Persecution
of Christians is Coming to the West
I do not
in any way wish to minimise the suffering of Christians in lands
where they are a small minority. That is a travesty and a tragedy
that should ever be in our prayers – and our politics! But at
present I want to talk about the West – where Christianity has had
a historic significance, indeed where the labours of Christian men
and women in all fields of endeavour has been like yeast in bread to
the benefit of the whole.
So what
has this to do – as I claimed last post – with the current push
for same sex marriage?
As I said
last post, in Australia the recent census has revealed that only
0.72% of “couples” stated that they were same sex couples. This
where there is every benefit to their cause inflate the numbers. It
is likely this tiny percentage is mirrored in other countries. Yet in
many countries there has been a determined headline-grabbing fight to
legalise same sex marriage.
Why
have so many been fighting so hard for an issue that affects so few?
The answer
cannot be “equality” “justice” or any other high sounding
reason because there are just too many much better qualified
claimants for these things. True there are many “rebels looking for
a cause” so as a matter of human psychology any crusade couched in
appealing terms can garner a considerable number of ardent
supporters. But the question still hangs: why this cause? Why so much
fuss about so few – and at that a “few” that already have all
the legal privileges (in Australia anyway) of marriage, along with
“de-facto” heterosexual unions. Why so much fuss about “marriage”
when marriage is falling out of favour in the general community being
replaced in popularity by casual-to-long-standing “relationships”.
It reeks of ulterior motive.
Ulterior
motive is the crunch. I don't say the “foot soldiers” and
hangers-on who absorb this agenda as part of their commitment to
progressive dogma realise there is an ulterior motive. I don't say
the actual gays and lesbians who think all this support is wonderful
are party to it. Perhaps it is only the “spiritual rulers of this
world” who have thought out the end plan. Perhaps also the movers
and shakers among the progressives are actively plotting it. Whoever
and however, there is I believe a powerful ulterior
motive: a stick to beat genuine Christianity
with.
Go back
for a moment to our discussion of Revelation 13 and the persecution
of those early Christians. The “beast from the sea” was as I said
human government when it stopped governing under God
and began governing as God. The beast from the earth
was human religion giving a religious under-girding to the
government. For the early Christians Imperial Rome and the cult of
emperor worship fitted this description. (many other tyrants and
their “high priests” have fitted it in the generations since
then, and will to the end of time.) The original recipients of
Revelation did not need to be told what the “mark of the beast”
was! They knew that without a certificate of
having sacrificed to the emperor, and membership of the trade guilds
which also required sacrifice to pagan deities no one could work or
carry on business!
As
persecutions intensified those who refused to offer a pinch of
incense on the altar to the emperor faced death. Many wishy-washy
Christians gave into the pressure, true Christians could and would
not – and died for their faith!
“What
if” in our day there was something true Christians would not
participate in, but which would be no problem for false-Christians?
Would that not be a brilliant way destroy the spiritual effectiveness
of Christian churches, leaving them dead to God but useful to
progressive “religion” and the “spirit of the age”.
Same-sex
marriage is just that. Genuine Christians can accept same-sex couples
as they are, and live in love and tolerance. Many of us have
relatives whom we love dearly who are in same-sex relationships. Many
have them in our community and even in our churches and treat them as
lovingly as we do anyone else. But …. we just can't call it
“marriage”
For Bible
believing Christians, and for Catholics, Orthodox and others (in my
case Anglican) who hold to the historic foundations (and in my case
also the legal constitution) of their denomination there is no room for
choice. Marriage is, for Catholics a sacrament, for Anglicans “an
honourable estate instituted by God in the time of
man's innocency (ie Adam and Eve), signifying to us the
mystical union which is betwixt Christ and his Church.” (1662 Prayer Book, Solemnisation of Marriage) Humans are
simply not at liberty to redefine that which God has instituted!
To
mis-quote the marriage ceremony: What
God has instituted let not man mess with!
Already
there have been a few cases of Christians being sued in the US for
refusing to provide services for same sex marriages where it has been
legalised. Ink this was just like a few soldiers opening fire too
early in a massive ambush. Wait till all the West has legalised same
sex marriage. In Australia it is on hold because the current
government promised a plebiscite on the issue, and a
progressive-controlled Senate has blocked this (perhaps they fear
that with a secret ballot they would lose!). A leading Australian
progressive got quoted a while ago berating his fellow-believers for
pushing social change too fast. That way he said risked waking the
populace and producing a backlash. The secret, he said was to take
little steps and wait until the community had grown accustomed to
that one before taking the next step.
