National Religion
by Aaron D. Wolf
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
Americans are a people of deeply held religious conviction. If any has doubts, let him look on the most serious of our sacred holidays and believe.
Naturally, it is a federal holiday, but that fact alone does not convey the magnitude of this special day. For, unlike other federal holidays, this one carries with it a gravitas—a holiness—that says it is special. You can tell, because we don’t mark the day with fireworks and pop music, or the pardoning of a turkey, but by a singular devotion to the very words of our national religion’s founder. There’s no public debate over it. No one says, “Hey, it isn’t fair to the x’s and the y’s and the z’s if we focus on one tradition and ignore the others.” This is our tradition, and we are not ashamed.
In the former days, when we were weak and ignorant, we had to be taught to be ashamed of our Old Religion. At first, when the bigoted (“one who is obstinately convinced of the superiority of one’s own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions”) nature of our Old Faith was exposed, we attempted to sand down all the rough edges, especially when it came to our Former Big Day. We hired some members of another religion to write us some new songs, and we transformed our Former Big Day into a celebration of shopping. This, of course, would not do, because, despite what Milton Friedman had taught us, shopping alone could not serve as the basis of a truly national holiday, let alone a national religion.
It was only then that the Third Great Awakening dawned and we realized that we already had a new religion. The transition has been so smooth that many of us probably still do not notice the difference. The parallels, indeed, are striking. The prophet of our new religion came as a preacher of the Old One—and, like our Old Prophet, he preached revolution. Just as the Old Rabbi’s qualifications were called into question (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”), so, too, have some criticized our doctor’s credentials. And what did the new prophet get for his selfless efforts? The same thing the Old One got!
One of our earliest hymnwriters, St. Bono, revealed the similarities between the two religions’ founders in a song—“Pride (In the Name of Love)”—that is now sung in a few of our old/new churches: “One Man come, He to justify; one man, to overthrow!” Yes, the Former was the “One Man, betrayed with a kiss.” But concerning the one who followed after—well, as St. Bono and every anchorperson, schoolteacher, president, and candidate of either party will confess to you boldly, not one of us is worthy to loosen his shoelaces.
Early morning, April 4,
a shot rings out in the Memphis sky—
“Free at last!” They took your life,
but they could not take your pride
In the name of love!
We knew that the Former Big Day had lost all of its meaning when most of us refused to call it by name, preferring to say “Holiday” instead. Our leaders still recognize Holiday, along with other minor festivals of different religions, but it is only when you look at the federal holiday of our new religion that you can see how a faith held in common by an entire nation is celebrated. Our President even set up a website devoted to it—mlkday.gov. (Imagine the reaction of the American people if they were to discover a dot-gov devoted to Holiday!)
Last December, the presidential candidates fiercely debated whether it was appropriate for one among their number to make use of a mysterious floating symbol of our Old Religion in connection with our Former Big Day. Then, in January, they lined up to proclaim, with one voice, their devotion to the new prophet. One called the prophet his “hero, . . . because [he] practiced the libertarian principles of civil disobedience and nonviolence.” Another, standing in the very pulpit where the fallen prophet once stood, showed he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the antitype of Moses instructing the people of God how to bring down the walls of Jericho. The prophet, said he, is an “icon.”
Such thoughts were echoed by the clergy of the Old Religion. One Catholic bishop proclaimed that the prophet “gave his life for the Gospel values of non-violence and peace for all.” A popular conservative Protestant pastor encouraged all of his followers, if they had the time, to rewrite their sermons in order to “make something” of the federal holiday, to celebrate the work of the prophet. If you need to “find a good word” to say about him, just “Google his name.” But please, “You need not belabor his sins.”
As all of this unitary devotion was occurring, we received confirmation that, thank godamighty, we are at last free of the Old Religion, when sports network ESPN announced its punishment for host Dana Jacobsen. While throwing a drunken fit on stage at a celebrity gala, she accidentally hollered “F–k Notre Dame” and “F–k Jesus,” too.
Now, ten days’ suspension with pay is more than sufficient a punishment for inveighing against our former Deity. I mean, it’s not like she stood up, in the bleak midwinter, and cried, “F–k Morehouse, and F–k Martin Luther King, Jr.!”
Aaron D. Wolf is the associate editor of Chronicles.
This article first appeared in the March 2008 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by John Rutowicz on 19 March 2008:
I am slowly getting my political education through this site. I am wondering about something. Much of Paleoconservative thought is taken up with religion, particularly Christianity. I’ve not completely worked this out in my own head, but I wonder, can one be a Paleoconservative or Traditionalist and not be a Christian? Certainly secularists and liberals (bishops and politicians who love MLK) are enemies to our received Western culture, but so are neocons who proclaim their devotion to universal morals, but who reject Christ (Jews, secularists, and perhaps Judaizing “Christians” a.k.a. “Christian Zionists.” Is not the ultimate answer a national religion – Christianity of course.
John Rutowicz
2 Comment by Bruce on 19 March 2008:
St. Bono and St. TheEdge have their own thanksgiving liturgy in the Anglican communion.
Maybe “Bishop” Schori will give one to St. Martin of Atlanta.
3 Comment by Bruce on 19 March 2008:
p.s.
A blessed Holy Week to you Mr. Wolf.
4 Comment by Brad C on 19 March 2008:
A recent study of 17-year-olds’ historical and literary knowledge made the rounds a few weeks ago. Although only 43% could identify in which half-century of the 19th century the Civil War occurred, 97% knew that MLK was the person who gave the “I have a dream speech”. In fact, they scored higher on that question than on any other question.
By contrast, only 50% knew that Job was a man in the Bible “known for his patience in suffering”. Students scored the highest in the literary test on the questions requiring one to identify the plot of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird.
It appears the public schools are doing a good job of passing down the ersatz religion bequeathed to us by the civil rights movement.
5 Comment by Tom Piatak on 19 March 2008:
An excellent piece by Aaron Wolf.
6 Comment by Haywood Hale on 19 March 2008:
The competing religion of the U.S. has always been the Almighty dollar, and probably will continue to be for some time. Capitalism and Christianity are the two American ideologies really and never the twain shall mix, they’re like oil & water, and both of them are extremes. Jesus was a man a holy man & Essene by discipline and a Savior while Christ is the great metaphysical construct or the mythical aspect the icing on the cake or sweetener which appeals to those not interested in religion unless it’s history, in other words to the masses. Buddhism is really more like who the Essenes were. Both religious disciplines accepting the ephemeral nature or impermanence of reality in this world (i.e. this too shall pass both the good and the bad). And also accepting the essential underlying unity or oneness of the actual as the foundation or basis for that which is also differentiated (i.e. the oneness of God even at His level in a differentiated Trinity). And finally Nirvana the abscence of unnecessary pain or stress due to one’s existential anxiety having been ameliorated (i.e. seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and in this world balance and harmony) and the rest of it will be added to you, so you can appreciate it for the first time.
I see MLK being made into a demi-god by those on the side of Capitalism and today on the side of marxist inspired State-Capitalism which is one of its hybrids, who want to use mlk as another foil (like they used and use Lincoln) in their ongoing struggle to vanquish our other great Ideology Christianity.
I personally believe although Christian myself – that both State-Capitalism & Christianity are delusions, the latter being more salutary toward the preserving of a civilization than the former. Christianity unlike say Buddhism is both an exoteric and esoteric belief system. However it is fascinating that Buddhism still appeals to such a mass as it does without the exoteric. There may one day be a lesson in that for Christianity?!
But we Americans are yet a young and barbaric people, who will primarily worship the dollar for some time to come. It’s a ridiculous cartoon this United States of America and especially today & since the beginning of the 20th century with the Federal Reserve Act and later FDR and the social security number for the bankers use primarily to keep track of us. At least the old Capitalism still was free. Even that is gone now.
