A Christian Society?

So often we hear people, particularly religious people, speak of our nation as a "Christian Society." Of course, I've never heard one of these folks actually define what that means. To be fair, I suppose it's not a particularly easy thing to define. 

For example, is a Christian society simply a society in which a majority of its citizens call themselves Christians? In the United States this was certainly the case for most of its history, although I'm not sure it remains so today. Anyway, just because a citizenry calls itself Christian, doesn't mean it believes and lives the Christian faith. Such contradictions are apparent with individuals, so why not with nations as well?

Or perhaps a Christian society means the nation is governed by what we consider to be Christian principles; that is, principles based on the Gospel, the teachings of Jesus Christ. Well, if we actually examine the policies and laws of our current government at local, state, and federal levels, the presence of Gospel values seems to be rather rare. Not only are the Ten Commandments increasingly ignored, but the Beatitudes? Well...they're considered irrelevant, certainly nothing on which to base legislation.

These thoughts popped into my aging brain the other day as I re-read the Gospel according to Mark for an upcoming Bible Study session. Mark, who likely wrote the Gospel while in Rome, must have experienced first-hand the persecutions instituted by Emperor Nero. He and the Christians in Rome, who lived under the Empire's totalitarianism and the personal tyranny of Nero, suffered from a level of persecution probably not seen again until the 20th century. I suspect many of these early Roman Christians hoped for a day when the empire might actually be motivated by Christianity. 

Today we have a world in which Christianity is by far the most persecuted religion in the world, By some estimates Christians are actively persecuted in over 160 countries. And I expect this doesn't count the more subtle denigration, social exclusion, and media attacks of Christians increasingly common in the countries like our own.

True Christianity, of course, cannot abide any form of totalitarianism, an ideology  which demands complete control of all aspects of human life by the state. Here in the good ol' USA, a nation populated by those who have historically prided themselves on their love of freedom from all forms of tyranny, we are witnessing a movement toward a form of authoritarianism wielded by those who have forgotten that "we the people" are sovereign. Constitutional rights -- rights endowed by our Creator -- are considered expendable when national crises arise and push those who represent the people to the limits of their authority and capability. And so, they try to exceed both and assume essentially unlimited powers. Although freedom, once lost, is hard to regain, far too many citizens today don't seem to care. 

Some wise sage, I can't recall who, once said that when we give up our freedom we soon forget its value. Even those who regain it often find freedom too much of a challenge and let it slip away once again bit by bit. And those whom we empower? Although they publicly express a loathing of totalitarianism, they privately admit much admiration for its supposed efficiency. I guess it's just the way of the world, really nothing new, simply a symptom of a fallen, sinful people.

Last evening I turned to a volume I hadn't read in a dozen years and was struck by the wisdom of the author. The book was published in the UK in 1940. This was a  time when Great Britain was at war with Hitler's Germany and yet was also aware of the threat posed by another totalitarian state, the Soviet Union. What follows are a few pertinent passages I think worthy of sharing.

"To speak of ourselves as a Christian Society, in contrast to that of Germany and Russia, is an abuse of terms. We mean only that we have a society in which no one is penalized for the formal profession Christianity; but we conceal from ourselves the unpleasant knowledge of the real values by which we live."

Today, sadly, many in both the UK and the USA, are "penalized" for their profession of faith, especially by the technocrats who run social media, which has become perhaps our primary means of interpersonal communication. 

The author went on to write: 

"...a society has ceased to be Christian when religious practices have been abandoned, when behavior ceases to be regulated by reference to Christian principle, and when in effect prosperity in this world for the individual or for the group has become the sole conscious aim."

The author, speaking of the UK of 1940, asks if his society is still Christian simply because it had not yet become something else. He seems to believe that, yes it is, because it wasn't completely pagan. I suppose 80 years ago he was correct. Although I would disagree with his use of the word "pagan" when really we are faced with something quite different from traditional paganism. The growing tendency, at least today in the United States, is to become a-religious, which is certainly not a pagan trait. I suppose this, though, is just a matter of semantics.

