Quod Scripsi, Scripsi

O Holy Night

We’re decorating the Christmas tree, and Michael Ball’s version of “O Holy Night” came on the digital music channel. It’s one of my favorite Christmas – I was going to say song, but it’s really a hymn. The digital music channels run random facts and tidbits during the song on the screen, and one said that “O Holy Night” was first sung during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in Paris, in 1847.
Having just read “The Twilight of Atheism” and it’s long description of the hostility toward Christianity during the French Revolutions and really the entire 19th century; it was very moving.

Protestantism and Atheism

I’m currently reading Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism and in it he raises the question whether the protestant reformation and resulting worldview shift contributed to the general acceptance of an atheistic worldview in the modern era. He makes some interesting points, particularly about Calvin and Zwingli and the sterilization of the Christian imagination. I’ve long felt a discontent with the “pure” intellectualism of conservative Protestantism. God gave us Reason and His Word, but He also gave us a spirit, as sense of beauty and wonder, and yes even Imagination.
I think Christianity is waking up from a long slumber under the spell of Modernism. I think we’re rediscovering both Spirit and Truth, in Scripture, Tradition, Liturgy, Music, Service and Charity. If you know Church history you’ll recognize that this isn’t the first time we’ve been awakened, reformed, challenged and reborn. It’s not new, but it is different each time.

I know I am.