We talk a lot on this podcast about secularism and the post-Christendom West. But secularism doesn’t necessarily mean people have become less spiritual. In fact, increasing numbers across the West describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” They’ve left religion—usually Christianity—in favor of self-defined, individualistic spirituality.
This trend may appear new. But Michael Horton aims to unveil its ancient pedigree in his new book, Shaman and Sage: The Roots of ‘Spiritual but Not Religious’ in Antiquity (Eerdmans). Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California.
He wants us to see that what we call “New Age spirituality” wasn’t invented by the “flower power” generation of the 1960s but goes all the way back in Western civilization. Christian theism may be out, but it’s not being replaced so much by atheism and agnosticism but by the occult. Horton joined me on Gospelbound to explain.
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