Ok lets all be distracted by our new demi-God MLK… welcome to Amerika!
_______
7 Comment by robert m. peters on 19 March 2008:
I would respectfully suggest that Lincoln remains, among the gods who died for the “original sin of slavery,” primus inter pares at the very least. Lincoln has his memorial from which he glares across the Mall, a temple and god almost omipresent because the temple adorns our ever-devaluing pennies, with, upon close inspection, Lincoln glaring out at us. MLK has his maze of streets and roads and, of course, “his” day on which all of the bureaucrats are forced to genuflect at the very least by being off work and on which we are all expected to bow, the fiery furnace being thus far only metaphoric for those of us who dare not worship. JFK, I once thought, was in the pantheon; but he has now become a lesser god. In Obama, we have a god in the making – that black/white man who can “transcend” the racial divide! Those transcendentalists seem to be ever with us with their romantic and intellectual blasphemy. As a sidebar to this thread, I also note that we find ourselves in the month of March, a month named after Mars, the god of war, and in which this year we celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of our Saviour, the Christ! So, our choice is clear: sever the god of war or the Prince of Peace. I note that Bush and his people started this current war in March, quite appropriately I conclude given the “spirit” whom we seem to serve.
8 Comment by Haywood Hale on 19 March 2008:
You know I don’t disagree at all with Robert Peters above in his post #7. However it is the fact of the underlying unity of the actual the glue so to speak making the differentiation possible…In tandem with the underlying impotence at this juncture or moment of those of our persuasion mr. peters’ and ours to be effective even as a counterbalance which is what we should be that is vexing. Never mind immaturely demanding peeminence. Perhaps it is because the icing on the cake, important as it is as a part of the whole, is overemphasized or over fixated upon as this point. Is that a function of the immaturity of the following or followers? If so that is the answer as well then sadly, to where we’re at. There is no transcendance per se that’s not the issue. We are neither Christ who was the exception to the rule which proves it. So we are not to imitate him except to live our own lives as truly as He lived his. Nor are we Buddha who found out himself enlightenment can be moved toward though not achieved as an act of one’s own will alone, not even his –
The issue on the other hand, given the current set of facts is: is the flock immature or the Shepherds as well? I don’t know I’m only asking as we face the stonewall. Should we just start to wail and fold up our little pieces of paper prayer requests and stuff them into the cracks? All of their historic Saviours FAILED them. And they don’t want ours.
9 Comment by woodcutter on 19 March 2008:
Jesus was a man a holy man & Essene by discipline and a Savior while Christ is the great metaphysical construct or the mythical aspect the icing on the cake or sweetener which appeals to those not interested in religion unless it’s history, in other words to the masses.
I personally believe although Christian myself – that both State-Capitalism & Christianity are delusions, the latter being more salutary toward the preserving of a civilization than the former. Christianity unlike say Buddhism is both an exoteric and esoteric belief system. However it is fascinating that Buddhism still appeals to such a mass as it does without the exoteric. There may one day be a lesson in that for Christianity?!
6Haywood Hale
Your words above. I would suggest that western Buddhism is being embraced for other reasons than non exoteric reasons ( most likely because of its non sacrificial nature) the same reasons capitalism is embraced. Also.. if Christianity in your eyes is a delusion you may need to have your eyes checked. It is the sacrificial nature of Christian love that will be the final thing that we cling to after all else has turned into chaos.
10 Comment by Haywood Hale on 19 March 2008:
Having eyes, I see not? … -
“It is the sacrificial nature of Christian love that will be the final thing that we cling to after all else has turned into chaos.” -woodcutter
You’re too Apocalyptic. [always - alpha & omega - alpha & omega - what happened to b thru y in your alphabet?]
I agree with you… but it is a world of degrees. The value of the visible crucifix and sacrifice of the male Christ is without such sacrifice there is NO community.
Without community you LOSE. Yes that sacrifice is ALSO love. Picture a woman on the cross? “What?” … nonsequitur – her love is in the pain of giving birth.
Quote again of yours above:
“Your words above. I would suggest that western Buddhism is being embraced for other reasons than non exoteric reasons ( most likely because of its non sacrificial nature) the same reasons capitalism is embraced.” -woodcutter
No. First of all capitalism is painful as all get up and go… state-capitalism is what spoiled kids made out of what their parents gave them. Can’t blame them. Ever hear the saying – ‘I did it all so my son wouldn’t have to go through the things that made me a man.’
That’s our ruling elite for the most part today.
Buddhism requires sacrifice because its major impulse stems from the spiritual sensibility of Christ that nirvana is being in the world but not of it.
woodcutter you know what you know – good. But you don’t know this. I’ve encountered that before in christians – when they didn’t know judaism… but imagined they did. Christianity for that reason is too good sometimes an elixir. That’s alright. At least it isn’t insufficient.
____
11 Comment by Brutus on 19 March 2008:
Christianity passed through the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
The twentieth century witnessed Christianity go through another reformation, the Marxian Reformation.
What you see today in the churches and in the expression of Christianity are the manifestations of that transformation.
12 Comment by Brutus on 19 March 2008:
If you factor out God and Jesus, you will also notice that the basic doctrine of another cult (Liberalism), as well as many of its holy words, e.g., “Equality, All mankind, Sanctity of Life, Brotherhood of Man,”(The Last Shall be First = Redistribution of Wealth/reparations for and compensation for Oppression of Minorities/Affirmative Action), etc., bear a striking resemblance to the essentials of Christianity.
13 Comment by woodcutter on 20 March 2008:
Brutus…..I’m not sure I understand your point. If you break down any major religion you can find teachings that are similar to social behavior of one kind or another. I try to read scripture in relation to the conditions of the times and then try to find ways to understand how it can be applied to my life today. To me Jesus was certainly “this or that” but this does not mean we should diminish and exchange the expression of our faith (that we embrace in its many forms ie. conservative to liberal) in lieu of MLK day and the criticism we receive by not seeing MLK day as important as Christmas or Easter etc.
14 Comment by John Rutowicz on 20 March 2008:
Brutus @ #11
I fail to understand your analogy between “Protestant Reformation” and “Marxian Reformation.”
15 Comment by woodcutter on 20 March 2008:
10Haywood Hale ‘I did it all so my son wouldn’t have to go through the things that made me a man.’
That’s our ruling elite for the most part today.
Hayward….I would say that this line of thinking is in itself self serving, this indicates that as a Father, if my son is instantly materially secure “I” have done my part. Capitalism on some level requires that we grow up consumers that have wealth to spend. Not the teaching of the gospel as I understand.
10Haywood Hale …..Buddhism requires sacrifice because its major impulse stems from the spiritual sensibility of Christ that nirvana is being in the world but not of it.
“a husband must love his wife as Jesus loves the Church” Buddhism does not teach this kind of sacrificial love. I would suggest that Gautama Buddha presents an example where the search for enlightenment is more important than the family.
My apologies if I have missed your point.
16 Comment by Haywood Hale on 20 March 2008:
“a husband must love his wife as Jesus loves the Church” Buddhism does not teach this kind of sacrificial love. I would suggest that Gautama Buddha presents an example where the search for enlightenment is more important than the family.” – woodcutter
Beautiful, I would agree. It’s an imperfect world even in religion. Buddha himself learned the ultimate lesson as I described in mine above namely that enlightenment could be moved toward and ‘almost’ had as it were as an act of one’s own will, alone, but that there is no transcendance per se… and at his own end, a tear, perhaps also happily rolled down his cheek. Thus Enlightenment itself also ought not be an idol or false God. Nothing is more important than the family and since it is a dead letter as a practical matter without community then a *community of families is a symbiotic necessity. Is that understood or is every christian in their own mind’s eye the self-contained, and ideal as if they can exist in a vacuum-as it were, ‘holy family’? … Again we are to live our OWN lives as truly as Christ lived his… and imitate per se neither him nor his holy family. Or else cutter of wood – unconsciously – we too are seeking transcendance, are we not?
