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Jeff Culbreath
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7/08/2002
00:14:44
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 Subject: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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The language of *restoration* is employed liberally (no offense) by traditionalist conservatives here and elsewhere. I use the term often myself, since it is obvious that much that was good has been lost and should be restored.
But in the American context, a restorationist ideology has serious limitations, at least from a Catholic perspective. The Church and her traditionalist sons don't really want to "restore" the Old Republic: we want to conquer it. By nature, of course, we want to retain that which was positively good -- and not only the good, but also those things that are unique to our history and culture even if religiously and morally indifferent. Baseball, hot dog, apple pie: no religious or moral content, but American and worth preserving.
When it comes to these things -- the morally neutral but unique and particular -- I think there is a danger of Restorationism being taken too far. Baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie are worth preserving, but not at the expense of higher things.
For instance, America's "whiteness" -- a frequent topic on Mr. Kalb's blog -- may be a unique and particular component of our nationhood, but there is nothing sacred about it, and it is at least theoretically possible that it may have to give way to better things. (Those better things have nothing to do with diverisity. Neither racial diversity nor racial homogeneity have any intrinsic merit apart from other considerations.)
If the Catholic conquest of American culture means fewer hot dogs and more burritos, then so be it. If the Catholic conquest of Amerian culture means more Filipino and fewer Irish priests, then so be it.
Furthermore, we don't want to restore the Protestant religion of our Founding Fathers, and we don't want to restore their democratic or egalitarian ideals. We don't want to restore the institution of slavery, and we don't want to restore a First Amendment that was defective from the beginning.
In short, we don't want to restore American Whiggery. We want to conquer the culture with a Catholic order, restoring that which we can because it is ours, but ultimately subordinating everything to a Catholic hierarchy of values.
Jeff Culbreath
http://www.lumen-christi.com
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John
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7/08/2002
09:51:09
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Well, Mr. Culbreath's comments confirm the anti-Catholicism of my ancestors, even my grandparents for that matter, and as such I must align myself with the other side. ;)
As such it is a "divisive" idea (not that that is wrong, of course) and reminds me of a skit from a movie to some extent: the fight between the People's Front of Judea and the Campaign for Free Galilee in _The Life of Brian_:
BRIAN: We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!
EVERYONE: The Judean People's Front?!
BRIAN: No, no! The Romans!
Seriously though, we've talked about the problems of integral action before so take the above with a grain of salt. If anything real resistance to such a conquest could be feeble to insignificant. The largest problem will be in retaining the Catholic and conservative nature of some of the immigrants he speaks of, but that is not impossible. Catholics are largely accepted by the country in most quarters as non-threatening. I think even conservative Protestants have come to accept them to the point of signing alliances.
Using liberalism to sneak in and turn the country into a Catholic monarchy (or whatnot) would leave Jefferson spinning in his grave. ;)
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John
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7/08/2002
10:45:48
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Let me clarify; insignificant opposition and such in the long term--shear demographics are on your side. Conservatives seem to be breeding more. Catholics, Mormons, and other religious-conservative populations are growing faster than that of the non-religious in real terms.
It seems pretty radical now, but in a generation or so it might not be.
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Jeff Culbreath
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7/09/2002
22:09:30
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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John's reply anticipates the question of whether a true restoration (or conquest) on a national scale is even within the realm of possibility. In the long run, perhaps it is -- and for precisely the demographic reasons he states. Liberals will eventually abort and contracept themselves into oblivion (and if I rejoice in this, let me repent of it).
In the meantime, there is no short-term hope for genuine traditionalist action on a national level because the public is either hostile or asleep. Restoration will have to start very small. So rebuild your families, neighborhoods, and parishes; find a worthy place to put down roots and stay put; kill your television; educate your children at home and train them in the old virtues; read the old books; revive the lost arts; raise masculine boys and feminine girls; and say your prayers.
In the long run, I think that Christendom will rise again before the end of time. This seems to be in accordance with Catholic prophecy. The return of Christendom may happen here at home, or it may not. If it does not, then Americans will inevitably be asked to take up arms for their pagan homeland against a resurgent Christian "enemy" state.
Jeff Culbreath
http://www.lumen-christi.com
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Jim Kalb
Administrator
7/10/2002
20:50:52
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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I wouldn't call "whiteness" a frequent topic on VFR. The word's appeared three times, in each case in an aside relating to liberal goals.
I do admit though that it seems odd to me to view "conquest" by means of replacing less satisfactory groups of people with more satisfactory ones as a legitimate goal for either Catholics or traditionalists. A principled Catholic would I think be more concerned with converting hot-dog eaters to Catholicism than replacing them with already-Catholic burrito eaters. And tradition is not the dissolution of a people and abolition of its history and culture but the development and transformation of its way of life under the guidance of transcendent concerns.
Unlike Islam and liberalism, Christianity respects the natural, the given and the historical. It must do so because it is most fundamentally the religion of incarnation rather than of the book or of rational natural law. Christianity distinguishes Christ and Caesar, which means that it denies that any political or social tradition uniquely embodies transcendent truth. One consequence is that to be itself it must accept ethnicity, and the legitimacy of varying emphases in the political traditions of various peoples, rather than undertaking the practical this-worldly construction of one worldwide borderless community ruled by a single comprehensive law compulsory for everyone everywhere. And that's where this particular conception of conquest seems to me to lead.
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Jeff Culbreath
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7/10/2002
22:00:58
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Conquest is not synonymous with, and need not include, the displacement or replacement of peoples, and should certainly include conversion of the natives.
Here in California, we have the splendid example of Blessed Junipero Serra, who sought both to convert the natives and build a Christian civilization on the Spanish model. The conquest of California included the immigration and settlement of Catholic peoples as well as evangelization of the natives.
As George Santayana observed, Catholicism tolerates, assimilates, or transforms all that is not directly opposed to it -- and I would hope that baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie survive the conquest.
As for the whiteness theme on VFR, perhaps I've overstated the case and am remembering all that I have read over the years on your various pages.
What can be said about whiteness? A man should love and prefer his relatives, his neighbors, and his friends. If most of them are white, he should love and prefer them that way. And if some of them are not white -- which *is* the case in our land -- he should love and prefer them that way as well. The end.
If the liberals make war on whiteness, that is their own folly, like making a war against the shadows. The multiculturalists hate whiteness for what it represents to them: Western Christian civilization. And that exposes their ignorance and superficiality, because Christian civilization does not depend upon whiteness at all. Not even Western civilization depends upon whiteness.
Our task is to hand our Great Tradition to whomever will take it. On a world-wide scale, those who have proven most receptive are not white. And it does not matter. The Tradition will live because it is great, not because it is white.
