PS I feel like I'm coming down with another cold so not sure I will be able to post again this week, although I will try to send a newsletter at the very least.
Damn I’ve tested positive for Covid again so definitely won’t be posting again this week. Another Christmas ruined by the CCP! Have a merry Christmas everyone and thanks for subscribing!
Apologies haven’t really been checking comments as being lying in bed reading about Stalin’s great terror. No worse than a bad cold and today is better than yesterday
The tragedy of our 21st century situation is that the moral gains of Christianity cannot be maintained without the foundation. "By whose standard?" as Pastor Doug Wilson is fond of saying. Without a profound belief in absolute divine justice, the Image of God, and that the Creator can choose to manifest Himself in weakness and humility, we are set to become far worse than pagan Romans. Pagans of old could be very cruel, but often they had a hard, stern moral outlook that could be honourable and even noble in it's own way. We will not even have that.
I think it was CS Lewis who said we would very lucky if we reverted to paganism after the decline of Christianity. Pre-Christian pagans are to moderns what naïve virgins are to embittered divorcees. Neither are married of course, but they are not the same and the latter is no improvement.
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious
In a period of despair around age 50, I considered ditching Christianity for the cult of Athena. The academics, the arts and crafts, and the occasional armed mayhem seemed pretty appealing. Plus I've always had a thing for Odysseus.
I can't imagine there is a big Athena-worshipping community either, although she is definitely one of the more attractive Greek gods. I think of her as a Princess Anne figure, sensible while all the menfolk around her get in various scrapes.
Great piece and I'm going to buy the book now. Funnily enough, I'm just about to go and get baptised in the church in our village that has almost a 1000 years of history...
Holland is an excellent writer. The opening to Dominion is stunning. However, I would argue Diarmand MacCullough's Christianity, the First 3,000 years, is the better book.
I'm aware of the various angry arguments against Christianity and one can't deny the many horrors and injustices committed in the name of the faith, mostly against other Christians. But at the same time, given the context of the pagan world, Christianity was surely much better than the alternatives. And even today's secularism gives us a glimpse into an alternative world that is far less pleasant, despite all the modern conveniences and cult of progress. Christianity does force people to acknowledge the value of each human being as individuals, and when that recognition fades, humans are very quick to regress to not seeing other humans as deserving of a minimum of basic respect and dignity.
Would recommend. It's a real tome, and some of it a bit slanted in places, but given the monumental undertaking of the book you can forgive the author a small bit of progressive sniping.
The switch from the Rome of Cincinnatus and Cicero to the Rome of the Caesars is probably more to be lamented than the switch from the Rome of the Caesars to the Rome the Popes.
And secularists’ main complaint, historically, against Christianity – the idea that everyone in a political jurisdiction should be of the same religion – was a holdover from the Roman Dominate which Constantine brought with him when he adopted Christianity.
"He dined with Jews who violated the law and talked beside wells with adulterers."
The text (John 4: 4-42) does not say the Samaritan woman was an adulteress, only that she was living with a man who was not her husband. (Today, that would simply be expected.)
It’s important to remember that women could not divorce their husbands, so she was left entirely destitute five times. Without a son or rights to a husband’s inheritance she had no means of living other than begging. It’s not difficult to put ourselves in her shoes and see that living with a man would be the lesser of two evils. The text doesn’t indicate that she was offended by Jesus’ observation, indeed she seems to have been smitten by Jesus’ counter-cultural willingness to engage in conversation with her and treat her with dignity. Certainly her enthusiastic pronouncement in her village indicates that she had become a believer and wanted everyone to meet Jesus.
I can see the thesis (that our modern liberalism comes from our earlier Christianity) and both you and Tom Holland are powerful writers. But that's not that different from the Whiggish 'arc of history' which I abhor (because something changes as part of a historical process, it doesn't follow that the change be welcome.) St Paul talked a lot of rubbish amid his 'praise of love'; I can't half-close my eyes and overlook that, or see past it. Why should I? Your faith's founding thinker used very robust language to make plain his dislike of me (language so strong that were I to use it of a co-worker, I would be sacked), so why should I bother trying to see where I might be permitted to fit into it after all? A Roman might well have 'laughed' at our obsession with racism - and we condem him for it? Local temples, local gods: citizens of somewhere, not globalist citizens of nowhere. I'd rather be ruled by Caesar than our modern, woke 'universalists', whose unexamined Lutherism makes life hell for so many citizens.
Wokeism/modernism encourages us to see our essential identity tied up with sex. This is almost certainly a reaction to the absurd, traditional Christian view that tended to say our essential identity was voided if we did sex the "wrong" way. More likely our essential identity has nothing to do with sex at all, any more than it has to do with any other objective experience. But just as it is not created by sex or made of sex, neither is it destroyed by it.
I don't think you entirely do justice to Martin Luther here (and I don't think Holland does either, from what I remember from his book). I'd recommend Peter Stanford's biography as an accessible and sympathetic biography of the father of the Reformation - and written by a Catholic, too!
