Signs of the times - Political instability and the shift from the secular to the post-secular

Ian Mobsby gives his view on what recent trends in society might mean for people's ideas of spiritual matters, and the implications for mission.

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Recent election results in the USA and Europe have sent shockwaves around the world with the rise of popularism driven by a new isolationism and concern about global immigration. Many are fearful about the demise of a rules-based understanding of world order and the relentless advancement of global capitalism. What I find surprising is that so few have understood that such changes were predicted and understood as the shift from societies defined by secularism to an increasing post-secularism. Much of this change is a direct result of an increasing market society combined with the advancement of information technology.    

All this was predicted by Habermas at the turn of the millennium where many local communities had become fractured and fragmented alongside the rise of intolerant coexistence. Increased immigration of low skilled workers deployed on low pay bringing with them conservative forms of religion created increasing stress on top of the brutalizing and dehumanizing effects of the highly competitive market society where economics was put before the health of a common humanity.[1]

You could argue that the reason for and resultant trauma of the Brexit vote was also due to the consequences of the rise of post-secular politics and cultural change.

But at the same time, post-secularism is not all bad. It also denotes the rise of interest in religion and spirituality, and the return of Christianity into the public square. Increasingly there is interest in listening to the voices of knowledgeable Christian speakers, writers and poets in discussions at book fairs, cultural festivals, political gatherings, health forums and debates. Now Anglican Bishops get invited to speak at events that were inconceivable only ten years ago.

There is in my experience a renewed interest in Christian spirituality from those who define themselves as ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ (SBNR) at the rise of new forms post-secular spiritual seeking.   

However, some like Tom Wright, coming from more conservative theological Christian traditions do not see this new post-secularism as an opportunity for a new engagement or contextual mission.[2] 

Wright states that the SBNR should not be listened or responded to contextually, but instead resisted and ‘battled against’ like the violent conflict between paganism and the Hebrews in the Old Testament.[3] He accuses the SBNR as being modern pagans ‘which corrupt and deface this world,’ and that his prayer is for the Gospel of Jesus to make real that which ‘upstages and overthrows all the puffed-up pretensions of paganisms’.[4] This language is aggressive, violent and colonialist which advocates a form of mission as control, silencing and suppression.  

Ironically, Wright's writing here sounds like a form of intolerant coexistence in and of itself as predicted by Habermas. It is clear that Wright sees the SBNR as a threat to Christianity and the Church. For him, mission in this context is about colonialist resistance as exemplified in the Hebrew Scriptures as ‘no compromise’ rather than the power of the love of God as articulated in Fresh Expressions and contemporary contextual mission to transform all things through the love of God resonant with the New Testament.[5] It is also clear that the SBNR have no authenticity for Wright as a social grouping, his writings give no evidence of any contextual listening. Wright believes that there should be no form of interaction, dialogue, or assimilation of Christianity in the SBNR context as this would ‘water down’ and compromise the Christian faith.[6] In his writing, he denounces all forms of contemplative prayer dismissing the Christian contemplative traditions as ‘some magic formula or mystic principle, divorced from this real Jesus’.[7] I could not disagree more.

Unfortunately, Wright’s views concerning the SBNR are not rare, and demonstrate the need for addressing such an approach by establishing good mission practice and authentic missiology to inform mission with the SBNR. Many of the criticisms and negative stereotypes laid at the door of ‘SBNR Pagans’ by Wright could also be attributed to the darker side of forms of Christianity and Church. It is too easy to be dismissive of post-secular culture and to blame the SBNR for the ills of the world. In response to the negativity of Wright, I seek to keep a positive and respectful attitude towards the SBNR, who could helpfully be said to be ‘Not Religious but Spiritual’ as a more constructive understanding of this social grouping, who seek to contribute to shared wisdom and spiritual seeking.

Furthermore, what Wright does not acknowledge is that there are a number who have contributed professional mission knowledge in the UK with spiritual seekers such as Dr Steve Hollinghurst working with pagans and Andrea Campanale with ‘Mind Body and Spirit’ festivals. At the same time there remains little professional mission knowledge of engagement specifically with the SBNR. 

Whilst those whose views are epitomised by Wright seek to resist the pluralist spiritual reality of our times, my new book, The Seeking Heart: A Contemplative Approach to Mission and Pioneering, draws on ethnographic research and exploration of mystical and contemplative Christian theology to advance a contemplative model of mission and practice to open up Christian spirituality with those who are spiritual seekers (those who are not Christian or those who have left churches and the faith). 

It is hoped that through this book, Christians and the Church can come to appreciate that post-secular cultural change can be a missional opportunity, and that a more contemplative approach to mission drawing on the rich prayer traditions of the church become a deep resource to open up Christianity and encounter of God with those who have written off the Christian faith as not having any authenticity or relevance. Moreover, the book offers a more experiential approach to explore Christianity through the contemplative stages of ‘awakening, ‘purgation’, ‘illumination and ‘union’. At a time when the Church is really struggling to renew itself in mission in our increasingly post-secular culture, it is my hope that this book will engender confidence in God and in prayer as a source of ‘Christian becoming’.

Ian Mobsby has worked as a lay pioneer/missioner and as an ordained pioneer practitioner particularly with missional forms of new monastic communities and the experimental alongside the traditional.

He recently completed a research PhD part exploration of the 'Spiritual But Not Religious’, and currently works in Canada as the Diocesan Community Missioner to the Bishop of Niagara.

The Seeking Heart is published this month and can be pre-ordered here.

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[1] Jürgen Habermas, ‘Notes on Post-Secular Society’, New Perspectives Quarterly 25, no. 4 (September 2008): 17.

[2] Tom Wright, Spiritual and Religious: The Gospel in an Age of Paganism (London: SPCK, 2017).

[3] ibid., vii.

[4] ibid., ix.

[5] ibid., 53–54.

[6] Ibid., 164.

[7] Ibid., 139.