National Religion
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.
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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
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.
p.s.
A blessed Holy Week to you Mr. Wolf.
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.
An excellent piece by Aaron Wolf.
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!
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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.
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.
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.
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.
____
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.
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.
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.
Brutus @ #11
I fail to understand your analogy between "Protestant Reformation" and "Marxian Reformation."
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.
“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.
_______
Aaron, this is spine-tinglingly courageous; it is also dreadfully right.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
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.
"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.
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?
_______
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...
@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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
"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?
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?
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.
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.....
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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?
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'.....
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.
Brutus @34:
I'm not touching that one with a 10-meter stick.
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."
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?
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...
#48 Good question!