Contemporary Churches: a review

What attracted me to getting hold of this book and reading it was the prospectus that it would help '"to apply the insights of contemplative spirituality and spiritual direction to entire faith communities"

For me this is a really of the moment prospectus. Partly because for some time now I've been thinking that we should be discerning the way forward for churches by really listening to the vocations in formation of our members -a sort of corporate guidance exercise. And of course this means that we should be actually living our church lives, for want of a better way of describing it, contemplatively. Part of this is that I have been challenged in the past by the Quaker discernment process as a way of trying to take spiritual accompaniment to the next level which is corporate, congregational discernment. But I have also wanted to take seriously my Charismatic movement roots and the evangelical referencing to Scripture, not to mention taking seriously what we learn (positively and otherwise) from church history about how we do or don't discern good ways forward, or God's ways forward, in relation to our context and cultural milieu. So ... a few implicit expectations on this book; would it be as helpful, insightful and even exciting as I would hope? Was I going to find a book on my wavelength that pushed my thinking forward a bit or even a lot?

Well, yes to varying degrees. One of the unexpected things for me from this book was catching a glimpse of just how rapid and alarming is the decline of USAmerican institutional Christianity. However, this is good for reading in a British context as the stories of dealing with decline and institutional death are helpful. "At a time in Amerecan culture when more peolpe than ever are interested in spiritual practices and young people have a renewed interest in ussues of social justice, institutional religion is proving itself to be ill-equipped to respond." -quite so, it looks similar in Britain too.

In respect of decline and death, I found it particularly helpful to have a case-study of a church's good death and of the institutionally problematic but kingdom-serving resurrection. In relation to that case it was also helpful to have the author's (psychologically well -informed) psycho-spiritual reflection on the tasks ("stages") of grief and how these are important to be honoured in processes of reflection, church direction-setting and pastoral and missional work. It was good to see, too, the complexities of this named and recognised along with a basic strategy for approaching them. For example, "Some people are in denial, some are moving to acceptance; some are angry; others try to bargain for solutions. That is the state of the institutional church today." I particularly liked the way the tasks of grieving were seen also in Jesus' passion; "Even though he saw it coming, even though he spoke about it to his disciples, Jesus continued to wrestle with his fate and bargain for a different future in the garden of Gethsemane." I think that this is a very important permission-given thing to notice and draw into consideration. And a little further on, "Jesus himself worked through the denial, expressing anger at the religious authorities, bargaining in prayer for another way before accepting his fate." There is some useful reflection following that in how we do this corporately.

It was encouraging too to read of approaches to church life where a spiritual-accompaniment approach has been taken. Encouraging because this is what I think I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to. "Council meetings were transformed with the presence of a spiritual director whose function was to call the council together in prayer and reflect back on the process of the meeting from a spiritual perspective. Meetings became times of active discernment marked by the exploration of what it meant to live out the congregation's sense of mission."

And also to my liking, because it named where I've got to in my own reflections is this: "As Christians, it is the teachings of Jesus and the way of life he modeled for us that should be the center (sic) of our lives and not an institution. Churches are places where we gather, learn, share faith, and celebrate our way of life and beliefs. But the institution is not a substitute for the experience of leading a spiritual life which is primarily informed by the teachings of Jesus and the experience of God in our midst." And A few pages later we are helped o see the implications of this kind of approach for leadership: "In this model, the role of leadership is to equip people to respond in authentic ways to the stirrings of God's Spirit, to be always open to new possibilities and to use the resources of the church to translate the understanding of one's call into something tangible. To that end, leadership must be committed to ongoing prayer and discernment."

I also found helpful the insight about how communities of faith might approach things in our new spiritual context. "...communities of faith which are primarily spiritual centers don't limit spirituality to a program. Instead, spirituality, the experience of the Divine, the animation of the human spirit by the Divine Spirit, becomes the foundation upon with the church gathers ... the lesson of the sermon is put into practice more directly..." The kind of approach recommended is much like the principle that 'Sanctuary' in Bradford was constructed in the years of the early 2000s. Here there was a clear drive to build collective worship around responses in real time to the issues raised and discussed: acts of forgiveness, signing petitions, planning for actions. The founding insight in that case was seeing liturgy as repentance: a turning of ourselves to follow Christ -which meant embodying as best we could at that moment what it was we were sensing a call to. In both cases this involved "not viewing themselves as the hub or center of life in the community, members of post-modern congregations live out their faith and spiritual practice with others as equal partners to bring positive change in the world." In reading that I caught a resonance of the thinking in Raymond Fung's 'The Isaiah Vision' and Ann Morissey's 'Beyond the Good Samaritan'.