Jeff Culbreath
http://www.lumen-christi.com
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Jim Kalb
Administrator
7/11/2002
05:52:08
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Whatever the work of Blessed Junipero Serra the conquest of the Americas wasn't really to the advantage of the native peoples. It did involve a desire to pass on the best thing the Conquistadors had. Those involved were only human, however, and as I understand the matter the Indians don't remember the Conquest fondly. It seems to me that it would have been better for them if the Spanish had sent only missionaries and very few others. Or if the Spanish had done nothing and let the Pope send the missionaries.
Those involved in the current large-scale movements of population are equally human, but apart from the Muslims among them have no apparent interest in passing on the benefits of their religion to the locals. When they get here they become Americanized in various ways. Some groups tend to have illegitimate children and go on welfare more than the native-born. Others work very hard to become rich, subject their children to long years in the American educational system, watch TV like everyone else, and intermarry. All large immigrant groups (again except the Muslims) voted mostly for Gore, which is typical behavior for even culturally conservative immigrant groups. I don't see any reason to look for cultural regeneration from that quarter.
On my pages you wouldn't have run into "whiteness" as a frequent theme. I've only used the term a very few times, once in a hypothetical example and a few times in passages saying it's too thin to serve as a focus of ethnic loyalty.
One of your points though seems to be that ethnic loyalty is illegitimate:A man should love and prefer his relatives, his neighbors, and his friends. If most of them are white, he should love and prefer them that way. And if some of them are not white -- which *is* the case in our land -- he should love and prefer them that way as well. The end. All that is OK until the last sentence. Man is a social animal which means a cultured animal. Cultures exist as the authoritative cultural traditions of groups who live and work together, intermarry etc. over a long period of time. For cultures to exist and be authoritative it seems to me there must be some sort of attachment to the groups that bear them--that is, there must be ethnic attachments. I don't see any room for that in your view of things.
All in all, it seems to me you exaggerate the extent to which a tradition can be disembodied and separated from the coherence and continuance of particular peoples. Also the extent to which there is a self-sufficient Great Tradition that can be taken pure, dispensing with particular local and ethnic traditions to particularize and embody it. To me those views seem more reminiscent of Islam than Catholic Christianity. The Muslims are the only people I know of who look back on national conquest as the greatest of benefits, and they emphasize more than any other people the practical detailed universality of their way of live and so its independence of everything local, particular and ethnic. I tie those qualities to the fact that they adhere to a religion of the book and not the incarnation.
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Jeff Culbreath
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7/11/2002
12:04:24
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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A brief reply:
1. We can admit that the European conquest of the Americas was, in the long run, objectively good for the native peoples. Certainly there were many abuses, but in the end they receieved the Catholic Faith and the temporal benefits of Christendom because of it. Most of Europe was Christianized in the same way. This is not a perfect model, but it is one model that works.
As an aside, I don't actually propose that America be "conquered" by Catholic immigrants at this point. In fact I think we need an immigration time-out for several reasons. My point here is that immigration is not an evil in itself and can serve many different purposes -- one of which is the cultural imporovement of the natives. In my opinion, that has very often been the case in the United States and in my own circles.
2. My view of things does include a place for ethnic loyalties, but, as I have said many times, not at the expense of higher loyalties. My loyalty to fellow parishoners, neighbors, and co-workers -- whatever their ethnicity -- should be greater than my loyalty to fellow Danish-Americans in North Dakota.
And if ethnicity means "cultural traditions of groups who live and work together, intermarry, etc. over a long period of time", then my ethnic ties to Danish-Americans in North Dakota is not much more than an abstraction. Neither I, nor my parents, nor my grandparents, have lived or worked or intermarried with them.
3. That the Great Tradition can be disembodied from particular ethnic groups should be evident to anyone given the revolution of the last hundred years or more. By and large, most European peoples have cut themselves off from their Tradition. That's disembodiment. And today, the central pillar of our Tradition -- Christianity -- is primarily the faith of non-Europeans.
I agree that Christianity is incarnational and is different from Islam in that way, but I'm not sure why you think this differs from my own views. Both Christianity and the Western Tradition contain universal truths that find local and particular expressions; both are capable of assimilating local and particular customs. Have I suggested otherwise?
Jeff Culbreath
http://www.lumen-christi.com
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Jim Kalb
Administrator
7/11/2002
14:52:04
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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I'm not sure what some of this discussion is about. You originally saidIf the Catholic conquest of American culture means fewer hot dogs and more burritos, then so be it. If the Catholic conquest of Amerian culture means more Filipino and fewer Irish priests, then so be it. That didn't sound like the immigration timeout you have now (as on other occasions) proposed.
Loyalties--family versus neighborhood versus parochial versus ethnic--are not strictly hierarchical. Sometimes one takes precedence, sometimes another, and we can all agree that only our loyalty to God is absolute. It's true I have no idea when your loyalty to fellow Danish Dakotans would override some other loyalty. On the other hand I don't know what it means for someone in the fourth generation to say he identifies with them ethnically when the previous three generations have apparently married out of the group. My intention though is not to prescribe anything for you to do but to assert that ethnic loyalty is legitimate--a point that your "The end" seemed to deny--and that it is necessary.
If people sort themselves out ethnically that's OK and not an act of inhumanity that must be extirpated at all costs, which is the view now dominant. Further, it seems to me that something very like ethnicity and ethnic solidarity is necessary for a tolerable society. Culture is particular and it's hard to see how it can exist and be carried forward in a developed and refined form except as the property of a particular community with a great deal of cohesion and long-term continuity--in particular, a community in which outmarriage is exceptional. It's true that one can find himself in a situation in which the best he can do is put together his life out of this, that and the other. My point, though, is that if that situation becomes general it is a catastrophe.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the Great Tradition. I agree that a people's tradition can deteriorate and they can lose connection with the transcendent truths that once made them great. I also agree that such a thing has been happening to the European peoples, especially in the public aspects of their tradition. What that means to me is that those who are part of the historical community of European man should reflect on what has gone wrong and what can be done to restore European man to himself in his various forms. The materials are still there. I don't think other peoples can help us all that much in the effort because I don't think any of them have found a way to avoid the trap we've fallen into. They're just at different stages.
I agree that immigration can culturally improve the natives but very small numbers normally do all that can be done. It doesn't improve the natives by replacing them but by providing examples. And the current immigration hardly serves that function. It is mostly an occasion for the cultural destruction of natives and immigrants alike through the strength it lends to multiculturalism and the amoral managerial state generally.
Historical notes: Europe was not mainly converted by conquest let alone conquest and colonization but by missionaries and their example. That's another distinction between Catholic Christianity and Islam. It's true that after the fall of the Roman Empire the missionaries sometimes proceeded by converting royalty, who would then persuade or sometimes force their followers to get baptized as well, so that individual voluntariness was not always maintained. Even so, proceeding by persuading local leaders and elites showed a respect for the local society that I think more suitable to Christianity than anything that could be called conquest. As to the Indians, those who died didn't benefit from the conquest, and without the conquest mere discovery would have opened the way for missions. Then conversion could have indeed proceeded as in Europe.
