On this day 1374 years ago, give or take, A Northumbrian army assembled on a field in the West Midlands, which is on the west (left) side of England. North Umbria was in the northern most territory of England, bordering Scotland. Their leader was a man named Oswald and he was the king of Bernicia. He was the most powerful king on the island, the Bretwalda, and the man often credited with the Christianizing the north of England.
On the other side was King Penda of Mercia, one of the other kings of the heptarchy. Mercia covered the area that is now called the Midlands, which is conveniently located in the middle of England. Penda was a pagan, the last pagan king of England. Mercia was not very powerful, but they stood in the way of Oswald dominating the south, so they were a natural target for the Northumbrians.
On the day of the battle, Oswald, no doubt, stood before his men and prayed to the new God for victory over their pagan enemies. The custom of the age was to promise gifts to the Church and maybe a daughter or son to the Church in exchange for victory. This was one of the many pagan habits the Church tolerated in order to bring the people slowly into the Church.
On the other side, Penda most certainly made offerings to the old gods, along with promises of additional sacrifices if they were victorious. The origins of King Penda are a bit murky, but we do know he was a pagan, and the pagan faith of Britain was Wodenism. It most likely came over with the Saxons and there’s some evidence that Penda was a Saxon.
The Battle of Maserfield probably lasted just a short while. The “armies” of the day were warbands under the command of an Althing or head chief. No one really knows, but the consensus is that armies were at most a few thousand men and probably numbered in the hundreds. In the end, Penda was victorious. Bede describes the outcome as a field made white with the bones of the saints. Oswald, when the battle was lost, is claimed to have knelt and prayed for the souls of his soldiers. Penda had him chopped into pieces and displayed on stakes.
If you were alive at the time, particularly if you were a Mercian, you probably thought Christianity was on the run and the old gods were reasserting their dominion. Certainly, Christians had their doubts. But, a dozen years later Oswald’s brother killed Penda at the Battle of Winwaed and a dozen years after that Oswiu presided over the Synod of Whitby where the secular and Christian authorities codified Christianity for the whole of England, including Mercia.
The point of this blast from the past is to illustrate how the culture can seem to shift very quickly. Even in the slow moving medieval period, a nation could switch religions within a generation. One day you’re helping your father burn the Christian missionary, the next day your son is packing wood under your pagan feet at the behest of the local priest. In a world where the religion of the king is the religion of the people, things can change quickly.
A little closer to our time is the matter of homosexual marriage. In the US, as is usually the case, the rulers impose their fads on the people through the mockery of the court system. That makes it easier for the people to pretend they are a conservative people with a liberal government. The reality is Christianity is dead in America so the people in charge know they will face no resistance.
In Ireland, a place to played up by Hollywood as an austere Catholic country, the people rushed to the polls to vote for homosexual marriage. It’s not that they really cared about the gays or that they were smiting the Church. They simply stopped being Catholic. In 1990, 80% of the people went to church each week. Today it is half that number so voting for homosexual marriage was just what the cool kids were doing.
The point here is that what you see happening today is a lot like what happened with the spread of Christianity through Europe. It was slow and proceeded in fits and starts. Early Christianity in Britain, for example, was hilarious due to the heavy drinking and fornicating of the priests. The commoners could hardly be held to account by such men, at least on moral issues. Over time, a critical mass of true believers gained the upper hand and Christianity became a defining force in English life.
That’s what we’re seeing with the New Religion. It’s not ready to wipe Christianity out completely. It’s simply too ridiculous to be taken seriously by enough people. But it is making steady progress. If you look at this post from a blogger with a name that is too hard to spell, what you see is the steady erosion of Christianity in America. A third of people under 30 have “no religious affiliation” which means they are not Christian.
About half the country does not attend church at all. In New England, the home of liberal fanaticism, church attendance has collapsed, now resembling Europe. The number of church closings in America suggests that self-reporting of church attendance is wildly inflated. Even in the South, which has always been the most religious part of the country, there’s been a decline in church attendance.
The Battle of Maserfield seemed to stall or even possible signal a rollback of Christianity, but it was just a blip. Similarly, the eradication of Christianity by people of the New Religion has stalled from time to time, but it is winning and will win in time. Today Christians are stripped of their property for disobeying homosexuals. In a generation they will be banned from public. Like Wodenism, Christianity will be a weird part of the past for future generations.
I think you’re missing an important factor: a great deal of the erosion in church attendance and religious self-identification is driven by the increasing influence of progressive philosophy within the churches. In other words, a significant fraction of those “leaving church” are not defecting to modern secularism, but fleeing it. Christian churches which continue to be true to their ancient traditions are doing fine; it’s the ones that offer nothing other than progressive politics and some useless atavistic ritual that are emptying out.
Plus, we have no way of knowing the reality behind the poll that produced that chart. Over time, the way people interpret the question could have changed — if it was, indeed, even the same question. Or, the method of choosing the sample might have changed. Or it could be fake. Who knows?
