A New Religion

I am convinced that a new religion is needed. The need, the truth of religion, remains in the new world but the old religion won’t do. God has always been outside religion and still is. The old religion, including all forms of Christianity but not confined to them, is radically inadequate to the current situation. This is confirmed by the secularisation of societies that represent the most contemporary conditions. In these societies, and I’m thinking most especially of the UK, the churches are increasingly marginal. I feel quite sure that in the long term those societies, the majority, where this is not true, will follow. This may be false but I don’t think so. Christianity is still growing today but that won’t last forever. Just as a peak in population is forecast for the 2080s, I forecast a peak in the number of Christians but I can’t say when that will be.

The new religion will be post-Christian. My hope is that a new religion will be born from Christianity. I am sure of the validity of the Hegelian form of Christian liberalism/modernism. The new religion I hope for is a radicalised form of Hegelian Christian liberalism/modernism. I don’t claim to know what it will be but here are some starting points.

• Post-human theology
• The theology of the anthropocene
• Contemporary philosophy (post-Derridian)
• Contemporary political theory (taking into account advances in technology)
• A good understanding of the Christian tradition of theology (especially Thomas and Barth)