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Jeff Culbreath
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7/11/2002
15:28:38
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Another brief reply:
1. Ethnic loyalty comes into play when its defining components (faith, family, proximity, common life, etc.) are present, or at least not too far removed by time or geography. It's that simple.
2. Calling for an immigration time-out, and expressing appreciation for certain immigrant contributions, are not mutually exclusive opinions. My examples were meant to put immigration in perspective with respect to other values.
3. Foreign conquest was certainly involved in the conversion of England. And indirectly, the conquest of nations by the Romans was necessary for their conversion and the protection of missionaries. But I take your point that large-scale immigration of foreign peoples was not usually a component in the conversion of Europeans.
4. As for the Indians who died: if they died in the Faith, they still benefited. Of course it is better if nations are converted without military conquest, but still, conversion via conquest is better than no conversion at all.
5. Conquest of cultures may be non-violent. The European missionaries to the New World, even if left to their own devices, still would have sought a form of religious and cultural conquest (nunanced appropriately as discussed earlier).
Jeff
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Jim Kalb
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7/11/2002
16:01:17
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Your "It's that simple" seems to want to reduce ethnicity to other things more than I think fits. The "common life" that supports ethnicity includes things like common history, common inherited loyalties, common language (including the common expectations and understandings language encodes), common customs and the things they encode, and so on. It goes deeper than the activities of the current generation.
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Ward Kendall
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8/11/2002
23:37:08
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Jeff Culbreath stated: "Not even Western civilization depends upon whiteness."
In the above statement, Mr. Culbreath implies that all races (Caucasoid, Negroid, & Mongoloid) are equally endowed when it comes to intelligence. If one accepts this basic premise, then nothing further need be said on the subject, and we can all go our merry way.
On the other hand, if there ARE differences in intelligence among the races, then it could be easily argued that Mr. Culbreath's statement is false, and that Western civilization does indeed "depend upon whiteness"---i.e., depends on the higher average intelligence of Caucasian peoples to sustain it.
Drawing upon almost a century of IQ studies, many eminent scientists and researchers, from America's Dr. Arthur Jensen to Canada's Dr. Phillip Rushton to England's Dr. John Baker, have reached one inescapable conclusion: that African-Americans average 15 IQ points below white Americans in intelligence, and as much as 30 IQ points below white Americans when African negroids are compared.
Now, when one considers that the foundations of Western civilization---art, science, technology, literature, medicine, and law are largely the creations of the intellectual elite of any society--and not the "average man"--then it becomes even more clear that high overall intelligence is a prime factor in sustaining any advanced civilization, especially Western civilization.
So, accepting that intelligence is crucial to sustaining Western civilization, could it survive as well (or even at all) if the whites who created it disappeared completely from the scene? I do not believe so, and there is strong empirical evidence to support this contention. For one thing, black Africans never created any advanced civilizations of their own, never invented any form of writing, never invented the wheel, never even devised a single mechanical device of any kind. And today, whatever evidence of advanced civilization that exists in Africa is and was created solely by whites. Conversely, whatever barbarism that exists in modern-day Africa is directly the result of black ignorance and savagery.
Knowing these factors, is it reasonable to assume that an America both peopled and ruled by non-whites would likely sustain Western civilization, as Mr. Culbreath seems to believe? Afterall, aren't non-whites even now seeing the reins of Western civilization slip from their grasp in South Africa as white dominance and influence slowly fade away?
In the end, one has only two choices about this matter: either you accept the unsubstantiated claim that all races have EQUAL intelligence, and therefore are equally adept at building and maintaining advanced civilizations, or two: that Western civilization was made possible solely because the RACE that created it was-overall-more intelligent than those to whom Mr. Culbreath would cheerfully entrust its future to.
Ward Kendall
author of "Hold Back This Day", a novel about the last whites on Earth, and their heroic struggle for survival.
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William
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8/12/2002
12:22:44
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Jeff Culbreath wrote: "The Church and her traditionalist sons don't really want to "restore" the Old Republic: we want to conquer it."
Wow! That's news to me. I appreciate your honesty though. It reminds me of some of the pronouncements from those anti-American Catholics over at The Remnant. I have nothing against Catholics -- well, to be frank I detest the modern, liberal, multicultural "Catholics" who presently dominate the Church, but thankfully they're on the way out -- but Culbreath's thinking more than justifies the occasional anti-Catholic sentiment on the American Right. Which is odd, because I think some of the most promising signs of life on the Right come from staunchly Catholic sources.
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Matteo
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8/12/2002
13:08:51
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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The 'American Right' has its base in Liberalism, which true Catholicism is opposed to.
The Old Republic is inherently Liberalist based.
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William
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8/12/2002
19:29:03
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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We must also ask, if the aim of Culbreath's Catholic "traditionalist sons" is to overthrow the Old Republic -- an absurd aim, I know -- what are they going to replace it with? A theocracy? A monarchy? A fascist-Catholic dictatorship? A corrupt, racially stratified quasi-Catholic oligarchy where the multitudes are extremely poor yet pious? Oh, that's right: we already have a Mexico.
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Matteo
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8/13/2002
09:53:49
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Facism is opposed to traditional Catholicism. As facism is another radical form of government, such as a liberalist democracy.
A Theocracy would be out of the question, as it would simply not make sense.
Mexico? Mexico, for a long time was extremely anti-Catholic, anti-Clerical government. Now it is not as much so, as in past years.
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Joseph
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8/24/2002
22:37:46
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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As someone who has lived most of his life within sight of Mexico, I can tell you that among all Latin American nations it has had the most restrictions placed on the Church by the government. The last chance the Church had at changing this was the 2nd Empire of Maximilian, but the anti-Church Benito Juarez prevailed.
For the United States, there really is not much to restore, the country was founded by the extreme liberals of the time, though some less than others. And even going back further, before independence, to "restore" the British monarchy would not help much as they have become even more liberal that America in many ways, the monarchy is about the only conservative element left in the country. For the United States to ever change it must first have a religious "awakening" in which the old established truths of mankind are brought back, this is the only restoration that will work, anything else would have to be conquest.
This is due to the fact that most Americans are inherently liberal, even many self-professed conservatives. A real conservative today is called a reactionary. As to the "white-ness" talk here, I'll just add that pure traditional government systems survived the longest in non-white nations.
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John
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8/25/2002
02:16:23
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Joseph brings up some good points. Here are a few thoughts on them:
The least liberal ethnic group in this country, if one goes by exit polling, are white Protestants. Yes, the same folks that were the forefront of the radical liberalism of the past....
