Jesus, the influencer

Something on spectacular religion and Tiktok-trending piety (and a bit on the contemporary history of the religion of end-stage empire)

Lately, there has been a lot of chatter in Sweden about how “Jesus is trending” among the younger cohorts, and a few of the more prominent Christians in the media have been quite enthusiastic over this development, if not celebrating an end of modernity’s secularization, at least seeing this as an important counter-trend that faciliates a resurgence of the faith.

I thought “Jesus, the influencer” to be an obviously sarcastic title, but Edsinger just owns it (he shouldn’t)

I was initially completely dejected and taken aback by this enthusiasm. What Christian in their right mind would approve of God being reduced to a commodified consumer trend, instrumentalized as a means for profit in the attention economy?

The basic assumption, in my view, should rather be that this development poses a threat to Christian faith, in that its superficial and commodified representation would just be rendered harmless and then ultimately discarded when the next season of trends rolls around.

But what do I know? The faith is supernatural. It can’t be limited by anything or anyone. It goes where it will, and can build on anything.

As for the darker sociological aspects of this phenomenon, however, there are so many moving parts here that it’s difficult to know where to begin, but as a sort of overview, Western societies have been slowly moving away from secularization since the collapse of the New Atheism some time around 2007 or so.

The New Atheism was in itself a complex philosophical, ideological and existential phenomenon that probably should be thought of as something vaguely reminiscent of a Spenglerian “final world-sentiment” of the dominant mode of Western industrial-technological civilization. That New Atheism begins to decline just around the peak of conventional oil production and the first convulsions of the slow economic collapse we currently find ourselves in is obviously no coincidence, and in the wake of what New Atheism represented, there then came a slow but steady resurgence of chiefly more traditional forms of Christanity, as well, of course, as the rapid emergence of Islam in the Western public sphere.

For that last matter, this counter-trend also relates to how New Atheism was an ideological expression of Western colonialism and imperialism, and in many ways emerged as a response to the spectacular propaganda around the 9/11 deep event and the resulting narratives. New Atheism was intended as a vibrant defense of Western secularity, science and supremacism, which is clearly expressed in Christopher Hitchens more incendiary work and his enthusiastic support for the Iraq War, basically on the bald-faced grounds of islamophobia. Michel Onfray’s Atheist Manifesto is also a fun read in the same kind of lane, but in a more continental mode.

If you’re interested in a more general overview of the whole phenomenon, Richard Seymour’s work is recommended, especially The Liberal Defence of Murder, and a former colleague of mine, Stephen LeDrew, wrote the definite autopsy of New Atheism as an auxiliary ideology of Western political hegemony, The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement.

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

(Victor Stenger).

Anyway, so after all this, we then had a sort of discursive and ideological backlash and a resulting movement towards traditional forms of religion, which to a significant extent also was intertwined with an often initiated and careful critique of modernity as such — and of its more unhinged expressions in the radical scientism that ideological movements like the New Atheists represented.

I saw all this from the inside myself, being part of the response to the emerging New Atheism as a young liberal Protestant in my mid-teens, which then brought me into philosophy and finally culminated in a conversion to Catholicism some 15 years later, a process which was not least intertwined with a rejection of “the World” in the guise of a triumphant modernity whose days were now clearly numbered.

The undeniable politicization of these developments became more definite around 2015 or so. This process is currently underway, and it’s taking shape in relation to two predetermined trajectories that both seem to end up in a kind of recuperated support for imperialism.

Yeah, this really sucks.

The more traditionalist aspects of this religious resurgence, starting around ten years ago, were almost naturally funnelled into an association with the then-ascendant alt-right.

In retrospect, this was probably inevitable due to a significant if perhaps superficial value-overlap between hard-line conservatism and traditional religion, the historical connections between organized religion and the US political right, and because of the way our spectacular propaganda apparatus will capitalize on simplifying and click-friendly representations of such connections.

