We Don't Have to Live This Way

About this sermon

“We embrace individualism and are then mystified by how we all became a solitary individuals.” Support the channel by visiting: https://brianholdsworth.ca/help Why does it seem like so many normal, functional young people have no friends? The usual answer is smartphones and social media, and they haven’t helped. But I think the loneliness epidemic points to something deeper. Friendship has always depended on things held in common: shared loves, shared beliefs, shared customs, shared language, and a shared way of life. Modern Western culture has spent generations dismantling those things in the name of individualism, consumer choice, tolerance, and personal autonomy. And now we’re surprised to discover that radically independent individuals are increasingly alone. In this video, I look at the collapse of friendship and community, C.S. Lewis’s understanding of friendship as a shared love, the importance of culture and etiquette, and why traditional Christian communities may possess precisely what our increasingly lonely society has lost. 00:00 The viral video about having zero friends 01:40 The statistics behind the loneliness epidemic 04:03 Why smartphones aren’t the whole explanation 05:04 What C.S. Lewis understood about friendship 06:24 What “community” actually means 07:55 Individualism and the destruction of common ground 08:45 Why common belief produces common culture 09:53 Multiculturalism, language, and social cohesion 12:24 The forgotten importance of etiquette 13:43 Why traditional communities still work 14:28 Christianity be the answer to loneliness? Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/