McGilchrist on theological liberalism

     "The Western Church has, in my view, been active in undermining itself. It no longer has the confidence to stick to its values, but instead joins the chorus of voices attributing material answers to spiritual problems. At the same time the liturgical reform movement, as always convinced that religious truths can be literally stated, has largely eroded and in some cases completely destroyed the power of metaphoric language and ritual to convey the numinous. Meanwhile there has been, as expected, a parallel movement towards the possible rehabilitation of religious practices as utility. Thus 15 minutes Zen meditation a day may make you a more effective money broker, or improve your blood pressure, or lower your cholesterol."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 441.  But see p. 316 for his comments on "the improbable doctrine of transubstantiation," which he treats as "the explicit analytical [(i.e. medieval scholastic)] left hemisphere attempt to untangle" the properly metaphorical "is" of the right, and thus does no more than mirror the parallel rejection of metaphor on the part of Protestant literalism (mere representationalism).