Christianity and Culture: Nothing Is New under the Sun

By Robin G. Jordan

The Pew report, “The Religious Typology a New Way to Categorize Americans by Religion,” is a reminder that Christianity has never occupied in an environment that was entirely free from other religious and spiritual influences. In some places and times Christianity has been the dominant religion; in others a minority religion. For example, Christians form about one percent of the Japan’s population. In Japan Buddhism, Shintoism, secularism, and a host of religious cults vie for the hearts and minds of the Japanese people. Both Buddhism and Shintoism have played a major role in shaping Japanese culture. They are an integral part of the cultural landscape.

The Facts & Trends article, “Americans Believe in God, but also Psychics and Crystals,” notes the influence of New Age spirituality on Christians as well as other Americans. A number of the beliefs and practices that are categorized as “New Age” have been around for centuries in the British Isles and North America. They may have enjoyed a resurgence in “the Age of Aquarius,” the 1960s and the 1970s, but they are not new.

In The Book of Common Prayer 1559 The Elizabethan Prayer Book, John E. Booty draws to our attention that Elizabeth I had her personal astrologer, Dr. John Dee, and that the signs of the Zodiac appear in the Almanac of the 1559 Prayer Book. Bishop John Jewel, while he condemned the practice of soothsaying, nonetheless believed the prognostications of soothsayers.

We may gather from William Shakespeare’s plays that the Elizabethans believed in the existences of fairies and preternatural phenomena. We may gather from other sources that they also believed in charms, potions, and white magic. A housewife might leave a bowl of cream or porridge or some other food offering on the hearth for the brownies that were believed to inhabit cottages and farmhouses. The milkmaid might say a charm over the cream to prevent it from curdling or souring. These practices would persist in the British Isles into the early twentieth century and may persist in some areas of the British Isles to this day.

In the United States spiritualism has a long history. The beliefs of the Shakers whose communities dotted the United States in the late 1700s and well into the 1800s were based upon spiritualism. While spiritualism has decreased in popularity since the early twentieth century, it continues to attract a following. Ouji boards and planchettes continue to be sold as parlor games.

On the other hand, the reading of daily horoscopes has increased in popularity. Many people not only read their daily horoscope but act on it.

When I was a boy, I lived in a small English village. I learned from the cautionary tales that I heard that it was advisable to avoid certain places, plants, and trees since those who had not heeded the warnings had brought misfortune upon themselves. I also learned that one should also refrain from doing certain things since doing them could produce a similar effect. On the other hand, there were certain things that one should do to avert misfortune or to ward off evil. I learned to avoid alder trees and ponds and not to walk windershins, or counterclockwise, around an object. I learned that I should not open an umbrella inside the house, put my shoes on the table, or break a mirror. If I spilled salt, I should throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder. I heard these warnings from God-fearing, churchgoing folks.

Some of the warnings were based on past experience. Children playing on the edge of ponds were apt to suffer a misadventure—to fall in the pond, become tangled in pond weed, and drown. While the others might be dismissed as superstition, they were longstanding folk beliefs that had been passed from one generation to another and may have been remnants of the pre-Christian religions that were once a part of the cultural landscape of the British Isles. The adage, “better safe than sorry” was not an uncommon response if one questioned these beliefs. This adage may also explain why many people who read their daily horoscope act on it.

While the present cultural landscape may alarm some Christians, those who choose to follow Christ have always had to deal with “background noise” that competes with Christ for their attention and for the attention of those whom they are seeking to lead to Christ. The noise may have grown louder in recent years but it has always been there. What may be troubling them is that they are no longer able to tune it out—to pretend that it is not there. However, as the author of Ecclesiastes wrote, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”