Or were they?
Joseph de Maistre was one of the first to point out that the Americans were following the traditions of their English cousins and grandfathers in their revolt. Compare the Revolution with the English Civil War or the signing of the Magna Carta. Townhall democracy was also the tradition in many towns throughout New England before the War for Independance. It is more than the monarch that is traditional or conservative in Britain, the voting and the parliament is as well.
The policies of 'NuLabour' aren't conservative, but so were the policies of Mao; a small 'r' republican or a small 'd' democrat does not a liberal make. The cultural context plays an enormous role; wanting to establish a representative republic in France in the early 1770s would make someone a radical liberal. Supporting such a government in Iceland in 1300 would not a radical make. My point is that there are no magic bullet conservative systems it is what they do that defines their nature. One could very well imagine a king working through his vassals and like-minded religious elites to remake his society to fit an abstract ideology and/or simply for his own power, etc.
One could say that even Protestantism was actually a conservative revolution (a yearning to get closer to the roots of Christianity), but that might spark another religious conflict in this forum like the one raging in the weblog. :)
Ethnicity is an important part of someone's identity, the nature of a country's institutions and culture. Yes, liberalism was spawned by white folks, but now it is generally ascendant, everywhere. Importing people of different ethnicities would either help to destroy whatever bits of the traditional way of American life that still exist or possibly cause ethnic conflict in the future. Not to mention the possible security risk and, if the rumors are correct, the related rise in crime and the creation of a underclass based along ethnic lines.
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Matt
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8/26/2002
10:40:02
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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John is right of course that parts of both the Protestant and American revolutions were motivated by orthodoxy. This is nearly always the case in revolution. That is part of the power of liberalism: all it need do is corrupt the current regime sufficiently to divide the orthodox and it is on its way. The orthodox, or some of the orthodox, are complicit in the revolution: perhaps even praying for the downfall of the current regime or current leadership rather than praying for movement in the direction of holiness. "Be careful what you ask for" and all that.
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Aaron Taylor
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3/02/2003
19:10:10
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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I see the last message posted on this issue was some months ago, so probably no one is paying attention anymore. But I was skimming this site and I noticed that Matteo had claimed that fascism was opposed to traditional Catholicism. Yet the fascist 'Ustashe' regime of WWII Croatia and the Catholic Church were incredibly mutually supportive. The Catholic archbishop at the time, Aloysius Stepinac, an ardent supporter of fascism (particularly in its Ustashe form) and an outspoken enemy of other ethnic groups and religious traditions, was recently beatified by the Vatican, despite the protests of those who suffered or saw relatives suffer or die at the hands of fascist Catholic priests working for Stepinac. Charles Coulombe has said that the Catholic Church tolerates 'all forms of government which allow her to operate' -- apparently including fascism, which she perhaps finds very tempting indeed if it promotes her 'operation'. Thus it would seem that 'traditional Catholicism' -- i.e., that Catholicism which is most loyal to the Vatican and the personalities it endorses -- is hardly at odds with fascism, but is in fact ready to endorse anything it finds politically expedient, even advocating armed revolt against pious Christian rulers if it does not approve of them (as Pope Gregory VII did). As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I feel that I have much in common culturally with traditional Catholics, but I'm afraid a veneration for fascist bishops is not one of them. Furthermore, in a Church which has suffered the Fourth Crusade, the military invasions of Catholic religious orders like the Teutonic Knights, the oppression under the Poles and later the Austrians, and the horrors of the Ustashe regime, talk of 'conquest' from Catholics is particularly disturbing.
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Shawn
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3/26/2003
01:52:22
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Aaron, I very much agree with your post. While Catholicism as a whole should not be judged solely by it, there is no doubt that the Church hierachy at various times has been closely supportive of fascism.
And like you, I find talk of Catholicism conquering the American Republic disturbing, and indeed, offensive.
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Peter Forrester
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3/31/2003
17:18:08
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Carl Schmitt, before 1932, pointed out: "Even if she cannot declare herself for any of the conflicting parties, the Church, nevertheless, must in fact side with one." In the 19th and 20th centuries that principle inclined the Catholic Church toward Monarchy rather than Liberalism (France), toward Fascism rather than Communism (Spain), and then toward Liberalism rather than Communism (Poland). Obviously, then, segments of the Catholic hierarchy "at various times [have] been closely supportive of facism," just as they've at times supported Monarchy and Liberalism. I would suggest that this flexibility and the principle underlying it is a strength of Catholicism, and something which isn't always evident in, for example, certain Orthodox Churches, which seem unable to cope with non-byzantine political models where Church and State aren't identical. One need only follow the recent reports of the Russian Orthodox Church expelling Catholic bishops and priests for the crime of "proselytizing" to see its inability to coexist with the freedoms of speech and religion. One wonders if certain Orthodox Churches find Totalitarianism (whether Czarism or Stalinism) "very tempting indeed if it promotes her 'operation'". I'm in no way criticizing the Russian Orthodox Church. Perhaps Catholics and Orthodox would be better off if they rose above their respective parochialisms and joined forces against better enemies.
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Aaron
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4/01/2003
01:36:41
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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1)A willingness to support unethical political systems is never a strength of Church leaders.
2)The actions of Church leaders do not necessarily reflect some inherent element in the belief or nature of the Church in question. On the other hand, this statement is difficult for me to make without qualification about the Catholic church because of the strange nature of papal authority whereby one cannot be Catholic without having communion with the pope.
3)Church and State are not 'identical' in the 'Byzantine political model'. Read 'Orthodox World Past & Present' by Fr Alexander Schmemann if you are interested in a more sober assessment of Orthodox political history.
4)The 'Russian Orthodox Church' per se does not have an 'inability to co-exist with freedoms of speech and religion' (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which is even more traditional, and certainly pro-monarchy, for example has willingly co-existed with these freedoms from the time of the Russian Civil War). The current leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate are largely former Communist compromisers to whom freedom of any kind is a foreign concept (the standard of Orthodoxy is not the actions of compromised and corrupt hierarchs, but the actions of her saints). Many Orthodox both inside and outside of Russia are opposed to the way the Moscow Patriarchate has dealt with this issue. On the other hand, the 'freedoms of speech and religion' as we conceive them in the West have their root in Enlightenment liberalism, which does not acknowledge the validity of religious truth. Therefore, this liberalism sees the role of government as a 'religiously neutral' one. The Church Fathers, on the other hand, taught that the true role of government was to defend the Church against her enemies, not to simply sanction whatever citizens wanted to do or say. This is not a license for brutality, but on the other hand, who's to say that a government or society is not within its rights in preventing the proselytisers of strange and foreign religions from having free reign among its people? Keep in mind that whatever one thinks of the Papal church, her missionaries are joined in Russia by those of the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, charismatics, and every kind of crazy cult the West has managed to produce.