Another quote of yours woodcutter above – “I would say that this line of thinking is in itself self serving, this indicates that as a Father, if my son is instantly materially secure “I” have done my part. Capitalism on some level requires that we grow up consumers that have wealth to spend. Not the teaching of the gospel as I understand.” (end quote)
Well first you’re brainwashed already into thinking in terms of being or seeing ‘consumers’ … There are producers and *customers and we all are both. The notion of a vast horde of mindless ‘consumers’ is of course inhuman. Next: your are absolutely correct… your overlords have created a financial system a debt system within which they can at will hold you up, upside down – and shake the quarters out of your pockets and keep you forever in debt and thus a slave while telling you how equal and wonderful you are. But for their own (sons/daughters)…well they bequeath of course that they be the ones holding you upside down by your ankles. If you are not a slave at heart understandably you may not like it.
_______
17 Comment by John Willson on 20 March 2008:
Aaron, this is spine-tinglingly courageous; it is also dreadfully right.
18 Comment by Brock H. on 20 March 2008:
Brutus @11:
I second John Rutowicz’s motion at #14. Can you explain what you mean by the Marxian Reformation of Christianity? My church teaches nothing of that sort as far as I can detect.
19 Comment by Haywood Hale on 20 March 2008:
Brock, Marx was a wit mistaken for a sage. That doesn’t mean marx wasn’t bright or talented or a witness according to his own lights of his times. We all are. It’s like someone once said to me ‘why do we love Dylan so?’ And I said… ‘well because deep down inside we know we all can sing that good.’ … and we had a laugh. No, there’s talent and intelligence where there is talent and intelligence…
It’s that it’s an age old mistake to believe the new is automatically legitimate. … It has to build upon tradition which is the sum total of ALL that came before that still works… So if it’s legitimately new it has to have built upon that. … Dylan for example was a poet or is a poet and musician and enjoyed by many and to be considered again in the future. So his work is insignificant when compared with the big mistakes associated with Marx…Because the world tried to follow what marx incompletely articulated. It didn’t work and hundreds of millions unnecessarily were killed (murdered?). By comparison it makes capitalism for all of its flaws look tame in terms of how it plays out in the actual. Now marxist inspired state-capitalism is WORSE than pure capitalism. And this new development also abrogates our freedom. ?
HOWEVER the choice isn’t among the three… there’s others.
20 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 20 March 2008:
Thank you to Pastor Rutowicz, Tom Piatak, and Prof. Willson. I don’t recall all the specifics now, but I saw something on a local news broadcast dealing with MLK Day celebrations that inspired that article. I was stunned by the reverence the two local anchors expressed after showing a video clip of “I Have a Dream.” It led to thoughts about the way they bent over backwards to say “Happy Holidays” a few weeks before. I began to consider whether there was any other figure in American public life who we simply cannot criticize without receiving society’s anathema. Perhaps Lincoln, but even he is the object of speculation regarding homosexuality or marital abuse, and even some “black leaders” will denounce his racism.
This Sunday, news anchors will mention that “today is the day that Christians set aside to commemorate their belief that Jesus rose from the dead.” But on MLK Day, the material principle of the Civil Rights Movement is stated as our commonly held belief. Imagine them saying that “on this day, some Americans commemorate the life of a man they describe as a ‘great civil-rights leader.’ Others will mark the day with chocolate and marshmallow bunnies.”
21 Comment by Brutus on 20 March 2008:
I notice many Conservatives ONLY speak of, because they apparently only know of, Karl Marx in an ECONOMIC sense. In other words, as Communist Vs. Capitalist economics.
There is also SOCIAL Marxism.
Have you ever heard the phrase the “Social Gospel?”
During the twentieth century the church became very very interested in effecting social change. Have you noticed that most churches and preachers are in essential agreement with Liberal thought? Is your church more or less in agreement with Martin Luther King? Is it more or less in agreement that we should welcome with open arms all races into America because “those are God’s children, too?” Are most churches and the sermons delivered by these church’s preachers today the same as those of your grandfathers time? In what ways is todays church different? What is the policy of The National Council of Churches, for example? And how is that policy different today than it was eighty years ago? How was, say, the Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam’s teachings different from previous clerics?
I am here speaking of change in the church that has taken place.
What, besides, economic change, did Marx advocate? You have all heard, of course, of Marxist professors. I assume that a good many on here are in agreement that much of what is taught in the colleges and universities is Marxian.
The Christian Church was was also changed, was it not?
22 Comment by Haywood Hale on 20 March 2008:
what you talk about Brutus is politics today… jews organize… marx is jewish [communism is jewish even though marx was a rebel] … do YOU organize… do YOU know the almost absolute importance of having your own MEDIA … it’s not your fault … i’m asking – so that when you’re hidden in the corner you hide in like we all have to do today in the abscence of both commuinity and society… you’ll ask, if no one else, yourself?
jews won WWII against the arians or germans or whomever…they and the rest of us were fighting that day – and to the victor belong the spoils… but something new came into that – paradoxically to the victor belonged not only the spoils but it included the victim Role. “Huh?” the victor is also the victim?
“What?” …
there’s enormous power in the victim Role; no power in being the Actual victim.
Brutus… does your ego allow to accept powerlessness ? it means if even when you ARE the victim do you still deny even that?
Hey – you’re the Actual victim.
One day you’ll get it-?-and actually want the power you’ve lost. But first you have to say to yourself… wow, i’m the Actual victim – that’s WHY I have no power.
-There’s enormous power in the victim Role; no power in being the Actual victim.-
Perhaps once you get this – and it’s elevated up to consciousness – will you have more compassion… or only use it as your enemies have?
They don’t HAVE ingrained in them the Christian sensiblity; so as long as you include in YOUR civlization those who don’t, you should if you have half a brain, expect THIS. No?
Tell me differently… please. And show it. Or make me laugh if possible, at least.
23 Comment by Brock H. on 20 March 2008:
Brutus @21:
I see your point. I agree with you, that social Marxism has been incorporated as a doctrine into our churches, but into some much more than others, and still a few have managed to resist it completely. Achieving social change has been verbally stated by my pastor as a goal our church should have, but only the type of change that takes place in the hearts of men, not the silly idealistic changes like eradicating hunger and poverty and what not. That is true Marxist, or Marxian, rhetoric. I hope, Brutus, that you’re not implying that advocating any and all types of social change is a symptom of the infiltration of social Marxism into our churches? If that is so, I am disappointed to realize that when I spent Spring Break 2002 and 2003 at an inner-city missionary homeless shelter for recovering drug addicts in Oakland, doing some painting, cleaning, and cooking, that I was in fact helping to advance a Marxist revolution. I think that when my pastor and deacons start to advocate increased federal funding for food stamps, or single-payer health care, I’ll know that the Marxian Reformation has reached my church.
24 Comment by Brutus on 20 March 2008:
“I hope, Brutus, that you’re not implying that advocating any and all types of social change is a symptom of the infiltration of social Marxism into our churches? If that is so, I am disappointed to realize that when I spent Spring Break 2002 and 2003 at an inner-city missionary homeless shelter for recovering drug addicts in Oakland, doing some painting, cleaning, and cooking, that I was in fact helping to advance a Marxist revolution.”
Well, you can do what you wish, but WHERE did you get the idea in the first place to spend two consecutive spring breaks “painting, cleaning, and cooking” for “inner-city…recovering drug addicts?”
I know, and help often, a 69 year old woman who suffers from, among other ailments, arthritis. She is not an alcoholic or a recovering drug addict. She has worked her entire life and raised the remaining two of her three children (the oldest was 20 and married soon after) after her husband died of cancer 25 years ago. She managed to accomplish this and keep her home and to pay off about $125,000 in medical bills. No mean feat for someone who had to work for relatively low wages. She often worked 3 jobs, I know. This woman is my mother. She could have used some “painting, cleaning, and cooking.”
