John C. Wright, who sometimes can be a bit gruff for my tastes, nonetheless hits the nail on the head:
The Left will support whatever causes the most harm to Christian civilization and likewise will oppose whatever most is needed to help it: whatever most degrades the social fabric, whatever spreads vulgarity and ugliness, whatever promotes vice and crime
They hate the West and seek to dismantle it, because and solely because the West is Christendom.
Not that he's alone, or that I'm the first to say such a thing. It's just something I've been saying for years now, especially in the last few years where it takes more blind ignorance to deny the fact than admit it.
The Left is about the utter destruction of the Christian, Western democratic tradition. The values, heritage, heroes, principles, manners, attitudes, beliefs, virtues, decency, common sense and base morals of anything vaguely connected to the Western Tradition are at best suspect, at worst in dire need of eradication. And that includes apparently timeworn assumptions such as liberty, equality, the value of life and the abhorrence of violence. All thrown upside down, changed or tossed in the trash. Anything, anywhere or anyone that aids in that mission will be tolerated at worst, lionized at best.
Whether it can be stopped or we're merely witnessing that next stage in history that moves into a dark age after a period of development and striving for the better remains to be seen. After all, a growing number of Christian leaders today seem to begin every statement with an explanation that Christianity is best seen through a post-Western set of glasses.
Nonetheless, know thine enemy, as the old saying goes. And it's almost impossible to think of the manifold blessings and benefits that the Christian West brought to the world and not see the ones trying to undo it all as the enemy.
"We are told to love our enemies, but Jesus never once said that in doing so they would cease to be our enemies." A quote from an old Presbyterian colleague and friend from my ministry days.
Jesus wasn't talking about mortal enemies; he was talking about people in our own communities who cause us minor irritations, and who can be shamed into repentance by acts of loving-kindness. You don't have to love people who are out to destroy you. That kind of suicidal nonsense needs to be tossed into the dustbin. --- G. Poulin
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a distinction between two types of enemies in terms of this teaching. His forgiveness to those crucifying Him, mixed with the presence of Rome in Judea at that time in full oppressive conqueror mode, suggests it was open ended love and forgiveness - a Christian distinctive. There are zillions of cases in the world's story in which teachings extol the virtues or forgiveness or even loving of those doing you wrong, but qualified. There are plenty of cases where philosophies or religious traditions will allow a refusal to do either. What has set Christianity apart was the sweeping nature of these teachings. Historically that never meant we couldn't, or shouldn't, defend the helpless against an aggressor. But we don't do it out of hate or revenge or desire to inflict harm. That is what sets the Faith apart.
Delete"Jesus wasn't talking about mortal enemies; " No? News to me. Was he talking about enemies like those who crucified him? Or the religious leaders who turned him in to be put to death? Or Pilate who ordered the crucifixion? Or Herod? Was it suicidel on his part to allow them to put him to death when the angels could have saved him as he told Pilate? Was it suicidal thinking when he forgave them all from the cross? I don't know where you got your ideas about 'enemies' but the ones listed seem mortal enemies to me. It's like saying (paraphrasing Christ): "If you only forgive those who hurt you a little bit, what reward is in that? Even the pagans do that."
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ReplyDeleteIn an old cartoon Bugs meets Marvin the Martian, who calmly prepares to blow up the earth because it blocks his view of Venus. I've seen that as a parable about the Left: it's obsessed with itself like an ill-tempered and coldly-sensual adolescent, and the Faith says something it hates to hear: that the universe is not about you, but about Christ and others, to whom you have obligations.
In Collodi's original "Pinocchio", as the Cricket tries to play conscience, the puppet kills him. Christianity in its Western form (the only form the Left knows) offers a witness the Left can't take (without repentance).
That comes from the shift in the postwar era that we witnessed yet somehow missed the implications of. The idea that there is really nothing beyond the physical world more important than life in the physical world, and there is nothing in the physical world more important than me. When I watch the Church address our modern age, it seems to want us to get to a 'God focused' perspective and yet so often seems prepared to accept the implications of the me centered promises of today. Which is, of course, the ultimate sales pitch from the modern Left: if you get to be an important person from an important group, it's all about you with a blank check. At least until down the road when it's no longer convenient for you to be important.
Delete(Tom New Poster)
DeleteFor senior theology (74-75) I was taught by Fr. William Ryan SJ, a former missionary to China who suffered torture under the Communists before his release. His course was called "egology", the thrust of which is that the hungers of our youth and of our world can only be filled by Christ. It shaped my life for years (and I still keep most of the handouts), so a program that began with "me" could end in God, if directed by a good teacher thoroughly committed to the Faith and savvy about the modern world and adolescents. Unfortunately, such was not the case for many of my other Jesuit instructors.
It's said what happened to the Jesuits. When I was a lad, the phrase 'Jesuit Education' was another way of saying darn brilliant because of a fabulous education. My wife's extremely well to do uncle, no Catholic he, nonetheless sent both of his daughter (both now in the medical field, one a doctor and married to doctor and lawyer) to a local private Jesuit based school.
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