Enchantment/Disenchantment

“Strictly speaking, the modern world has not been disenchanted. Rather, it is now enchanted with money and the “invisible hand” of the market…God’s logic does not always square with ours. Perhaps this is truer now than in the past, as we are so very disconnected from that enchanted world of premodern Christendom.” (Father Stephen Freeman, Fr. Joseph Lucas)

“Sealed off from enchantment, the modern buffered self is also sealed off from significance, left to ruminate in a stew of its own ennui. It is just this sealing off that generates the pressure: the self’s “relative invulnerability to anything beyond the human world” also leads to “a sense that something may be occluded in the very closure which guarantees safety”... our insulation breeds a sense of cosmic isolation. We might have underestimated the ability of disenchantment to sustain significance. But now there’s no going back.” (Charles Taylor, James K.A. Smith)

“Recently, there was a fascinating article in The Atlantic titled “Why the British Tell Better Children’s Stories.” After conducting a comparison of popular children’s stories in Britain and America, Colleen Gillard highlights the enchanted, imaginative world of British children’s literature as differing noticeably from the pragmatic, moralistic stories of America…The world is enchanted, but with a Magic deeper than our fantasies. In every individual, the drama of the Nativity, Holy Week, and Pascha are re-enacted, re-lived. We are baptized “into the death of Christ,” and “raised in the likeness of His resurrection.” Each moment of our existence is the life of Christ. St. Paul described it, “Christ within us, the hope of glory.” (Philip Ryken, Father Stephen Freeman)

“These patterns, these descriptions of hierarchies of beings and of angels and of the mountain, of paradise, of temples—all of these descriptions that have been with us since the beginning of known history, that’s really how reality works.  Right now is actually an aberration. The modern world is an aberration on that pattern. You could call it the end of that pattern or moving out into the wild of that pattern, but the real pattern is going to come back. It has to, because that’s actually how reality works…people who want to recover an enchanted world have to fight for it. They have to fight in their own lives. They have to fight in their communities to kind of get things going, to get a sense of community, to get a sense of meaning going. But since it is the real pattern, it’s going to shine.” (Jonathan Pageau)

“Enchantment and re-enchantment have nothing to do with magic in the context of how these words are being used today in many Christian circles. It has more to do with overcoming this false dichotomy that spiritually blinds us to a reality where we think we are “here” and God is somewhere “up there.” Re-enchantment is more about rediscovering and living the truth of the sacramental nature of reality; of what it means when we say in the Nicene creed, “we believe in all things visible and invisible;” when we understand again that symbols point to the present and true reality of the spiritual and material, not representing something that is not here. Ultimately it is about seeing clearly and experiencing God’s beauty, goodness, and truth in all things which brings us peace and joy that transcends worldly circumstances.” (Sacramental Living Ministries) 

“We are captivated by the “surface” of things, failing to see what lies beneath. It causes us to be anxious and driven by things of insignificance. If there is a constant temptation for us in our present time, it is to lose confidence that there is anything unseen or eternal, at least in the sense that such things impinge on our daily existence. Our disenchanted, secular world is a siren song that promises the power of control while robbing us of the reality of communion. We “manage” the world when we should be in love with it…our plight [is that we live] in a nearly disenchanted world, which can enjoy satyrs and orcs in films, but no longer sees creation as mysterious.” (Father Stephen Freeman, Edith M. Humphrey)

“The disenchanted, secularized Christianity of the modern world, moves about in a world of things, empty and inert. The only “forces” that seem to garner any regard are those mysterious “market forces” that seem to guide the fortunes of the world. The world has become a commodity, measured by its usefulness for business. Of all the religions that have ever existed on the planet, it is perhaps the least attractive in the end. Its collapse will quickly follow (or even precede) the collapse of the present economic system – something likely at some point in the future. The growing number of “nones” represent not the collapse of Christianity, but the inadequacy of secularized Christianity.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“For ancient believers, the world meant: storm and song, starlight and season—these came straight from God’s imagination, and they told us something vital about His character and heart. But we moderns dismiss this as fancy and view the world with disenchanted eyes as a collection of atoms and dust—something to measure but not something that means.” (Sarah Clarkson)

“One can see how this entails a kind of disenchantment: “we reject the sacramentals; all the elements of ‘magic’ in the old religion” If the church no longer has “good” magic, “then all magic must be black”; all enchantment must be blasphemous, idolatrous, even demonic (Salem is yet to come). And once the world is disenchanted and de-¬charged of transcendence, we are then free to reorder it as seems best.” (Charles Taylor, James K.A. Smith)

“Limiting time to a one-dimensional movement inevitably leads to disenchantment and disappointment. The history of civilizations is one of disenchantments. Even what we call Christian civilization, as a human creation in the straight line of historical time, shares the same fate. But what the Church offers is an exit from the secular cul-de-sac. It is a transfer from the pointless temporal flow and maelstrom into the fullness of divine love and life. Secular space and secular time are linked to love of the world. But they are transformed into positive factors when they are used as starting points for entry into the truth of eternal life. As Saint Basil the Great observes, this present life is, to all intents and purposes, death. The life that Christ calls people to is different (On Psalm 33, 9). It is the life which is not subject to the deviousness of the world and the disenchantment of death. It is the life which transforms people and places them beyond human capabilities and perspectives. It is the life of the kingdom of God, which is manifested in the Church of Christ and is offered to people here and now.” (George Mantzaridis)

#FatherStephenFreeman #EdithMHumphrey #SarahClarkson #CharlesTaylor #JamesKASmith #GeorgeMantzaridis #FrJosephLucas #PhilipRyken #JonathanPageau #SacramentalLivingMinistries