There
is also the story of boiling frogs: if you throw them into boiling
water (so the story goes) they will jump out. If you put them in cold
water and slowly heat it up they will stay until it is too late.
So
my premonition is that once all over the West same-sex marriage is
legal and then communities see it as the status quo: the ambush will
be sprung. Then legislation will compel all ministers to marry
same-sex couples and likely proscribe penalties for people refusing
service to such events.
For
ministers and churches who have sold out to progressivism this will
pose no problems, and they will be praised by the media and
government. For the genuine Christians it will be like throwing a
pinch of incense onto the emperor's altar: so easy yet impossible. So
the real Christians will be weeded out of the churches and persecuted
in the community.
The
time to act is now!
It has absolutely nothing to do with homophobia
or gay rights, it is simply a matter of defending the Faith once
entrusted to the Apostles!
This week
as a “bonus” post I am reproducing an article I saw in
yesterday's paper: one of their chief editors actually agreeing with
what I said in a post a few weeks ago in “self, Self, Self” - he
has just researched it more and says it better!
Saturday
/8/7/17 in the Australian
Blessed
be the egoistic individuals
Illustration:
Eric Lobbecke
In the litany of words about the census the core issue has been
avoided — the almost certain link between the generational decline
in the Christian faith as guide to the common good and the
collapsing relationship between the people and the political system.
The reality is staring us in the face. Yet it cannot be spoken,
cannot be entertained, cannot be discussed because there is no
greater heresy and no more offensive notion than that the loss
of Christian faith might have a downside.
Christianity has fallen from 88 per cent of the population in 1966 to
52 per cent today, and seems sure to slide soon below the 50 per cent
threshold. It would be absurd to pretend this epic change does not
have profound consequences for society since it constitutes the
eclipse of a particular conception of human nature.
At the same time the past decade has witnessed a shattering of trust
across the Western world including Australia between the people
on one hand and politicians and elites on the other. This dysfunction
in Australia has multiple causes within politics itself: the identity
crisis of the major parties, the rise of negative politics, a
self-interested Senate, leadership failures and internal disunity.
It is obvious, however, there is a deeper problem, that something
more profound has gone wrong. The sense of a community of shared
values is disintegrating. The most fundamental norms, accepted
for centuries, are now falling apart as disputes erupt about family,
education, gender, sexuality, marriage, tradition, patriotism, life
and death.
The decline in our civic virtue is undisguised, respect for
institutional authority has eroded, the idea of a common community
purpose is undermined, trust is in retreat but the most
important singular development is the transformed notion of the
individual — the obsession about individual autonomy in every
aspect of life: love, work, race, sex, culture and death. Put harshly
but not inaccurately, it is narcissism presented as self-realisation
and human rights.
The idea that our democracy is founded on core moral truths about
human nature has collapsed — or is collapsing. Donald Trump’s
election as President was driven by fear the American dream had been
cancelled and by alarm that elites led a separate life and used power
for their self-interest. But the deeper source was a feeling
that the moral foundations of the country were eroding.
Confronting the US dilemma, American writer George Weigel said: “The
first step is to recognise that American politics is in crisis
because our public moral culture is in crisis. The second step is to
recognise that American public moral culture is in crisis because of
a false understanding of freedom. And the third step is to recognise
that the false notion of freedom evident across the spectrum of
American politics is based on a false anthropology: a distorted idea
of the human person and human aspiration.”
If this sounds too lofty or too deep, let’s revert to the brilliant
2015 book by New York Times columnist David
Brooks, The Road to Character,to offer down-to-earth
examples of what has happened.
Brooks says: “Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism
test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to
them. Statements such as ‘I show off if I get the chance because I
am extraordinary’. The median narcissism score has risen 30 per
cent in the last two decades. Ninety-three per cent of young people
score higher than the middle score just 20 years ago.
“By 2007, 51 per cent of young people reported that being famous
was one of their top personal goals. In one study middle-school girls
were asked who they would most like to have dinner with. Jennifer
Lopez came in first, Jesus Christ came in second and Paris Hilton
third. The girls were then asked which of the following jobs they
would like to have. Nearly twice as many said they’d rather be a
celebrity’s personal assistant — for example, Justin Bieber’s —
than president of Harvard.
“As I look around the popular culture I kept finding the same
message everywhere: You are special. Trust yourself. Be true to
yourself. Movies from Pixar and Disney are constantly telling
children how wonderful they are. Commencement speeches are larded
with the same cliches: Follow your passion. Don’t accept limits.