The author then turns to one of my heroes, Christopher Dawson, who wrote that non-dictatorial states stand not for traditional liberalism but rather for democracy. Dawson continues "to foretell the advent in these States of a kind of totalitarian democracy." To many this would seem a contradiction, but it's not. Democracy, unchecked by constitutional limitations, inevitably becomes a dictatorship of the majority, often an emerging majority, in which minorities -- for example, Christians -- suffer persecution. 

We then read the following, which should give us pause today as we witness the rapid deterioration of our constitutional rights:

"By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on to which the alternative is hopeless apathy, Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos."

As all of this happens, as Liberalism brings about its own destruction, we still "insist upon the preserves of 'private life' in which each man may obey his own convictions of follow his own whim: while imperceptibly this domain of 'private life' becomes smaller and smaller, and may eventually disappear altogether."

Where does this most easily happen? According to the author materialism is both a symptom and a cause.

"The more highly industrialized the country, the more easily a materialistic philosophy will flourish in it, and the more deadly that philosophy will be...And the tendency of unlimited industrialization is to create bodies of men and women -- of all classes -- detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion: in other words, a mob. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined"

And so, today many of the institutions that define our society have left neutrality behind and become openly anti-Christian. Should this trend continue, and I can think of no strictly human effort that will stop it or slow it down, eventually Christianity and Christians will be considered and treated as enemies of the state. In our author's words, the course for the Christian then becomes "very much harder, but it is simpler."

As you can see, even from the few passages I have quoted, the author was prescient in his understanding of where Western society was headed 80 years ago, and where it is today. The essay, written by the poet, T. S. Eliot, is included in the book, "Christianity and Culture." It's one of those books I turn to every decade or so just to remind me that God is in charge and that, without His guidance, humanity will make a mess of pretty much everything. I addressed only a few of Eliot's thoughts, those that set the stage for his major thesis. Read the book. You'll enjoy it. 

Political Correctness

Among modern man's more puzzling traits is his seeming unwillingness to name that which is trying to destroy him. It's a particularly dangerous trait since it even goes so far as to disguise its own name. We are urged to call it "political correctness" which has both an innocent and positive ring to it. But political correctness really has little to do with true politics, and because it is inherently deceiving, it is far from correct. In truth it is nothing but a lie. 

I've always believed that all lies have their origin with Satan and his flunkies. He is, after all, the father of lies, as Jesus reminded those who refused to accept Him:

"You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies" [Jn 8:44].

How many today accept these words of Jesus? How many accept that Satan even exists? I'm reminded of that line from the movie, The Usual Suspects, when Kevin Spacey's character Verbal says: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist." This revelation didn't originate in Hollywood, but is actually found in the book of Revelation:

"The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it" [Rev 12:9].

Yes, he "who deceived the whole world" continues to deceive, and has many willing to help him. The idea of political correctness, indeed even the actual term, was a clever semantic innovation by Stalinists in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Its purpose, then and now, is to bully and/or brainwash the public in order to squash debate on any subject that might undermine the state's ideological foundation. For the communist this includes virtually every subject imaginable, from art to science, from architecture to engineering, from philosophy to politics, and, yes, even religion. We don't call them totalitarians for nothing. 

Because atheism is among the basic tenets of communist ideology, that original political correctness and its modern descendants strive to eliminate all things religious from the public square. Christian values are particularly troublesome to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because of Christianity's embrace of freedom, the freedom of the individual to choose the good. This, of course, runs afoul of the state's desire to control every aspect of the citizen's life. 

In a totalitarian state political correctness can be enforced rather easily: the government need only exert its extensive state power through education, forced re-education, imprisonment, or even execution. But in a constitutional republic like the United States, the application of political correctness demands a more subtle approach. By flooding the educational establishment with ideological fellow travelers, the state can control the thinking of future generations. Other tactics include publicly accusing violators of being homophobic, racist, sexist, or any other convenient "ist" that connotes hatred. Once applied by the elites and their allies in the media, these labels tend to stick, and go on to ruin reputations and remove the targets and their ideas from the public discourse.

Progressives also target constitutional protections, particularly those supported by our Bill of Rights. They ridicule the Constitution as another old document, or as President Obama said in his 2017 farewell address, "It's really just a piece of parchment" and presumably no longer applicable to the lives of modern Americans. For progressives it must instead become a "living document," one demanding constant change so it can reflect our society's evolving norms. I also recall when Barack Obama echoed this interpretation by stating, "The Constitution is a living document; no strict constructionism." Such thinking, of course, makes the Constitution as written by our founders irrelevant.

