Without warning.
Just after midnight, on the morning of December 26, 2004, one hundred miles off the coast of Sumatra and eighteen miles below the ocean floor, two tectonic plates abruptly shifted.
The Indian plate, which had been pushing up against the Burma plate—most likely for centuries, accumulating stress— slid under the Burma plate, thrusting the Burma plate upward.
(Still with me?)
This movement released the equivalent of 1,000,000,000 tons of TNT exploding. By comparison, both atomic bombs released in World War II were a but .0003% of that total.
So, BIG. Unimaginably massive. Resulting in a 9.2 on the Richter Scale. (Unlike the Olympics, high numbers in earthquakes are NOT good.)
100 Foot Waves
The release of the energy created a tsunami that spread throughout the Indian Ocean, with waves reaching one hundred feet and killing almost a quarter of a million people—virtually none of whom had any idea that a tsunami was coming.
Tectonic plates are constantly in motion. If I look out my window, I can see the Taconic Mountains. Four hundred million years ago, a seismic event, plates shifting, brought them into being.
Fortunately (for us), huge seismic events aren’t an everyday occurrence. However, seismic activity is constant. The North Atlantic plate on which I, and presumably you, are situated moves about an inch a year. It’s unnoticeable.
Every 500 Years.
Phyllis Tickle, in her book The Great Emergence, outlines seismic events in Christianity. They track, if not precisely then certainty closely, to 500-year intervals.
The first coincides with the fall of Rome and the reforms of Pope Gregory I, circa 6th century
The second, roughly 500 years later, is the schism between the Western church and the Eastern church.
The third, the one most recognizable to those of us in the 21st century, is the Reformation. When Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, it was an earthquake moment.
We are now, almost exactly, 500 years from that event. Should we be nervous?
I think the answer is yes, but exactly what should we be nervous about?
Do NOT pick up the fish.
But before we get caught up in too many dates and too much history, let us go back to the coastal resort of Banda Aceh in Sumatra on that fateful morning of December 26, 2004.
There, a little after 7:00 a.m. in the morning, a sunny day in paradise, tourists—German, Scandinavian, British, American— were preparing for a day at the beach. Or fishing. Or snorkeling. Then, something strange happened. The water started to recede. Not like low tide, but rather RECEDE. The ocean started going away, further and further. Until it was more than a kilometer from the low tide mark.
Curious, people wandered out into this sandy, new playground. They collected rocks. They picked up fish that were left flopping around when the water receded.
Watch this (20 seconds):
This would be their last acts on this earth.
Minutes later, the white wall a tsunami appeared on the horizon, a wave one hundred feet high and traveling at almost 500 miles per hour.
There was no escape.
The loss of a common story.
The seismic shifts that Phyllis Tickle talks about all have one thing in common: they are precipitated by the loss of a “common story.”
Let’s use the Reformation as an example. Luther asked: Could you buy your way out of purgatory? Is the Pope (and not the Bible) the final authority for Christians? Do you need good works to be saved?
When a critical mass of people fell into the “no” category on those questions, those in the “yes” column had a serious problem on their hands. We have a name for that, now: Protestantism.
Today.
There are two tectonic plates pushing up against each other, and they have been for some time now:
One is secularism/science and the other is religion/theism.
There is no common story between the two; in fact they are quite incompatible. They are butting up against each other. Worse, they are about the nature and existence of God—literally of how the universe operates.
There could not be more of a division.
(Notice that I have not included “spirituality” here. I think spirituality is alive and well, if a bit scattered and confused, presently.)
God made Trump? (This is a a real ad.)
Watch this (37 seconds) :
Then read this quote:
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"
Sinclair Lewis (did not say this, but he came close.)
The recent hardening of the religion/theism plate is evident in Christian nationalism. Surprisingly, Christian nationalism has almost no correlation to church going or, for that matter, Christianity. But it does have a lot to do with religion as an identity.
I am not entirely sure where the pushback is coming form, where the support for the secularism/science plate is. I suspect a good deal of it resides in Gen Z, whose distrust of institutions extends deeply into organized religion.
According to Gallup, among Gen Z, trust in science, in aggregate (Democrats, Republicans, Independents), hovers over 70%. The Supreme Court falls below 20%. Percentages on religion are, likely, dismally lower.
So, the plates haven’t shifted yet; but the pressure is certainly building.
And yes, of course, there’s elephants.
There is a report from the U.S. Geological Survey that elephants in Sri Lanka, during the 2004 Tsunami, moved to higher ground before the event. Most likely, this was their ability to pick up audio at a frequency unavailable to humans. Earthquake is 1-10 Hz, well below what humans can hear.
What do we do?
Well, before I answer that, a question: do I think the plates will shift soon?
Yes, I do.
Imminently? Jump ball on that.
As a reminder: the Reformation had wide-ranging political, as well as social, ramifications. Protestantism and Catholicism, in which duchies, leagues and proto-nations took sides, resulted in warfare, on and off for almost one hundred years.
So what do we do?
First, DO NOT PICK UP THE FISH.
There may be a lull, but this is no time to be wandering around admiring the scenery.
Community. Ironically, that is what the collapse of Christianity has affected the most. Churches had been gatekeepers of community.
Building community in preparation for the tsunami may be the best thing we can do.
For my part, I have continued preaching in small dying churches (perhaps long after my expiration date) about the importance of community. My wife, Kerry, has become inextricably tied to many aspects of our little town out here, creating a network of interlocking neighbors.
This is the higher ground, I believe.
And we need to know where the higher ground exists. Before the tsunami.
Music.
There is something very interesting going on in adult contemporary music.
Playlists on Spotify are popping up with the words “relaxing",” “chill,” “de-stress,” “unwind.” They are populated by soothing music.
This is, I think, just one more harbinger. The calm before the storm.
Here is a piece I did a few months ago. Within a few days, it had more than 50,000 plays.
In the know:
Who I’ve been started following on Threads (since leaving the slime bath of X):
Thank you for reading! Apologies in advance for typos. (I am a dyslexic proofreader!)
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