One of the other things I found myself reflecting on in reading this book is how useful the role if interim ministers can be. I think that this book could also be usefully added to interim ministers' reading lists.

Link-Love: 
Rev. Louis F. Kavar Ph.D. Website
Contemporary Churches on Amazon
Rev. Louis F. Kavar Ph.D. on Facebook

Please tag #ContemporaryChurchesSpeakeasy

Disclaimer: yes I got my e-copy of this book as a freebie in return for a promise to write a review of it. But that's as far as the deal went: I am not obliged to post a favourable review or to pull any punches. But I tend to be a generous sort and my way of appreciating a book is usually to find things that I have enjoyed thinking about or at least that have provoked my thinking further. Only after some thinking do I tend to get negatively critical. 

The five stages of organisational grief

I read this a few weeks back and saved it in Catch to read again later and perhaps blog about. Well, decided to go a head on the blogging front, mainly because I think that my interest in the way it may transfer to the churches in the West is still intriguing and perhaps insightful. In making the connection, I was minded of Mike Riddell's book a few years back
Threshold of the Future which pretty much started with the idea that the church in the West is undergoing the bereavement of Christendom. That's the idea that has stuck with me and so revisiting it through the prism of how political parties react who suffer major electoral setbacks such that they have to question their received wisdom, strategy and messages. In this article the reflection frame is the five stages of grief.

Caveat: the five stages of grief needs nuancing and careful handling; not applying like a rule to human lives so that it becomes a straight-jacket of emotional tyranny. So this is for musing and consideration only; it's not a fate or a procrustean bed.

The article was published shortly after Obama's re-election Now Republicans face the five stages of political grief | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian, and the author characterises the reactions of Republicans:

Think of it as the political equivalent of the five stages of grief. The ones that trigger the deepest anguish are the serial defeats and the beatings you didn't expect.

So he goes through the stages reading the evidence through the interpretive grid of the stages.

the first stage is denial. ... embodied by the electrifying sight of former Bush guru turned Fox pundit Karl Rove scolding Fox's own number-crunchers for calling the election for Barack Obama, desperately pretending two plus two did not, in fact, equal four.

Yes and we the churches of the West do similar things: we cling to the census returns showing high -but still declining- figures of at least nominal Christians (see here for a bit more info),  and we carry on trying to do church as if they were still holding hundreds rather than dozens.

Next comes anger, often manifested in lashing out and blaming others. ... When Candy Crowley – the CNN anchor who had moderated the second TV debate, arbitrating at one crucial point in Obama's favour – appeared on the giant TV screens, the Republicans in their suits and evening dresses began booing loudly. "It's your fault!" they howled,

I think that this is what a lot of all that stuff with Christian groups protesting at perceived sleights and imagining that they are being treated less favourably than others: it's anger borne of a sense of loss of a previous influence and standing and power.

The third stage of grief is said to be bargaining, accepting that something has to change but seeking to delay or dilute what needs to be done ...  In the current Republican case, you can hear it in the time-honoured admission that "we didn't get our message across" or "there is a perception problem". The party agrees to tweak appearances, but remains unwilling to undertake deep reform.

I think this is probably where a lot of the churches in GB are at the moment: if only we update our worship, say things in a relevant way, use modern media ... you get the picture. Please note that 'deep reform' in this case doesn't mean changing the basic values or core identity, but it does mean recognising that there may be things that have become quite dear to us which are barriers to us reaching out and connecting beyond our own communities.

Friedland rushes the last two stages:

After depression – common after a string of losses, such as the five defeats in the popular vote the Republicans have suffered in the last six presidential elections – comes acceptance. In politics, that usually means a recognition that the country you seek to lead has changed and that, therefore, you have to change with it, no matter how painful that process will be.

Depression? Yes, that's around. I know I have and do experience this stage (nb, one of the crits of the 5 stages is the observation that, in reality, people seem to re-visit 'previous' stages and go at different speeds in different bits of their lives through the process). To be fair, depression is a kind of acceptance where the loss is still keenly felt.