Many see political correctness as essentially harmless, but I suggest it becomes truly dangerous when those who exercise state power adopt it as their governing attitude.  Just look at the record of the police in the U.K. In the 12 months ending in March 2008, the police in the U.K. made 1.5 million arrests, while nine years later, in the 12 months ending in March 2017, they made only 780,000 arrests. Now this might lead one to believe that this almost 50% decrease in arrests resulted from a corresponding decrease in crime. But this assumption would be wrong...very, very wrong. Although arrests were down by 48%, crime increased drastically. In just the past year violent crime in the U.K. increased by almost 20%, rape by 22%, knifings by 26%, and in a nation where gun ownership is almost non-existent, gun crime increased by 27%. Similar increases were reported for both burglary and robbery.

Why so few arrests in the face of so much crime? The answer is simple. Instead of solving real crimes, the police have focused on "hate incidents" and "malicious communications." In London, which by the way is now more dangerous than New York City, arrests for making offensive online comments rose 53%. And so freedom of speech, once a cherished right among the British, gets crushed by political correctness...and so do peoples lives.

St. Michael, protect us...from ourselves.

Brexit, European Unity, and Culture

Brexit Vote: UK will leave the EU

 In a referendum on June 23 of this year, a majority of the people of the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) voted to leave the European Union. Voter turnout for the referendum, popularly called "Brexit" (or British Exit), was high -- over 72% -- with approximately 52% of voters opting to leave. 

Although it's always dangerous to ascribe motives to voters, those in favor of leaving the EU seemed to believe that British sovereignty was at stake. They expressed concerns that non-elected EU bureaucrats were making and enforcing regulations affecting almost every aspect of people's lives, and that such decisions should be made by the people themselves. For them, membership in the EU is costly, intrusive, undemocratic, authoritarian; in other words, decisions affecting the UK should be made by the UK, not by unrestrained bureaucrats in Brussels. Some were also motivated by a desire to regain control over the nation's borders. Immigration, they believe, is out of control and causing unwanted changes to the nation's long-established culture. And others, looking to the future, saw no mechanism in place to limit the expanding power of the EU. They feared an EU transformation from an authoritarian bureaucracy to a totalitarian oligarchy.

Although I'm not British, I'll admit to siding with those UK voters who favored leaving the EU. I understand and in general agree with their reasons for voting as they did. After all, we Americans can certainly sympathize with British rejection of a foreign power who subjects them to "taxation without representation." 

Perhaps more importantly, I believe that a people, united by a common culture, has the right to self-determination, especially when it comes to accepting changes to that culture. I might well, however, differ with many of the UK's voters because I probably view the culture more broadly than they. I am not, therefore, a nationalist, and actually abhor nationalism because it tends to assume the nation state is the source of unity and ignores the unifying role of the broader culture, in this instance, the broader, and deeper, European culture.

For this reason, despite favoring an exit vote, I don't oppose the concept of a united Europe. The problem with the European Union as it currently exists relates to its self-awareness. Those who hold power in the EU don't understand the very source of the unity they extol. The EU seems to believe that European unity will result from economic and political integration. In other words, once all these former nation-states have the same currency and once their national and local governments become superfluous and are superseded by a united European government, the desired unity will result. Unfortunately, this kind of unity, based solely on economic and political ties, is doomed to failure. And I expect the decision by the people of the United Kingdom to be only the first of many similar decisions.

Charlemagne: Europe United in Faith

No common currency can unite a people. No unified government, no political system, can supplant the cultural unity that is at the heart of a people's identity. Unless, of course, a people loses all sense of cultural identity, something that will happen when the culture breaks down. Such a breakdown will occur when the people turn away from the very thing that formed their culture. For at the core of a culture is the cult, its religious foundation. European culture was formed over a period of centuries by men who did not rely solely on themselves or their own efforts. They relied on, they put their faith and trust in something far greater than the society or civilization of which they were a part. They relied on that which is above them, on the supernatural. They could say in faith: Diem hominis non desideravi -- I have not desired the day of man. They, instead, looked forward to the Day of God when all would be resolved, when God's plan for humanity would be fulfilled. But for many today, the day of man is the only hoped-for end. They have severed their cultural (religious) ties to the past and placed a near impassable barrier between them and those who formed the culture that formed today's Europeans. The barrier is a spiritual one and blinds them to their cultural ties to those who preceded them.

