Three Myths and a Prayer
Imagine Aleksander. Family and close friends call him Sasha, so we will as well.
Sasha is a faithful Christian and has been his whole life. He’s almost as old as me, so he has lived through enormous changes in Russia. Did I say that Sasha—Aleksander—is Russian? Yes. Imagine him living in a moderate sized town a few hundred miles from Moscow. Sasha grew up under the Soviet regime, when the schools explicitly taught atheism, but the influence of his family was strong and he has always been a believer. Sasha thanks God that Vladimir Putin supports and has close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Imagine further that when Sasha worships tomorrow, he will pray along with others for the success of the special military operation in Ukraine. Actually, what he prays will be, “Your kingdom come, your will be done” (in Russian, of course). In Sasha’s mind, it is absolutely clear that victory for Russia’s army will extend the kingdom of God.
Why does he think this way? There’s a story, a history, behind his thought. The Christian Church is two thousand years old. Roughly a thousand years ago, the western part of the Church split away because they wanted to change the Nicene creed. That’s right. The Latin speaking Church added words to the creed. But the eastern part of the Church—the right teaching part, the “orthodox” part—stood strong for the truth. Among the leaders of the Orthodox Church, the Russian patriarch (the Russian archbishop) is the most important. You can gauge how faithful the other patriarchs are by noting how close they stick to the Russian Orthodox Church. In Sasha’s opinion it should surprise nobody that five hundred years after the split, the western church divided further when the “protestants” came into being. Sasha wonders whether protestants should be considered Christians at all.
Don’t imagine that Sasha keeps these ideas explicitly in his mind. In fact, Sasha probably couldn’t “tell the story” of Russian orthodoxy as I have recounted it. Sasha never learned the details of the 11th century split between east and west. He just trusts the Russian Orthodox Church. For Sasha, this whole story is background. It’s mostly assumed and unconscious.
In academic language, we say that Sasha believes a “myth.” A myth is a grand story that provides background and context for beliefs and behaviors of many sorts. A myth may be literally true or partly true or completely fantastic. The myth of Daedalus, who flew to close to the sun. The myth of Galileo versus the church. The myth of the secular founding fathers of America. Students at university are aware of myths. Our myths shape the way we think, often without our awareness.
We may give a name to the myth Sasha believes: “Russian Orthodoxy.” The myth of Russian orthodoxy says the Church of Russia, guided by the Russian Patriarch, has preserved Christian doctrine in its true form. Please note! Even under 70 years of explicit state atheism, the Russian Orthodox Church maintained its testimony. And now, having triumphed over atheism, Orthodox Christianity can make use of Russia’s military strength to recapture the ancient heartland of the Russian Church. Remember, before Moscow, the Patriarch’s seat was in Kiev.
Now, we have only imagined Aleksander. But I assure you that today there are Russian Christians who think along the lines I have attributed to Sasha. They believe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a just war, a “special operation” blessed by God. They believe this not only because Putin’s dictatorship controls the media, giving them a skewed account of what is happening in Ukraine, but also because they believe the myth of Russian orthodoxy.
I confess that I think the myth of Russian orthodoxy, in addition to being a myth in the academic sense, is also false. What would you expect from a Quaker? Quakers think the Spirit of Christ can speak to us directly. We don’t repeat the creed—with or without those extra 11th century words. In fairness, it would be better to say that I think the myth of Russian orthodoxy is only partly true.
I expect many of you agree with me. That is, like me, you think the myth of Russian orthodoxy is not entirely true. Christian truth has not been preserved best in the teaching of the Russian patriarch.
Notice: our disbelief in the myth makes a difference. When we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done,” we do not imagine the triumph of Russian arms in Ukraine. In short, we think the myth of Russian orthodoxy has distorted Sasha’s prayers. Think about that.
Now I want to name two other myths that can distort our prayers.
The first is the “Myth of Inevitable Secularization.” Again, this myth builds on a story; in particular, the history of Christianity in Europe in the modern period. Christianity used to dominate European culture and politics. There was a time, five hundred years ago, when it would have been mostly true to say Christianity was a European religion. But in the last three centuries European countries became largely secular. What happened? Sociologists and historians give various explanations, but the biggest factors, according to the myth of inevitable secularization, were scientific progress, economic prosperity, and mass education. Science undermines religious belief, prosperity takes away the need for divine help, and widespread public education spreads science and opportunity to the masses. According to the myth of inevitable secularization, all this is natural. In the end, the myth says, Europe’s story will be replicated everywhere. Modernization, in the form of science, prosperity and education, will eliminate religion, including Christianity.
Unsurprisingly, many sociologists of religion believe the myth of inevitable secularization. They have been predicting the decline of Christianity in North America for a century. It happened in Europe, so it will happen in North America. The myth is a background belief in much graduate education, from literature to psychology and political science. But you don’t have to go to graduate school to believe this myth, because the ideas percolate in our culture. Many people, including many Christians, believe the myth of inevitable secularization. Remember, myths often serve as unconscious background to our conscious beliefs. Sometimes Christian parents worry when they send their high school graduates off to college—even when they send them to George Fox—that their child will somehow lose her faith at university. The parents may not explicitly and consciously believe that education destroys faith, but they have absorbed the myth as a background assumption.
