An American Problem?
29 May 2008 - 25 אייר 5768 by Huw
One thing that came up often when I was Orthodox was the question of the possibility (at all) of Americans being Christians because of our fetish for individualism.
This has been coming up again in my classes on Living the Question because most of us see how to be community (even if we fail) but for some Christianity is this solitary thing they have to “do” to “get saved”. (I just heard, tonight, Fr Tom Hopko say, “the only thing you can do alone is get into Hell”.)
This topic continues in a surprising and totally secular place: Radiolab » Individualism or Interdependence:
Students raised in the US scored lower than students brought up in China
Conveniently, the first comment out of the box is one of those “us vs them” tolls that makes the article’s point rather well.
Wow, that former church of yours sure seemed to be dead set on criticizing everyone for anything and everything. I will agree that individualism is a besetting sin in American and Australian cultures, but that is a long long long way from doubting the possibility of Christianity here. It does make certain aspects of Christianity very difficult, such as church discipline.
Granted the conversation took place among the Uberfrum Converty types (ie those of us who get gushy about Seraphim Rose :-) but it was “One thing that came up often when I was Orthodox”. Wow, that former church of mine was right about a few things. I wrote that introduction to point out that all sorts of people were on this bandwagon - from religious to secular.