“Rulers infallibly decide the religion of the people. The true religion is always the religion of the prince; the true God is the God, whom the prince desires his people to adore; the will of the priests, who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A wit justly observed, that “the true religion is always that, on whose side are the prince and the hangman.” Emperors and hangmen long supported the gods of Rome against the God of Christians; the latter, having gained to his interest the emperors, their soldiers, and their hangmen, succeeded in destroying the worship of the Roman gods. The God of Mahomet has dispossessed the God of Christians of a great part of the dominions, which he formerly occupied.”
Baron d’Holbach
Enlightenment Philosophe/Encyclopedist & Writer
I have repeatedly said that the State and the Church always walk together — the Sceptre and the Mitre are one. When this isn’t the case the result is rebellion and revolution as a culture ruled by a divided Sceptre and Mitre will always be in turmoil.
Because the above is true the whole idea of “freedom of religion” as commonly understood is just ridiculous. What freedom is found in a “freedom of religion” society for those who don’t believe in “freedom of religion?” If one were to believe that no society should have “any other gods before them,” is that person free in the embrace of their religion?
Understanding the quote above is key to understanding where we are at during this current moment. For decades the “Christian” church in the West has supported the State with its Enlightenment classical liberal religion. This is so true that Christianity has been reinterpreted through that Enlightenment classical liberal grid. This is so true that even some theonomists today will insist that they are “Libertarian Theonomists,” or “Theonomic Libertarians.” Whichever way they flip it, the fact remains that their Christianity is being interpreted through their Libertarianism. This is true, for example, of Doug Wilson, Andrew Sandlin, James White, and others who think that they have a Christian Worldview.
We see this also with the prevailing theology in the Reformed Church today. R2K is nothing but a readjustment of Christianity so as to conforms to the Worldview/religion that is the foundation of the State. R2K will never challenge the State because R2K is the State’s theology.
The quote above explains why Greg Bahnsen and R. J. Rushdoony were so hated by the institutional church. The institutional Church hated these men so viscerally because Bahnsen and Rushdoony’s theology was a challenge to the post-war consensus and so to Enlightenment liberal culture. The quote above explains the travails of John Weaver, Sam Ketcham, Michael Spangler, Ryan Louis Underwood, Myself, and others. Given our return to an older understanding of Christianity we are a threat to the current putative conservative Reformed Church’s alignment with the prevailing zeitgeist. We are a threat to both Sceptre and Mitre.
However, I believe we may be in a transitional stage. More young men are stepping up and saying that they are done with the Post-Enlightenment/Post-War consensus. We live in a time where those gods must be dispossessed and the God of the Bible embraced as Lord over all.
This means we live in a time of opposition. Opposition to the demon inspired State and opposition to the sulfur smelling institutional Church. The Post-Enlightenment/Post-War consensus has to go with its solas of “Holocaust Alone,” “Civil Rights Alone,” “MLK Alone,” “Judeo-Christianity Alone,” and “Netanyahu Alone.”
d’Holbach was yet of that pre-French Revolution generation of “Progressives” who did not feel such a great need to pretend to have very democratic sentiments – he showed open contempt towards ordinary little people who believed in God, and emphasized the importance of “elite capture”:
http://www.ftarchives.net/holbach/good/gs3.htm#139
“We cannot reasonably propose to divest the people of their follies; but we may perhaps cure the follies of those who govern the people, and who will then prevent the follies of the people from becoming dangerous. Superstition is to be feared only when princes and soldiers rally round her standard; then she becomes cruel and sanguinary.”
The Jesuit abbé Barruel gave other examples of this smug elitist mentality:
https://archive.org/details/BarruelMemoirsIllustratingTheHistoryOfJacobinism/page/n61/mode/2up?view=theater
“There is however an exception often made by Voltaire, which might have left to Christ some few worshippers among the rabble. He seems little jealous of that conquest when he writes to D’Alembert, “Both you and Damilaville must be well pleased to see the contempt into which the wretch is fallen among the better sort of people throughout Europe; they are all we wished for or that were necessary; we never pretended to enlighten house-maids and shoemakers; we leave them to the apostles.”23 Again, he writes to Diderot, “Whatever you do, have your eye on the wretch. It must be destroyed among the better sort; but we may leave it to the rabble for whom it was made;”24 or when, in fine, he writes to Damilaville, “I can assure you, that in a short time none but the rabble will follow the standard of our enemies; and that rabble we equally despise whether for or against us.”25”
The modern Cultural Marxists may have practiced “The Long March Through The Institutions” in the 20th century, but their great role model in that matter were the 18th century “philosophes” who quietly took over the European intelligentsia, and also the minds of the courts (both juristic and royal ones), so that by the 1780s it had a become a sign of every fashionable “man of quality” to scoff at orthodox religion and old traditions, and after this silent cancer had proceeded long enough, it burst out into the open with the French Revolution.