Something New Is Happening
Edward Middleton Manigault, The Rocket, 1909
I have a feeling something big is going on around us. I hear it all over the place, in casual conversations, through reading some of the best writing I’ve seen in a longtime, from people who have experienced fresh, life-changing illuminations, even in our secular world that continues to scoff at such experience.
Listening to all these fresh reports, I am convinced God is moving among us. This is the same promise that came a long time ago as God spoke to Isaiah: “I am about to do something new.” Watch for it. Pay attention. I will send fresh water into your barren desert. Isaiah 43:19 I believe something like this is happening today.
What I am hearing are not the tired, old debates about theological correctness, or new efforts to win big arguments against the secular culture that presses in on those of us who are Christians, important as those are; no, what I am witnessing are stunning new expressions from people who are seeing things in profoundly new ways.
They seem to be discovering layers of reality we have been told do not exist anymore. They seem to be stunned by beauty and wonder as they look out into God’s world. They seem suddenly to be walking around in a world that is enchanted. I am reminded of one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture: “The man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.” Genesis 3:8
In the days ahead I will be reporting on some of these extraordinary reports. For now, listen to a couple of examples. First, Ross Douthat, from The New York Times:
The new-atheist idea that the weakening of organized religion would make the world more rational and less tribal feels much more absurd in 2024 than it did in 2006. Existential anxiety and civilizational ennui, not rationalist optimism and humanist ambition, are the defining moods of secular liberalism nowadays. . . . And lately the rise of the “Nones” — Americans with no religious affiliation — has finally leveled off.
Douthat goes on to recommend, among others, Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, a book that has rocked me to the socks too. It is “a collection of anecdata about the persistence of enchantment even under allegedly disenchanted conditions, the supernatural happenings that flower constantly in our notionally secularized world.”
And then there is David Brooks latest writing. In a long recent article from The New York Times, four thousand words instead of his standard 750, we hear the confessions of one who has been through many stages of his spiritual journey, most of them anchored on these illuminations:
When faith finally tiptoed into my life it didn’t come through information or persuasion but, at least at first, through numinous experiences. These are the scattered moments of awe and wonder that wash over most of us unexpectedly from time to time. . . . In those moments, you have a sense that you are in the presence of something overwhelming, mysterious. . . .
From these experiences Brooks finds his way to unapologetic, though complex and nuanced, Christian faith. I have watched for this news for a long time. I am thrilled.
Perhaps this is the way in our day, not so much through argument and debate, but rather through experiences of wonder and awe, where God is speaking, appearing, into the flat, mundane, materialist world we have been told is all there is to see.
What is happening is shaking me to my roots. With all I have endured doing battle with secular culture, here is a new understanding that God can and does and has and is moving in our midst. I believe we are so ready for those moments of illumination. I am left sort of stunned. This kind of report keeps cropping up almost daily. This kind of reading keeps appearing in rapid succession.
Have you noticed any of this? I hope so. I hope to be pointing out some of what I am experiencing in my new online course about to take final shape. I’d love to hear from you on these matters, to be sure. My encouragement is for all of us to keep watching. Be alert. Something new is happening. God is moving, as he told us he would.