good health as well as the love of Personality which we see on our TV screens and our newspapers every day.
While this is still the case today I do believe that a certain scepticism has crept into this mix. While most people would still accept that the self is the only "deity" with which we can manufacture certainty out of, some people harbour doubts. Where there is no God how do we explain "the Big stuff"? Death, illness, misfortune?
Some of this manifests itself in fashion statements like Tattoing. Now Tattoing is itself a Pagan form. It was what marked (literally) the barbarian from the Roman and thus anarchy from civilisation. The Germanic and Hunnish tribes tattoed themselves on the body and the face. Romans were clean-shaven and unmarked.
Tattoing has become really important. I am no longer surprised when I see a really rather respectable, well educated, middle-class and middle-aged woman with a tattoe on her arm or upper breast. It is not just the abstract or the pattered Tattoe of course. I believe that David Beckham encouraged the fad for having incantations and spells tattoed onto the skin. Now many people have inscriptions tattoed on their inner arms or other parts of the body. These incantations are sometimes Kabbalah incantations, or Chinese or Tibetan. You see them everywhere, on nearly everyone. They are usually incantations or spells to bring good luck to the wearer. None of this magical thinking is at all Christian and, indeed from the perspective of the Christian they must be viewed as evil and malign.
Comments