Religion and the Counterculture

I have a large portion of readers who are Christians. Some of them have been very kind to me over the past few years. But of course, as you also know, I am a heathen who was not raised with religion at all. I do have the app Hallow because of those dark nights of the soul.

Last night, for instance, I had a terrible dream where I was inside an abandoned house, and I was screaming because I’d lost my daughter or baby. And even though at the end of the dream, I was hugging a child - my daughter as a toddler- it was still a scream so loud that it woke me up.

Those kinds of bad dreams make you need something else to bring you back to a place where you can feel your feet on solid ground. So, I use the Hallow app on occasion. Even if my brain is like, who are you kidding? I still think, and I tell my daughter this often, you’re better off with it than without it.

This came through my email today:

The blending of Christianity and Hollywood celebrities like Chris Pratt and Mark Wahlberg reminded me once again that the counterculture is really just traditionalism making a return as the pendulum swings. And it’s true that many of them found their way back to religion, like Mel Gibson, after getting sober and dealing with addiction. Still, the end result is the same.

Christianity, specifically, but traditional religion in general, is fast becoming a unifying force and direct opposition to what the Left offers, which is no path to forgiveness, strident Puritanism, and ever-changing rules everyone must obey. Or else.

I am hearing more Hollywood celebrities, many of them people of faith, being outspoken and even crossing the political aisle. Recently, Matt Walsh interviewed the actor Zachary Levi, who was MAHA, and ended up voting for Trump. He speaks of his faith on this podcast:

For most of the past many decades, it wasn’t cool to talk about God if you were a famous person. It was cool to be an atheist and pretend that you and you alone had absolute power. That is blowback from the last counterculture revolution of the 1960s when the Boomers broke free from the restrictions of traditional religion. But look at where it all ended up.

It’s funny that the Left believed it could survive without religion, and many of them see themselves as not being religious. But of course, they do have religion. It revolves around identity, which is what we call wokeness. It is every bit as strident and punitive as other religions can be, but it fills up an empty hole inside of them, though most would never admit it.

So, in a way, what was once oppressive now feels freeing, or at least, that’s how it seems to me.

I guess what I’m saying is that I can feel things shifting. I can feel people who have realized that whatever new religion has overtaken the Left now doesn’t fulfill them the same way as traditional religion does. Anything that’s lasted thousands of years is probably more substantial than something invented online 15 years ago.

Anyway, I might try that Hallow challenge. The site is here if you are interested.