I hadn't realised that I had become so invested in some of the 'advantages' of Christendom until I found myself depressed about their ebb. I was a bit bemused because I recalled praying (way back when I was a newish Christian full of the realisation that many people had the label 'Christian' but didn't understand the importance of the cross and hadn't had an experience of inviting Christ into their lives) that the 'nominals' would stop thinking of themselves as Christian so it would be clearer what being a Christian is and they wouldn't have a false assurance. Well, I kind of feel that that prayer was prescient and now it seems to be in process of being 'answered' (I don't actually think it is being, btw, because I don't think that my asking it was necessarily either right or actually a 'causal' factor), I wasn't sure that it was so good a thing.

Not necessarily good because I think that maybe there are a number of those 'nominals' who actually do  'have a faith' but whom the way we have done church has left cold. I'm also more aware now of how the Christian cultural legacy has helped evangelism. Of course, there is still a dimension of the legacy of Christendom that it would be good not to have and which corresponds to the intent of my erstwhile prayer. That legacy is the sense that people think they know what is 'Christian' and reject it. The problem being that when one investigates, it becomes plain that they don't understand a real Christian faith at all and have rejected a cartoon. The problem is that a post-Christendom society has a lot of this around. It'd be better if we could re-pristinate society with regard to Christianity, but we can't. Not to mention that we continue to score own goals in relation to this: we keep apparently fulfilling those negative stereotypes.

And what would acceptance look like? I think it would have a lot less nostalgia about it. It would be more focused on disciple-making and intentional Christian-formation, it would be strategically counter-cultural rather than narrowly moralistic.

We're not collectively there yet, and those who are (often in contexts like emergent churches) suffer the denial-anger reactions or depressive cynical responses. It's the work of generations, probably.

Of course the other thing to notice about this is that way that I've tended to describe individuals still, rather than institutions. I guess the question is how the way that groups of people sharing grief reactions  scales up within a collection of smaller institutions and organisations interacting when all are at various stages: how does the overall 'feel' change out of those component dynamics?

Targum :: Romans 1.16-32

Brian Walsh wrote:
"Some months ago I posted a targum on Romans 1.1-25 that received a fair bit of attention. That piece was also criticized at another site because I somehow didn’t have the “courage” to continue my expansion on Romans 1 beyond verse 25 and deal with the thorny verses supposedly about homosexuality. This morning I expanded that earlier targum, only picking it up at verse 16 and then running with it until the end of the chapter."Targum :: Romans 1.16-32 (take two) � Empire Remixed. He makes the text available as a pdf. I tend to find that a bit tiresome but it is worth looking at, so I have taken the liberty of repo-ing it here. If I've done wrong, Brian, I'll take it down, but I've assumed that it is in the public domain ...

Romans 1.16-32 Targum (take two)
by Brian Walsh
Brothers and sisters, as we listen in on St. Paul addressing folks at the very heart
of the Roman empire, I want to put my cards on the table this morning.
I want to tell you, that...
In the face of the collapse of the dominant worldview of the modern West,
I’m ashamed when consumerism and greed is embraced
in the name of a false Christian gospel of affluence.
In the face of the crisis of capitalism,
I’m ashamed when Christians embrace free enterprise as God’s own
choice for an economy.
In the face of thousands dieing daily of malnutrition,
billions living in desperate poverty,
and the world on the precipice of irreparable ecological despoliation,
I’m ashamed that good Christian folks will appeal to “Romans one”
to legitimate homophobic gay and lesbian bashing.
These are, I submit, shameful gospels.
They leave me defeated, embarrassed and angry.
But I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This gospel is nothing less than the power of God for salvation.
A power that blows apart the empire,
dethroning its pretentious claims,
unveiling its lies for what they are.
Why am I not ashamed of this gospel?
Because through its power, life is put to rights.
Why am I not ashamed of the gospel?
Because in it we meet a justice achieved not through imperial violence,
but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,
who bore such violence
on an imperial cross.
Why am I not ashamed of the gospel?
Because such shame will paralyze me,
render me unable to heed the call to faithfulness
and so disempower me that I will not have the energy to live for justice.
Righteousness, justice, faithfulness – all in the shadow of empire.
This is the fruit of the gospel

