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A review by ben_smitty
Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It by David Zahl
3.0
Seculosity is an assessment of the cultural competition surrounding American culture primarily, especially as these forces have been exacerbated by social media. Zahl's book is not an exegesis of these rival liturgies, however. It's more of a general explanation for those who live their lives without realizing that hustle culture is fundamentally changing them into anxious pricks.
I think it's fair for me to claim that Seculosity is essentially You Are What You Love with a Lutheran twist. Zahl seems to suggest that accepting the Gospel will ultimately prove countercultural enough for the believer to set him free from proving his worth via cultural capitalism. This fits in neatly with Luther's view of law vs. grace (intentionally), here defined as fighting to feel "enough" vs. accepting that Jesus has already made you "enough" by His blood. So stop trying so hard.
And though Zahl's prose is fun to read, his ideas are fairly late to the game. The book feels similar to others in the "liturgical revival in evangelicalism" category which picked up in the 2010s. My personal disagreement with Zahl is similar to my own disagreements with Luther; maybe the solution isn't submission but negation, not just acceptance but asceticism. Though then I'd be accused of pushing "law" onto people again.
I think it's fair for me to claim that Seculosity is essentially You Are What You Love with a Lutheran twist. Zahl seems to suggest that accepting the Gospel will ultimately prove countercultural enough for the believer to set him free from proving his worth via cultural capitalism. This fits in neatly with Luther's view of law vs. grace (intentionally), here defined as fighting to feel "enough" vs. accepting that Jesus has already made you "enough" by His blood. So stop trying so hard.
And though Zahl's prose is fun to read, his ideas are fairly late to the game. The book feels similar to others in the "liturgical revival in evangelicalism" category which picked up in the 2010s. My personal disagreement with Zahl is similar to my own disagreements with Luther; maybe the solution isn't submission but negation, not just acceptance but asceticism. Though then I'd be accused of pushing "law" onto people again.