5)While I perhaps feel that it's possible for Orthodox and Roman Catholics to 'join forces' to some extent on social and cultural issues like abortion, religiously speaking they are two different religions with diametrically opposed beliefs on some very central issues such as the nature of the Holy Trinity and the nature of the Church. These differences are no mere 'parochialism' and for Orthodox Christians there can be no 'joining forces' if this means ecclesiastical and theological compromise.
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Traditionalist
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4/07/2003
15:38:50
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I think John's statement that "One could say that even Protestantism was actually a conservative revolution (a yearning to get closer to the roots of Christianity)..." is incorrect. Although Protestants may be "conservative" when it comes to political and social issues, it cannot be said that it was being conservative when it broke away from the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church is the One, catholic, and apostolic church. The Church of Jesus Christ (The Roman Catholic Church) predates all Protestant offshoots. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that the Protestant Revolt was a yearning to get closer to the roots of Christianity. Quite the opposite! Protestantism sought to separate itself from Christian tradition. Protestantism undid centuries of Christian belief and practices. What, then, was Protestantism attempting to go back to? What was it trying to "conserve"?
The "roots" - or more accurately, Root - of Christianity is Christ. Christ built His Church upon the rock that is Peter. Any religion that does away with "Peter" (i.e. the pope) is not being true to the "roots" of Christianity. In fact, such a person is a schismatic on this count. The fact that Protestantism goes beyond this - beyond denying Peter his rightful role - and denies the Doctrines of the Church as well, makes it a heresy. I must, therefore, respectfully disagree with our colleague that Protestantism was a conservative movement,let alone, traditional.
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aaron
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4/07/2003
17:08:14
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Obviously, this has simply turned into a ecclesiological argument, but the last post simply begs the question, 'Is the "rock" Peter?' All of the Holy Fathers including those of the West teach that the 'rock' upon which Christ built His Church is Peter's confession that He is the Christ, not Peter himself. Peter's status is dependent upon this confession, not vice versa. In remaining true to Peter's confession, the Orthodox Church has kept him. By forsaking the saving confession of faith and introducing heretical doctrines and the arrogance of men in place of the Church, the papists have 'done away with Peter'. Papism and Protestantism are both innovating movements; neither is conservative or traditional.
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Traditionalist
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4/07/2003
18:10:53
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I thank you, Aaron, for your response. It is not the Holy Fathers (Popes) who have said that Peter is not the Rock. I believe you meant the Church Fathers. And, it is not true that "All" the Church Fathers agreed that Peter is not the Rock. Many actually agreed that he is. (Refer to Jesus, Peter, & the Keys).
As to Peter's confession being dependent on his "status" - I agree. It is precisely BECAUSE of this that Peter is renamed Petros (Greek for rock), and in John's Gospel Cephas (Aramaic for rock ). Recall that Christ assures Peter that "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17)
I do not understand your statement: "By forsaking the saving confession of faith and introducing heretical doctrines and the arrogance of men in place of the Church, the papists have 'done away with Peter'. Papism and Protestantism are both innovating movements; neither is conservative or traditional." I can, therefore, offer no response.
I appreciate your reponse and look forward to further discussions with you.
Dominus vobiscum
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Peter Forrester
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4/07/2003
19:05:09
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To take up again the statement "One could say that even Protestantism was actually a conservative revolution (a yearning to get closer to the roots of Christianity)..." Whether it's true that Protestantism in fact restored original Christianity can be bracketed. Personally I don't think it's true; but IT IS TRUE that Protestantism claimed to be a restoration of Christianity purified of innovations and all-too-human authority (e.g., the papacy); in that respect it had conservative pretensions, and phenomenologically speaking was indeed a conservative revolution. Insofar as the history of modernity swells with such conservative pretensions and back-to-the-origin movements (e.g., America's arguments for independence, Rousseau's natural man, Nazism's and the New Right's praise of Teutonic neopaganism) it's worth thinking about the self-conscious attempt of reclaiming something one (or one's society) has lost, whether in religion or politics, which often gets the name "tradition" and which, when reclaimed, is usually an invention. Anybody interested in talking generally about dynamics of conservatism when it involves self-reflexive appropriation of a "dead" tradition?
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aaron
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4/08/2003
00:58:53
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Traditionalist -- I wouldn't mind writing a little bit, but I feel like maybe this isn't the forum for a purely religious debate unrelated to the question of tradition per se. If you wanted, you could e-mail me directly at aaronandbrighid@aol.com. I probably won't respond to any more such things on the forum, but anybody can e-mail me directly if they want (although we may soon have to just 'agree to disagree'!).
Peter Forrester -- I understand what you're saying, but unfortunately I don't believe in 'restoration from scratch'. I feel that in order to authentically embody a tradition, above all a religious one, one must be in contact with its sources through living links. There is a good article on the 'First Things' site making this argument against the 'Radical Orthodoxy' project spearheaded by a few Cambridge people in recent years. The author doesn't seem to realise it, but I think the argument applies to Protestantism as a whole.
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Bill Riggs
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4/15/2003
14:15:25
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Well, let me first claim that Whiggery is NOT dead, even though its enemies are legion. The question that needs to be asked is whether Whiggery per se is liberal or conservative, at least within our historical bug-on-a-rug world view. The logic goes like this. William (Bill the Butcher) Poole of "Gangs of New York" infamy was a Whig. Does that make him a conservative, just because he was a Know Nothing who backed up his opinions with violence. And what about the Methodists who operated in Five Points ? Were they just "conservatives" seeking to force middle class morality down the throats of slumdwellers ?
Despite its excesses, Whiggery does have something to commend itself to history. Some traditions are not worth preserving. Some are.
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Peter Forrester
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4/19/2003
13:05:42
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Mr Riggs:
Whiggery is not dead; I, and most reasonable persons, will grant you that. But what do you mean by asking "whether Whiggery per se is liberal or conservative"? The words "liberal" and "conservative" are, to borrow from Hegel, empty concepts; what do you mean by them? If by "conservative" you mean, as I do, resisting revolution and various forms of political and spiritual rebellion, then whiggery is emphatically not conservative. As you put it, and well I think, "Some traditions are not worth preserving. Some are." That statement can only be uttered by one sufficiently free from the traditions of which he speaks and from the authorities which invest them with the kind of "value" that makes something a tradition.
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Shawn
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4/29/2003
16:22:18
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Classical (Lutheran/Reformed) Protestantism is indeed a genuine conservative counterrevolution, as it was a revolution to restore prmitive Christianity.
The authority claimed br the Roman Church for the Bishop of Rome is disputed even by some Catholics (the Old Catholic church)as well as the Orthodox Churches.
