Majorityrights Central > Category: Christianity

As happens sometimes here, a thread given over to one subject has been rudely assaulted by another ... the perennial, insoluble, irresistible problem of ... well, God.  So with belated apologies to Soren, whose thread God offended against, I’m relocating the unequal struggle here.  Just in case the Blighter has any fight left in Him.

In danielj’s intellectual armoury lies the following by no means rusty and unsharpened assertion:

Belief in empiricism isn’t merited by the plain fact ... Why should I accept the debate on your terms?

Now, this way of looking at the empirical enemy recognises the hard and unpalatable fact that ever since that night in Oxford when the Bishop was slain by a mawnkey, religion has been in full and undignified retreat.  We all know the story.  I don’t need to reproduce it here.  The reverberations of that night, and of the publishing event that preceded it, still reach down to us today, a century and a half later.  Although evolutionary science has won every battle since, the faculty of faith is nothing if not enduring.  It doesn’t give up.  It can’t.  It is as much a part of the human genome as the strict and methodological intellectualism it disdains.

So we have daniel’s response to all the long years of being told that Christians are dealers in self-deception.  It is to assert that the scientific method - the pursuit of the predictive - is predicated on belief no less than belief itself.  Now, I am not much interested in how this conclusion is reached.  It must, after all, only be a matter of faith.  It cannot, by its own admission, be true.

And there is the little local difficulty.  Daniel’s stratagem has the effect of rendering all truth hollow and meaningless, though this probably isn’t his intention.  We are not taken back to some sweet life of the mid-Victorian past, filled with simple and good, hi-fidelity hearts.  We are transported to a truthless world, and Man cannot live without truth.  Truth is more necessary, more visceral and humane, more of our lives than faith or beauty ever was or, most certainly, ever will be.

But that is what happens when the terms of the debate are dictated by Christians, and all categories are reduced to mere belief.

Well, let’s keep them separate here, at least.  The committment to ontology and the committment to teleology are separated by qualitative differences.  They employ the qualitatively different methods of, respectively, proof and prayer, and journey along qualitatively different lines.  Ontology predicates experience > hypothesis > predictiveness > truth.  Teleology predicates thought > idealism >  faith > beauty.  Truth and beauty are not equals.  Truth leads to enlightenment.  Beauty leads only to itself.

To make truth and beauty both matters of belief is disingenuous and rather unEuropean.  It has something in common with the semitic attraction to postmodernism, and the equally semitic promulgation of the Sociobiology Wars of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.  It is inappropriate for us.  Let the faithful reflect, if they can possibly bring themselves to, on the spirituality of superfice which eschews the subtle and difficult, the psychological, and grasps instead at bibles and prayers, salvation and eternal life, and all the beautiful exordia of self-deception and moral frailty that once cost “witches” their yet more beautiful lives and brought destruction to the sons of men in a way that blood and soil never did.  Let them reflect on the responsibility they all share of bearing a powerful psychological driver through life without visiting harm upon others, as one would with the sex drive or with male aggression.  Let them learn to withhold it from the world, keep it private so public life, public progress and intellectualism can proceed, naturally enough, not on daniel’s relativistic terms but on their own.

“What I do want to talk about is, essentially, the Anglo-Saxon identity crises, the source of Anglophobia, the sort of spiritual disorder that I believe Anglo-Saxons are suffering from. What I want to start with is the nature of the disorder, move on to talk about the deep roots of the disorder, and then conclude by discussing a possible remedy for it.

First of all, the source of the nature of this crises seems to me is in the official description called constitutional patriotism, or civic nationalism, which translates in real terms into the idolatrous worship of the state and the corporate system - in practical terms.”

So began a speech by Prof Andrew Fraser given last March at the Inverell Forum, Australia’s famously incorrect annual celebration of dissident opinion and free speech.  The Forum organisers produce DVDs of each of the speeches, and it is thanks to MR reader John Fitzgerald that the Fraser speech is now in transcribed form and I can quote from it.

In the first part of the speech, Fraser traces the roots of white racial consciousness through the period of slave-owning in the American South, the development of white skin privilege and white equality, and the emergence in the North of the fundamentals of modern human rights.