I know a great many others like her who are not “inner-city,” drug addicts whom, the vast majority, let’s be frank, WON”T stand on their own two feet, and could use some help “painting, cleaning, and cooking.”
What about better quality people? Why not an aspiring young man or woman who has potential?
Far too much effort and time and money is dished out to the lowest common denominator when these efforts could be better directed towards prospects of a better character.
Billions of dollars and man hours have been spent trying to make silk purses out of sows ears.
25 Comment by Haywood Hale on 20 March 2008:
Gentlemen – blesses – but you DON’T understand the system… the more they print the less it’s worth. But THEY get it first and spend or invest it – before you get it… inflation sets in after it makes its way into the system. So not only do they print it but once they’ve given it to themselves to loan to you… they’ve already avoided inflation. Since the fiat paper has not yet filtered down.
You know an economy does NOT even have to “grow” to be prospersous. It only has to ‘grow’ if money is being printed that is not backed by anything stable and limited like gold or silver etc. So it can’t be “printed” like counterfieters do. See?
Because when it can just be printed…there’s inflation and MORE inflation unless the economy is ‘growing’-so inflation spreads out…
That means what is currently created within the financial system itself is a juggernaut or the financial (i.e. practical) need for war all the time… to keep expanding – so inflation isn’t so bad. To do that you MUST also own the MEDIA so people’s “heads” are adjusted to it. That’s why they also can’t draft… unless they bomb you more.
Or the better way and the sane way – just go back to the gold standard so you can be human beings again and at peace. See? This isn’t rocket science. Where we going?
_______
26 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 21 March 2008:
I am concerned with John Rutowicz’s response to this article. I do not agree with his opinion that Christianity and Paleoconservatism are needing and/or deserving of each other. He must not have partaken of the Jeffersonian (Founding-Father) re-write of the Bible. As a ‘devine-creator agnostic’ I have not a single conflict in my daily life with respect to my paleoconservative views, e.g. Social responsibility, honest and fair economic policies, migrant policies, etc. Be a Christian if you so choose, but keep your views out of public life.
p.s. read some ΠΛΑΤΩΝ…
27 Comment by NGPM on 21 March 2008:
@26: If you do not at least have a cynical appreciation of the Christian religion à la Charles Maurras, you cannot be counted among those dedicated to conserving Occidental civilisation.
28 Comment by NGPM on 21 March 2008:
By the way, I do agree with Flavius Claudius Julianus vis-à-vis the Jeffersonians, and for this reason I have long believed that the love affair of right-wing American Christians with the [largely Freemasonic] “Founding Fathers” has got to stop, and soon, for their own good.
29 Comment by woodcutter ( cutter of wood ) on 21 March 2008:
24 Brutus…I am beginning to see your point. Your dead on about or ideas of who the poor are, and how we serve them. I have just completed two years almost to the day of working with the people on the margins of society (the crack heads appear the to be the most ingenious at appearing to be poor). One thing that I have learned is that Jesus was not a Marxist. He did feed and heel, but it was not to solve these problems, these people were healed and fed because of the faith. Their opening up to God to a change their lives in a spiritual way, not a material way.Good work in pointing this out Brutus.
30 Comment by James Newland on 21 March 2008:
Flavius Claudius Julianus @ 26 wrote: “I am concerned with John Rutowicz’s response to this article. I do not agree with his opinion that Christianity and Paleoconservatism are needing and/or deserving of each other.”
Mr. Rutowicz never advanced this opinion. He asked whether it was true.
“Be a Christian if you so choose, but keep your views out of public life.”
This is, of course, as impossible for a Christian as it is for an atheist or even a “devine-creator agnostic.”
31 Comment by Brock H. on 21 March 2008:
James Newland @30:
I concur with the last sentence of your comment. F.C. Julianus’s comment is spoken like a member of the ACLU secularist mafia, or of the Warren Court, not to say that those ARE Mr. Julianus’s political views. The point is, not allowing one’s Christian convictions to influence his political views is the same as not believing in God or at least not being a Christian at all.
32 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 21 March 2008:
A few years ago, when Virginia let schools out for Lee-Jackson-King day, I took my children to the Museum of The Confederacy in downtown Richmond. It seemed to be the most fitting method of enjoying a day off with the kids. Watching the toothless twentysomething mothers of bastard children wandering the deserted streets of the Commonwealth’s capitol city left me with the impression that nothing was gained, and perhaps more was lost by the doctor’s martyrdom.
33 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 21 March 2008:
And to Mr Peters @7 there is a samller statue of Lincoln at the DC Superior Court on 4th St., NW. His left leg is attached to a faggot, in fact faggots and eagles are the two most widely used symbols in Washington art. They grace statues, flagpoles, doors and gates from the White House to The Capitol. And the skeptics don’t believe we’re an empire! Look around tourists! The signs are everywhere.
34 Comment by Brutus on 21 March 2008:
“The point is, not allowing one’s Christian convictions to influence his political views is the same as not believing in God or at least not being a Christian at all.”
But, WHAT, exactly are ones Christian convictions?
35 Comment by Jeff Anderson on 21 March 2008:
Brother Wolf,
I grew up on the mountain top, and I have seen the balcony of redemption. I would suggest one thing to those who might visit the holy site…go in the daytime and with a group. Otherwise, especially if you are carrying any money, you might be baptized with same baptism the new prophet faced.
Graceland isn’t too far away. Do we have the makings of a truly new Haj?
36 Comment by Ronduck on 21 March 2008:
11Brutus
“Christianity passed through the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
The twentieth century witnessed Christianity go through another reformation, the Marxian Reformation.”
I would argue that there was a different reformation: an Atheist Reformation. Many people carry on the forms of Western Civilization and wish to continue it, but do not believe in the existence of God. A good example of this would be Bet Yeor who wrote of how Europe was being turned into Eurabia and how she was a “cultural Christian”.
Essentially the first reformation established that we could be Christians outside the Roman Church, by living by the words of the revealed Bible alone. The atheist reformation attempts to maintain Western culture without believing in God or even believing in the Bible as historically relevant.
Many of these atheists often take the next step and decide that they don’t believe in any rules passed down from the past and descend into nihilism.
37 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 21 March 2008:
Dear NGPM @27
“If you do not at least have a cynical appreciation of the Christian religion…you cannot be counted among those dedicated to conserving Occidental civilization.”
I quote your absolutely ridiculous post for reason none other than courtesy. While I am not openly hostile to Christianity, I do not see its relevance in the management of the American Polity. Christianity is a belief system. Belief systems have not a place in politics. Politics is a science, not a superstition. Maintain the separation and all will be well in the purple-land.
As an additional bit of edification, I point out to you that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Judaism is as far away from “Occidental Civilization” as is possible for any belief system. If you want to save Western Civilization, return to Hellenic and Roman beliefs.
Also–I am not, nor do I sound the part of an ACLU member. Please….Brock H…..
38 Comment by John Rutowicz on 21 March 2008:
Sorry I’ve been absent. I got a little busy the last couple of days. I agree with Brutus #21 on his assessment of the Christian Church in our day. It has been largely destroyed by Marxism and other forces (thank God there is a remnant). The ills which he speaks of are quite real. I just wasn’t sure how the sixteenth century and the twentieth century fit together in his point. But my question about that was pretty minor. As to Mr. Flavius Claudius Julianus #26, I was not stating dogma, I’m trying to think through the issue and have more broadly educated minds assist me in coming to a conclusion. Thank you to Mr. James Newland for pointing that out.