Chart your own course. You have a responsibility to do great things
because you are so great.”
Brooks argues there has been a “moral shift” in the way parents
now raise children and this has permeated through institutions from
Girl Scouts to the churches. He quotes a Texas preacher telling his
flock: “You were made to excel. You were made to leave a mark on
this generation.”
Australian writer Anne Manne, in her 2014 book The Life of
I,says: “Changes in our culture have created an economic,
social and relational world that not only supports but actually
celebrates narcissism, cultivating and embedding it as a character
trait.”
She says by the mid-2000s The New York Times declared
that narcissism was not only an academic “growth industry” but
also the explanation favoured “by columnists, bloggers and
television psychologists”.
“Narcissism had become a central problem of our time,” Manne
says. She quotes a prophetic passage from the path-breaking 1979
book by Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism,where
Lasch talks about the preoccupation with self: “People now
responded to others as if their actions were being recorded and
simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience or stored up
for close scrutiny at some later time.”
Manne references the work by academics Keith Campbell and Jean Twenge
showing the rise in narcissism over generations. They called the
problem an “epidemic”. According to Manne’s summary, Campbell
and Twenge concluded that “what makes a child grow into a
narcissist is spoiling, indulgence, an absence of moral discipline in
building character and a culture of excessive praise, of telling
children they are special”.
“The new terror is to be invisible,” Manne says. “As playwright
Preston Sturges once quipped, ‘He was forgotten before he was
remembered.’ Lena Dunham, the clever and creative writer behind the
hit show Girls,put the new sensibility this way: ‘My
dad finds Twitter just infinitely unrelatable. He’s like, Why would
you want to tell anybody what I had for a snack, it’s private! And
I’m like, Why would you even have a snack if you didn’t tell
anybody? Why bother eating?’ ”
Now reflect again on Weigel’s bedrock argument: that we have a
“distorted idea of the human person and human aspiration”. In a
deft juxtaposition, Brooks exposes how far we have come and how far
we have fallen.
His book begins with a reflection on the generation of the Depression
and World War II — described by writers but not themselves as the
“greatest generation”. You might remember them, perhaps they were
your parents, the last generation of the universal Christian norm.
What did they achieve?
Apart from suffering economic hardship, they won a war, beat the
Germans, beat the Japanese, changed the world, backed their mates,
returned home, raised families and contributed to their
society. Guess what: they stayed humble. They didn’t beat
their chests, didn’t say how great they were, didn’t seek media
attention, ask what the country was doing for them, behave like
narcissists or declare how extraordinary they were — when they
had claims to being extraordinary.
Not only did they not boast about their achievements. Often they
refused to even talk about them. How remarkable and humble was that?
Brooks quotes Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent, saying: “We did not
win it because destiny created us better than all other people.”
Brooks says: “Their collective impulse was to warn themselves
against pride and self-glorification.”
Many will recall the Australians of that era, a society of 88 per
cent Christian nomination. People then had a different view of human
nature. Yet their modesty, humility and Christian forbearance
makes no sense in today’s world. The past is just a foreign
country. Some of their generation went to church, others didn’t,
some keenly avoided entering a church. But that was of no account.
They were part of a Christian society in its outlook and virtues
and view of human nature.
The progressives — and Brooks agrees to a certain extent — say
the world has improved since the 1950s and 60s, when sexism, racism
and homophobia were rampant. The truth is that values have changed;
some of the changes are good and some are bad. For Brooks, it is a
question of character.
He says: “The more I looked into that period, the more I realised
I was looking into a different moral country. I began to see a
different view of human nature, a different attitude about what is
important in life, a different formula for how to live a life of
character and depth.”
Brooks does not make the link to Christianity — yet the link is
unavoidable. Many of the virtues of the greatest generation are
lost or fading. Some people fight to retain them and are
traduced as a result. It is impossible, however, to separate those
virtues from the Christian norms that were so pervasive at the time.
Narcissism was in short supply and never rewarded. In those days
Christian virtue was the norm and, critically, it was always the
default position.
Christianity shaped not just the view of human nature, individual
morality and how people were expected to behave. It also shaped
the social norms. American sociologist Charles Murray says:
“Religion’s role as a source of social capital is huge.”
Murray refers to Robert Putnam who, in his classic book Bowling
Alone, says: “As a rough rule of thumb our evidence shows
(that) nearly half of all associational memberships are
church-related, half of all personal philanthropy is religious in
character and half of all volunteering occurs in a religious
context.”