So an initial development within the framework of religions or worldviews, which amounted to a reasoned rejection of to modernity and imperialism, slowly became intertwined with the political ressentiment of the alt-right, initially an anti-establishment, anti-modern rejection of globalization.

The fusion or amalgamation of both of these, accomplished through a simplifying and spectacular mass media apparatus, now paradoxically results in a pro-establishment entity that embraces modernity, technological redemption and globalization — albeit in a somewhat different guise. There’s a parallel to how the anti-modern Völkisch-movement of early 20th century Germany became the foundation of hyper-modern imperialism.

The other dyad of the Christian resurgence of the 2010s doesn’t seem to be a return of the Bultmann-type of liberal Christianity that was predominant during the 90s and the turn of the century, but is rather a kind of fusion of the Charismatic movement and the social justice neoliberalism of the woke left.

In other words, we’re still in the framework of theological conservatism, biblical inerrancy, and moral traditionalism, yet one that is radically loyal to the established institutions and ideological state apparatuses. These kinds of Christians (should we call them “post-conservative”? lol) are fierce supporters of the Good Cop, they would have voted for Kamala, they hate Trump, they lease green electric vehicles and they express their heartbreak over the atrocities of the evil Russian empire, and over Israel’s genocide in Gaza alike, while also criticizing the evils of Hamas.

However, they also tend to be supporters of the European rearmament, if somewhat reluctantly, since they consider the Trumpian betrayal having forced the hand of the predominantly good liberal institutions of the other Western polities.

In other words, the “post-conservative” politicization of Christianity reproduces the good-cop neoliberal framework in accordance with the established dominant propaganda narratives of the West, whereas the alt-right-aligned traditionalist wing revisit the more openly chauvinist approaches to reproducing Western hegemony.

All this is, of course, textbook recuperation.

The counter-cultural impetus of the hardline traditionalists is blunted and subsumed under imperialism in the guise of a chauvinist ethnocentrism, whereas the radical pacifism and compassionate approach of the “post-conservatives” is reduced to an uncritical support for the ostensibly “good” institutions of the Western bourgeoisie.

So where are the real Christian anarchists who don’t just jerk off in social media and advertise their purchases of EVs but who actually build communities of radical non-participation in violence and go sabotage weapons factories?

And where are the genuine traditionalists who sell all they have and give to the poor and don’t just pick up Catholicism as an excuse for a self-indulgent lifestyle that feeds their xenophobia and ressentiment over threatened privileges?

They’re out there, to be sure, but you don’t see them in the headlines nor virtue-signalling on social media.

So why is all of this relevant to the contemporary TikTok-trends involving decontexcualized expressions of Christianity?

Because these spectacular expressions, devoid of a robust connection to an actual embodied community of believers, is almost certainly going to feed into an expression of either aspect of the dyad of contemporary politicized Christianity, and therefore ultimately risk becoming an obstacle to geniuine conversion.

I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is the view I call Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right — leaving out the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil and redemption …. It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple.

C. S. Lewis. Mere Christianity

Don’t take me wrong, I’m a Catholic, and I want nothing more than people to come to know and love their Lord and Saviour — but I don’t want people to fly our flag without actually commiting to it.

Christianity isn’t cheap. It’s not a trend, and Christ is not an influencer, i.e. a functionary in an imperial propaganda machinery that reduces meaning and value to interchangeable profit.

Christianity is not a lifestyle, like some garment you can wear for a season and then discard once it no longer amuses you.

And in the same sense, orthodoxy is not therapy, political or otherwise. The truth ultimately cannot be sought for any other reason than truth itself.

And the truth does indeed bring peace — but the price is in a sense everything:

“He says, ‘Take up your Cross’—in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden light.’ He means both. And one can just see why both are true.”

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?”

Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

Matt. 7

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
But the road to Heaven is not paved

+++

Please pray for the recently departed holy father. Or spare a thought if you’re of a different persuasion. In spite of all the criticism his ministry has faced, he was one of the most reasonable Western leaders on the world stage, and it’s far from certain that his successor will be anywhere near as conducive to reasoned compromises in the arenas of faith and politics.