Mr. Julianus, you are correct in saying I have not “partaken of the Jeffersonian (Founding-Father) re-write of the Bible.” I tend to have quite a problem with Jefferson and pretty much all the “Founding Fathers.” Thank God America is more than the “Founding Fathers” or the Deist government they founded. Also, I have no intention of keeping my “views” out of public life. And this goes to my original question. If blood and soil, faith and family, are if you will, the basic building blocks of a society, how can a functional nation be built with Christians, Secularists, Jews, Mohammedans, Sihks, etc.? Add on top of this, different races, languages, and histories, what holds these people together? Does not a Paleoconservative have to choose between these options? Christianity is a universal religion, but it seems that Paleoconservatism cannot be all things to all men. Thats a good thing. Perhaps I’m missing some important points here, but that’s why I’m putting forward the thought.
The title of Mr. Wolf’s article was “National Religion.” He and I would agree on the horrible nature of America’s true national religion and its perverse prophets, but unlike the “Founding Fathers,” I think the (if I could wave a magic wand) solution is a real national religion, Christianity. Anyway, I’ll stop at that.
39 Comment by Jon W. on 21 March 2008:
Was Martin Luther King an advocate of natural law? His writings suggest it. In his latter days, was there some force that dragged him into the web of players in government, political parties, media monopolies and within his own groups, the NAACP and SCLC that ran over him and past him to violate a principle that God created all men in his image? The leadership that followed him took their power from government creating statute rights to replace fundamental liberty rights. Government elevated the marxists to power, and cemented into millions of Americans minds that all of their inaliable rights given by our Heavenly Father belong to Federal codes and regulations. Would he approve of the legislation that sprung from LJB and his war on poverty? Would he have advocated for “affirmative action”? Or was the force that created these government attacks on freedom, in the name of liberation, his real agenda?
I don’t know the answer, but I think his death opened the door for those who took his place to serve government’s to enslave all. The Jacksons and Bonds of this new power group stole MLK’s freedom message in exchange for government privilege.
Either the Rev. King is rolling in his grave over the calamity that followed his death, or he’s content to be honored by fallen men.
If the government claims MLK was an immoral womanizer, I’m inclined to believe he was a saint. While Bobby Kennedy and the Saint Sodomite Hoover were doing their job on him…. his Marxist advisory board was doing their best behind his back. Maybe the FBI was doing more than listening to the bed springs of seedy Memphis hotels, but were fomenting dissention within his camp by bringing in Marxist thugs to quickly bury him and take his mantle. I think the government obtained just what they wanted when he was killed, and those who profited from his death did also. The government obtained their saint while enslaving and destroying millions with the creation of “father government” and welfare. It’s called a twofer. We get totalitarianism ratcheted up a dozen notches and a most uncivil nation, and government gets a holiday and state power to kill anyone who stands up to the new “father”. And the “religionists” get their brochures from DHS to hand out to single moms to sign up for paternal TANF, rather than tend to their flock.
If MLK was a Marxist dupe, then what explains the protestant and Roman Catholic religions complicity in the death of the American family hand in hand with their chief overseer, Big Daddy Government? Tax exemptions and the popularity of dykes and pedaphiles in pulpits, perhaps.
Thank God, Jesus is not rolling in any grave, but is sitting at the right hand of God the father to JUDGE. For the redeemed, this will be a grand holiday. Let freedom ring.
40 Comment by John Rutowicz on 21 March 2008:
Mr. Wolf,
I’ts always a pleasure to read your articles. MLK certainly seems to be the primary prophet for America’s universalistic civic religion. How far should we go to resist this new religion? How far outside of the culture do we go and still try to bring the unenlightened believer and the unbeliever with us? Tonight in church we prayed for the conversion of the “faithless Jews: that almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts,” and that God might “Have mercy upon all Jews, Mohammedans, Infidels, and Heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of Your Word.” Those prayers are way out of bounds culturally. I’m trying to maintain a balance so as not to fall into hatred of one’s enemies, but also to be realistic about the impossibility of a pluralistic society, and that our culture and religion do have enemies. No one said living in two kingdoms was going to be easy.
41 Comment by Brutus on 21 March 2008:
“Many of these atheists often take the next step and decide that they don’t believe in any rules passed down from the past and descend into nihilism.”
What makes you think these people are atheists?
It is true that they have jettisoned Yahweh and Jesus, but they are very much “Chr’etien malgre’ lui” in their thinking.
Just listen to them talk, you will see that they have substitutes for Yahweh and Jesus.
42 Comment by Brutus on 21 March 2008:
“Many of these atheists often take the next step and decide that they don’t believe in any rules passed down from the past and descend into nihilism.”
Yes, just last night I had to stop myself from going on a murder and rape spree.
How about this: Many of these Christians take the next step and decide to make a big show of professing Christianity and then go about doing what they will.
43 Comment by Ronduck on 21 March 2008:
Brutus I do not know what you mean by “Chr’etien malgre’ lui”, googling it has not been much help.
You wrote in your last post:
42Brutus
“Many of these atheists often take the next step and decide that they don’t believe in any rules passed down from the past and descend into nihilism.”
Yes, just last night I had to stop myself from going on a murder and rape spree.
Are you an Atheist?
44 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 21 March 2008:
Well said Brutus.
–There are no atheists in foxholes!–
Possibly true.
–There are no atheists in prisons!–
More likely to be true.
A very nice discussion thread going on here…
Let us remember, however, that the political ideology Americans pretend to ascribe to is older than Christianity. Let us also remember that a ‘Christian’ does not mean a good, educated, caring, law-abiding citizen. The term is an expression of affiliation to a particular belief system.
I am an agnostic of God because I am a rational person. I place reason above superstition. I am an agnostic because I do not pretend to have the ability to verify the existence or the lack of existence of a divine creator. Believers are quite presumptuous with regard to the matter.
To address the other question floating around this discussion–does America need a national religion–I offer this statement.
Yes. America needs a national religion based upon rational, non-superstitious proofs. Philosophy would do. A religion of exclusion would be favorable; an exclusive religion unites by division. Us and them–you decide what constitutes ‘us and them’…..
45 Comment by Edward on 22 March 2008:
Flavius, how is it not presumptuous of you to believe that all of the faithful are irrational? Indeed, you fail your own test of presumptuousness by proclaiming that God cannot be known. Is this also not a truth claim that excludes all other possibilities? For you to believe that belief in the existence of God is wholly irrational demonstrates a lack of diligent philosophical thought on your part. You are even more presumptuous for eliminating, with a wave of your hand, 2000 years of tradition that has not only produced the civilization in which you live, but has produced the most brilliant philosophical minds in history.
Your other erroneous assumption is that religion and ethics have nothing to do with one another. Let us follow your idea of eliminating ’superstition’ in favor of rationality. All you are actually doing is removing one source of ethics for another. How will you decide what is right and wrong? How will you even define ‘right’ and ‘wrong?’ What will your ‘rational’ religion look like? We’ve tried communism and we currently have, in America, modernism and materialism. If I cannot appeal to religion for my ethics then why should you be allowed to appeal to whatever source of authority to which you adhere?
Reason without faith will not lead you into any ethic or morality because reason alone can only appeal to human nature as it is and not as it ought to be. Faith in the end is not superstitious but is the only foundation upon which men can remain sane. I would suggest you read G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy as it is a much more eloquent display the argument above.
46 Comment by Brock H. on 22 March 2008:
Brutus @34:
I’m not touching that one with a 10-meter stick.
47 Comment by Brutus on 22 March 2008:
Ronduck @43,
“Brutus I do not know what you mean by “Chr’etien malgre’ lui”, googling it has not been much help.”
It translates as “Christian in spite of that.”
48 Comment by Brutus on 22 March 2008:
Brock H. asserted, “The point is, not allowing one’s Christian convictions to influence his political views is the same as not believing in God or at least not being a Christian at all.”
Therefore I asked:
“But, WHAT, exactly are ones Christian convictions?”