Outstanding piece about an outstanding work. It struck me that, with the likely exception of those drunk on their own victimhood, we are all, at least in our heads and hearts, a mixture of Nietzsche and Paul: part axe wielding Viking, part 1 Corinthians:13. Personally, I can watch films like '300' and 'Amistad' in succession without feeling any contradiction. We scorn our Christian heritage at our peril.
"Christianity’s revolutionary message lies at the heart of our cultural assumptions, especially on the – theoretically more secular – political left. Angela Merkel opened up Germany’s borders to Middle Eastern refugees for this reason."
I have no quarrel with the first sentence in principle, but anyone reading the follow-up without background knowledge would struggle to guess that Angela Merkel was the leader of a self-identified party of the centre-right. They might also assume from your phrasing that her attitudes were merely those of a secularised post-Christian, rather than someone who had declared (in 2012):
"I am a member of the evangelical church. I believe in God and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life [...] We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs."
A couple of years earlier, Merkel's response to the question of whether there had been "too much Islam" in Europe was to retort that there was “too little Christianity" and to assert that "we have too few discussions about the Christian view of mankind.”
Earlier still Merkel had argued that the EU constitution should make reference to Europe's Christian values, but the comments cited above are more assertive and suggest something more than the average cultural conservative's evocation of Christian tradition or heritage. Merkel surely does not deserve to be offered up as a representative of post-Christian cultural assumptions, when she's an actual professing and believing Christian.
Merkel is a transitional figure, she just hasn't taken the plunge to go Pope Francis or (shudder) full-on Welby. Yes she's not wrong in the quotes you provide, but what of it? These are hardly dazzling insights, and are vague common sentiments of the Boomer generation. When Christians stand up for their beliefs in Germany, they can get arrested (see Wunderlich family).
Remember, the Blairs, most of the the Royal Family, Obama and David Cameron were all "Christians" too, and would readily declare themselves such - would what on earth do they really mean?
I know what you mean, but I think there is a real difference between Merkel actually declaring that Europe needs more Christianity, specifically, and, say, Blair's complacent belief that religion (no matter what religion) is a kind of net social benefit (remember how he was happy to have new faith schools catering to all faiths). I also think Merkel's decision to admit refugees (whether or not one endorses it) was a considered ethical one, to be contrasted favourably with the cynical decision by the Blair administration to permit large-scale immigration largely on the basis that it would favour the Labour Party electorally.
Sorry, I must disagree. I have heard too much in my own relatively short life from people who say they believe in 'God', 'Jesus' and of course, those good ol' 'Christian values'. But the terms are NEVER elaborated on, and ALWAYS bear a striking resemblance to the progressive zeitgeist. Christian values are always framed in terms of "openness", "welcoming", "sharing". Not fooled.
In regards to refugees, there is nothing in Christian teaching that says you get to (much less have to) admit hundreds of thousands of foreigners - Muslims, no less - to your country, unleashed on your own people. This is a globalist, progressive outlook, it is not remotely Christian, which demands personal charity and concern to your neighbour (note: not "the world", not "thousands of people who I will never personally meet but foist onto others so I can look good, oh and others can foot the bill too"). I'm sure Merkel is personally very nice and would make a lovely guest at Christmas, but that's not the issue.
Of course you're right about the views of many modern self-identified Christians "bearing a striking resemblance to the progressive Zeitgeist". I often think of C.S. Lewis - "We must at all costs not move with the times" - and wonder how many European Christians today would share or even understand that sentiment.
And yet, and yet... "‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For [...] I was a stranger and you took Me in." There's nothing in Christian teaching specifically about refugees because the concept was basically anachronistic in the time of Christ. But if I had been the leader of a nation faced with the question of whether to admit refugees (of whatever creed), and if I found myself on the Day of Judgement in the situation described in Matthew 25 : 31-46, I think I'd be more confident of my salvation if I had erred on the side of generosity than the reverse.
I take your point, but refugees are not a new thing - many have fled lands due to instability, famine and invasion, including the Israelites in Genesis when they came to Egypt. "I think I'd be more confident of my salvation if I had erred on the side of generosity than the reverse." On an interpersonal level, I would agree, if you see a homeless man don't automatically assume "drug-addled loser". On a civilizational/international level however, that's nuts, positively wicked. If I gave away my country to invaders to the detriment of my own children and people, I rather think I would be damned for my callousness and dereliction of duty. That goes double if one does so for reasons of progressive virtue and good-feelz. You are also assuming that Christ means "every person on earth" in Matthew 25, Jesus said "I was a stranger, and you took me in", he did not say, "I was LEGION, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, nay MILLIONS, of people belonging to a religion that actively hates you and is looking to acquire what you have, gimme gimme gimme and oooh that's a pretty daughter you have, maybe I'll have her too".
Satirical tone aside, I think anyone can see the difference.
In practical terms, I accept the distinction you make; we can't accommodate everyone, and we take a risk every time we try - especially if the people we bring in belong to a culture which shares few of our normal assumptions and which has a long history of conflict with our own.
I can't help feeling, though, that Christ didn't mean the religion he preached to be practical, and would probably have urged us to take the risk. Michel Houellebecq no doubt meant it satirically, as you do in your post above, when he remarked that Christianity "is the sort where you offer your throat to the butcher’s blade," but I think that if any of us are going to argue seriously for Christianity as a guiding principle for politics we probably have to reckon with the substance of that remark.