that we long to proclaim and engender
in this Wine Before Breakfast community.
So let’s be clear about what is going on these days.
Let’s not engage in cover up with talk of market corrections,
or market misbehaviour.
Let’s not try to salvage this leaky ship of fools
with billions of dollars of tax payers’ money.
No, my friends, that’s way too cheap, and doesn’t begin to address the problem.
What’s going on in the present economic crisis
is nothing less than the wrath of God
being revealed against all ungodliness,
all injustice, all greed, all false gospels
and the distorted lives they produce.
But an empire of deceit,
an economy of lies,
is no surprise when we have become so adept
at suppressing the truth of God that is plain
from the very nature of creation.
What part of the finite and gift character of creation didn’t they get
when they adopted an ideology of infinite greed,
insatiable consumption
and an ever expanding and ever growing economy?
Doesn’t the very nature of creation
bear witness to a God of abundance rooted in justice?
Doesn’t the very goodness of creation
bear witness to the generosity of this God?
Doesn’t the very place of humanity in the order of things
teach us that are called to image the Creator
through loving and careful stewardship?
So here’s the sad truth, my friends:
this empire of greed,
this narrative of economic growth,
this whole house of cards is based on lies and deception.
This whole culture of consumption,
this whole empire of money,
is based on self-willed ignorance.
Creation proclaims a better way
because creation bears witness to a God of grace.
But we have suppressed this truth,
engaged in denial and cover-up.

Refusing to live a life of gratitude,
refusing to live a life of thanks to the God
who called forth such a rich creation,
refusing to honour this Creator God,
and embracing a culture of entitlement and ingratitude,
we abandoned the God of light and embraced the dark.
And in all of our complex theories
in all of our sophisticated and incomprehensible economic talk,
we became futile in our thinking
we ended up with lots of talk but no sense,
theories that are empty,
vanity of vanities.
And we thought that we were so wise,
we thought that we had it all figured out,
but the joke has been on us,
and it is now clear that we have been fools.
You see, that’s what happens when you get in bed with idols.
That’s what happens when you don’t image God in faithful justice,
but embrace graven images,
cheap imitations,
that look so good,
look so powerful,
but will always fail you,
will always come up short
because they are impotent.
Empty idols, empty minds.
Dumb idols, lives of foolishness.
Betrayal and disappointment.
Fear and terror.
Embrace the idol of economism,
believe its false promise of abundance,
allow your lives to be shaped by the greed of this idol,
and you will reap the bankruptcy of that false faith,
you’ll be “hooked on avarice”
you’ll be caught up in an “idolatry of ideology,”
and your life will be reshaped in the image of that pitiful idol.
Embrace the idol of economism,
believe its false promise of wealth and power,
and you will find yourself facing “No Options.”
You will find your life constricted and bound,

stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of,
and the economic freedom that you dreamed of will awaken to the reality
of lost value,
international terrorism
and a despoiled planet.
And God says, “to hell with you.”
And God says, “make your bed and lie in it.”
And God says, “go ahead and screw your idols”
And God says, “I’ll let those idols screw you right back.”
My friends, we are not facing an economic crisis.
We are facing a spiritual crisis.
The issue isn’t fundamentally the markets.
The issue is idolatry at the very root and foundation of our society,
at the very root and foundation of our very way of life,
at the very root and foundation of our very souls.
We are called to live in the truth,
we are called to embody truth in our lives,
but we have traded in the truth for a lie.
Our imaginations have been taken captive,
we can hardly dream of what life outside the grip of idolatry
would look like;
we can scarcely imagine a life that isn’t enslaved to consumption;
we can’t even begin to get our heads around justice and righteousness;
generosity and contentment are alien to us,
and an economics of enough is impossible to conceive,
let alone live.
And it is all so empty,
it is all so foolish,
it is all so senseless.
We have got into bed with idols,
and not known the Lord.
We have bent the knee to idolatry
and not worshipped the Creator
who is blessed forever. (Amen.)
Having embraced an insatiable idolatry of greed,
having been taken captive by an idolatry of consumption,
our desires are perverted,
our passions run wild,
and we are lost in a sexual fantasy land that is deathly.
Our young women package themselves as sexual products,

