“America and the West stand at a civilizational inflection point.”  These are the opening words in a guest article by Dr. John Seel at Aaron Renn’s blog.  “We are amid a 500-year historical geo-political inflection point,” observes Seel, “in which a Negative World is becoming an outright hostile world.”  

There are four primary shifts believers face;   Shift One: Christian to Post-Christian.  Our world is divorced from any reference to the sacred.  “We have shifted from societies based on fate and faith to one based on fiction.” What is distinctive today “is that it is a negation against all sacred orders and the verticals in authority that mediate the sacred to society….[this means] we cannot simply return to older approaches as they are no longer relevant to our cultural situation.”

Shift Two: Classical Liberalism to Nietzschean Nihilism ( Individual Rights to State Power).  “Social solidarity requires shared social beliefs.  When these are abandoned….. then politics naturally defaults and devolves to the will-to-power in a world where the leadership class believes in nothing…..This is the experiential definition of nihilism.”

Shift Three: Global West to Global East.  “The combined reality of these first two shifts is the growing global awareness of the spiritual and political demise of the West….The West is no longer seen as a desired model for the rest of the world.” The West has become the spiritual problem not the spiritual solution. “We are amid a global realignment that is lost on the State Department because it is blinded by our own Western spiritual corruption.

Shift Four. Enlightenment Rationalism to Post-Enlightenment Enchantment.  “We are rejecting forms of Enlightenment rationalism in favor of a more enchanted form of spirituality.”  There has been a rebirth of older and new forms of enchantment, such as neo-paganism and the occult.  Seel warns, “If we react to the rise of the occult with more rationalism, more courses of apologetics and worldview, more abstract dogmatism, we will miss an opportunity and be further marginalized culturally.”   

These changes in our world will soon change our lives.  Seel give three reasons.  Reason One: These realities are going to be  the context of discipleship for our children.   “We may be dead before the full weight of these shifts are felt culturally, but they will be the lived reality for our children and grandchildren.”

Reason Two: Our entire approach toward missions is going to have to change.  “The West represents the most strident global unreached people group……..Almost every ministry organization is going to have to learn to reframe, explore, and network their missional strategy.”  

Reason Three: These changes will greatly challenge our collective sense of identity.  We are going to experience tension between our political geographic citizenship and our spiritual citizenship in heaven.  “We’re going to have to develop a greater sensitivity to our Western and Enlightenment accomodation to the gospel.”  We need to have the orientation of being missionaries. 

Dr. Seel give this challenge: “We are as a Western Christian church at an historic inflection point.  We are at a point of decision.  To meet our moment, we will need the courage to face these realities, the humility to see God’s leading, and the discernment to balance innovation with historic orthodoxy.

Personally, I believe Dr. Seel is “spot on.”  Here is my challenge to men.  Reset your perspective on our nation.  Biblical beliefs are irrelevant,  in a culture where the last word is with the elites.  The West is the spiritual problem.  Yet there is a deep hunger for God.  Therefore, we must be motivated for the sake of our families.  Our nation is a mission field and we are now missionaries in a foreign land.  

The journey through my 80’s in retirement, I have found my main spiritual work has become the formation of my  own soul, that is, giving attention to the formation of my life in Christ.  I have become more comfortable resting in the mystery of my inner life, not depending on my understanding or experience.  The words of Paul in Colossians 3:3 have taken on new meaning for me.  “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.”  As an evangelical protestant I have found both “soul food and spiritual nourishment” in the Christian spirituality of the Catholic Church, which is part of the “Great Tradition” going back to the earliest centuries of the Christian story.  I have discovered and tasted this rich spiritual vineyard, having been nourished by its rich spiritual fruit.  I thank God for this discovery. 

In these days of spiritual awareness and growth, Carmelite nun, Ruth Burrows has been a spiritual guide on my journey.  Some years ago I read her book, “Essence of Prayer.” Chapter four, “Prayer that is Jesus” made an impression in my spiritual awareness.  I found in Burrows, someone who was totally focused on Jesus.  This spoke to my Lutheran pietistic roots, with its focus on a warm hearted experience of Jesus.  She stated, “Only One has attained the Father and we can attain him only insofar as we allow ourselves to be caught up in Jesus, carried along by him.”  

She went on to say, “….we must die with Jesus: not of ourselves, or by ourselves, but ‘in him.’ I must enter into his death.  This death is a death to my self-centeredness and self-possession.  It is an ecstasy: a going right out of myself to belong to God.  This is the essence of faith.  I cannot achieve it myself; it is wrought by God and is the effect of mystical contact.  God reveals himself to the inmost depths of the self, but ‘no one can see God and live.'” Speaking of contemplation she plainly explains, “Ultimately, to be a contemplative means to  be holy, to be transformed into Jesus…..This profound communication of God cannot be known by our natural  faculties.”  Further she notes, “God’s direct communication and his transforming action must remain secret.  Only by their fruits will they be known: by a quality of life.”

One of the images from Burrows’ writing, that has been most helpful for me has been Paul’s words in Philippians 2:6-11, where the “Kenosis,” the emptying of Jesus, is described. “Who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave” (Phil 2:6-7).  Burrows encourages us to enter into Jesus’ experience as Jesus expresses his “yes” to the Father’s outpouring of love in and through his frail humanity.    

By faith, I find myself taking my place with Jesus on the cross.  I  continually release into Jesus all of my old nature.  As I enter into his death, I find my life being enfolded into Jesus, as He takes me to the Father.  I stand empty handed before the Father’s love.  Burrows has helped me see that I my identification with Jesus on the cross in the presence of the Father allows me to release unto him all my nothingness, poverty and emptiness.  I can experience God loving me, so that I might be able to love him, with the love I have received.    In Burrows words, “We come to Jesus with empty hands so we are able to let ourselves be loved.”