Well, perhaps there's a reason that Caesar is meant to rule, after all! And after all, we are counselled to be wise as serpents, as well as harmless as doves. And - yes indeed - if we do good in order to feel good about ourselves, which is what you suspect the progressives of doing, then probably we do deserve to be damned. Still, I think I'm persuaded that Merkel did what she did out of what she perceived to be her genuine Christian duty.
Basil, if you don't mind me chipping in, I actually disagree with the first sentence quoted because the sacrifice borne as a result of opening German Borders was not borne by Merkel but by the German poor, whilst Merkel got the creds from fellow elites and they (the poor) could be safely dismissed for struggling to adjust. That bears none of the hallmarks of self sacrifice
Not at all, the more the merrier! Not wanting to put words into Ed's mouth, but I think his first sentence is implying simply that the attitudes of the modern left are shaped by residual assumptions carried over from Christianity. If, in Tom Holland's terms, they are a kind of heresy, it's in the nature of heresies that they don't necessarily preserve the substance.
Having said that, I think there is at least a touch of self-sacrifice in the enthusiasm of a lot of liberal white people for diversity policies that actively favour those in other ethnic groups - including in elite settings. For instance, the Treasury's recent decision to set a target of 6% black recruitment (i.e., rather higher than the actual representation of that demographic group in the population) will actively disadvantage the mostly white elite civil servants who chose to implement it, and, in due course, their children.
Thanks, Basil. The alternative view being they are so scared not to be seen as in favour that they are prepared to throw their children under a bus. I sort of exaggerate to make the point, although in the current climate I suspect even a 50% target would widely held to be a good thing.
I confess I work in one of the public sector environments where this kind of social justice rhetoric has become very widespread of late. I think it's a mixture of the two alternatives. People are afraid; but a lot of them have also genuinely internalised the kind of assumptions that lead them to believe these quotas are a good thing. Having said that, when you listen to or engage in the kind of conversations that you hear sotto voce, I'd say the number of people who actually believe in these policies is pretty small compared to the number of people who say they do.
Interesting. And perhaps just another version of white saviour directed at people who the saviours see as fundamentally inferior to them which causes guilt and so the cycle goes on. of course the saviours do not feel guilt in relation to the "basket of deplorables" because they attribute to them agency and the capacity to bear their hatred i.e. they see them as like then and not other. The idea that the people who they are presuming to save don't need saved is anathema. It is also a very white, western version of being saved.
If liberals in particular just owned (rather then projected) their own feelings and especially their own badness we would be so much better off. Likewise if the right could avoid wallowing in their own feelings we would be better off too.
I read Dominion this year- I had meant to for ages. It is a fantastic read. I do hope there is a second edition, as I think Holland passes a bit lightly over developments such as the rise of Pentecostalism
In one of the small jokes of history. The parish church in Lima Norte I attended was St Columbano. Wokeism- Atheism is like Arianism, or such. It will pass.
Wienstein did not have tens of illegitimate children did he?
I do not think it leads to fatalism. The path appears to be to discover the reality that exists beyond ego and concepts. The direct experience of the divine. This does not lead to non action but to action borne out of love rather than the desperation of the self
We are not illusions but our egoic perceptions of ourselves are. Much turns on what can and cannot be captured by conceptual thought.
Arguably, Christianity conveys the same message as all major religions. Redemption comes from the death of the ego and only from the death of the ego. The crucifixion being the Christian metaphor for this but the same idea exists in Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Tantra etc.
However, what is additionally imported with Christianity, via the crucifixion scene, is that the way to kill the ego is via self abnegation i.e. through action. However there is huge risk with this from a spiritual perspective. Self abnegation ( particularly given its eye catching visibility – often gory/pornographic) can quickly become self aggrandisement/performative. A way of enhancing rather than diminishing the ego. It is precisely this that wokeism has inherited from Christianity. The opposite of redemption but with some external trappings of it.
It seems to me that the other traditions warn of this risk almost obsessively and much more tend to focus on an inner path which the Christian faith lost sight of. See e.g. cathedrals.
You are mistaken if you think Christianity it is remotely about "death of the ego" and is analogous to eastern spiritualities. And crucifixion is not performative, nor ever has been. (Except maybe in the Philippines at Easter time but it's not the real thing).
Critical edit: Christ's crucifixion is NOT a metaphor. Profound yes, deeply meaningful, and can be applied metaphorically to those of us fortunate to have never been crucified, but Christianity does not teach that the Atonement and blood of Christ is a mere symbol or analogy.
Jesus’s crucifixion was his moment of victory over the powers of death and sin, the victory he described as his glorification. His life, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension are found in no other belief/religious system. It is upon these that the Church stands unequivocally.