To which he responded:
“I’m not touching that one with a 10-meter stick.”
Why not?
49 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 22 March 2008:
Dear Edward,
Thank you for your post, however, if you plan to quote or paraphrase my writing–please do so correctly. I did and do not eliminate the possibility of ‘God’; however, I did and do state that, as a mortal man with limited ability to see into the great beyond, I can not know one way or the other as to ‘God’s’ existence.
Concerning your statements above–
Religion is merely an act or set of acts a person does on a regular basis. Ethics is an act or set of acts that should be done on a regular basis. What constitutes ‘ethics’ is now and has been in all of human intellectual history a debatable group of moral imperatives.
Religion needs philosophy–philosophy needs not religion.
With regard to your mention of political ideologies–I disagree that we’ve tried all or many of the available political management schemes. We were a republic for a few decades…(The end-point of the republic is debatable.) Then, America fashioned its own ideological scheme; using a smattering of democracy laced with communism and religious fundamentalism. We are square on the path to joining the other two defunct big Christian empires– Rome and Constantinople.
I do not intend to be rude or place scorn upon you, but you practice the same logic as most defenders of religion. You want it to be true…So you assume it to be true…Then, when someone questions the validity of your argument, you go all to pieces. You fall all over yourself stating ‘2000 years of civilization’ this, ‘morality and religion go hand-in-hand’ that… You never realize that all the concepts of ‘good’ ‘a good person’ ‘a good citizen’ ‘right and wrong’ all existed before the Galilean took his first step into the temple.
If you need to be told what is ethical and how to behave nicely, then woe be upon you… I can figure it out myself…
50 Comment by lemon on 22 March 2008:
#48 Good question!
51 Comment by Edward on 22 March 2008:
Flavius, you still miss the point about agnosticism. By saying that “I am a mortal man with limited ability to see into the great beyond,” you are making a truth claim that is just as forceful as theism or atheism; you are just making it within the realm of epistemology.
You also accuse me of “going all to pieces.” This is obviously untrue. I have addressed everything you said in an attempt to counter your implicit idea that religion and morality have no connection. You still have not answered this claim. You have just merely asserted the opposite without justifying yourself. So I ask, who is assuming something to be true?
My argument was not an appeal to tradition. I was telling you to think twice before you so arrogantly dismiss an idea that has been among us for so long with such sophistry. I have not assumed anything to be true, but you have assumed that I was speaking of Christ. I did not mention His Name. Any Christian who knows his faith knows that morality pre-existed before Christ literally walked the earth. In thinking otherwise, you have demonstrated a lack of knowledge of Christianity.
Finally, you cannot figure out what is ethical by yourself. You are relying upon a tradition just as much as anybody else is, you just haven’t realized it.
52 Comment by John Rutowicz on 23 March 2008:
To Flavius and Brutus,
Christ is Risen!
And He still wants you. You have the knowledge of the divine written in your hearts. Come to the foot of the Cross and know who God is. Come in humility and be all that you were created to be. Come and share in our joy at Christ’s victory today.
Christ is Risen! Halleluia!
53 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 23 March 2008:
To John Rutowicz,
What if I don’t want him? How could I humble myself to a god that can’t tell time? Isn’t he a little late for the second coming? My patience only extends so far…
Happy Easter!
54 Comment by Brock H. on 23 March 2008:
Brutus @48 and lemon @50:
It might expose the divisions there are between us regarding the different sects and denominations of Christianity. I assume there are Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, etc. assembled here to lament America’s “national religion”, as Aaron Wolf put it. In fact, we even have a non-believer, Mr. Julianus, posting comments. So, answering your question will start a whole new debate, one that belongs on a list of comments on a Billy Graham post, not an Aaron Wolf or Clyde Wilson or Tom Fleming post.
55 Comment by lemon on 23 March 2008:
#54 If you are white, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Catholic , Lutheran, Baptist, etc. or you have given up on religion, because what we are facing is anti-white racism aimed at genocide of our race. Every white country and ONLY white countries are being flooded with non-whites. We are expected to assimilate,i.e. intermarry with all those non-whites. If anyone supposes that Christianity in any form will survive that, it will not survive anywhere at all. “Why do the nations rage and imagine a vain thing? “
56 Comment by Ronduck on 23 March 2008:
42Brutus
“Many of these atheists often take the next step and decide that they don’t believe in any rules passed down from the past and descend into nihilism.”
Yes, just last night I had to stop myself from going on a murder and rape spree.
The point I was making is that although many atheists have rejected the existence of God they still maintain the Received Morality they were given by their culture. Some atheists go further and reject even that and as such no longer have 2000 years of Christian history or 3000 years of Western history to guide them. The best example I can think of is John Walker Lindh who was raised by people who rejected Western history and looked for guidance in Islam.
“How about this: Many of these Christians take the next step and decide to make a big show of professing Christianity and then go about doing what they will.”
I agree that many people are Christian only to keep up public appearances.
57 Comment by John Rutowicz on 23 March 2008:
lemon @55
I don’t disagree with you. Race is an important issue, a very important issue, and I don’t wish to minimize your concern. But I think a Paleoconservative is where Pat Buchanan is on this when he says, “Race isn’t everything, but it’s not nothing.” You are right about the threat we are facing. But here (at least in my own mind), is where Paleocons and Racialists part ways. My race, my genetics, cannot be the ultimate meaning for me. Man must be more than his race. My ultimate identity is as a Christian and I believe that I will live with Black Christians, Jewish Christians and Mexican Christians in eternity, and even commune with them at the altar. As a Christian I cannot deny that. Having said that, I don’t want my blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughters to become racial outsiders in their own land, living museum exhibits of what America used to be. It seems to me that a Paleoconservative must figure out how to bring together love for one’s own race, language, and culture, with Christianity. If I must choose between my race and Christ, I will choose Christ. But I believe the learned men who write for Chronicles and elsewhere are trying to work out a position where that is not a choice that needs to be made.
58 Comment by Brutus on 23 March 2008:
“My ultimate identity is as a Christian and I believe that I will live with Black Christians, Jewish Christians and Mexican Christians in eternity…”
Where is your Biblical authority for this?
“If I must choose between my race and Christ, I will choose Christ.”
A doctrine put into practice that produces an imagined glory “up yonder,” after death, and folly here on Earth.
59 Comment by Brutus on 23 March 2008:
Brock H. @ 54,
The context of this thread is clear. We are not here interested in obscure religious interpretations, only those convictions that concern nation and race and culture.
For example, is one of your convictions a faith that demands that Europe and America become continental “Camps of the Saints?”
Is it your conviction that Jesus would feel that it is a sin for a young White woman to spurn the advances of a “minority” male?”
Would it be OKAY with you if Western Civilization ceases to exist so long as Christianity survives?
Do you believe Christianity can survive without Western White men and women, e.g., could it be the same faith with only Asians, Mestizos, Negroes or some integrated “mix” left on Earth?
60 Comment by lemon on 23 March 2008:
#57 I find it pretty preposterous to suppose that Christ might care nothing for the genocide of the white race.
As for those in heaven, what black country has even maintained civilized standards without whites, ever? Would Christianity remain? Nothing suggests that it would. What brown country would not be hoplessly mired in poverty, without whites? So much for people getting to heaven of non-white races, without whites.
You may wish not to choose, but you will have chosen anyway.
61 Comment by Brock H. on 23 March 2008:
Brutus @59:
“The context of this thread is clear. We are not here interested in obscure religious interpretations, only those convictions that concern nation and race and culture.”
Thank you for explaining that, I’m ashamed that I forgot. Then again, I’m young and still learning. My answer to questions 1, 2, and 4 is no. Those are the convictions that our elite rulers wish to instill in us, convictions most of them hypocritically do not themselves hold.