ready for consumption.
Our young men knotch up their sexual conquests,
egocentric proof of their prowess.
Our sexuality is divorced from covenantal intimacy
and reduced to cheap carnal entertainment.
But this is not why God created us as sexual beings.
All of this is a betrayal of who we are called to be.
The image of God is perverted by such sexual idolatry.
And remember, idols are insatiable.
They always require sacrifice and they are never satisfied.
And they have a terrible appetite for children.
There is no idolatry apart from child sacrifice.
This is the devastating truth of our culture.
Just as the economy will require the sacrifice of all of creation
to fuel its ever-expanding growth,
so will an insatiable sexual idolatry require the sexual sacrifice of children.
This is a predatory culture,
and children are the most vulnerable victims.
This is the bitter fruit of idolatry.
This is the sexuality of empire.
So it is no surprise that the God who gives us up to insatiable lust,
and who gives us up to perverted desire,
also gives us up to a debased vision of life,
a mind of debauchery.
That’s what happens when you refuse to know God
because you are too busy screwing with idols!
But make no mistake!
Such idolatrous copulation bears the bad fruit
of a deeply distorted life,
full of evil longing,
greed, hatred,
envy, death,
breaking community and destroying families,
arrogance, insolent disrespect,
foolishness, infidelity,
and a ruthlessness that is borne of a heart
that has turned its back on love.
All of this ...

this imagination,
this worldview,
this cultural practice,
this way of life,
... all of this is in service of a culture of death.
So don’t be surprised if this culture dies,
and don’t be surprised that this way of life will kill you,
even as you applaud and cheer everyone who lives this way.
And let’s be clear.
I’m not talking about “them”
somehow in contrast to “us.”
No my friends, we’re in this shit together.
I’m talking about me.
I’m talking about you.

Worldview shift among science students

In a rather nice article:Is “Nonreductive Physicalism” an Oxymoron? :: Nancey Murphy :: Global Spiral a rather interesting observation a propos of the main topic caught my eye: "When I first began teaching, my students tended to be innate reductionists. That is, when I presented them with the model of the hierarchy of the sciences, and a corresponding hierarchy of complex systems, I never had to explain why reductionists held the position they did. Within an interval of about fifteen years, though, I’ve found that many students are innate anti-reductionists; thus it has become important to be able to explain why causal reductionism seems necessarily true to so many. There is a worldview change going on now, and reductionism has been one of the central features of the modern worldview."
So an anecdotal but worthwhile piece of evidence of a cultural shift involving worldview: and note it works away from reductionism.

The Bible is not a metanarrative

I seem to spend a lot of time on the quiet questioning fellow Christians about the assertion that Scripture is a metanarrative. I've tended to ask if that's so: why do the same stories get told differently? How come there are clear culturally-different takes on things? Why is it that we can't come to agreed Christian views about various things on the basis of Scripture? So, I was happy to discove that I'm not a voice in the wilderness. Here's the article I found comfort in: THEOOZE - Articles: Viewing Article: And here's a quote to try to persuade you to read it. "In light of this explanation of meta-narratives, does the Bible fit into such a category? Is the Bible a meta-narrative in the modern sense? The answer is clearly, no. As was discussed earlier, the New Testament church is not part of a meta-narrative, but is a movement of resistance against such. The Roman Empire oppressed the early Christians with its power, but through weakness the church endured; and this is the proclamation that we read each time we open the Scriptures. Just as Homer’s Odyssey is a “big story” of proclamation, so also biblical authority is found in the story that is told, not in some form of scientific or universal reason. James K. A. Smith states:

While in modernity science was the emperor who set the rules for what counted as truth and castigated faith as fable, postmodernity has shown us the emperor’s nudity. Thus, we no longer need to apologize for faith—we can be unapologetic in our kerygmatic proclamation of the gospel narrative."

Chaplains: ahead of the Curve?