The Protestant Reformation was the inevitable response to the non-traditional innovations of Rome and its usurpation of the Gospel through such abuses as indulgences.
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Will S.
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4/29/2003
19:06:20
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To Shawn's on-the-money comment above, I'd further add the observation that conservative, traditionalist Reformed and Lutheran denominations/churches are much more obviously traditionalist than later Protestant and Anabaptist churches which reject the historic creeds (still affirmed by traditional Reformed and Lutherans as well as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) and introduced a variety of innovations such as alcohol abstinence, sexual egalitarianism, etc. (I'm speaking here of various Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, and various others, some of which call themselves "non-denominational", which are broadly within the "evangelical Protestant" camp, as are most of the others just named).
In my opinion, the "evangelical Protestants" are almost as sold out to the zeitgeist as the "mainline Protestant" denominations (the radically egalitarian denominations such as the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, etc., which have largely abandoned any pretense of Biblical orthodoxy), if only a bit slower. Here are two scathing attacks on evangelicalism from traditionalist Lutheran and Reformed perspectives, with which I heartily concur:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/May2002/0502Wolf.html
http://www.antithesis.com/pdf/assertions_10.31.pdf
My point is this; it is these sorts of watered down, 19th-century and onwards evangelical Protestant churches, along with the even-more-watered-down, mainline Protestant "churches" (if those apostates can even be so called) of today, that are anti-traditionalist; those Reformed and Lutheran denominations which hold to the historic creeds, and reject perfectionist, more-holy-than-Christ (who drank alcohol and made wine miraculously at a wedding), utopian, build-God's-Kingdom-on-Earth-ourselves beliefs [held by evangelicals and mainline denominations], are in fact just as traditionalist as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches (actually, from the Reformational point of view, more so, recovering what they'd lost, as Shawn pointed out).
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Will S.
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4/29/2003
19:07:37
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To Shawn's on-the-money comment above, I'd further add the observation that conservative, traditionalist Reformed and Lutheran denominations/churches are much more obviously traditionalist than later Protestant and Anabaptist churches which reject the historic creeds (still affirmed by traditional Reformed and Lutherans as well as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) and introduced a variety of innovations such as alcohol abstinence, sexual egalitarianism, etc. (I'm speaking here of various Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, and various others, some of which call themselves "non-denominational", which are broadly within the "evangelical Protestant" camp, as are most of the others just named).
In my opinion, the "evangelical Protestants" are almost as sold out to the zeitgeist as the "mainline Protestant" denominations (the radically egalitarian denominations such as the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, etc., which have largely abandoned any pretense of Biblical orthodoxy), if only a bit slower. Here are two scathing attacks on evangelicalism from traditionalist Lutheran and Reformed perspectives, with which I heartily concur:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/May2002/0502Wolf.html
http://www.antithesis.com/pdf/assertions_10.31.pdf
My point is this; it is these sorts of watered down, 19th-century and onwards evangelical Protestant churches, along with the even-more-watered-down, mainline Protestant "churches" (if those apostates can even be so called) of today, that are anti-traditionalist; those Reformed and Lutheran denominations which hold to the historic creeds, and reject perfectionist, more-holy-than-Christ (who drank alcohol and made wine miraculously at a wedding), utopian, build-God's-Kingdom-on-Earth-ourselves beliefs [held by evangelicals and mainline denominations], are in fact just as traditionalist as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches (actually, from the Reformational point of view, more so, recovering what they'd lost, as Shawn pointed out).
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Shawn
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4/29/2003
22:24:07
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"still affirmed by traditional Reformed and Lutherans as well as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed"
I would consider the acceptance of these creeds and the Chalcedonian formulations as absolutely defining for anyone to claim to be an orthodox, traditional Christian. I have many Evangelical friends, and on many issues I agree with them, and certainly respect them as people, but there are disturbing signs that they are going down the same path as the liberal mainline Churches.
Antithesis.com is an excellent web site, and I would strongly recommend to any traditionalist Protestants to subscribe to its free e-mail mag Christian Counterculture.
Another good site is The Chalcedon Foundation http://www.chalcedon.edu/
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Traditionalist
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4/30/2003
08:39:41
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I would urge Shawn and Will S. to read my comments above (4/7/2003). I attempted there (perhaps feebly) to explain why Protestantism cannot be properly called "conservative" or, for that matter, "traditionalist".
I would agree that Protestantism today is less "traditional" or "conservative" than it was, say, several hundred years ago (which really isn't saying much). However, historically speaking, Protestantism has never sought to return to traditional Christian roots. In fact, the Protestant movement has been one of REFORM, not RESTORATION. The objective of Protestantism was not to restore Christianity to its "primordial" beginnings. [If that had been its objective, why then break away from the Roman Catholic Church to begin with?] We know from history that Protestantism had as its objective the reformation of the Church. The concepts of "sola scriptura" (Supremacy of the Bible) and "sola fide"(Justification by Faith Alone) are not traditionalist nor conservative. [Nor are they biblical!}
I think it would be a mistake to equate reformation with restoration. I would argue that they are not the same.
And, Will, as for your comment on wine ... salud!
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Will S.
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4/30/2003
15:41:26
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Traditionalist:
I realize that to some degree, this boils down to the whole argument between Protestants and Roman Catholics, which started with the Reformation and hasn't ended, nor will it till Christ's return. We could argue forever on theological points (we Protestants don't reject that the Church was built on Peter; we just take that only to refer to Simon bar-Jona, not the popes, etc.), but that isn't my aim here. I'm simply pointing out that whatever our many theological differences, that orthodox, classical Protestantism views itself as traditionalist, in that it affirms the same creeds held by the early Roman Catholic church, and doesn't hold that the Roman Catholic church was 100% wrong in everything from the get-go (maybe some Presbyterians might disagree with me, a Reformed believer, but that's by the by). We hold early church fathers such as Augustine in high regard, and we continue to sing hymns written by Francis of Assisi and others; however, we also hold that the Roman Catholic church had by the late Middle Ages departed greatly from what God's Church should have been. Now, I realize that Roman Catholics will disagree here, and we could go back and forth forever on points of difference, but my point is, we Protestants view ourselves as holding onto the older traditions of the Church, even if we have gone off in a different direction from the Roman Catholic church. Hence our continued affirmation of the early creeds.
An analogy would be how the Confederacy continued to venerate Washington and Jefferson after they'd seceded, even though they weren't Founding Fathers of their new nation; they simply were part of their heritage historically as Americans (both for Yankees and Southerners). The Confederate secession can most definitely be thought of as a "conservative revolution", and that's not oxymoronic; although forming a new nation on somewhat different ideals, the intent was to preserve the way things had been. (I realize the analogy isn't perfect, as the Protestant Reformation wasn't trying to keep things as they were, but change them - while nevertheless still holding on to what was considered right and proper and true from tradition. In that regard, Protestantism is surely traditionalist.)