As for number 3, there is not a yes or no answer to that question. If I were the last man on Earth who drew his ancestry to non-Hispanic Europe, then Western Civilization would still be alive and kicking. I would be its proud but last-remaining representative, and a Christian one, at that. I would continue to practice the customs and embrace the traditions my parents and grandparents taught me, God bless them all. When the good Lord then took me home, the West would finally be dead, and Christianity on Earth, after a millenium and a half of shaping and careful interpreting by the West, would be left to its third-world inheritance. No doubt, in that situation, the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America probably would twist Christianity into something unrecognizable to us, and probably repugnant to God Himself. But would you and I CARE, Brutus?? No!! We will be in a place where our earthly nation, culture, and traditions no longer MATTER.
62 Comment by John Rutowicz on 23 March 2008:
To Brutus @58
“My ultimate identity is as a Christian and I believe that I will live with Black Christians, Jewish Christians and Mexican Christians in eternity…”
Where is your Biblical authority for this?
“They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God.” Luke 13:29
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” Matthew 28:19-20
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29
“Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” Colossians 3:9-11
“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:13
“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you”. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
Would you like more? Did you really think I didn’t have Biblical authority for my statement? You may disagree with me, but do you also think I am stupid?
63 Comment by John Rutowicz on 23 March 2008:
To lemon@60
I did not say Christ cared nothing for the genocide of the white race. And I believe we should care as well about our seemingly impending extinction. But I don’t need to believe in some Darwinian and Nietschean philosophy of supermen and sub-humans in order to care about my own. I want my race and my culture to survive because they are mine. I want my children to inherit what my ancestors have built, and I want my children to look like my ancestors. I need no other motivation.
64 Comment by Brutus on 23 March 2008:
To John Wutowics @ 62
Quoting from Luke chapter 13, huh?
I doubt but that few have ever cast their eyes over that particular chapter and come away with the authority you claim. An admonition to the Pharisees translates to Chinamen populating Heaven?
I urge the good readers here to read Luke themselves and decide if you agree with John Wutowics.
As a matter of fact, I again urge all readers here to peruse The New Testament and decide if you agree with John. I also ask the readers here to ponder John’s convictions while keeping in mind what I said about a Marxian Reformation of Christianity.
I noticed a good article on Western Christianity that deals with the problem we are here discussing:
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/oliver.html
65 Comment by Brutus on 23 March 2008:
“I want my race and my culture to survive because they are mine. I want my children to inherit what my ancestors have built, and I want my children to look like my ancestors. I need no other motivation.”
But you also say:
“My race, my genetics, cannot be the ultimate meaning for me.”
I don’t believe your heart is really in this struggle we face to preserve and inherit what our “ancestors have built.” And with your embracing of multiracialism as it is and your teaching of it as a religious doctrine as you obviously do in your own house, do not be surprised if your “blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughters” take it to heart and produce grandchildren who look NOTHING like your ancestors.
66 Comment by Jay on 23 March 2008:
John Wutowicz @ 62
This man is using the Bible to justify a One World Order, the flooding of the United States with Third World nonwhites, Liberal ideology, and the extinction through interracial marriage of whites.
I see no reason why he would be against the deification of Martin Luther King Jr and our adoption of the King Holiday. It is a great tragedy that our own religion has been perverted into a weapon and turned against us by people like John Wutowicz.
What on Earth went wrong? Why are our own people turning against us like this? He claims he loves his country and people, but cannot with such blasphemous ideas. His true loyalty is to the present status quo.
67 Comment by Flavius Claudius Julianus on 24 March 2008:
To Jay @ 66,
I shall tell you what went wrong…Europeans stopped acknowledging their superiority. Subsequently, Europeans lost their superiority. We became meaningless cogs in the modern economic machine. The offspring of Europeans are now little better than their minority rivals. Stop conquering—get conquered. That’s how the world works. Thank the ‘jew’. The one next-door to you or the 2000 year old one in israel.
We are all proselytized to believe some variation of the great jew from Galilee story. Turn the other cheek and all that baloney. Honor, Loyalty, Family, Work-ethic—these are the values we should aspire toward, not meekness—not forgiveness. Most Europeans today (no matter where their home on the globe is) are weak. The reckoning we shall receive is of our own making. Once, we were great. Politics, economics, science, the arts, athletics—all invented by and perfected by the European race.
The worst mistake ever made by Europeans was to trust and embrace the jew. The second worst mistake was to end colonial rule. The third worst mistake was to end slavery. I could continue, but I gather my point has been made.
68 Comment by G.S. on 24 March 2008:
I’m curious why none of those so passionately enthusiastic about the white race took any interest in the *Beowulf* thread.
69 Comment by woodcutter on 24 March 2008:
Just a note to say that it is my experience even the Catholic Church itself is well filled with left thinking people that are willing to accept any one, while Jesus himself was very selective about who he healed or helped. He never helped just anyone. They had have a change of heart or a faith that would draw his attention. If all were welcome he would have just rid the world of all sin and disease.
70 Comment by NGPM on 25 March 2008:
@FCJ: The discussion has pretty well ended now that you have exposed yourself, although I will just make the observation the rational Enlightened philosophy on which you quite rightly assert American polity (NOT society and NOT culture) based its original form has not served this country well. As in Europe it quickly degenerated into egalitarian bloodthirst and over the course of the last century has ravaged the formerly Christian society and culture as well.
If you wish, you can go romanticise a pagan Roman utopia that never existed. I, however, have to live in the rootless agnostic hedonism called modern society, and I find it quite loathsome.
71 Comment by Brutus on 25 March 2008:
The discussion has “pretty well ended” because new articles have been posted and this one is now “old.”
The Christian society you mention readily embraced egalitarianism and has been in the forefront of agitating for bloodletting. The “Civil War” is an excellent example of Christianity going the way of bloodthirsty hedonism.
You, of course know nothing of this since you have never bothered to learn much about which you speak, preferring instead to take at face value what other Christians have parroted down through the centuries while demonizing all critical views of your favorite mythology and its effects on society.
72 Comment by G.S. on 26 March 2008:
“You, of course know nothing of this since you have never bothered to learn much about which you speak..”
Yes, that is annoying when the ignorant shoot their mouths off.
Some time back, (http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=409) a fellow named Leon Haller made the claim that treating “the Other” as human was a pathetic weakness “derived from Christianity, NOT classical antiquity…”
and I responded with:
*The Illiad*, Book XXIV.
Strangely enough Mr. Haller had nothing more to say.
Were I cynical I would suspect Mr. Haller is the kind of person who enjoys invoking classical antiquity more than he enjoys studying it.
“I’m curious why none of those so passionately enthusiastic about the white race took any interest in the *Beowulf* thread.”
Well, G.S., my hypothesis is that while white nationalists sometimes like to talk *about* “science” or even “the arts”, they have zero interest *in* these topics — zero, nada, zilch — aside from the delicious, vicarious feeling of power that ensues from invoking such subjects as proofs of the genetically predestined greatness of the European race.
Newton, Copernicus, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Dante, Michaelangelo, etc…. the point of these men’s lives is not to be found in the aspirations to which their lives were dedicated. Oh, but no.
Rather, the point of the lives all these “white men” is that they provide a useful reservoir of names for the white nationalist to draw upon, when seeking to reinforce his self-esteem.
Should a paleoconservative (or anybody else) show excessive interest in what any of the aforementioned philosophers, poets, or scientists actually did, actually said, or actually thought about the world, then he will be attacked for (in the words of Mr. Haller) “engaging in lots of jesuitical arguing” and discussing questions which are “ridiculously unimportant.”
Hence the white nationalist’s attitude toward the truths expressed in Anglo-Saxon heritage is … similar to how a modern Marxist “gets off” on talking about scientific progress — yet feels no awe when gazing upon a starry sky, nor any desire to learn about the beacons which illuminate it.
No time for relativity theory, or the Big Bang — there’s a political rally to go to, and a manifesto to compose, and Power to be slobbered over.
