Ep 96: Gods, Wizards, Witches, & the End of Secularity (part 1)

As someone who loves cultural theology, I’m completely fascinated by ancient and modern myths and how those mythological stories serve as guiding stories for entire civilizations. Whether it is the ancient tales of Zeus and the Greek Olympian gods or the myths of virtuous super-human heroes and lazer sword wielding wizards that fill our comic book pages & big box office movie screens, I’m fascinated by what these stories reveal about our views on God, reality, what is good and evil, and what the telos of life is all about.The secular narrative has claimed that human progress is hindered by religious narratives, and that just as Christianity displaced the old pagan stories, secularism has come to displace Christianity and will bring about a better world. But the era of secularity may be approaching its end as more and more people begging to question that story.The clues that we are moving towards a post-secular Western world are increasingly finding their way into being embedded into our popular cultural stories. Take the recent DC comics movie “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” where the death of God, symbolically represented by the death of Superman, awakens an ancient sinister force to come and fill the vacuum of power- a sinister force that was once kept at bay by the old pagan gods.In today’s episode, we’ll try to step into the ancient pagan world and understand their relationship to their guiding stories, grapple with the early Christian responses to pagan culture & mythology, and begin to see why the secular goal of creating a religiously “neutral” cultural space never actually creates a religiously neutral space.For the article on C.S. Lewis and paganism that I quote in this episode, see here:https://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/god_the_father_of_lights_c._s._lewis_on_christianity_and_paganism If you find this podcast to be helpful and you want to see it continue ad-free, would you consider becoming a supporter on Patreon? Help us reach our first goal of 300 patrons in order to sustain weekly, ad-free theological and philosophical education to anyone with an internet connection! Members of the Deep Talks Patreon Community receive bonus Q & A Episodes, articles, charts, forum discussions and more. STARTING THIS MONTH, WE'LL HAVE AN PATREON COMMUNITY GROUP ZOOM HANG-OUT to build relationships with others across the world and to do theology and meaning-making together.   https://www.patreon.com/deeptalkstheologypodcast To Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-talks-exploring-theology-and-meaning-making/id1401730159   Connect with Paul Anleitner on Twitter at:https://twitter.com/PaulAnleitner