Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
~John Milton, Paradise Lost
More than three-fourths of Americans - 78 percent - believe in angels, up from 72 percent in 1994.
~Gallup News Poll, 2004
Ever notice how much angels figure into the story of Christmas? An angel talks to Zechariah the priest. An angel talks to Mary. An angel makes a proclamation to the shepherds. Moments later, a whole host of angels are on the scene. Later in the story, we learn that an angel even appears to Joseph the father. These spirit beings are seemingly all over the place delivering messages and praising God.
This morning's sermon (at Christ The King) focused a lot on angels and on the reality of the spiritual realm (an interesting coincidence given my recent postings on spiritual warfare). Our pastor cited statistics about angel belief and how it was on the rise. That surprised me, so I googled "belief in angels poll".
It turns out he was right. Belief in angels remains quite high. There was a whole host of TV shows in the 90s that celebrated angels -- but those seemed to drop off the scene. I assumed that the angel craze had cooled off. Nope.
A Gallup News Poll in 2004, a Harris News Poll in 2005, and a Fox News Poll in 2005 all confirm the same thing. Belief in angels is big and on the rise.
Notwithstanding the earnest efforts of philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, it seems belief in the supernatural just won't go away. The belief that the physical world is all there is won't take hold. So what exactly is taking hold because it sure does not seem like Christianity.
That is the subject of a book I read called The Making Of The New Spirituality : The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition by James Herrick.
Herrick describes what he calls The New Religious Synthesis -- a term he defines as a medley of religious ideas that have now successfully colonized Western religious consciousness.
We are still a very religious culture. But, those religious beliefs are taking some very strange twists. More later...
Notwithstanding the earnest efforts of philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, it seems belief in the supernatural just won't go away.
As you note, this is a double-edged sword. Because a general belief in the supernatural is up, not just the "good kind." I suspect you'll see that belief in the sort of "new age" and occult type stuff that is an anethema to Christianity is also at or near a record high.
The problem for believers is that there's simply no reliable way to differentiate the "good" supernatural beliefs from the "bad" ones. You cannot disprove the beliefs of astrology or Wicca or voodoo or anything other such belief system, any more than I can disprove the beliefs of Christianity. And for precisely the same reasons.
When the only way we have of knowing what's true and what's not is ultimately through faith, then there's simply no way of really knowing whether or not our faith is properly entrusted.
As to why belief in the supernatural is on the rise (and, related to this, why those beliefs aren't very Christian-like), I'd suggest that this is because people have a tendency to believe what they want to believe as opposed to what's necessarily true. So I suspect you'd argue that this belief in the supernatural is for all the wrong reasons.
Bringing it back around, the problem for the Christian (or for any believer in the supernatural) is coming up with a coherent system of beliefs that allows one to differentiate meaningfully between the "good" supernatural beliefs, and the "bad" ones. Instead, such distinctions seem (from my POV) to be mostly arbitrary.
Posted by: tgirsch | December 11, 2006 at 16:40
"I'd suggest that this is because people have a tendency to believe what they want to believe as opposed to what's necessarily true. "
Isn't this true of you? How do you know you are not succumbing to the temptation to believe what you want to believe?
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | December 11, 2006 at 23:49
Hey, hey, hey! This time I'm the one asking the "how do you know you have the straight stick" questions! It's my turn to play Columbo. :)
To sort-of answer your question, the best I can do is recognize the human tendency to allow what we want to be true to influence our beliefs about what is true, and attempt to correct for it. But the fight against wishful thinking is an ongoing one.
I will say that I have a number of deeply-held beliefs that I would love to be wrong about. So I don't think that necessarily constitutes wishful thinking.
But getting back to you, how do you know you've got the straight stick? And how can others verify that the stick is indeed straight, or find that straight stick for themselves?
Posted by: tgirsch | December 12, 2006 at 12:50
"I will say that I have a number of deeply-held beliefs that I would love to be wrong about."
Such as?
"how do you know you've got the straight stick?"
First, will you agree with me that the straight stick must be external? In other words, we cannot measure the truth of our beliefs from a standard within ourselves. Agreed?
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | December 14, 2006 at 08:36