A new revival without God?
Icon depicting the First Council of Nicaea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Diana Butler Bass , in Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (2012), triumphantly announces the advent of “the Fourth Great Awakening .” Emergent activist Shane Claibourne hails this as “new life budding from the compost of Christendom.” For Brian McLaren , Bass’s prophetic voice is “provocative, inspiring…a sage guidance for the future.” Does the term “Great Awakening” indicate a reclaiming of 18 th century Gospel orthodoxy? Not a chance! For Bass “religionless Christianity” is the elimination of creeds and dogmas, of authority structures and inhibiting moral codes, of a propositional, inerrant Bible. She hails a movement borne along on the breath of an undefined “Spirit” into an age of pure inner experience. This Awakening has nothing to do with historic Christianity. Bass notes that “Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists h...