I cannot in good faith call myself Christian. I admire the devout, but I also have found every church I've attended insufferably woke.
Instead, I've turned towards exploring spirituality on my own. Reading the older texts, including the bible and the analects. It's been challenging since of course, these texts require traditional interpretation, however much of the tradition has been corrupted.
I've also found creativity to be an avenue of spiritual exploration. Artistic creation is constrained by aesthetics and is therefore a means to discover the nature of reality. I think this is a very good balance to books which tend to be measured against pure reason which can just as easily lead to insanity.
A word both on materials for further study and on church hunting:
I think you might enjoy a writer and thinker named GK Chesterton. He was a Christian public intellectual during the early 1900s, a time when most intellectuals were going quite mad in a manner comparable to the woke of today. He has a number of writings against all of the intellectual rot of the time that still hold considerable worth; I’d recommend Heretics and then Orthodoxy. I think you’d like him because he was of a similar opinion on limits being the essence of true art and understanding; there must be rules in order for things to be properly enjoyed. He also made a point to show that reason unchecked led often to unsettled intellects.
As for church hunting, I’d recommend simply trying a bunch. While the decentralized nature of Protestantism means that you won’t have a guarantee of certain things, it also means you can usually find some church that offers what you’re looking for. What would you consider to be too woke by the by? It would be important to nail down certain doctrines so you can know where to look.
Lastly, (and I throw this out only as a customary aside), if you are looking in Christianity for just an anti-wokeness, I’d caution you. While Christianity is supposed to be opposed to the world, that isn’t necessarily the primary ‘thing’ so to speak. Just fair warning to be clear what you’re looking for. I believe that Christianity offers a consistent counter to general wokeness better than anything else, but if used only for that purpose it will be lacking. It’s more than that, as you likely know. Just a caution. I’d love to help in any way I can.
I'd be really curious to know which churches he's going to too. There is no doubt a ton of woke churches but there are plenty of those around that still try to follow the tenets of Christianity, even today.
There's a big YMMV especially depending on what part of the US you're in, but ime Baptists are still relatively on the ball. Though the trick's finding a congregation that isn't pharisaical the stereotype of us hating dancing and any movies but the Lord of the Rings has a lot of truth to it lol.
He's just going to have try church hunting. It's a hassle but eh, at least he'll get a better idea of what he (doesn't) want out of a church as he goes about that. Add'ly, if the woke churches are as woke as the ones I've read about, they'll make it pretty clear either by having rainbow flags up or their pastors will invoke "social justice", or "diversity", "inclusion", and those other words wokeists like to use.
I hear the Eastern Orthodox are pretty good, the ones I've heard talk on youtube and the like seem pretty level-headed anyway. I'd try going to an Eastern Orthodox church if my area actually had any.
Orthodoxy is on my list, I'll definitely check out Heretics as well.
At this point, I attend the church the majority of my family attends. It's ridiculously woke (they had a seminar on truth and reconciliation earlier this year), but until I figure some other things out, I think that there's value in being with family.
I see. That is pretty woke. However, as you say there is value to being with family, especially now. For looking around though, this is actually one of the better times to do so, since most churches have worked hard to be reliably online due to Covid. It’s not a perfect way of figuring them out, but it’s easier than ever to get a general idea of a church than ever before. Figure out what you’re looking for and then check around.
You know when people quest for "pure reason" by unreasonably disregarding everything their emotions consider unreasonable? You end up becoming a LessWrong cultist.
To start with, the sense of beauty is a natural thing we are born with. It's hard to say why, but there seems to be an innate association between goodness, health and beauty. When you go up to the mountains and just see nature in all its glory, or watch a sunset across the sea there is a sense of wonder. Add a cabin to the mountains, or a lone boat on the horizon, and that sense of wonder may even be enhanced. You might ask who is there, that appreciates nature so much that they can't watch it from far away, but need to be surrounded. Replace all the trees with apartments and fill the horizon with freight ships, is that wonder preserved?
Now, the interesting thing is that ideas can be beautiful. There is an aesthetic to mathematics, simple and symmetrical ideas are often the truest. There is an aesthetic to programming, which is the tool I use. Elegant algorithms can often solve problems with less code and fewer potential errors. In philosophy too, there can be beautiful ideas. There's a beauty in a phrases such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Two morally opposite phrases both share this quality of beauty. Now, it becomes apparent that beauty and good have a dubious relationship. Why is that?
I'm speculating here, but I think that the difference is the relationship with reality. It is the act of constraining our creations, forcing them to conform to something, whether it's our sense of aesthetic or mathematical axioms, that imbues the beautiful with the good. Therefore, the good artist lets external beauty be a guide to his thinking. The bad artist tries to impose his internal reason on the outside world.
This interplay between beauty, goodness, and the mind and hand of a creator forms the basis of some kind of spirituality.
