Living in a Conviction-less Age

Christians' lack of conviction was the catalyst for Christ being removed from the cultural throne of the West. Instead, we have accepted a bland, banal, suburban counterfeit that requires very little sacrifice or suffering.

Some of the most intuitive and fascinating writing about the state of the world can be found among recent Orthodox Christian converts. Many of these writers lived as seculars or pagans, so they can grasp at a deeper level the undercurrents of our culture and present moment. Paul Kingsnorth, who was heavily involved in environmentalism and spent time as a Wiccan, is one of those converts.

In a recent article on his Substack, The Abbey of Misrule, Kingsnorth wrote about the re-paganization of the West, which he argues is not here yet because we are in a moment of what he calls the Void. There is no set god that sits on the throne of our culture at this moment because there is a transition taking place. We are not quite pagan or atheistic because those who adhere to these belief systems lack conviction. There is no skin in the game, so to speak. They back down when any sacrifice for their paganism or atheism is asked of them. Kingsnorth writes in his essay “Into the Void”:

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