As Murray points out, the post-war standards of American society were
overwhelmingly shaped by religious norms. There was near universal
marriage, divorce was rare, television shows mirrored “the American
way of life”, in films there were no four-letter words, nudity or
sex, crime was low, few people even in poor neighbourhoods had served
prison time and there was virtually no problem with illegal
drugs.
On the other hand, people drank like fish and smoked like chimneys.
The south was racially segregated, racial disadvantage was huge, the
civil rights movement was about to erupt, women were held back,
pollution in some cities had become untenable, poverty was disguised
but widespread. The cultural revolution seeded in the 60s was at
hand. It was an irresistible tidal wave propelled by a changing
world, technology and a baby-boom generation.
As Murray says, Betty Friedan published The Feminine
Mystique in 1963, Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring had appeared in 1962 triggering the
environmental movement, Ralph Nader had begun his critique of the
auto industry on behalf of consumers, Bob Dylan’s theme
songs were being released and the Beatles had captured the youth of
the West. Each of these events would resonate in Australia.
The rise of progressive values in the name of freedom and justice
would march in parallel with the decline of religious faith. Put
another way, they were different sides of the same coin.
Eventually, the revolution took judicial and legal form. The greatest
institution that embodied the new social order was the US Supreme
Court.
In a series of judgments, the court redefined the idea of freedom and
human nature. Weigel captures this, quoting from the majority
decision in the 1992 planned parenthood case. “At the heart of
liberty,” the judges said, “is the right to define one’s own
concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery
of human life.” Led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, this
philosophy was repeated in the more recent decision to impose
same-sex marriage.
At this point individual autonomy and human rights (what some might
call “the Big Me”) replaced the concept of an objective moral
order founded in the Christian tradition. The notion of a
God-ordained morality was swept aside along with its view of
mankind as more than a bundle of desires to be sanctified as human
rights. Man, not God, was enshrined at the centre of the universe.
The judges reflected the spirit of the age and the cultural
revolution that had transformed the West. The idea of freedom was
separated from a higher order moral duty and tied to personal
self-realisation and self-esteem. Narcissism was legitimised. Weigel
says: “There is no claim here that the American democratic
experiment rests on self-evident moral truths.” The upshot was
a society of many truths; each person was granted autonomy to decide
his or her own moral truth.
What does this mean for politics?
It requires little insight to conclude such a society and culture
that prioritises a cult of “individualism” when translated into
the political sphere is less cohesive and united, more divided over
existing norms, less willing to accept the decisions and compromises
of political leaders, far more difficult for politicians to manage
and persuade and, above all, from which to extract a working majority
position. In short, governing is harder, the gap between politicians
and public more difficult to bridge and the society divided at its
essence.
There is, however, an even deeper problem.
As the moral status of the church declines, the moral status of
progressive ideology grows. Vacuums will be filled. Because the
Christian ethos was tied to the past and tradition, it became a
target for the new ideology of personal freedom. This is founded in
the view that settler societies such as America and Australia have
failed to come to terms with the racism, indigenous exploitation,
sexism, patriarchy and monoculturalism at their heart. The task of
community leaders was once to uphold the values of the civilisation;
now, more often than not, it is to dismantle them.
Pivotal to this transition is the progressive attack on the
Aristotelian framework that made the West a success. This
concept was articulated at various stages by the popes, notably Leo
XIII and Pius XI. As outlined by Tulsa University professor Russell
Hittinger, this envisages three “necessary” elements for
human happiness: domestic society (marriage and family), faith and
church and, finally, political society. A brief reflection might
confirm the wisdom of this framework.
It is, however, now being dismantled in the new and manic crusade of
human freedom. Progressive doctrine denies any preferred model
for family structure since that would be prejudicial and
discriminatory; it now approaches its ultimate objective in the realm
of faith — to drive religion from the public square and reject
the role of religion and church as a mobiliser of social capital in a
secular society.
The final logic is that everything depends upon politics. As the
society of family and marriage becomes mired in confusion, as
the society of church and religion is the target of assault, so the
society of politics is being asked to assume a role and burden
utterly beyond its capacity and guaranteed to leave community-wide
unhappiness.
The tripartite design that made the West such a workable and
successful proposition is being torn part. Once dismantled, it
cannot be put back together. This is being done in the name of
justice, rights and progress. There was an inevitability about
the decline of Christian faith, but there was nothing inevitable
about the dismal pretender that presents as its replacement.