I cannot in good faith call myself Christian. I admire the devout, but I also have found every church I've attended insufferably woke.
Instead, I've turned towards exploring spirituality on my own. Reading the older texts, including the bible and the analects. It's been challenging since of course, these texts require traditional interpretation, however much of the tradition has been corrupted.
I've also found creativity to be an avenue of spiritual exploration. Artistic creation is constrained by aesthetics and is therefore a means to discover the nature of reality. I think this is a very good balance to books which tend to be measured against pure reason which can just as easily lead to insanity.
A word both on materials for further study and on church hunting:
I think you might enjoy a writer and thinker named GK Chesterton. He was a Christian public intellectual during the early 1900s, a time when most intellectuals were going quite mad in a manner comparable to the woke of today. He has a number of writings against all of the intellectual rot of the time that still hold considerable worth; I’d recommend Heretics and then Orthodoxy. I think you’d like him because he was of a similar opinion on limits being the essence of true art and understanding; there must be rules in order for things to be properly enjoyed. He also made a point to show that reason unchecked led often to unsettled intellects.
As for church hunting, I’d recommend simply trying a bunch. While the decentralized nature of Protestantism means that you won’t have a guarantee of certain things, it also means you can usually find some church that offers what you’re looking for. What would you consider to be too woke by the by? It would be important to nail down certain doctrines so you can know where to look.
Lastly, (and I throw this out only as a customary aside), if you are looking in Christianity for just an anti-wokeness, I’d caution you. While Christianity is supposed to be opposed to the world, that isn’t necessarily the primary ‘thing’ so to speak. Just fair warning to be clear what you’re looking for. I believe that Christianity offers a consistent counter to general wokeness better than anything else, but if used only for that purpose it will be lacking. It’s more than that, as you likely know. Just a caution. I’d love to help in any way I can.
I'd be really curious to know which churches he's going to too. There is no doubt a ton of woke churches but there are plenty of those around that still try to follow the tenets of Christianity, even today.
There's a big YMMV especially depending on what part of the US you're in, but ime Baptists are still relatively on the ball. Though the trick's finding a congregation that isn't pharisaical the stereotype of us hating dancing and any movies but the Lord of the Rings has a lot of truth to it lol.
He's just going to have try church hunting. It's a hassle but eh, at least he'll get a better idea of what he (doesn't) want out of a church as he goes about that. Add'ly, if the woke churches are as woke as the ones I've read about, they'll make it pretty clear either by having rainbow flags up or their pastors will invoke "social justice", or "diversity", "inclusion", and those other words wokeists like to use.
I hear the Eastern Orthodox are pretty good, the ones I've heard talk on youtube and the like seem pretty level-headed anyway. I'd try going to an Eastern Orthodox church if my area actually had any.
Orthodoxy is on my list, I'll definitely check out Heretics as well.
At this point, I attend the church the majority of my family attends. It's ridiculously woke (they had a seminar on truth and reconciliation earlier this year), but until I figure some other things out, I think that there's value in being with family.
I see. That is pretty woke. However, as you say there is value to being with family, especially now. For looking around though, this is actually one of the better times to do so, since most churches have worked hard to be reliably online due to Covid. It’s not a perfect way of figuring them out, but it’s easier than ever to get a general idea of a church than ever before. Figure out what you’re looking for and then check around.
If you don't mind, could you expand on your last point there?
You know when people quest for "pure reason" by unreasonably disregarding everything their emotions consider unreasonable? You end up becoming a LessWrong cultist.
To start with, the sense of beauty is a natural thing we are born with. It's hard to say why, but there seems to be an innate association between goodness, health and beauty. When you go up to the mountains and just see nature in all its glory, or watch a sunset across the sea there is a sense of wonder. Add a cabin to the mountains, or a lone boat on the horizon, and that sense of wonder may even be enhanced. You might ask who is there, that appreciates nature so much that they can't watch it from far away, but need to be surrounded. Replace all the trees with apartments and fill the horizon with freight ships, is that wonder preserved?
Now, the interesting thing is that ideas can be beautiful. There is an aesthetic to mathematics, simple and symmetrical ideas are often the truest. There is an aesthetic to programming, which is the tool I use. Elegant algorithms can often solve problems with less code and fewer potential errors. In philosophy too, there can be beautiful ideas. There's a beauty in a phrases such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Two morally opposite phrases both share this quality of beauty. Now, it becomes apparent that beauty and good have a dubious relationship. Why is that?
I'm speculating here, but I think that the difference is the relationship with reality. It is the act of constraining our creations, forcing them to conform to something, whether it's our sense of aesthetic or mathematical axioms, that imbues the beautiful with the good. Therefore, the good artist lets external beauty be a guide to his thinking. The bad artist tries to impose his internal reason on the outside world.
This interplay between beauty, goodness, and the mind and hand of a creator forms the basis of some kind of spirituality.