In one of those strange Providences Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day in the same year. Perhaps it is fitting that they both celebrate their 200th birthday this year.
Darwin developed a system of thought that did away with God, while Lincoln developed the modern centralized state to fill the vacuum of the missing God. Darwin, having made God unnecessary, Lincoln took it upon himself to make the centralized state necessary. Perhaps, with a touch of celestial irony, Darwin claimed that man came from the ape and Lincoln was often referred to by his political enemies as “the great ape.”
Darwin, used science to deny God while Lincoln used politics to usurp God. Each, in their own way, and in their own fields, launched concentrated assaults on the foundations of the prevailing social order of Christendom. In the days since Lincoln and Darwin the state as God has supported the “scientific” worldview of Darwin, while the followers of Darwin have feverishly worked to support the putative notion of a non-religious state. The relationship between the intellectual descendants of Lincoln and Darwin have worked hand and glove to keep Christianity and Christians ghettoized.
If Reformation is to come again to the West both Lincoln’s centralized state and Darwin’s materialism will have to go. If that ever happens we can finally bury both of them.
Excellent post!
I can understand why a devout Christian takes issue with Darwin. In many respects, the man’s “contributions” have been blown way out of context, and the worse evils that followed him were often mis-attributed to his place in history.
You’re correct that corrupted society. But let’s face it, materialism’s roots go far past the births of both Lincoln and Darwin.
If you really want to see what Darwin’s beliefs in biological evolution inadvertently led to, simply look at Social Darwinism. Even Darwin didn’t invent this! But that mis-morphed “ism” led to eugenics, which led to Planned Parenthood, Nazism, the Final Solution and even Roe v. Wade and what Pope John Paul II rightly called the “Culture of Death.”
In economics, Social Darwinism contributed greatly to a peculiar mix of racism and a twisted view of the doctrine of predestination, more popular within influential evangelical Protestant denominations and close-knit WASP old-boy network elites dominating the economic systems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the days of real raw dog-eat-dog capitalism. No workers rights, no health concerns, you survived or you didn’t and somehow this miserable combination of racist and economic full-free enterprise was seen as a sign of “God’s providence.” Phooey. That’s putting it very charitably.
Do these views make me a statist/socialist? Hardly since I ascribe to the Social/Economic teachings of the Catholic Church, hardly a “socialist” religious body. It teaches subsidiarity.
Inasmuch as we’d all like to “move forward,” we’re nevertheless humans with long memories of how badly many of the first non-northern European Protestant immigrants, especially Catholics, particularly the Irish in New England, were treated before the Civil War and couldn’t find decent employment–after leaving Ireland that was treated to genocide by economic theory, and bad Protestant theology (evil, actually) fueled by English racism. (Talk about ghettoized Christians!) And we remember who made millions from wringing the last drop of sweat out of every Catholic and other immigrant worker they could hire at pittance wages with no provisions made for widows, limb-wresting injuries, etc. None. Against fear-induced cries against big government and smug claims that un-fettered free-enterprise was and remains part of “God’s plan,” the working people of this country have had to fight a long and unnecessarily twilight struggle just to prevent economic Social Darwinism as practiced by the religio-capitalists of yesterday and the Dittoheaded disciples of Rush Limbaugh today. Admittedly, today’s capitalists are likely to be less religiously inclined thanks to changing social/religious formation, but this is neither traceable to Lincoln or Darwin.
By the way, without “big government” — be it Lincoln’s or FDR’s (and his successors’–how on earth do you think we could’ve kept Britain and our other Allies alive in the fight against the Kaiser in WWI, the Axis in WWII, the Soviets in the Cold War and Saddam in the first Iraqi War? Do you collect Social Security or other Federal economic safety net programs? Or know of somebody who’d be in an undignified state of perpetual poverty or fear of sickness in without it? Surely, they don’t “solve” poverty, but they don’t enslave people into it. Despite all your fears of statism, people in this country, rich, poor, old and young, still have the right to make decisions for themselves. We may not like them, but who are we as Christians to beggar our brothers in the name of “accountability.” Remember Jesus’ parable about the ungrateful debtor?
As for Lincoln, what’s your problem with his policies if they helped the nation grow? Surely, he wasn’t perfect. But let me ask you: have you or anybody you know of received any benefits directly or indirectly from a land-grant college? If you live in Michigan, Ohio or western Massachusetts, chances are very high that you have. Michigan, Ohio State and UMass are all land-grant (“Homestead Act”) colleges resulting from legislation passed during Lincoln’s administration. How about the railroads? Does your community trace its origins to a railroad line established during Lincoln’s years? If you’re Black with southern slave roots, do you have a problem with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, even as a military step in order to reach the long range goal of full emanicpation across an entire reunited nation? Have a problem with Civil Rights laws proscribing discrimination on public transportation, in public facilities and in the workplace. Eat peanut butter products lately? Probably haven’t I hope. If we didn’t even have Federal food inspectors, how would we have known how widespread this problem was and have the most leverage to prosecute the wrongdoers and bums who turned a blind eye without an extensive Federal Justice and Judiciary system working together with the states?
And as for this sweeping generalization masking as a complaint: “The relationship between the intellectual descendants of Lincoln and Darwin have worked hand and glove to keep Christianity and Christians ghettoized,” just be thankful you’ve never had to wear a yellow cross on your clothes.
Not all Catholics are perfect. Far from it and we sin like every body else.Some of us have been horrific and unrepentant sinners. Lincoln wasn’t perfect. Darwin was far from perfect and his ideas had horrific consequences, and we can both agree on that.
Do you really want “another Reformation to come to the West” when we’ve been paying such an enormous cost, especially in terms of religious/philosophical confusion, not to mention blood and economic exploitation thanks to the spiritual Bolshevism resulting from the first so- called “reformation” five centuries ago? If the Bible is so central to Protestantism, perhaps some of its strongest adherents ought to remember the suffering Jesus’ prayer for unity on Holy Thursday and St. Paul’s letter to Timothy where he said the Church — not the full OT/NT Canon which didn’t exist until three centuries later — was the “bulwark” and “pillar of strength.”
From there you can also re-examine the Protestant Work Ethic, Protestant Social Gospel, (charity that came with a price tag: mandatory proselytism) and the prosperity gospel nonsense spewed forth from many evangelical church pulpits lately.
Steven,
There is so much confusion in your comment I was reluctant to post it since it would take a great deal of time to correct your confusion. However, in the interest of revealing how other people think to my regular readers I decided to go ahead and post it. If they want to take the opportunity to help you out that is up to them.
I might return to this later but I’m so deep in things I have to do I really can’t take the time to correct the mistakes right now.
Thanks for commenting,
Steven:
To educate yourself on Lincoln, I suggest you
go to lewrockwell.com and click on the King
Lincoln section. You will find a treasure
trove of articles on Lincoln’s actual words and
deeds and the motivations behind them. King
Abe was Americas first and greatest dictator, a
tyrant of the first order.
YOU ARE THE LEAST EDUCATED EDITOR I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS. You need to crack a history text as well as a biology text before you go spouting your incredibly naive mouth.
Emily,
Um … Emily dear ….
I wasn’t doing Editing work. I was doing writing work.
Please quit displaying your ad-hominem stupidity and actually craft an argument won’t you? I would love to respond.
Dear Emily,
How apropos that you would stop by and comment in a thread on Darwin. We’ve been looking for the missing link.