Brian McLaren makes an interesting observation which chimes with my experience. "I've been noticing more than ever how many chaplains are 'ahead of the curve' in dealing with the 'great emergence' we're part of. Many (not all!) pastors, professors, and denominational officials can stay in their comfortable echo chambers in a way that chaplains can't - whether they're serving in hospitals, prisons, universities, retirement centers, or elsewhere."
One of the perspectives that University chaplains wanted to put over in the CofE report a handful of years back 'Pillars of the Church', was that in terms of Fresh Expressions, we were often already doing the business and that our ministry was exploring territory others tended to follow. In other words, in post-modernity or post-Christendom (or whatever epoch we're in), chaplains are pioneers almost by definition. We are forced to engage with people 'where they are' and to handle their honest opinions of church ministry (they have no need to keep us sweet as we have little institutional clout and we don't do their christenings or stuff). And if we are to help them to expressions of corporate Christian faith, then it has to be 'relevant' for the most part.
interesting question ... - Brian McLaren:

The Duke of Plaza Toro

Gotta say that this pretty much sums up where I'd got to in my thinking about Christian leadership in post-secular late modernity. We need to move from (ie "transition" -as a verb)
"1. lighthouses to rafts (attracting to attaching)
2. diving boards to surfboards (restructuring to reimagining)
3. orchestras to jazz bands (orchestrating to improvising)
4. generals to gardeners (controlling to cultivating)
5. spiders to starfish (retaining to releasing)"
But boy! it's tough sometimes taking a congregation with you: within the referenced article, there's a good example of how the corporate management culture of people can radically affect their approach to 'church'. Reminds me of a former church of mine who have recently advertised for a new vicar, my successor having recently moved on also, and they have put in the advert a reference to my predecessor: clearly they still want the 'successful' command and control approach he instituted. So there's a failure of mine up for view: I failed to convince them that 'the times they are a changing' and a new kind of vision of church is needed, especially at the leadership level. But it's hard to argue against apparent success. It was one of the things that convinced me that I really need to be more involved with pioneering than maintaining.

And in case you are wondering about the title: it's a Gilbert and Sullivan reference: a skit on a general who led from the rear; his bravery in question. I'll leave you to decide on how to apply it -if at all!
Anglican Cell UK:

Why post-secularist might be mindful of Buddhism

When I've led workshop/lectures on post-modern spiritualities, I've quite often cited the rapid growh of Buddhism in the west and the connections it seems to make with 'new age' stuff, and invited students to reflect on what about Buddhism might be attractive to post-secular spiritual seekers. I've not fully named it for myself, even, but I suspect that this quote puts us in the right vicinity to answer the question. "Buddhist-influenced cultures understand adaptive self-deception; they view human cognitions, emotions, and preferences as self-interested illusory constructs that may serve biological goals, but that do not reflect objective reality". I think that these things are being seen from a reflective post-modern mindscape and that are then being seen in Buddhism. Perhaps. This is certainly one area I'd like to be able to research if my new post allows it.
Mindful Hack: Evolutionary psychology :Goodbye cruel US - prof claims EP's future is Asia :

Post Modern Ministry in the 21st Century

Thomas Hohstadt writes engagingly and often lays out the crux of the matter. You may like to ... "Take the following test to confirm where you stand. Select which statement in each group best describes your opinion. Then, at the end of the following five groups, we will discover the world in which you live and whether you are working with or against the Lord of History.

A. The Church will be ready for the future if it retains its vision of progress—if it continually improves what it is already doing.
B. The modern idea of progress is an illusion. The Church can no longer move into the future by simply improving itself.
C. Instead of focusing on the death of old thinking, we need to focus on the birth of a newly empowered and profoundly faithful way of thinking."
There are several other multichoice questions to follow. If you're 'on the ball' you'll probably unerringly pick the 'right' answers.!!!
Post Modern Christianity: The Future of the Church and Post Modern Ministry in the 21st Century:

Post Romantic?

maggi dawnMAggi, to avoid more hate-comments is having a comment holiday on her blog; so I'm reflecting here on this post.

In it she says: "we compared the Romantic setting to the postmodern,"
Been thinking about that a bit since we spoke briefly at GreenBelt. I realised I knew a bit more than I knew in that I have studied bits in foreign languages [French mainly]. I was putting this together with the observation that a lot of contemporary cultural artefacts [ie film, TV etc] seem to exalt in something rather like bits in Falubert's Madame Bovary where Flaubert is both using a romantic style and then -as if he can't quite take it seriously- puts in some 'back down to earth' details. Very resonant with what I keep noticing in contemporary culture of late. So While I think that it is true that there is a good deal of Romantic reprise in pomo, I wonder whether we are seeing something else happening; the reprise to the post-Romantic reaction?

Deserves some further thought, not least to gather some instantiations of this 'post-Romantic' come-down.