Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Destroying the Foundations of the West

Bill Muehlenberg
14.12.08

Summary

To speak about the tremendous achievements and accomplishments of Christianity is of course not to deny that damage has been done in the name of this faith. There have been some negative aspects indeed. But on the whole, the Christian faith has been a tremendous source of good in the world, and the West would be unrecognisable today without it.

Which is why the vehemence and antagonism of the atheists against religion in general and Christianity in particular is so bizarre. Their hatred of religion and Christianity is both irrational and unfounded. But doubtless the advance of atheistic missionary work will go unchecked. And as they seek to more and more eradicate or isolate the influence of Christianity, they will of course be cutting off the very branch upon which they are sitting.

So let them seek to eradicate the faith from the public arena. It will only result in them – and everyone else – suffering accordingly. As T. S. Eliot warned in 1948: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”

Full Essay

1 Comments:

At 7:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a "lapsed Catholic" of 57, I find myself increasingly being drawn back to the RC Church because His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI seems to be the sole public figure on the international political stage with a solid grasp on global issues in this Age of Islamofacsism. It is PRECISELY the moral and ethical consistency of His Holiness' pronouncements which give them their power.

Ideologies crash and burn when they come face-to-face with the complexities of human reality. Morality and truth, on the other hand, are non-negotiables.

I am insulated from the anticipated secularist assaults that this comment may engender by my knowledge and understanding that genuine issues of faith often transcend mere intellectual comprehension. Nonetheless, these "genuine issues of faith" serve as the underpinnings of a successful life.

 

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