Now, the myth of inevitable secularization is indeed a myth in the academic sense. It is a widely held, though often unstated, belief. But like the myth of Russian orthodoxy, the myth of inevitable secularization is at best only partly true. The history of modern Europe is evidence for the myth. But the United States, richer than Europe and just as well educated, is much less secularized. Believers in the myth of inevitable secularization have been waiting 100 years for the U.S. to catch up to Europe. Polling by the Barna group over the last couple decades suggests that maybe secularization is happening in the U.S. Maybe. Remember, lots of people, including lots of Christians, believe in the myth of inevitable secularization. Such people expect religious faith to fade away under the pressure of education. We should be wary of confirmation bias.
So: Europe? Check. The U.S.? Maybe another check. What about South Korea?
In 1953 South Korea was a mostly peasant country that had suffered three years of war. Its people were poor, rural, and largely uneducated. Religiously they were mostly Buddhist or Shinto. Since then, the country has become highly industrialized, urbanized, and educated. They have a thriving export economy, which has raised their comparative wealth markedly. And Christianity has grown from a miniscule minority to about a third of the population. Of the approximately two million Koreans who live in the U.S., more than 60% are Christians.
Korean Christianity is important because it directly contradicts the myth of inevitable secularization. In the seven decades since the war, South Korea became more religious, not less; significantly more Christian, not less. The myth of inevitable secularization is not entirely true.
As a philosopher I should also say, as an aside, that the myth of inevitable secularization is bad philosophy. It’s a version of historicism, which Karl Popper effectively criticized back in 1945, in The Open Society and Its Enemies. Never fear! I’m not going to give you a lecture on historicism at this time. Read Popper for yourself.
The second myth I must mention is more specific to Christians. To invent a name for it, I will call it the “myth of the VERY soon Parousia.” Parousia is a Greek word that means “presence” or “coming.” The New Testament uses this word to speak of the return of Jesus at the last day. Paul wrote about the parousia of our Lord Jesus, and in the Revelation Jesus told John “I am coming soon.” From the first century on, Christians have believed in the return of Jesus, and that he would return soon. That is not exactly what I mean when I speak of the myth of the VERY soon Parousia.
Occasionally Christians have gone beyond the teaching of the New Testament. They have said that Jesus is coming VERY soon. Christians expected the return of Christ in 1000. They predicted the return of Christ in 1666. Those are attractive numbers. Some of you as old as me may remember the popular pamphlet, “88 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1988.”
The purveyors of the myth of the VERY soon Parousia don’t often go that far. Without explicitly saying it, they imply that Jesus will return VERY soon—in this generation. They preach about the “signs” of the end times and say there is no longer any prophecy that must be fulfilled. Jesus could return any day.
Now I believe that Jesus could return any day. We are living in the end times. But get this: Christians have been living in the end times for two thousand years. The resurrection of Jesus initiated the end times; his return will bring an end to the end times.
The myth of the VERY soon Parousia causes trouble because the purveyors of the myth often also include other predictions. For instance: just before the Parousia, there will be a falling away from the faith. Wars and injustices will get worse. Christians will be persecuted everywhere.
I suspect that many of you are familiar with such preaching. The myth of the VERY soon return of Christ is popular in some of our churches. I became familiar with it in high school when I read Hal Lindsey’s best seller, The Late Great Planet Earth, but the ideas go back to the writings of J.N. Darby in the 1800s. Never fear! I am not going to lecture on Darbyism at this time.
Interestingly, for some Christians, the myth of inevitable secularization links up with the myth of the VERY soon Parousia. They believe that the future of Christianity is bleak. The forces of modernism will increase secularism. Disasters are coming. But that doesn’t matter, because prophecy says the world will end VERY soon.
My point is this. The myth of inevitable secularization combines with the myth of the VERY soon Parousia to lead us to expect certain things. And those expectations can distort our prayers.
We pray for God’s will to be done, but do we pray for peace with freedom for Ukraine? We pray for God’s kingdom to come, but do we pray for the Holy Spirit to change the minds of political leaders? We look forward to a new heaven and a renewed earth. Until that day comes, we are stewards of this earth; we ought to pray God’s blessing on worldwide cooperation to defeat climate change. We ought to pray for these things, and we ought to believe that God can do them.
The myth of inevitable secularization says that science overthrows faith. Well, that is just bad philosophy. When we pray we should believe that truth can overcome error.
The myth of inevitable secularization says that prosperity removes the need for God. That’s just not true. Our material culture is fabulously prosperous, and that has only left people hungry for meaning. When we pray we should believe that when people understand Jesus’ way, they will want it.
The myth of the VERY soon Parousia implies that the world is going to the dogs and there’s nothing to be done about it. That’s not true either. When we pray we should believe God will do good things in and through us. In some cases, God will do great things. God will do good, even great, things through you, the graduates of 2022.
Final word. Beware of myths that distort your prayers. When you pray for God’s kingdom to come, believe it can happen.