“In Australia,” he asks, “how can you run an immigration policy on the basis of discrimination between white and non-white, especially once you start to play around with the notion of white, because white is not synonymous with Anglo-Saxon.  Afterwards you get massive numbers of Italians, Greeks and Lebanese Christians.  Are they white?  Just where is the boundary of whiteness?  So then it became human-ness that really counts.  And so you have what came to be known as the non-discriminatory immigration policy.”

Now, Fraser had begun by using the term “spiritual disorder”, so it should be no surprise that from here on the speech focuses heavily on the, as he sees it, broad failure of Christianity in the crisis of Anglo-Saxon identity.  “It’s a mistake,” he tells us, “to do what a lot of people on the right would do; blame it all on the Frankfurt School, or the Jews or, as I hear here, the Illuminate.”  Fraser roots the entire process in the Papal revolution which confined the action of kings to the secular world.  “The world becomes flattened, “he says, “God is a being, we are beings, he is an infinite being, we are finite beings ...  In that kind of context God, because he’s infinite, becomes very remote and only accessible to us through his will.”

READ MORE...

Over the last few days I have conducted an e-mail exchange with “Rocket”, whom readers will know for his firm universalist Christian stand.  Rocket asked to post here on the juxtaposing of ethnocentric and universalist Christian aims and values.  What we’ve ended up with is this, which parentage is very much more Rocket’s than mine.  So it is his handle which appears beneath the post.
GW

In the sociological substratum of ethnocentrism versus authentic Christian universalism there are a number of interesting ways to compare and contrast these two value systems.  One significant qualitative difference lies in the dual concepts of honor and shame, which are the tribal equivalents of redemption and retribution in Christianity.

Historically, tribes with an iron clad bloodline-identification placed a high premium on honor and shame.  Roman historian Tacitus wrote about Germania and its conflict with Pax Romana, and how the German tribes refused to be subdued.  Hence they remained free men in the sense of retaining control over their tribe’s fate.

Meantime, through the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, the Christian is embraced by divine forgiveness.  Hence he lives as a free men, even though his life-circumstances may dictate otherwise.

There can be no honor for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth because His followers do not seek honor from men, including each other.  They do seek redemption, though, and an act of altruism towards the poor and sick is redeeming.  Hard-heartedness or greed, on the other hand, will meet with retribution.  The parallel in the old Germanic world was that hard-hearted fighting was in-group altruism, and there was honor if you fought as an Ostrogoth and great shame if you did not.

READ MORE...

In European culture, polytheistic beliefs began to dwindle with the rise of Christianity.  In the centuries to come it was to be expected that the polymorph system of explanation, whether in theology or, later on, in sociology, politics, history, or psychology, in short, the entire perception of the world, would gradually come under the influence of Judeo-Christian monotheistic beliefs.  Unquestionably, the two thousand year impact of Judeo-Christian monotheism, with its distilment of Americanism, has considerably altered its approach to politics as well as the overall perception of the world.

... In modern consciousness, the centuries long and pervasive influence of Christianity has contributed significantly to the modern view that holds any glorification of polytheism or, for that matter, nostalgia for the Greco-Roman spiritual order, as irreconcilable with contemporary Americanised society.  Modern individuals who reject Jewish influence in America often forget that much of their neuroses would disappear if their Biblical fundamentalism was abandoned.  One may contend that the rejection of monotheism does not imply a return to the worship of ancient Indo-European dieties or the veneration of some exotic gods and goddesses.  It means forging another civilisation or, rather, a modernized version of scientific and cultural Hellenism, considered once as a common recepticle of all European peoples.

Dr Tomislav Sunic writing under his heading of “American neo-paganism in his book, Homo americanus.

Now, I’ve put together this quote because it contains both halves of what I suppose we must call the Christianity Question, namely:-

1) The role of the Bible in communicating the Jewish materialistic worldview, out of which came the obsessive 20th Century drive for world improvement.

All liberalism’s children, including communism, democratism, predatory capitalism, even anti-semitism in Tom’s view, are just secular offshoots of this strange, borrowed Levantine faith.  And there is no end to it as long as we draw water from that well.

2) The desirability and grave difficulty of recovering mythological value for Europeans (which Tom qualifies as “the quest for their ancestral heritage”).

I am going to make a few observations about both issues.  I do so with some nervousness about treading on hallowed ground.  I am a stranger to faith myself and would not, even if I was able, wish to follow Richard Dawkins’ tasteless precedent.  I am not, therefore, making a case against faith.  My case against Christianity is the case against the leaden characteristics of the Jewish god.

