HOW WESTERN CULTURE HAS RETURNED TO ITS ANCIENT GRECO-ROMAN PAGAN ROOTS: The Times in which we live

Before I address how Western Culture has become thoroughly Pagan in its orientation, in the first of a series on the ways that Western Culture has returned to its Ancient Greco-Roman Pagan Roots, I will cover themes such as:

• The meaning of the word ‘Culture’.

• The Creation Mandate of Genesis chapter 1

• Romans chapter 1 in the New Testament, and particular v25 and its consequences

• Religious Syncretism

• Two concepts of Structure & Direction to assess human culture

The 4-Fold Alienation that marks Human life apart from the Creator God

• We are alienated from God when we are born into the world

• We are alienated within ourselves because we cannot truly know ourselves until we know God. So we do not know our true origins, the meaning of life,

  and what it truly means to be human.

• We are alienated from each other, and this is why human life is marked by conflict between individuals, families, cultures, nations, and empires throughout human history.

• There is alienation between humanity and nature in the form of natural disasters, earthquakes, and the whole earth is groaning with birth pangs as Romans 8:22 says.

The word CULTURE from Latin means ‘Cultus’, which means WORSHIP. Therefore, Culture is a form of ‘RELIGION EXTERNALIZED’. You can know how any human culture is oriented by what it is defined by and what it emphasizes as essential.

The 4-Fold Creation Mandate in Genesis 1 to

‘Be Fruitful, Multiply, Subdue, have Dominion’ meant that God was effectively saying, ‘Go and build human culture and civilizations to express and advance My Kingdom’.

It always comes down to Worship.

Romans chapter 1 in the New Testament explains the condition of any human culture that has rejected the Creator God. Romans 1v25 says that fallen humanity ‘Exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator’. This means that there is NOTHING NEUTRAL in all Creation. You either worship the Creator God or you worship something from within Creation. I will come back to Romans 1v25.

  One of the ways we can learn the fundamentals of the language of Western Culture today is to understand that SYNCRETISM underpins the Worldview of Western Culture-

Much of the Western Church for example is in Cultural Captivity because of Religious Syncretism-an ungodly mixture of other worldviews that are contrary to the Gospel. This task is a matter of life and death if the Church is not to be so unwittingly seduced into a deeper and deeper Syncretistic alliance with the reigning Secular Humanist/Neo-Pagan Religious vision of Western culture.

Before I specify some forms of the Religious Syncretism of the Western Church that has assimilated the language of the Culture-

Two Concepts can help us evaluate any human culture/society:

STRUCTURE & DIRECTION.

I mentioned above that there is nothing Neutral in all creation. So there is nothing in human life that does not belong to the created order. Everything is creational. There are MANY creational Structures but only TWO Directions-

For example, Male and Female, as created in the image and likeness of the Triune Creator God, are a creational structure. Family, government, education, and human institutions across the whole life of human affairs are also creational structures.

But THE DISPOSITION of Human Beings moves in only TWO DIRECTIONS:

TOWARD GOD: This means that Human beings are either oriented TOWARD the personal infinite Creator God through His Grace as shown in the Redemption of Jesus Christ in His Death and Resurrection….OR

AWAY FROM GOD: Or they are oriented AWAY from God because of the fallen nature that they have inherited from Adam as Romans 5:12-21 shows.

Human nature is oriented AWAY from our Creator because we choose to be our own god and reject the Creator’s way of living. Ever since Eden, Human Nature defines Good and Evil for itself outside and apart from the Omniscient, Eternal God. This means a profound 4-Fold Alienation marks the life of humanity.

We need to understand that this Four Fold Alienation has complex and profound meaning and the ramifications of this 4 fold alienation in Genesis 3v7-24 interweave, interconnect, and mutually reinforce each other.

There are many Structures in Creation, but only 2 Directions as Romans 1v25 points out. In the next post, I will discuss some of the ways that contemporary Western Culture has become comprehensively Pagan.