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Published by
Zenit.org,
November 13, 2004
The Devil
and the Deep Blue Sea
Consequences of
De-Christianization |
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LONDON, NOV. 13, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Britain's
Royal Navy stirred the waves last month when, for
the first time, it gave official recognition to
the practice of Satanism. According to an Oct. 24
report in the Telegraph, Chris Cranmer, a naval
technician serving on the frigate Cumberland, is
now allowed to perform Satanic rituals on board
ship. He would also be able to have a funeral
carried out by the Church of Satan if he were to
be killed in action.
Cranmer is now petitioning the Ministry of Defense
so that Satanism can be a registered religion in
the armed forces. According to the Telegraph, the
Church of Satan was founded in San Francisco in
1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey, author of "The
Satanic Bible."
The article quoted a Royal Navy spokesman as
saying that Cranmer's unconventional beliefs would
not cause problems on board ship. "We are an
equal-opportunities employer and we don't stop
anybody from having their own religious values,"
he said.
In an Oct. 26 commentary in the Scotsman
newspaper, Bruce Anderson said that naval
authorities gave the go-ahead to Cranmer because
they feared a lengthy legal action that could have
ended up before the European Court of Human Rights
at Strasbourg, costing millions of pounds. The
government, he said, is at fault for "nervously
allowing a rights-based legal culture to intrude
upon the armed forces."
Sophie Masson, in a commentary published Oct. 27
in the Sydney Morning Herald, considered the
religious implications. The Church of Satan, she
noted, says that "we are our own gods." Moreover,
they hold that all traditional sins are virtues,
that altruism is a myth and that the Christian
virtues are just hypocrisy.
"The most frightening thing is that our society
has seemingly become so disconnected from meaning
that it no longer takes seriously the very
building blocks of its culture," she added. "To
worship the principle of evil itself is to invite
it into your life and the lives of those around
you, sometimes in unpredictable and horrifying
ways."
Decline in faith
The navy's recognition of Satanism is just one in
a series of news items detailing the decline in
Christianity in Britain. On Aug. 18 the newspaper
Independent published details of a report by the
UK Home Office showing that while most white
Britons still call themselves Christian, in
practice religion plays little part in their
lives.
The survey, based on 15,500 interviews, showed 74%
called themselves Christian. But among those who
professed their Christianity, when asked what they
considered important to their identity, religion
was cited by only 17% of white Christians, after
other factors such as family, work, age,
education, gender, income and social class. By
contrast, among black people, 70% of whom say they
are Christian, religion was third on the list, and
Asians placed it second, behind family.
The survey also showed a weak Christianity among
youth. Just 18% of Christians aged 16 to 24
considered their religion as important. Religion
was more important for young people in other
groups: 74% of Muslims; 63% of Sikhs; and 62% of
Hindus.
Then, on Nov. 4, the Times published details of
another study pointing to a severe decline in
traditional religion, and a rise of mysticism. The
study, carried out by two specialists in religion
from Lancaster University, Linda Woodhead and Paul
Heelas, looked at Kendal, a town of 28,000 in
Cumbria.
In their book containing the results of the study,
"The Spiritual Revolution," the academics observed
that only 7.9% of the town's population now
attends church, down from 11% two decades ago.
The practice of what the authors term "holistic
activity," while still limited, is fast-growing.
Currently, 1.6% of the population of the town and
environs engage in some kind of holistic activity.
During the 1990s, the growth of this number was
rapid, and if current trends continue, within 30
years the holistic activities will be the dominant
form of religious worship.
Some of the comments cited by the study revealed
dissatisfaction with being "preached at" and a
preference for describing their religious needs in
psychological language. But the Times article also
cited the Reverend Brian Maiden, of Parr Street
Evangelical Church in Kendal, who declared that he
believes that the liberalism of Christianity has
turned people off it. "The people of Britain have
been inoculated with a dead, mild form of
Christianity, which has given them resistance to
the real thing," he said. "It has been diluted
with human philosophy. People want to be told what
to do and how to do it."
The occult gains force
Britain is not alone in the trend toward the
occult and alternative spiritualities. In the
United States, for instance, Halloween continues
to grow in popularity, the Los Angeles Times
reported Oct. 11.
Although many celebrate Halloween on a merely
superficial level, the article noted that sales of
Halloween goods this year are projected to grow
faster, at 5.4%, than those of Christmas, 4.5%.
According to the Los Angeles Times the National
Retail Federation estimates that Americans will
have spent more than $3 billion this season on
Halloween products.
On a more serious level, news of Druidic influence
in the Episcopalian Church has drawn attention.
According to the Washington Times of Nov. 1, a
Druidic "women's eucharist" and a "divorce rite,"
posted on the Episcopal Church's official Web
site, outraged a number of Episcopalians. The
rites were removed from the Web site after church
headquarters began receiving complaints.
Shortly afterward, the Philadelphia Inquirer, on
Nov. 5, reported that two Episcopal priests, a
married couple, the Reverend Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk and
the Reverend William Melnyk, had resigned from the
leadership of a local Druid society. They may face
disciplinary action from the Episcopal Diocese of
Pennsylvania. During almost four years, while they
led parishes in Malvern and Downingtown, the
couple were also spiritual guides to local Druids,
according to the Inquirer.
Another sign of the growing influence of
non-Christian groups is the spread of Wicca. The
term can cover a multitude of practices, but it is
part of a neo-paganism involving the worship of
diverse gods and sometimes the practice of
witchcraft. According to an article by Christine
Wicker titled "Teen Pagans," posted on the Web
site of Belief Net, Wicca is increasingly popular
among adolescents.
Its spread is fostered by the contemporary
interest in the occult, as well as the ease with
which information about these groups can be
disseminated via the Internet. Attempts to put a
number on followers of Wicca have not met with
much success, according to data posted on the Web
site of the multi-faith Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance. Estimates of their numbers in
the United States range from a low 2,000 to a high
of 5 million.
Death of morality
Leaving aside what the decline of Christianity
means from a religious viewpoint, attention on the
social consequences was the focus of a book
published earlier this year, "The Strange Death of
Moral Britain," by Christie Davies.
His book charts what he terms the decline of
"respectable Britain" -- the increase in crime,
drug use, illegitimacy, abortion, homosexuality,
etc. -- and links it to the declining influence of
Christian morality. Over the last few decades,
notably since the 1950s, moral values once
instilled by such institutions as Sunday schools
have been replaced by a secularized attitude of
minimizing harm, regardless of moral
considerations.
Recognizing one person's right to practice
Satanism may be dismissed as a trivial incident.
But it can also be seen as symptomatic of a
society that is rapidly becoming de-Christianized,
a process that brings with it many unpleasant
surprises
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