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Will S.
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4/30/2003
19:45:21
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I guess in general, a question I'd pose is, does traditionalism require no radical change whatsoever; can a new way of doing things, in politics or religion, not also be traditionalist, even if it's a significant break with the status quo? After all, in my example of the Protestant Reformation, while Protestantism has rejected the Roman Catholic Church's authority, and has opposed the setting up of any authority above that of God's Word, it is not a new religion like Islam was on its creation; Protestantism believes in Christ, holds that His death and resurrection were necessary for men's salvation, and in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, has kept infant baptism and communion as sacraments - and as mentioned earlier, holds to the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, etc. Thus, apart from its obvious distinctives, how can it be said to not be traditionalist? It indeed is not as traditionalist as Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, granted; some traditions of the Roman Church have definitely been let go of. But does that make it completely anti-traditionalist, overall? I think that is not a valid accusation, to single out the distinctives, and say that the existence of such completely invalidates all that was kept from what existed before, and say said distinctives alone makes it anti-traditionalist.
In any event, we Reformational Protestants consider ourselves to be traditionalists, especially over and against both later innovations in the name of Protestantism, and as in the 16th century, against various changes made in the Middle-Ages-era Roman Catholic church - indulgences, priests being forbidden to marry, etc. What's more, I would think the changes that have occurred in Roman Catholicism since Vatican II would at least make the charge that classical Protestants aren't traditionalists ring quite hollow, considering the massive changes that have occurred since Vatican II. Local-language masses, guitar folk masses, Pentecostal-like "Charismatic Catholics", and evangelical-like pop-music concerts accompanying the Catholic World Youth Day 2002, scarcely strike me as consistent with any serious claims to traditionalism, for the Roman Catholic Church as a whole (not including the traditionalists who often post here to complain about such things).
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Shawn
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5/01/2003
03:07:11
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" would urge Shawn and Will S. to read my comments above (4/7/2003). I attempted there (perhaps feebly) to explain why Protestantism cannot be properly called "conservative" or, for that matter, "traditionalist"."
I did read them. I happen to disagree with what you claim, which is why I posted a response in the first place.
"However, historically speaking, Protestantism has never sought to return to traditional Christian roots. In fact, the Protestant movement has been one of REFORM, not RESTORATION."
Reform can have a number of meanings. In the context of the Reformation, it was indeed both a reform and a restoration. It was a reform in that the church had become corrupt. It was a restoration in that the Reformation restored the Gospel and Biblical Christianity.
"If that had been its objective, why then break away from the Roman Catholic Church to begin with?"
Because the Roman church had itself abandoned primitive Christianity and the clear teaching of the Gospel, and was not open to Luthers call for a restoration.
The Roman church had become so entangled with the Pagansim of pre-Christian Rome that it no longer could make any claim to being the vessel of the Gospel as an institution.
From that point of view, Luthers call for both reform and restoration were aboslutely necessary.
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Shawn
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5/01/2003
03:20:43
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Having said my piece on the issue, I agree with Will that this is not the place to re-fight the Reformation, and I agree with his defense of the traditionalism of the Classical Lutheran/Reformed Churches.
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Will S.
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5/01/2003
04:52:25
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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"Reform can have a number of meanings. In the context of the Reformation, it was indeed both a reform and a restoration. It was a reform in that the church had become corrupt. It was a restoration in that the Reformation restored the Gospel and Biblical Christianity."
Exactly!
However, there was one group at the time of the Protestant Reformation that only saw themselves as restorationists and not as reformers, but they certainly weren't Protestants...
It was the Anabaptists, rather than their Protestant contemporaries, who rejected all tradition, all creeds, all early Church fathers' teachings, and who held that the original church practiced only "believers' baptism", who were not interested in reform at all, and who felt they weren't carrying out reforms, but a restoration of the original church. (As if everyone else in Christendom had gotten so basic an issue as baptism wrong, as if there'd been a departure from the original apostolic practice, and no-one had noticed...) They saw the Protestants as hopelessly compromised theologically, by not rejecting all early Roman Catholic Church tradition...
Thus the Anabaptists were anti-traditionalist in the extreme, to say the least. It may interest "Traditionalist" to note that the Hutterites (an Anabaptist sect) were among the first Christian denominations to start seriously promoting mandatory abstinence from alcoholic beverages, as early as 1545:
http://www.bfchistory.org/files/StudyAbstChMem1985
This was two centuries before any Protestants began to seriously promote teetotalling, starting with English Methodists in 1743, as noted in the article whose URL was just given. Like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism, Reformational Protestantism (Lutheran and Reformed) has generally eschewed mandatory teetotalling, holding such a policy to be unbiblical and unnecessary.
"He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man..." - Psalm 104:14,15
Cheers!
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Shawn
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5/01/2003
22:56:17
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I would also point out that the terms "Protestant" and "Lutheran", while useful in such discussions because most people know what they refer to, are not genuinely descriptive names.
Most traditionalist "Lutherans", myself included, call themselves evangelical catholics. Evangelical in the sense of being Gospel centered, that is centered on the free gift of Christs saving action on the cross and God's freely given Grace, and catholic in the sense of being of grounded in the creeds, the chalcedonian formulations,the teaching of the Church Fathers, and a sacramentalism focused on the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist.
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John
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5/09/2003
23:13:29
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From a long absence:
It seems that I've caused a low-level religious conflict. :)
This whole thread points to the real conflict which is which Christendom/West are we irredentists trying to re-establish?
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Will S.
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5/10/2003
01:31:42
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In the Chronicles magazine essay for which I gave the URL in my April 29 post, Aaron Wolf wrote:
"There will be no passion for the truth—no nerve—in the hearts of Christians in American churches, unless Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc., rediscover their own identities. Until that happens, joint campaigns of resistance against common enemies such as militant Islam will also lack nerve, and probably will not even be mounted. That goes for efforts to restore the civilization of Christendom as well."
I agree with Wolf that each of us, in whatever Christian tradition we are in, need to work to restore the historical identities grounded in our respective traditions, resist ecumenism and watering down of our traditions, and pass on the faith to our children. Then, notwithstanding our major religious differences, we can at least work together politically and socially to restore Christendom, i.e. ALL OF IT - after all, we do have common enemies, like Islam and liberalism. Sure, within our various traditions, we'll continue to teach ourselves and our children why the other Christians outside our own tradition are wrong. But can we at least acknowledge that, as with communism and Nazism in the past, and now with liberalism today (which in its success is proving to be a far worse enemy than communism and Nazism), politically speaking, there are bigger fish to fry, than pursuing an imperialism of our own particular tradition over the rest? Whatever its weaknesses, our common political heritage is religious freedom, which keeps us from literally slaughtering each other over doctrinal differences as in the past. I want no part of a "traditionalism" that is in fact a new imperialist war of conquest and attrition over rival Christian traditions - count me out of that... That's not "conserving" anything, nor is it truly "traditionalist" in any sense of the word...
