Social-Cultural Analysis

Reimagining Church and Christian Faith: A Kierkegaardian Critique

A “repetition” of the ancient path with Soren Kierkegaard.¹

Reimagining Church and Christian Faith: A Kierkegaardian Critique
The contemporary call to “reimagine church and Christian faith” is often presented as a bold attempt to jettison outmoded church beliefs and practices in order to initiate a creative response to new cultural realities. However, we are mindful of cultural analysts who note with irony that youths who rebel against the social conventions of their parents end up wearing the same clothing fashions, listening to the same pop music and repeating the same platitudes to express support for diversity and social justice. In reality, these youths are merely exchanging one form of social conformity to another in the name of creativity.

It is ironic that churches also conform to the latest religious fashion in the name of “reimagining church and Christian faith”. ² Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) would diagnose this call for innovation as a symptom of a deeper spiritual sickness – the sickness of an age that has lost its inward passionate commitment of faith and its sense of eternity. In such an age, truth is reduced to nothing more than fashionable opinion. For Kierkegaard, when the church thoughtlessly follows the latest fashion, it is simply accommodating itself to “the spirit of the age” (Zeitgeist). It ceased to be the Church of the New Testament. It has become what he calls Christendom – Christianity domesticated and made respectable, a form without inwardness, reflection without obedience. Continue reading “Reimagining Church and Christian Faith: A Kierkegaardian Critique”

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For Kierkegaard true repetition goes beyond simply repeating acts in conformity to social expectations. He rejects inauthentic existence where one simply conforms to social expectations. Repetition is a philosophical and existential act of renewing everything that one had in order to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of one’s personal life and relationships. It seeks to reassess one’s life commitment and intentionally takes personal responsibility for choices made in order to create a new, authentic self
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Several prevailing characteristics of the contemporary “reimagine church and faith” movement (following its predecessor, the Emergent Church Movement) include the following: 1) A culture of experimentation and innovation to create seeker-sensitive services. 2) Use of multi-media and bands which incorporate contemporary music styles and art to attract a new generation of youth growing up in a culture of musical performance and entertainment. 3) Relevant messaging where practical advice and personal faith stories replace “mystifying” spiritual and doctrinal teachings of the traditional church. 4) Inclusive approach to Christian faith without demands for adherence to a set of clear-cut theological doctrines.
While these adaptations in church structure and faith practices to engage contemporary culture are not inherently problematic, the concern arises when these innovative external expressions of seeker-sensitive services have in practice inadvertently diminished the timeless truths of the gospel and supplanted inward spiritual passion and obedient discipleship. This dynamic raises important questions about the extent to which these shifts reshape the church’s spiritual identity and doctrinal continuity.

Critical Theory Legitimization of LGBT. Homosexual Practice & LGBT Sexual Revolution. Part 5/5

Critical Theory Legitimization of LGBT. HPLSR Part 5/5

Central Ideas of Critical Theory
A. Premises: Western culture is being strongly influenced by contemporary critical theory, which makes claims regarding (1) the social binary, (2) hegemonic power, (3) lived experience, and (4) social justice and praxis, or the implementation of critical social theories to effect social transformation.

B. Defining ideas.
1) Social binary, 2) Hegemonic power, 3) Lived experience, 4) Social justice and social transformation.

* The lived experience of minoritized and oppressed groups rivals and at times is prioritized over objective evidence and reason when it comes to understanding the world.
* Oppressive structures/institutions must be overturned.

C. Case study by Jeffrey Satinova on how the LGBT as a powerful aggressive activist movement successfully forced the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to redefine homosexuality, although the redefinition was a result of political activism rather than on scientific evidence.

D. Conclusion
1) LGBT is not just a lifestyle choice. It is an aggressive ideology which seeks power to impose its ideas as the basis of social policy to reshape social reality.
2) The LGBT movement is a well-funded, efficiently organized & aggressive movement seeking to drive the church & Christians from engagement with the public square.
3) Arguably, the LGBT movement is this generation’s signature rebellion against God’s moral law and order in the West.

E. Heb 12:14. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Challenge: We must courageously declare the truth of biblical teaching & humbly seek to share the wholeness found in God’s grace that brings liberation and real substantial healing to our brokenness.

You can view the full video at:
Critical Theory Legitimization of LGBT. HPLSR Part 5/5

Collated Posts on homosexuality & LGBT

The Rise & Dominance of LGBT Movement. Homosexual Practice & LGBT Sexual Revolution. Part 4/5

The Rise & Dominance of LGBT Movement. HPLSR. Part 4/5

Question – how did the Christianized West abandon biblical morality & how did the LGBT movement become the dominant social-cultural revolutionary movement today?

A. Historical Developments
Pre-modern world mindset: “Mimesis” – discover meaningful moral order instituted by God & conform to it vs Poiesis – Modern technological mindset: “Poiesis” – sees the world as raw material out of which meaning and purpose can be created by the individual.

B. Prioritization of the individual’s inner psychology (Rousseau) – we might even say “feelings” or “intuitions” – for our sense of who we are and what the purpose of our lives is.
Result: Expressive individualism (Charles Taylor) and autonomous self, plastic people who make and remake personal identity at will.
Judith Butler: gender is not identical to biological sex. It is rather, “acts and gestures which are learned performance.

C. Contestation: Biological sex vs claim that gender identity is determined by one’s inner feelings (and beliefs), not by physical reality. Premise: Disorders in sexual development (DSD) do not constitute a third sex. Rather, DSDs are disorders in the development and formation of the male or female body.
Problem with Sex reassignment surgery (SRS).

