Whenever I visit an old church on vacation, I make a point of looking at all the headstones in the cemetery. I like to imagine how it would have felt to, at the moment of death, know that you would be buried next to family and friends -- and be remembered by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, at least in a small way.
I imagine it would really alter the sense of loyalty one had to a particular church. You wouldn't be quick to abandon your own church to false teaching -- or to go off church shopping for a "younger" church -- if it meant literally abandoning your ancestors in such a visible symbolic sense. Our religious and civic institutions have become disposable, just like other aspects of our economy. When everyone realizes this together, it creates a completely different culture. "No point in investing in anything unless I get something immediate in return" vs "I'm doing this out of loyalty to my ancestors, and with the expectation that my descendants will be loyal to me".
Whenever I visit an old church on vacation, I make a point of looking at all the headstones in the cemetery. I like to imagine how it would have felt to, at the moment of death, know that you would be buried next to family and friends -- and be remembered by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, at least in a small way.
I imagine it would really alter the sense of loyalty one had to a particular church. You wouldn't be quick to abandon your own church to false teaching -- or to go off church shopping for a "younger" church -- if it meant literally abandoning your ancestors in such a visible symbolic sense. Our religious and civic institutions have become disposable, just like other aspects of our economy. When everyone realizes this together, it creates a completely different culture. "No point in investing in anything unless I get something immediate in return" vs "I'm doing this out of loyalty to my ancestors, and with the expectation that my descendants will be loyal to me".
A hundred things have combined to make liquid modernity, eh.