While I don't wish to hijack this thread and sound like a religious bore, a critical aspect of Christianity - and directly relevant to the article by Ed - is the preservation of human souls, which are immortal and will NOT die. Each human being is made in God's image, has value, and indeed the spiritual death of a soul (including yours) is thus a tragedy, not a goal. The entire point of Christianity is undo the power of death, and yes we do this by divine grace; putting the wellbeing of others ahead of ourselves and eschewing selfishness, but this is in fact how we truly become "alive" spiritually and become truly holy and immortal individuals. If the purpose of human life is "die" and lose all sense of self, well, I will try to be polite here but I think your knowledge of Christianity is off-kilter. There is no contradiction between "inner path" spirituality (whatever that means to you, I cannot say but I speak as a Christian) and sanctifying the world through beauty (i.e. those cathedrals you seem to have it in for). Wokeism inherited bits and pieces from Christianity, inevitably bastardised and inverted, and frankly owes more to blank-slate theory, envy, spite and utopianism, than Jesus Christ.
Thanks you, both. Agreed on wokeism. To declare my interest I’m curious about what is the moral basis for conservatism.
Also, just to be clear, I am not talking of the death of the soul but death of the ego being that which obscures the soul.
By ego I mean to refer to the system of thought/our map of reality which perceives us as being separate from the universal whole of which we are a manifestation.
By soul I mean the awareness of our very oneness with the universal whole (or god). It is not that people are separate from us but have the same value but that they are literally us and all is god. Which is the non dual aspect of many other religious traditions.
There is some support for this view in Christian scripture. For example
1 Corinthians 6:17
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
John 14:20
In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
" the system of thought/our map of reality which perceives us as being separate from the universal whole of which we are a manifestation."
"very oneness with the universal whole" all is god" ?????
Erm....
As I said before I am not turning this into a sermon. But Christianity is not in any way, shape, or form pantheistic or panentheistic, Christ dwells in Christians through the Holy Spirit, and transforms/sanctifies us but does not replace us or assimilate us, Borg style. You are separate from the people around you, and you are separated from God by sin. You are not God, in any sense. You may have Christ dwelling within you if you have His grace and faith in Christ, but you are NOT actually divine. You can't pick verses like this, indeed, it's a prime example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
To stay on the article's topic, societies that do not have a Christian underpinning and adopt this pantheistic worldview tend to be quite messed up (funnily enough, it's actually a human default setting). Pagan societies, for example the tolerant Hindus, were (and sometimes are still) content to abandon children (especially girls) and burn widows. Just don't eat beef from a cow, they're so sacred ya know? After all, we're all one and I'm god and you're god and they're god, and the cows are god, life and death are one and the same, etc etc. Pantheism strips the meaning out of divinity, and of morality. If all is god, might as well be that nothing is. A tender, charitable, humanistic worldview is a by-product of Christianity.
Is Christian Thesim the idea that God created the universe but is separate from it and Pantheism the idea that god and the universe are apiece? If so, much may turn on semantics and how one seeks to define God and the Universe. And the rub might be that these things cannot be captured or defined by thought at all and we can go no further than God is beyond thought/ego.
"The most powerful anti-Christian movement is the one that takes over and "radicalizes" the concern for victims in order to paganize it. The powers and principalities want to be “revolutionary” now, and they reproach Christianity for not defending victims with enough ardor. In Christian history they see nothing but persecutions, acts of oppression, inquisitions.
This other totalitarianism presents itself as the liberator of humanity. In trying to usurp the place of Christ, the powers imitate him in the way a mimetic rival imitates his model in order to defeat him. They denounce the Christian concern for victims as hypocritical and a pale imitation of the authentic crusade against oppression and persecution for which they would carry the banner themselves. In the symbolic language of the New Testament, we would say that in our world Satan, trying to make a new start and gain new triumphs, borrows the language of victims."
This is an excellent essay. This quote being just one feature
"But there was another side to Girard’s project that made it less in line with this fashionable skepticism. In his examination of novels from Cervantes to Dostoevsky, he discovered a pattern in which the protagonist undergoes a conversion, often but not always explicitly religious. This conversion amounts to a rejection of the false gods he has idolized—that is, the mediators he has modeled his desire after—and a turn away from this “deviated transcendence” toward the real transcendence of Christian faith. Mimetic desire is an illness afflicting modern societies that have lost any transcendent horizon, such that “men become gods in the eyes of each other.” The only remedy found by the novelists who most powerfully document this predicament, according to Girard, is a religious one. Decisively, around the time he wrote his first book, Girard himself underwent such a conversion, becoming a practicing Roman Catholic after decades of agnosticism—a personal turning point that radically reoriented his intellectual life."
PS I feel like I'm coming down with another cold so not sure I will be able to post again this week, although I will try to send a newsletter at the very least.
Damn I’ve tested positive for Covid again so definitely won’t be posting again this week. Another Christmas ruined by the CCP! Have a merry Christmas everyone and thanks for subscribing!
CCP? Conspiracy theory!
Anyway, take care Ed - try to have Merry Christmas and keep up the good work.
Get well soon, I hope it's not a serious bout. This is how we live, now and forever. Happy Christmas.
It's still a cold. My family has had it three times.
Best wishes for a quick recovery!
Thanks!
Get well soon.
A very happy, peaceful Christmas to you and yours. Many thanks for all the food for thought you have provided throughout the year.
Thank you, and to you.
Apologies haven’t really been checking comments as being lying in bed reading about Stalin’s great terror. No worse than a bad cold and today is better than yesterday
Robert Conquest's book?
