Noonan On Faith

“I said a great stress is here and coming, and people are going to be reminded of what’s important, and the greatest of these will be our faith, it’s what is going to hold us together as a country.”

Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal Op Ed piece

Peggy couldn’t be more wrong here. If the great stress is indeed as great as many people are suggesting then it will be our sundry faiths that are going to drive us apart. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that the only thing that could possibly hold this country together if the coming stress is as great as many people are hinting at is unmitigated brute force as engaged in by the state. We are a balkanized people and we do not share the kind of common faith that might be able to hold us together in the midst of great stress.

Two Truth’s At The Heart Of The West’s Social Order

You can always arrive at the truths (or myths) that a social order is built on by finding the taboos in a culture. The taboos are those issues that can’t be spoken upon or brought up in polite company without causing somebody to faint or freak. Violation of the assault on the social order by violating the received wisdom surrounding the taboo will cause you either to be ostracized from society or will get you arrested. All social orders protect the foundational truths they are built upon and the closer you get to the core truth that the social order is built upon, the more harrowing will be your experience if you mess with it or call it into question. This is especially true if you are able to make a convincing case that the core truth is utter nonsense, or if you are able to make people believe you have a convincing case.

Now, I am convinced that the core myth that our social order is based upon is the myth that all people, all faiths, and all cultures are equal, and I submit that is proven by the response that is visited upon someone who begins to mess with that core truth and who thus begins to violate cultural taboo. Allow me to introduce as evidence the response of people when the idea is raised that ethnic groups have different strengths and weaknesses that make them more or less inclined to achieve and prosper in certain tasks. To raise such a notion, which was taken for granted as truth for centuries, is a statement that will immediately raise hackles. You see if everyone and every faith and every culture is equal then it is heresy in our social order to suggest that some members of a set ethnic group might be inherently superior to members of another ethnic group for a given task or calling. The fact that our social order has been based upon the myth that all people, all cultures, and all faiths are equal demands that we dare not think that some cultures, faiths, or peoples, might be better suited for some task, calling or mission then others. And so if you suggest, in the presence of polite company who have imbibed the multi-cultural social order myth, the notion that all peoples, cultures, and faiths are not equal in value for all tasks you will be met by individuals either freaking or fainting. This is because the guiding myths that propel social orders come to be seen as self-evident by the weight of ongoing and perpetual repetition.

Now, out of fear of being misunderstood, allow me to insist that it is Christian to believe that all men are created equal in the sense of having equal value before God and in the sense of none being privileged over others in being adjudicated by God’s law. Equality does not mean that all peoples have all the same ability or even the same propensity in ability in sundry categories. Equality does not mean that all cultures or all faiths are to be equally esteemed.

The fact that all faiths are seen as equal is demonstrated in something recently said by the Prince Of Wales. It is a well known fact that the monarch of England carries with it the title, “The Defender of the Faith.” The faith referenced there is the Christian faith. Charles has recently said that he would prefer it if that title was changed so that the Monarch of England would be called “The Defender of the faithS.” Obviously for Charles no faith is to be preferred over any other faith since all faithS are equally valid.

A second indicator that I am correct in this assessment is another “truth” that has received official “do not touch” sanction and that is the idea that 6 million Jews died in the holocaust. Now, the moral behind the 6 million Jews dying in the holocaust is the moral that teaches, according to the multi-culturalists, that no society should be allowed to become uni-cultural in its organization because in the death of 6 million Jews we see what happens to minorities in those places that have not embraced the multi-cultural ethic and social order. The Germans sin was to believe that the Aryan was superior. The German sin is most clearly seen in their killing 6 million Jews. The way to avoid the German sin of Aryan superiority, therefore, is to embrace the social order idea that only multi-cultural superiority is allowed for social order arrangements. People who question whether or not 6 million Jews were killed are obviously people, so the multi-cultural story goes, who desire that 6 million more be killed and so must be socially ostracized for playing with the taboo. The reason that the number 6 million must be so adamantly defended is because that number becomes the bulwark against social orders that are not arranged multi-culturally. If people question the 6 million number the larger reality that is being questioned, in the multi-culturalist’s mind, is the foundation of multi-cultural social orders.

