Excerpted Inspirations #109Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz KufsJan 12, 20240 min readUpdated: Feb 10
![In a brilliant article on a recent Fellini film, Gilbert Highet remarks that we are about to enter the post-Christian world. I am no good with chronology, but it seems to me that we have been in the post-Christian world since 1054 when the Eastern and Western worlds split, or maybe even earlier when Constantine made Christianity mandatory instead of dangerous and forbidden. Many people who have rejected the church today have done so because the establishment which calls itself Christian so often behaves in an unchristian manner; because in the name of Christ, we have so often been intolerably cruel to other human beings. Too many priests and ministers have been seduced by the post-Christian world. Within it, however, lies the tiny, almost extinguished flame of the Christian world, kept alive by the often ignored remnant. If I do not feel despair at the state of the world today it is because I have an eager hope that the Christian world is going to be born again -- not a reversion to the first years, but a breaking forth into something new and living and brilliant. [...] Perhaps our age will not produce the great prophet, like Isaiah, that we seek; but I'm not at all sure that we haven't already produced unrecognized prophets of considerable stature. Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (1972), pp. 170-171](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6feacf_0ea27ad8afe94e4ba7c9ba1382e14b86~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_886,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/6feacf_0ea27ad8afe94e4ba7c9ba1382e14b86~mv2.jpg)
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