No, I read that a few months back though. This time Simon Sebag-Montifiore's. Sorry for late reply, and Merry Christmas!
Happy five golden rings, and I hope you're feeling better!
Happy Christmas, Ed!
The tragedy of our 21st century situation is that the moral gains of Christianity cannot be maintained without the foundation. "By whose standard?" as Pastor Doug Wilson is fond of saying. Without a profound belief in absolute divine justice, the Image of God, and that the Creator can choose to manifest Himself in weakness and humility, we are set to become far worse than pagan Romans. Pagans of old could be very cruel, but often they had a hard, stern moral outlook that could be honourable and even noble in it's own way. We will not even have that.
I think it was CS Lewis who said we would very lucky if we reverted to paganism after the decline of Christianity. Pre-Christian pagans are to moderns what naïve virgins are to embittered divorcees. Neither are married of course, but they are not the same and the latter is no improvement.
C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man:
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious
In a period of despair around age 50, I considered ditching Christianity for the cult of Athena. The academics, the arts and crafts, and the occasional armed mayhem seemed pretty appealing. Plus I've always had a thing for Odysseus.
However, Athena has no patience with failure.
I can't imagine there is a big Athena-worshipping community either, although she is definitely one of the more attractive Greek gods. I think of her as a Princess Anne figure, sensible while all the menfolk around her get in various scrapes.
Good analogy. And no, I couldn't transfer my Spanish choir director position to a convenient, local, Spanish-speaking Athena cult.
Great piece and I'm going to buy the book now. Funnily enough, I'm just about to go and get baptised in the church in our village that has almost a 1000 years of history...
Ah congratulations!
It really is a marvellous book.
Wonderful news. Welcome home and a merry Christmas to you.
Holland is an excellent writer. The opening to Dominion is stunning. However, I would argue Diarmand MacCullough's Christianity, the First 3,000 years, is the better book.
I'm aware of the various angry arguments against Christianity and one can't deny the many horrors and injustices committed in the name of the faith, mostly against other Christians. But at the same time, given the context of the pagan world, Christianity was surely much better than the alternatives. And even today's secularism gives us a glimpse into an alternative world that is far less pleasant, despite all the modern conveniences and cult of progress. Christianity does force people to acknowledge the value of each human being as individuals, and when that recognition fades, humans are very quick to regress to not seeing other humans as deserving of a minimum of basic respect and dignity.
To my shame I have not read it yet. Really should.
Would recommend. It's a real tome, and some of it a bit slanted in places, but given the monumental undertaking of the book you can forgive the author a small bit of progressive sniping.
The switch from the Rome of Cincinnatus and Cicero to the Rome of the Caesars is probably more to be lamented than the switch from the Rome of the Caesars to the Rome the Popes.
And secularists’ main complaint, historically, against Christianity – the idea that everyone in a political jurisdiction should be of the same religion – was a holdover from the Roman Dominate which Constantine brought with him when he adopted Christianity.
"He dined with Jews who violated the law and talked beside wells with adulterers."
The text (John 4: 4-42) does not say the Samaritan woman was an adulteress, only that she was living with a man who was not her husband. (Today, that would simply be expected.)
It’s important to remember that women could not divorce their husbands, so she was left entirely destitute five times. Without a son or rights to a husband’s inheritance she had no means of living other than begging. It’s not difficult to put ourselves in her shoes and see that living with a man would be the lesser of two evils. The text doesn’t indicate that she was offended by Jesus’ observation, indeed she seems to have been smitten by Jesus’ counter-cultural willingness to engage in conversation with her and treat her with dignity. Certainly her enthusiastic pronouncement in her village indicates that she had become a believer and wanted everyone to meet Jesus.
Excellent comments. The text doesn't say she was divorced five times, though. Might have been widowed one or more times.
Her being at the well at midday is usually taken to indicate some social ostracism.
Yes, good catch. Widowed more than twice would surpass Tamar’s sad fate. Some day we’ll learn the rest of this remarkable Samaritan woman’s story.
I will insist on it! Writers should tell us what we want to know!
nor one of her previous husbands. :)
Good point.
I can see the thesis (that our modern liberalism comes from our earlier Christianity) and both you and Tom Holland are powerful writers. But that's not that different from the Whiggish 'arc of history' which I abhor (because something changes as part of a historical process, it doesn't follow that the change be welcome.) St Paul talked a lot of rubbish amid his 'praise of love'; I can't half-close my eyes and overlook that, or see past it. Why should I? Your faith's founding thinker used very robust language to make plain his dislike of me (language so strong that were I to use it of a co-worker, I would be sacked), so why should I bother trying to see where I might be permitted to fit into it after all? A Roman might well have 'laughed' at our obsession with racism - and we condem him for it? Local temples, local gods: citizens of somewhere, not globalist citizens of nowhere. I'd rather be ruled by Caesar than our modern, woke 'universalists', whose unexamined Lutherism makes life hell for so many citizens.