My own guess is that once the present generation of leftist apostates dies off, Christianity will experience a resurgence — unless some other factor enters the equation to change things. I admit, though: it’s only a guess.
I think MtnExile’s first paragraph nails it, many mainstream Christian churches have left Christanity by the side of the road. I could see the future Evangelicals going underground, worshiping without the buildings and infrastructure that will have been confiscated and prohibited. Meanwhile, the “mainstream” Protestants and the Catholics will continue to be co-opted by the Progressives, and will minister to empty sanctuaries and serve functionally non-existent congregations.
The referenced chart is for religious affiliation. That indicates … What? One must “belong” to a denomination in order to be a believer? That is rather old-fashioned thinking. One must be Christian, Jewish or Muslim and then Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Reform, Liberal, Karaite, Shia, Sunni and then Baptist, Methodist, Church of God in Christ, African Methodist Episcopalian, Roman, Russian, Greek, Georgian, Armenian, and etc. and etc.?
I will second Eris Guy and thank Z-man for this. I will put it in my kit bag along with Julian and the Icelandic sagas.
Pope Benedict thought that the church might retreat to enclaves to spring forth again when the time was right. Based on what I know about the fossil churches of the Levant and Mesopotamia, I thought him wrong. Recent events in Syria and Iraq seem to prove me right. Neither Salafists nor Progressives will allow religious enclaves to persist.
I usually use the life of Julian as an example. I didn’t know of this example. Thanks.
When Julian sent funds to the pagan temples to re-establish tradition and worship, the money was wasted on frivolities, which is what I see at worship in Methodist churches.
I don’t think modern paganism can endure. Apostates in the 1960s turned to every real and crackpot religion after abandoning Christianity. That need cannot be satisfied by yoga, Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite or Louis Farrakhan, Hinduism, or Buddhism. Islam will triumph, unless a new god appears.
(Certainly if Moslem invaders were to appear, like descendants of the Romans ruled by the Vandals in Spain, I would stand aside to watch the slaughter.)
If you have a different opinion, I look forward to your essay.
Unlike other religions, Christianity can be proved false. God has a covenant with the Jews. If the Jews are destroyed, Christianity is false; pagans know it and hate Jews.
There’s some debate in science as to whether belief in the supernatural is biological. Belief seems to have co-evolved with religion, suggesting they are related. Religion, even the crude animism of hunter gatherers was a remarkably good way to store information to be passed from one generation to the next. My sense is people will in the main continue to believe in God and maintain ritual practices related to the supernatural. Christianity evolved over 2,000 years and continues to evolve so maybe everyone will be Mormons in a couple of generations.
ErisGuy: “Unlike other religions, Christianity can be proved false. God has a covenant with the Jews. If the Jews are destroyed, Christianity is false; pagans know it and hate Jews.”
Oh dear! How juvenile. Pity about that pesky ickle two letter word “if” isn’t it…!
The Jews haven’t been destroyed (despite many determined attempts). So therefore….
Thanks for the history lesson. Living in the UK (and pretty much on the borders of Northumbria and Mercia) I feel a certain kinship with those times, which I maintain were not quite as uncivilised as we may pretend now. But, the rulers knew what was required to hold power and no one — openly at least — cared about ‘public opinion’ and media was what you were told or heard, not what you read.
But I don’t quite buy the end of Christianity. It will change, true, but some truths run deep. Much deeper than the lefties would believe. As for the gay marriage issue and their ‘triumph’ it carefully ignores the pressing matter of our muslim friends, who seem to dislike the idea even if they are just as likely to secretly participate in the acts. It is one thing to bash the followers of Christ with demanding we all love gay marriage, but while Iran and the Saudis still execute homosexuals, making the christians in the west bow down to the new ways is a bit like picking low hanging fruit. As we import more and more of islam with their barbaric customs, it will be interesting to see how the’ love gays or else’ campaign will fare.
Will be really hard to get rid of the “religions of the book” because they have powerful writtings, institutions and history behind them.
Professor Revilo P. Oliver wrote that if the Elite wanted to get rid of Christianity they could do it by just using their Media control but the truth is that Christianity still is useful for the Elite, especially modern Evangelical Christianity.
I believe that many people believe that is what is happening. But Christ’s Church will never pass away. If these neo-pagans have their run, they have their run, but they will eventually be enslaved, either to passions or the more powerful. And they will seek freedom, the freedom that can only come from Christ. If they fail to turn to Christ, they will be enslaved by Islam.
In other words, Christianity is not just a religion among religions. It is the truth, as silly as that sounds to you, and thus it it the New Religion that will break upon the Rock. Atheist’s children become neo-pagans, and their children are either reconverted or become Muslims.
It does not sound silly. I hope you are correct. I’m not optimistic. My whole life the Progressives have been trying to turn out the lights on civilization. They seem to be winning.
Wrong, Buddy. The X-factor in Christianity is God. He’s not a myth or an archetype. He lives and has a voice in history. The idols of sodomy and all the other cute little isms are lifeless and tend to produce Barbarians and buffoons. They don’t own the future. They’re a blip in the big picture.