Right now, tens of thousands of people are gathered in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for one of the strangest cultural events in America.
For one week, an empty stretch of desert becomes Black Rock City. Massive art installations rise from the dust as people wander through the desert in elaborate costumes, music continues deep into the night, and participants pursue everything from artistic expression and community to spiritual experiences and personal transformation. Eventually, enormous crowds will gather around a towering wooden figure known simply as “the Man” and watch as it is consumed by fire.
To much of the world, Burning Man is simply an eccentric celebration of art, freedom and radical self-expression. But perhaps Burning Man tells us something much deeper about modern Western civilization.
For decades we have been told that humanity is becoming increasingly secular. Traditional religion is supposedly fading because modern people have outgrown ancient beliefs, rituals and ideas about the sacred. Yet look at what is happening in the Nevada desert. Modern man may be abandoning Christianity, but he has certainly not abandoned his search for transcendence.
The Religion Of The Self
Burning Man began modestly in 1986 when a small group gathered on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an eight-foot wooden figure. By 1990, the gathering had migrated to Nevada, eventually becoming the enormous temporary city that exists today.
Burning Man is not officially a religion, nor should it be falsely characterized as one. Yet many of the impulses surrounding it are unmistakably spiritual. There is ritual, sacred-like space, communal experience, fire, symbolism, transformation and a search for something beyond ordinary existence.
At the center of Burning Man’s philosophy is also an idea thoroughly compatible with our modern age: the elevation of the individual self. Two of Burning Man’s famous principles are “Radical Self-expression” and “Radical Self-reliance.”
Contrast that with the message of Christianity. Jesus did not tell His followers to discover themselves, but to deny themselves: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Our civilization increasingly tells us that identity comes from within. We determine who we are, define our own truth and pursue whatever brings fulfillment, until authenticity to ourselves becomes one of the highest virtues.
Scripture points in the opposite direction. Our identity begins with our Creator, and true freedom is found not by enthroning ourselves but by submitting ourselves to Him.
This struggle isn’t remotely new. It reaches all the way back to Genesis, where the serpent’s temptation was ultimately an invitation for humanity to step outside God’s authority and determine good and evil for itself. The setting changes, but the rebellion remains remarkably familiar.
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Ancient Spirituality In Modern Clothing
When Christians hear the word “paganism,” they may picture ancient temples, carved idols and primitive civilizations gathered around fires. But why would pagan spirituality in the 21st century necessarily look like pagan spirituality from thousands of years ago?
Today it might involve electronic music, psychedelic experiences, sexual liberation, environmental spirituality, meditation, technology and elaborate interactive art. The outward appearance changes dramatically while many of the underlying spiritual impulses remain the same.
That makes this year’s Burning Man particularly fascinating.