Sadly, the EU has also ignored these cultural ties. Its leadership has fallen prey to a kind of temporal bias which judges the past by current standards. Because EU leadership and bureaucrats disregard the role of religion, specifically Christianity, in the life and culture of today's Europe, they assume it had little or no role in the formation of European culture -- hence its omission from the once-proposed EU constitution. And because they ignore Europe's binding cultural roots, I believe the EU as it exists today will not last. Neither am I very optimistic about the future of Europe's nation states unless they experience a renewal of religious -- that is, Christian -- faith, unless they return in humility to their cultural roots. 

Before we dismiss this as improbable, if not impossible, we should recall that "with God all things are possible" and that we see the future only dimly. Jesus Christ is the Lord of History and can act in surprising ways through many unforeseen events. And we Americans, with our deep cultural ties to our European brothers and sisters, must hold fast to the faith that formed us as well.

Yes, indeed, we live in interesting times.

Pope Benedict and Religious Freedom

During his visit to the UK, Pope Benedict XVI met with representatives of other major religions, including Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In his address one of his key points was his affirmation of religious freedom. Although he didn't directly mention the persecution of Christians by Muslim and Hindu extremists in many parts of the world, he did ask that people of all faiths be allowed to worship freely and to convert to another faith. He pleads for reciprocity and mutual respect:

"Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has placed special emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation with the followers of other religions. In order to be fruitful, this requires reciprocity on the part of all partners in dialogue and the followers of other religions. I am thinking in particular of situations in some parts of the world, where cooperation and dialogue between religions calls for mutual respect, the freedom to practice one’s religion and to engage in acts of public worship, and the freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution, even after conversion from one religion to another. Once such a respect and openness has been established, peoples of all religions will work together effectively for peace and mutual understanding, and so give a convincing witness before the world."

The below video provides a brief overview of the Holy Father's comments.

You can read Pope Benedict's entire address here.

Pray for persecuted Christians.

Persecution of Christians in...the UK??

We've all read or heard about the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. I've written about it here on numerous occasions. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, even Indonesia have either directly participated in such persecution or have turned a blind eye to attacks on Christians living in these nations. Indeed, in some of these countries, apostasy -- i.e., converting to any other faith from Islam -- merits the death penalty in accordance with their interpretations of Shari'a Law.

It seems, though, that such persecution is not restricted to Muslim-majority countries. An acquaintance recently directed me to a documentary produced by the UK's Channel 4 that focuses on persecution in the UK of former Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Admittedly it is non-governmental persecution, but the very fact that some Muslims feel free to openly participate in it is more than a little troubling.

The YouTube version of the documentary includes just the first of four parts. I was unable to locate the remaining three parts, so if you can find them on YouTube or obtain them from another source, please let me know. Part One is about 10 minutes long, but worth viewing.

It certainly causes one to ponder the possible results of allowing Shari'a Law to be implemented in any form in a Western democracy such as the United States. Putting aside its handling of apostasy and conversions, Shari'a Law's treatment of women should in itself be enough to bar it completely from our legal system. I say this because there is a concerted effort on the part of many influential Muslims to allow the application of Shari'a Law in the nations of Western Europe and the United States.

The video is included below...

Today in our parish's Wednesday morning Bible Study, we focused on Matthew 10. After coming home and then hearing about this documentary, I found myself repeating these words of Jesus directed to His disciples:

But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. [Mt 10:17-18]

I suppose that, as disciples of Jesus Christ today, we should not be surprised to encounter persecution from both religious and secular authorities. It sounds as if Our Lord is telling us that it comes with the territory.

Praised be Jesus Christ...now and forever!

Pope Speaks to British Politicians

Pope Benedict XVI said many things during his recent visit to the United Kingdom, but one of the more interesting addresses he gave was that to British politicians in Westminster Hall. The below video provides a nice, brief overview.

You can read the Holy Father's complete address here: Address of Pope Benedict XVI - Westminster Hall.

 Blessings...