I’d like to share some ideas that might help in understanding what is happening around religion and faith in our culture. 1 This is not an exact science, which means that what’s at play cannot be grasped in clear black and white terms. Rather, it is about understanding a transition that is taking place between overlapping worldviews, where the new emerges against the background of the old. Because of this admixture of the old and the new, it requires a process of discernment that draws not only on study and reflection, but also on a kind of sensitivity to the culture that is much closer to direct intuition than to scientific observation. It is a matter of being attentive to the pneumatic moment in culture or of being in tune with the times. What I have to say is only a partial view into
the complexity; but it is, I believe, important enough to be worth exploring and reflecting upon for its own sake.