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Shawn
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5/10/2003
18:52:03
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Will's last post is one of the best I have read so far on this forum and I agree with him 100%.
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Will S.
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5/11/2003
02:45:46
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Thank you, Shawn.
Some more excerpts from the Wolf essay previously cited:
American churches have lost their nerve at a time when people seem to be flocking to them en masse, looking for solace, meaning, and leadership in the face of impending crisis. What do they find? More often than not, they will be subjected to a glut of feel-good praise choruses, guitars and drums, and pithy sermons on anything but the appointed text for the day—not to mention such Christian symbols as “God Bless America” and prayers that amount to: “Lord, keep us steadfast while the U.S. military bombs Afghanistan back into the stone age.” What they will not find (in most cases) is the hope of the Gospel offered through Word and Sacrament. Nor, by and large, will they learn about the significance of Christ’s Incarnation (a point of particular importance in the face of Islam), Christ’s Cross (which brings up the nasty subject of what put Him there), His Resurrection (the basis of all Christian hope), or His Ascension (which points to His present reign and His future return as Judge of the quick and the dead).
Why not? After all, these are not complex points of esoteric dogma: They make up what C.S. Lewis calls “mere Christianity”—that which is common to all Christian denominations. There is, to be sure, a core of truth that we can call “mere Christianity.” However, as the Oxford don points out, there is no such thing as a “mere Christian.” Human beings are complex creations of God, made up of one or several ethnic backgrounds, racial traits, regional and local identities.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “mere Christian church,” devoid of a history of theological conflict over fine points of doctrine and existing apart from a real community of people who share familial and ethnic ties and tradition. “Mere Christianity” exists in the foggy realm of ideas; real people must encounter mere Christianity in real churches that preserve real, historic traditions. Attempts to create mere Christian churches—such as the many evangelical or “nondenominational” sects—eventually default into one of the convoluted traditions that are mostly Anabaptist or Pentecostal. Bereft of any coherent heritage, these groups experience high turnover and quickly degenerate into dog-and-pony shows.
These nondenominational, big pink churches now surround our American cities, slapped up overnight next to the Wal-Marts and mini- and maxi-malls. But just as quickly, our traditional churches within our crumbling cities are being spray-painted and converted into little pink churches for you and me. It is nearly impossible to find Lutheran churches, for example, that even stick to the new hymnal, with its tame liturgy—let alone the old one full of “archaisms.” Try to find a Catholic church where there is no guitar mass, let alone a parish that celebrates the Tridentine one. Good luck locating a Presbyterian church where you will hear from the Westminster Confession instead of from a Ned Flanders clone who bears the title of “Drama Team Pastor.”
...
Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians—clergy and laity—have capitulated to the great homogenizing force that is America. Every aspect of their lives (theological confessions, not to mention ethnicity, culture, place), they have let erode into the American sea. Once this erosion occurs, “mere Christianity”—that deposit of faith that is guarded at the core—is free to float away, as well.
With this loss of identity comes a loss of nerve, precisely because nerve is a function of identity. Bold defiance of an enemy can only come from someone who clearly understands who his enemy is. In order to know who your enemy is, you must know yourself. That means discovering and engaging your own tradition, which is precisely the opposite of the impulse of every major Christian denomination in America.
...
The best we can do is tell the truth and encourage real people to resist homogenization. But there can be no such thing as an “identity movement” that transcends unique people and places. We cannot simply write or speak about the loss of nerve and thereby transform the homogeneous “American church” back into something that has depth and guts. Reinvigorating the nerve of American churches by rediscovering identity requires real work, in the home and in the parish, before it can affect a denomination. It requires fathers to catechize their children, parishioners to resist whenever they hear “God Bless America” in church or see the inevitable announcement in the bulletin that the church is planning to add a little pink rock ’n’ roll worship service, and pastors to express outrage whenever their superiors sign off on obfuscative, ecumenist documents.
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Will S.
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5/11/2003
03:23:49
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I suggested, in the What to do? forum on May 1, some other measures which I think apply here, in addition to the excellent advice Wolf gave about fathers catechizing their children, as necessary means for ensuring our children learn the faith and avoid the homogenizing, soul-destroying effects of the modern anti-culture:
"Pull your kids out of public schools, the Scouting movements; any organizations which will try to indoctrinate them against traditionalist Christianity, and into radical egalitarianism. Homeschool them or send them to sound private, Christian schools; find Christian alternatives to Scouts, that inculcate good morals into children and teach skills, as well as being fun, but which also teach the Faith, and not Political Correctness.
Discourage too much T.V. and too much Internet; regulate/control what they do consume of these; strongly encourage reading of books, especially ones that teach history.
Bring them up to treasure and learn from hymns, classical music, folk music, rather than any modern crap on the radio."
(By folk music I of course mean the real folk music of our ancestors:
http://www.contemplator.com/folk.html
NOT Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc.)
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BTW, in addition to Antithesis and the Chalcedon Foundation, some other excellent resources for traditionalist Protestants:
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals:
http://www.alliancenet.org
Modern Reformation magazine:
http://www.modernreformation.org/
The White Horse Inn (a Reformation theology radio program):
http://www.alliancenet.org/radio/whi/whi.html
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Shawn
Guest
5/11/2003
07:11:00
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Message:
I think Mr Wolf is largely spot on in its critique, although I disagree with his remarks about "God Bless America" and bombing Afghanistan.
At the same time I do not entirely share his pessimism. Traditional Lutheranism is making a comeback, as is the Reformed tradition. This comeback is fairly new and still small, but it suggests that a growing number of American Christians are feeling burnt out and cynical about "Seeker sensitive" Mega Churches and the lack of theological and spiritual depth in such places.
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Will S.
Guest
5/11/2003
13:44:16
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Indeed, I can affirm that the Reformed tradition does certainly seem to be making some sort of a comeback. My traditionalist Reformed church has several hundred members, as does another one in the city in which I live; people will travel from all over to attend them, regardless of how far or how long it takes, for the privilege of being part of a solid, orthodox, doctrinally sound, traditionalist Reformed church. And most of the congregation members who are parents either send their kids to a Reformed school or homeschool them themselves, refusing to entrust their education to the State; which gives me further hope and encouragement.
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Will S.
Guest
5/28/2003
04:18:25
| RE: Restoration ... or Conquest?
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Of possible interest: another Wolf essay in Chronicles Magazine, in which he argues that Protestants ought to return to Reformational understandings of contraceptives - i.e. oppose their usage (same as the Roman Catholics do):
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/June2003/0603Wolf.html
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