In short, the white nationalist doesn’t really give a damn about white people, any more than the Marxist really gives a damn about science.
“to take at face value what other Christians have parroted down through the centuries…”
Note that those contemptible Christian parrots are the very ancestors whom racialists claim to hold in such high, blood-bound esteem.
73 Comment by Brutus on 26 March 2008:
Give it a rest, G.S.
If you wish to discuss literature and science, philosophy or religion, start the discussion, many will oblige you.
Even Stormfront has sections devoted entirely to the subjects you claim NO racialist ever talk about. I noticed they even had a thread devoted to astronomy pictures.
Are you saying that William Pierce had no interest in science? Revilo P. Oliver was ignorant of history and literature?
It is true that quite a few “rednecks” have no interest in these subjects, just as a high percentage of devout Christians are totally ignorant of science or literature. True?
However, I would not make so sweeping a generalization as “In short, Christians don’t really give a damn about science, any more than the Moslems really give a damn about women. ”
What was that you were saying about the ignorant shooting their mouth off?
74 Comment by COMEON427 on 26 March 2008:
It has been interesting to read this thread. Quite a lot of the posts made at least one good point. I intend on reading more articles and threads here in order to understand this brand of conservatism.
For my own part, I have become very concerned with the USA’s most recent efforts to merge church and state wherever possible. I do not believe in a god of any type. Sure, Jesus existed, but he was just another person who needed to believe in something unseen. Is it plausible that in early development of human society ‘religion’ was an easy method to systamatize a group’s efforts, decisions, time and thoughts? I believe human beings are now capable of doing those things without a framework heldover from less elevated times which metes out how to ‘be good’ or face the consequences.
Obviously, governments also seek to organize a given population’s efforts, time, etc. The advantage of a government such our own, as opposed to a religion is the adherents are free to change the system. This is why the constant undertone of christianity in our government is so awful to me. Religions take generations to develop meaningful change and that is starting to be true of the US government as well. There are other contributing factors to America’s stagnation but perhaps this is the one not enough people acknowledge.
However our habits and ethics came to be, why is it so hard to believe that we are capable of developing our own system of ethics without the organized hand of religion? How much nicer a world to live in would ours be if we valued the reality we can see – there is no higher power, we are all dirt and responsible for ourselves and each other?
75 Comment by G.S. on 27 March 2008:
What I actually said was “the white nationalist doesn’t really give a damn about white people, any more than the Marxist really gives a damn about science.” — and perhaps this *was* a flawed statement.
A more illustrative & properly parallel generalization would be, “In short, the white nationalist doesn’t really give a damn about white people, any more than the Marxist really gives a damn about the working man.”
I wouldn’t use cosmotheism, *The Turner Diaries*, or an academic who subscribed to materialism (surprise, surprise) as examples of WN interest in science, literature, and deep pondering of the human condition. It’s poor salesmanship.
76 Comment by Brutus on 27 March 2008:
G.S. no real offense, but you really don’t have a handle on things you speak of. For example your statement on Ocam’s Nominalism, in the Beowulf thread, shows you have a poor grasp on material you tell of.
Your ranting on materialism sounds like you just came from a hick preacher’s sermon, himself not understanding the meaning of words he has been taught to rail against.
Tell me, if a thief steals your wallet, do you automatically allow that your wallet is now his? I point this out because so many allow journalists and others to “steal” words and give them improper meanings, and from then on, everyone assumes that is the correct meaning of the word.
“Materialism” and “Humanism” are examples of such stolen words. Much like the word “gay” was long ago hijacked and given a new meaning.
When a person who is not a Liberal, respectable Conservative like Bill O”Reilly, or a preacher uses words like Materialism and Humanism or Humanist, they mean something quite different. Humanism, for example, is essentially what was once known as a Classical education i.e., study of literature, classical languages and literature, some science and math, history, etc. It WAS not what modern Liberals and respectable Conservatives say it is. Just because San Francisco homosexuals say they may be “secular humanists” doesn’t mean they are. Some of them say they are Christians. So, using your logic, they must be, right?
77 Comment by Brutus on 27 March 2008:
By the way, the academician who wrote “Turner Diaries” was a physicist.
He was smart enough to know that you have to use religion to appeal to most people, hence cosmotheism.
As for your continuing assertion about WN’s not having interest in science literature or White people, etc., the reason this may seem to be the case is because you guys who like Beowulf and such evidently cannot be bothered to take the time to defend your loves, hence someone else has to take up your slack and doesn’t have the time.
While you guys have been pondering a few literary passages, our enemies have essentially eliminated study of these great works. The result is they are being forgotten by most White people. Unfortunately, since you and many other “cultured” men are petrified of being called a racist or NAZI, you only meakly if anything speak out.
I think you get my point.
78 Comment by lemon on 27 March 2008:
#63 If you point out what goes on in the world you are considered a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
79 Comment by G.S. on 27 March 2008:
“….because you guys who like Beowulf and such evidently cannot be bothered to take the time to defend your loves, hence someone else has to take up your slack and doesn’t have the time.”
This is an interesting point.
However, it might be worth considering how much better off Americans would be today, had less energies been spent during the Cold War on defending the country from Communism, promoting the conservative movement, or any other sort of worldly activism, etc., etc., …… and more energies expended instead upon “angels dancing on the head of a pin” – type questions.
Such as, say, the definition of words such as patriotism, which has today come to mean loyalty to a government vice loyalty to a culture, people, and homeland.
One of the reasons this society is in the state it is in, is because people have spent too much time on activism and not enough time on knowing who they are and where they come from — the sort of knowledge one only gets from songs, poetry, and literature. Not studying Machiavellian politics and various strategies for acquiring power.
In many cases what has happened is that the activist — whether Republican, evangelical, or WN — no longer has a clear or holistic idea of what he is “defending”.
Trying to defend and revive the white race by disdaining 2,000 years of Christian tradition — a la Oliver — is akin to the New Southerner telling his brethren that the South will be better and stronger as soon as it drops its backwards ways and adopts those of the Yankee. Hey, you can “win” — just so long as you’re willing to morph into something your ancestors would have found abhorrent.
“Unfortunately, since you and many other “cultured” men are petrified of being called a racist…”
Actually I have been called a racist, on numerous occasions — though I can’t say anybody has ever mistaken me for being cultured.
At one point during a college seminar I responded with “So what?” to another student’s repeated assertion that a certain position was racist — not because I was sympathetic to racism then, either, but simply because it was thought-policing.
You can imagine the response of my classmates, much less my instructor.
Not to be provocative on a dead thread, but I don’t think I need lectures from you about willingness to take abuse for one’s convictions. It might be worth considering that the reason we don’t promote your views is not because we are too timid to, but simply because we don’t share them.
My impression that nominalism denotes a denial of language’s connection to transcendent truth comes primarily via the lens of Richard Weaver. Having read Lucretius, I feel safe in assuming that I understand materialism at least as well as yourself.
80 Comment by Brutus on 27 March 2008:
G.S.,
“You can imagine the response of my classmates, much less my instructor.”
I see.
You may change some of your views as time goes by.
“My impression that nominalism denotes a denial of language’s connection to transcendent truth comes primarily via the lens of Richard Weaver. Having read Lucretius, I feel safe in assuming that I understand materialism at least as well as yourself.”
Look up an essay by H.L. Mencken on Veblen Thorstein. (Hint, it’s about your writing style.)
81 Comment by G.S. on 29 March 2008:
“You may change some of your views as time goes by.”
As may you.
I do like Mencken, he’s hilarious — actually I once wrote an article for a small-press magazine on the fascinating tete-a-tete btwn him and John Crowe Ransom re/ religion.
However –religion aside– Mencken’s dismissal of poetry as a means of grasping truth represents a fundamentally problematic blind spot.