Wokeism/modernism encourages us to see our essential identity tied up with sex. This is almost certainly a reaction to the absurd, traditional Christian view that tended to say our essential identity was voided if we did sex the "wrong" way. More likely our essential identity has nothing to do with sex at all, any more than it has to do with any other objective experience. But just as it is not created by sex or made of sex, neither is it destroyed by it.
I don't think you entirely do justice to Martin Luther here (and I don't think Holland does either, from what I remember from his book). I'd recommend Peter Stanford's biography as an accessible and sympathetic biography of the father of the Reformation - and written by a Catholic, too!
Outstanding piece about an outstanding work. It struck me that, with the likely exception of those drunk on their own victimhood, we are all, at least in our heads and hearts, a mixture of Nietzsche and Paul: part axe wielding Viking, part 1 Corinthians:13. Personally, I can watch films like '300' and 'Amistad' in succession without feeling any contradiction. We scorn our Christian heritage at our peril.
Love the last lines of that piece- well done.
"Christianity’s revolutionary message lies at the heart of our cultural assumptions, especially on the – theoretically more secular – political left. Angela Merkel opened up Germany’s borders to Middle Eastern refugees for this reason."
I have no quarrel with the first sentence in principle, but anyone reading the follow-up without background knowledge would struggle to guess that Angela Merkel was the leader of a self-identified party of the centre-right. They might also assume from your phrasing that her attitudes were merely those of a secularised post-Christian, rather than someone who had declared (in 2012):
"I am a member of the evangelical church. I believe in God and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life [...] We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs."
A couple of years earlier, Merkel's response to the question of whether there had been "too much Islam" in Europe was to retort that there was “too little Christianity" and to assert that "we have too few discussions about the Christian view of mankind.”
Earlier still Merkel had argued that the EU constitution should make reference to Europe's Christian values, but the comments cited above are more assertive and suggest something more than the average cultural conservative's evocation of Christian tradition or heritage. Merkel surely does not deserve to be offered up as a representative of post-Christian cultural assumptions, when she's an actual professing and believing Christian.
Merkel is a transitional figure, she just hasn't taken the plunge to go Pope Francis or (shudder) full-on Welby. Yes she's not wrong in the quotes you provide, but what of it? These are hardly dazzling insights, and are vague common sentiments of the Boomer generation. When Christians stand up for their beliefs in Germany, they can get arrested (see Wunderlich family).
Remember, the Blairs, most of the the Royal Family, Obama and David Cameron were all "Christians" too, and would readily declare themselves such - would what on earth do they really mean?
I know what you mean, but I think there is a real difference between Merkel actually declaring that Europe needs more Christianity, specifically, and, say, Blair's complacent belief that religion (no matter what religion) is a kind of net social benefit (remember how he was happy to have new faith schools catering to all faiths). I also think Merkel's decision to admit refugees (whether or not one endorses it) was a considered ethical one, to be contrasted favourably with the cynical decision by the Blair administration to permit large-scale immigration largely on the basis that it would favour the Labour Party electorally.
Sorry, I must disagree. I have heard too much in my own relatively short life from people who say they believe in 'God', 'Jesus' and of course, those good ol' 'Christian values'. But the terms are NEVER elaborated on, and ALWAYS bear a striking resemblance to the progressive zeitgeist. Christian values are always framed in terms of "openness", "welcoming", "sharing". Not fooled.
In regards to refugees, there is nothing in Christian teaching that says you get to (much less have to) admit hundreds of thousands of foreigners - Muslims, no less - to your country, unleashed on your own people. This is a globalist, progressive outlook, it is not remotely Christian, which demands personal charity and concern to your neighbour (note: not "the world", not "thousands of people who I will never personally meet but foist onto others so I can look good, oh and others can foot the bill too"). I'm sure Merkel is personally very nice and would make a lovely guest at Christmas, but that's not the issue.
Of course you're right about the views of many modern self-identified Christians "bearing a striking resemblance to the progressive Zeitgeist". I often think of C.S. Lewis - "We must at all costs not move with the times" - and wonder how many European Christians today would share or even understand that sentiment.
And yet, and yet... "‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For [...] I was a stranger and you took Me in." There's nothing in Christian teaching specifically about refugees because the concept was basically anachronistic in the time of Christ. But if I had been the leader of a nation faced with the question of whether to admit refugees (of whatever creed), and if I found myself on the Day of Judgement in the situation described in Matthew 25 : 31-46, I think I'd be more confident of my salvation if I had erred on the side of generosity than the reverse.
I take your point, but refugees are not a new thing - many have fled lands due to instability, famine and invasion, including the Israelites in Genesis when they came to Egypt. "I think I'd be more confident of my salvation if I had erred on the side of generosity than the reverse." On an interpersonal level, I would agree, if you see a homeless man don't automatically assume "drug-addled loser". On a civilizational/international level however, that's nuts, positively wicked. If I gave away my country to invaders to the detriment of my own children and people, I rather think I would be damned for my callousness and dereliction of duty. That goes double if one does so for reasons of progressive virtue and good-feelz. You are also assuming that Christ means "every person on earth" in Matthew 25, Jesus said "I was a stranger, and you took me in", he did not say, "I was LEGION, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, nay MILLIONS, of people belonging to a religion that actively hates you and is looking to acquire what you have, gimme gimme gimme and oooh that's a pretty daughter you have, maybe I'll have her too".