With that caveat then, here goes.

READ MORE...

None-too-bright but seemingly unstoppable lip-flapper and scourge of English survivalism ... “The Man” when it comes to equality ... the one and only Trevor Phillips, Tony’s Georgetown bro, has been laying those smooth, smooth moves on the BNP.  Again.

Church should expel racists and BNP supporters, says CRE chief

Churches should expel racists and supporters of the British National Party from their pews, the head of the Government’s race watchdog said today.

Trevor Phillips called on bishop and priests to refuse communion to racists and turn them into “pariahs and outsiders”.

“Will the churches support any priest or minister who says I will not administer the sacrament to someone who blatantly rejects Christ’s teachings?”

... The CRE chief said at a conference run by the Evangelical Alliance, a grouping that includes many of the country’s black churches, that the churches should have condemned the BNP leader.

“If ever there was a moment for hellfire and damnation, this was it,” Mr Phillips said. “At the very least, every pulpit this Sunday should have been ringing with denunciation, ministers and priests crying ‘not in our name’.

“The far right should not be able to claim Christ to their cause. But they will do if we let them.”

He added: “I feel rage that my church might expect me to be in communion with such as Nick Griffin.  This is where Christ puts us to the test.

“In the end it is Christians who decide who shares their fellowship, and who is excluded.”

Mr Phillips asked: “Are we ready to use weapons of faith to turn these people into pariahs and outsiders?”

READ MORE...

“The first time the Church has launched such a defence of the country’s Christian heritage” is how an un-named bishop described a confidential Church document, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph today.

“An astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society” was how the Telegraph saw it.

The paper, titled Cohesion and Integration – A briefing note for the House [of Bishops], was written by Guy Wilkinson, the interfaith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  These are the criticisms it levels at our so-liberal political masters:-

1. The attempt to make minority “faith” communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society “more separated than ever before”.

2. Divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government’s “schizophrenic” approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given “privileged attention” to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities.

3. The Church of England has been sidelined. Instead, “preferential” treatment has been afforded to the Muslim community despite the fact that it makes up only three per cent of the population.

4. Britain remains overwhelmingly a Christian country at heart and moves to label it as a multi-faith society suggest a hidden agenda.

5. Public funds have been used to fly Muslim scholars to Britain, legislation on forced marriage has been shelved, financial arrangements to comply with Islamic Law have been encouraged.  Yet none of this has produced any “noticeable positive impact on community cohesion.  Indeed,” the report goes on, “one might argue that disaffection and separation is now greater than ever, with Muslim communities withdrawing further into a sense of victimhood, and other faith communities seriously concerned that the Government has given signals that appear to encourage the notion of a privileged relationship with sections of the Muslim community.”

6. The Government is wrong to see faith as the cause of a divided society.

Of course, one has to note from the outset that the Church of England is more the wounded liberal Establishment at prayer than the forthright, awakening defender of an imperilled Christian nation.  It still adheres firmly to the pluralistic faith-society, the la-la “why can’t we all love one another” ideology.  But this is kumbayah with an oddly refreshing note of menace - at least as far as this useless, fearful, screwed-up Government is concerned.

The day that menace finds its proper target amid the golden crescents of England’s northern towns and cities will be really something.

Just one more ball to find.

Since I am not a Christian nor a liberal nor a Ugandan immigrant nor sound asleep it is difficult for me to assess the utility of today’s sermonising by Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.  He is, alas, the second most powerful figure in the Anglican Church, and living proof of the Communion’s exciting, go-ahead committment to ... vibrancy, of course.  So when he adumbrates upon the nature of my Englishness and cautions me to vote for a mainstream political mugger in Thursday’s local authority election, should I obediently sit up and take notice.  Does anyone, in fact, obediently sit up and take notice?

Well, according to BBC News this is what he said:-

Referring to parties like the British National Party, Dr John Sentamu said they espoused the “politics of fear”.

Dr Sentamu, who was born in Uganda, described Britain as “a country of immigrants” and ... told BBC Radio Four’s Sunday programme: “This country has been one of the most welcoming, most accommodating.

I want to suggest if it lost that because people simply say ‘we’re going to put a barbed wire around a number of things in order for us to feel safe’, that is not actual security, that’s fear - and any politics which plays on people’s fears in the long run, give it a bit of time, it will fail”.

READ MORE...