D. Revolutionary imperative against sexual distinctions
Wilhelm Reich claimed that sexual distinction is a form of social repression. Transgenderism is a rebellion to overcome sexual distinctions.

Herbert Marcuse – To transform society politically, then, one must transform society sexually and psychologically. Logical outcome – the revolutionary imperative in response to the view sexual distinction is repressive.

You can view the full video at:
The Rise & Dominance of LGBT Movement. HPLSR. Part 4/5

Collated posts on Bible and Homosexuality

Should the Church Adopt the Chinese Ritual of Ancestor Worship/Veneration?

I have been asked several times about my view on a Tik Tok video which shows a church conducting its Chinese New Year or Spring Festival worship which seems to follow the form of the Chinese ritual of ancestor worship or veneration.

My response to this video is based on how practitioners of this kind of rituals normally justify their adoption of the form of “ancestor worship or veneration. It is also based on my personal experience of similar worship during my younger pagan days.

One may argue that offering incense is in the Bible. OK, I can give some benefit of doubt on this matter. That is, putting three incense joss sticks is debatable and defensible – assuming worship & acknowledgement of the Triune God in heaven with NO images. Context matters.¹

Does the tablet in front of the table contain only Bible verses praising the Triune God without images? If there is no image, then the ritual could be discussed. But I doubt it as bible verses tablets have not become common place in church worship rituals. What is written in the tablet would make a crucial difference to the nature of the ritual as it could be some Chinese characters describing the “sky god” Tian (天), the “earth god” Tudigong (土地公), and the “kitchen god” is known as Zao Shen (灶神). The presence of these references would certainly be problematic. Looks like this video pertains more towards some form of ancestor veneration/worship. Continue reading “Should the Church Adopt the Chinese Ritual of Ancestor Worship/Veneration?”

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[Additional footnote added on 14/04/2025 as clarification – Context matters. I wont approve putting a joss stick in front of an ancestral tablet, or the earth god tablet etc.- because according to pagan beliefs, the spirits of the ancestors or the spirit of the earth god resides within the tablets. This is idolatry even though there are no images. Conceivably, someone may just put joss sticks in an urn to offer incense to the “heavenly god/God” without a tablet or images – well, we can discuss to find out what exactly the one who puts the joss stick has in mind & decide accordingly. However, in reality (except for a Chinese cult, which existed briefly in the 1970s), 99+ % of the people put the joss sticks in front of some kinds of tablets which are understood to be residences of spirits. This would be idolatry. The case of the tablet in the video is ambiguous because I don’t know what is in the tablet – but if what is written in the tablet encourages or is in line with the customary idea of tablets being places of residence of any spirit(s), then it would be idolatry. The presumption is that the presence of the tablet is likely to become a stumbling block and therefore is best not used at all].

The Triumph of the Therapeutic and the LGBTQ Sexual Revolution

Philosophical and Social Origins of Identity Politics and the LGBTQ Sexual Revolution. Part 3.

A. The Autonomous Self and Expressive Individualism
Recent Gallup surveys show that the number of people in the West who identify as LGBTQ and reject the heterosexual family in preference for “non-binary” sexual relationships is increasing. This extraordinary development is the culmination of a sequence of historical developments in the West beginning from the 17th century. This includes the decline of Judeo-Christian religion, the influence of the Enlightenment-Romantic philosophy of the autonomous self, the erosion of community relationships in secular society, and “expressive individualism”, the modern notion that one must be true to oneself to be authentic.¹

Historically, the individual in the West based his identity on his relationship with God and the community he belonged to. The role of religion and pastoral care was to help individuals to be integrated with their community. The good life required the individual to order his life in conformity to God’s created order, in accordance the mimetic view of life. But skeptical Enlightenment philosophy dispensed with the idea of God. Consequently, nature and social order became desacralized and may be manipulated and exploited to serve the welfare of individuals and society, in accordance with the poietic view of life. If there is no created order, then society and culture are merely social constructs, and if nature possesses no intrinsic meaning or purpose, then human beings must create meaning and moral values for themselves. This led in the emergence of the autonomous individual who defines for himself his moral values, and sets the goal of self-fulfillment on his own terms. Continue reading “The Triumph of the Therapeutic and the LGBTQ Sexual Revolution”

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“Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized…In the twentieth century, it shows affinities with the culture of psychotherapy.”Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen et. al, Habits of the Heart (Uni. California, 1985, 1996), pp. 333-334.

All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Recentred but Empty Self

Philosophical and Social Origins of Identity Politics and the LGBTQ Sexual Revolution. Part 2.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

A) Loss of meaningful sacred order and providence
Since antiquity, people acknowledged that there is a natural order of law and morals. Life is best lived when it is lived in accordance with the requirements of natural order. Among the Greeks, the Stoics taught that man must live in harmony with the rational and purposive order in nature. Ancient Israel also acknowledged a natural order, one that is implanted into creation by the Creator. According to the sages of ancient Israel, knowledge of God comes from experiencing God’s activity in the world. Faith in God’s providence means trusting in the reliability of the creation which the benevolent God has ordered to support human life and guide man in his moral knowledge and action. Gerhard von Rad explains, “This order [of creation] was, indeed, simply there and could, in the last resort, speak for itself. The fact that it quietly but reliably worked towards a balance in the ceaselessly changing state of human relationships ensured that it was experienced over and over again as a beneficent force. In it, however, Yahweh himself was at work in so far as he defended goodness and resisted evil. It was he who was present as an ordering and upholding will in so far as he gave a beneficent stability to life and kept it open to receive his blessings.”¹ Continue reading “All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Recentred but Empty Self”

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Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (SCM, 1972), pp. 191-192.