Satirical tone aside, I think anyone can see the difference.
In practical terms, I accept the distinction you make; we can't accommodate everyone, and we take a risk every time we try - especially if the people we bring in belong to a culture which shares few of our normal assumptions and which has a long history of conflict with our own.
I can't help feeling, though, that Christ didn't mean the religion he preached to be practical, and would probably have urged us to take the risk. Michel Houellebecq no doubt meant it satirically, as you do in your post above, when he remarked that Christianity "is the sort where you offer your throat to the butcher’s blade," but I think that if any of us are going to argue seriously for Christianity as a guiding principle for politics we probably have to reckon with the substance of that remark.
Well, perhaps there's a reason that Caesar is meant to rule, after all! And after all, we are counselled to be wise as serpents, as well as harmless as doves. And - yes indeed - if we do good in order to feel good about ourselves, which is what you suspect the progressives of doing, then probably we do deserve to be damned. Still, I think I'm persuaded that Merkel did what she did out of what she perceived to be her genuine Christian duty.
Basil, if you don't mind me chipping in, I actually disagree with the first sentence quoted because the sacrifice borne as a result of opening German Borders was not borne by Merkel but by the German poor, whilst Merkel got the creds from fellow elites and they (the poor) could be safely dismissed for struggling to adjust. That bears none of the hallmarks of self sacrifice
Not at all, the more the merrier! Not wanting to put words into Ed's mouth, but I think his first sentence is implying simply that the attitudes of the modern left are shaped by residual assumptions carried over from Christianity. If, in Tom Holland's terms, they are a kind of heresy, it's in the nature of heresies that they don't necessarily preserve the substance.
Having said that, I think there is at least a touch of self-sacrifice in the enthusiasm of a lot of liberal white people for diversity policies that actively favour those in other ethnic groups - including in elite settings. For instance, the Treasury's recent decision to set a target of 6% black recruitment (i.e., rather higher than the actual representation of that demographic group in the population) will actively disadvantage the mostly white elite civil servants who chose to implement it, and, in due course, their children.
Thanks, Basil. The alternative view being they are so scared not to be seen as in favour that they are prepared to throw their children under a bus. I sort of exaggerate to make the point, although in the current climate I suspect even a 50% target would widely held to be a good thing.
I confess I work in one of the public sector environments where this kind of social justice rhetoric has become very widespread of late. I think it's a mixture of the two alternatives. People are afraid; but a lot of them have also genuinely internalised the kind of assumptions that lead them to believe these quotas are a good thing. Having said that, when you listen to or engage in the kind of conversations that you hear sotto voce, I'd say the number of people who actually believe in these policies is pretty small compared to the number of people who say they do.
Interesting. And perhaps just another version of white saviour directed at people who the saviours see as fundamentally inferior to them which causes guilt and so the cycle goes on. of course the saviours do not feel guilt in relation to the "basket of deplorables" because they attribute to them agency and the capacity to bear their hatred i.e. they see them as like then and not other. The idea that the people who they are presuming to save don't need saved is anathema. It is also a very white, western version of being saved.
If liberals in particular just owned (rather then projected) their own feelings and especially their own badness we would be so much better off. Likewise if the right could avoid wallowing in their own feelings we would be better off too.
Leftism is always trying to re-enact sacrifice, but it's always of other people.
I read Dominion this year- I had meant to for ages. It is a fantastic read. I do hope there is a second edition, as I think Holland passes a bit lightly over developments such as the rise of Pentecostalism
In one of the small jokes of history. The parish church in Lima Norte I attended was St Columbano. Wokeism- Atheism is like Arianism, or such. It will pass.
Wienstein did not have tens of illegitimate children did he?
I do not think it leads to fatalism. The path appears to be to discover the reality that exists beyond ego and concepts. The direct experience of the divine. This does not lead to non action but to action borne out of love rather than the desperation of the self
We are not illusions but our egoic perceptions of ourselves are. Much turns on what can and cannot be captured by conceptual thought.
Arguably, Christianity conveys the same message as all major religions. Redemption comes from the death of the ego and only from the death of the ego. The crucifixion being the Christian metaphor for this but the same idea exists in Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Tantra etc.
However, what is additionally imported with Christianity, via the crucifixion scene, is that the way to kill the ego is via self abnegation i.e. through action. However there is huge risk with this from a spiritual perspective. Self abnegation ( particularly given its eye catching visibility – often gory/pornographic) can quickly become self aggrandisement/performative. A way of enhancing rather than diminishing the ego. It is precisely this that wokeism has inherited from Christianity. The opposite of redemption but with some external trappings of it.
It seems to me that the other traditions warn of this risk almost obsessively and much more tend to focus on an inner path which the Christian faith lost sight of. See e.g. cathedrals.
You are mistaken if you think Christianity it is remotely about "death of the ego" and is analogous to eastern spiritualities. And crucifixion is not performative, nor ever has been. (Except maybe in the Philippines at Easter time but it's not the real thing).
