The Future Faces of Spirit (Ep. 35: Brendan Graham Dempsey) - Reconstructing Religion

What paths lie ahead for religion and spirituality in the 21st Century? How might the insights of modernity and post-modernity impact and inform humanity's ancient wisdom traditions? How are we to enact, together, new spiritual visions – independently, or within our respective traditions – that can respond adequately to the challenges of our times?

RECONSTRUCTING RELIGION: METAMODERNISM AND THE MEANING CRISIS

For Episode 35, Brendan Graham Dempsey reflects on the vertiginous transition between worldviews, from the death of God and the collapse of the mythic worldview, to the postmodern deconstruction of modernism, to the disillusionment now with postmodernism and the pervasive meaning crisis that has gripped so many. He describes his own firsthand experience of the disintegration of a well-insulated, mythic worldview, and then considers what gifts and insights metamodernism might have to help us reconstruct religion, how we might draw from the best of what preceded us, and what possibilities might open through the development of a post-postmodern, generative, open-source mythology.

0:35 What We Need to Do
10:20 First, Correcting a False Dichotomy
13:44 Losing Our (Traditional) Religion
18:45 Grieving the Loss of Naive Traditionalism
22:40 Disillusionment: The Chaos between Worlds
28:25 Insights of Modernity
33:17 Insights of Postmodernity
37:16 Failures of Modernity and Postmodernity
41:25 Integration and Development
43:35 Reconstructing Religion
56:19 Conclusion

Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. He earned his BA in Religious Studies from the University of Vermont and his MA in Religion and the Arts from Yale University. He lives in Wolcott, Vermont.

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[tomwessling]

The Bahai's did this in a way - but went off track with dogma - reverence to their 19th century 'prophets'. So they got stuck in I guess the modernists - but they preach a joining of all great religions.

[DarkMoonDroid]

I've listened to this kind of inquiry for over a decade. At first it sounded like a great idea. But as I studied ancient religions and spiritual traditions, I saw that we can't create a religion intentionally. I mean, we can, but it won't be a religion. It will be what folks nowadays call "a cult". What we really want and need out of religion won't form that way.

I wish I could concentrate well enuf to write out what I would propose, but the chemo is turning me into a blithering idiot.
Gotta go...