Critical edit: Christ's crucifixion is NOT a metaphor. Profound yes, deeply meaningful, and can be applied metaphorically to those of us fortunate to have never been crucified, but Christianity does not teach that the Atonement and blood of Christ is a mere symbol or analogy.
About what, at core, is Christianity if not death of the ego?
Jesus’s crucifixion was his moment of victory over the powers of death and sin, the victory he described as his glorification. His life, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension are found in no other belief/religious system. It is upon these that the Church stands unequivocally.
What he (JeffQ) said.
While I don't wish to hijack this thread and sound like a religious bore, a critical aspect of Christianity - and directly relevant to the article by Ed - is the preservation of human souls, which are immortal and will NOT die. Each human being is made in God's image, has value, and indeed the spiritual death of a soul (including yours) is thus a tragedy, not a goal. The entire point of Christianity is undo the power of death, and yes we do this by divine grace; putting the wellbeing of others ahead of ourselves and eschewing selfishness, but this is in fact how we truly become "alive" spiritually and become truly holy and immortal individuals. If the purpose of human life is "die" and lose all sense of self, well, I will try to be polite here but I think your knowledge of Christianity is off-kilter. There is no contradiction between "inner path" spirituality (whatever that means to you, I cannot say but I speak as a Christian) and sanctifying the world through beauty (i.e. those cathedrals you seem to have it in for). Wokeism inherited bits and pieces from Christianity, inevitably bastardised and inverted, and frankly owes more to blank-slate theory, envy, spite and utopianism, than Jesus Christ.
Thanks you, both. Agreed on wokeism. To declare my interest I’m curious about what is the moral basis for conservatism.
Also, just to be clear, I am not talking of the death of the soul but death of the ego being that which obscures the soul.
By ego I mean to refer to the system of thought/our map of reality which perceives us as being separate from the universal whole of which we are a manifestation.
By soul I mean the awareness of our very oneness with the universal whole (or god). It is not that people are separate from us but have the same value but that they are literally us and all is god. Which is the non dual aspect of many other religious traditions.
There is some support for this view in Christian scripture. For example
1 Corinthians 6:17
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
John 14:20
In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
" the system of thought/our map of reality which perceives us as being separate from the universal whole of which we are a manifestation."
"very oneness with the universal whole" all is god" ?????
Erm....
As I said before I am not turning this into a sermon. But Christianity is not in any way, shape, or form pantheistic or panentheistic, Christ dwells in Christians through the Holy Spirit, and transforms/sanctifies us but does not replace us or assimilate us, Borg style. You are separate from the people around you, and you are separated from God by sin. You are not God, in any sense. You may have Christ dwelling within you if you have His grace and faith in Christ, but you are NOT actually divine. You can't pick verses like this, indeed, it's a prime example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
To stay on the article's topic, societies that do not have a Christian underpinning and adopt this pantheistic worldview tend to be quite messed up (funnily enough, it's actually a human default setting). Pagan societies, for example the tolerant Hindus, were (and sometimes are still) content to abandon children (especially girls) and burn widows. Just don't eat beef from a cow, they're so sacred ya know? After all, we're all one and I'm god and you're god and they're god, and the cows are god, life and death are one and the same, etc etc. Pantheism strips the meaning out of divinity, and of morality. If all is god, might as well be that nothing is. A tender, charitable, humanistic worldview is a by-product of Christianity.
Is Christian Thesim the idea that God created the universe but is separate from it and Pantheism the idea that god and the universe are apiece? If so, much may turn on semantics and how one seeks to define God and the Universe. And the rub might be that these things cannot be captured or defined by thought at all and we can go no further than God is beyond thought/ego.
Also this from Girard seems especially apt
"The most powerful anti-Christian movement is the one that takes over and "radicalizes" the concern for victims in order to paganize it. The powers and principalities want to be “revolutionary” now, and they reproach Christianity for not defending victims with enough ardor. In Christian history they see nothing but persecutions, acts of oppression, inquisitions.
This other totalitarianism presents itself as the liberator of humanity. In trying to usurp the place of Christ, the powers imitate him in the way a mimetic rival imitates his model in order to defeat him. They denounce the Christian concern for victims as hypocritical and a pale imitation of the authentic crusade against oppression and persecution for which they would carry the banner themselves. In the symbolic language of the New Testament, we would say that in our world Satan, trying to make a new start and gain new triumphs, borrows the language of victims."
Aidan,
This is an excellent essay. This quote being just one feature
"But there was another side to Girard’s project that made it less in line with this fashionable skepticism. In his examination of novels from Cervantes to Dostoevsky, he discovered a pattern in which the protagonist undergoes a conversion, often but not always explicitly religious. This conversion amounts to a rejection of the false gods he has idolized—that is, the mediators he has modeled his desire after—and a turn away from this “deviated transcendence” toward the real transcendence of Christian faith. Mimetic desire is an illness afflicting modern societies that have lost any transcendent horizon, such that “men become gods in the eyes of each other.” The only remedy found by the novelists who most powerfully document this predicament, according to Girard, is a religious one. Decisively, around the time he wrote his first book, Girard himself underwent such a conversion, becoming a practicing Roman Catholic after decades of agnosticism—a personal turning point that radically reoriented his intellectual life."