These two “truths” — (1) The absolute equality of all faiths, cultures, and ethnic groups, and (2) The number of 6 million Jewish dead who testify against cultures that are not organized multi-culturally — are at the organizational heart of the West’s social order. Challenge these truths and you can be put on trial (as Mark Steyn was in Canada or as Geert Wilders is in Europe) or put in jail as David Irving was.

But the problem with these two “truths” as a Christian is that (1) Christian do not and can not believe all faiths, and cultures are equally valid or that the evidence suggests that all ethnic groups function all societal tasks with equal proficiency, and (2) Christians do not believe that the death of any number of people at the hands of those who imbibed an anti-Christ world view (Nazi paganism) proves that we need to embrace another anti-Christ worldview (multi-culturalism) that is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions upon tens of millions of the unborn. Even if 6 million Jews died in the holocaust that does not justify supporting the multi-cultural social order that is responsible for the deaths of over 50 million unborn.

Then And Now

“So Southern belief in a Northern determination to transform the US into a consolidated nation, where the majority must always rule a central government endowed with large, indefinite implied powers, loomed as a grave threat to many Southerners’ most cherished ideals of society, of government, of life itself. When secessionists insisted that they left the Union to preserve states’ rights, they meant exactly that. In the last analysis, they seceded for an idea, the idea that they would not meekly submit to Northern rule. If they were rebels so be it. After all, it was a name their “patriot fathers bore.”

Ludwell H. Johnson
North Against South; The American Iliad — 1848-1877

People may wonder why I keep returning to this theme. I would hope that the answer is already strongly hinted at in what I said in the last post. A people’s understanding of their present is shaped by their understanding of their past. If, we as a people, continue to think of the Second War for American Independence as one in which the forces of good wore blue we will not be willing to fight for the issues that those who wore butternut and gray died for. They died fighting for Republican regionalism against the Federated Nationalism that was sought for by the army of the Potomac. We have come to the point that we must fight for Nationalism versus the New World Order that our political masters are trying to force on us. They died fighting for States Sovereignty against those who desired the sovereignty of the Nation State. We must fight for American Sovereignty against those who desire to the sovereignty of globalism. Men like R. L. Dabney and John Giradeau understood that the South was fighting for Christendom against pagan inroads. The desire not to be globalized, is much the same battle, even if people don’t understand that. If we don’t find the ability to sympathize with the Southern reasons for fighting Yankees we won’t find the ability to fight against the Internationalists.

It’s the same war folks, except that it is coming to another phase. If you believe that those toting a New World Order are the bad guys then you better realize that the Confederates are your intellectual heirs.

Multi-culturalism, religious pluralism, and cultural tolerance is a myth

A Christian has the one view that social order and culture should be based on the singular one religion of Christianity. This is referred to as Christian culture. A pagan has the one view that social order and culture should be based on a plethora of faiths. This is referred to as multi-culturalism.

Note though that the second view is not more pluralistic or tolerant than the first view or to say it positively; note that the second view is just as homogeneous and intolerant as the first view. Both the first position that has the one view that social order and culture should be Christian and the second position that has the one view that social order and culture should allow for multi-faiths are both positions that are advocating one single view of the way social order and culture should be. Both views are equally non-pluralistic because the first view allows only for Christian culture and the second view allows only for polytheistic culture. The first rules out any culture that is uniquely polytheistic. The second rules out any culture that is uniquely Christian. Both views are equally intolerant because the first view will not tolerate those who want to overthrow Christian social order and culture with polytheism while the second view will not tolerate those who want to overthrow polytheistic social order and culture.

Multi-culturalism, religious pluralism, and cultural tolerance is a myth.

Public Blasphemy — For Rev. Bayly

Over at Bayly Blog I accidentally put my foot in it — which of course is not an uncommon occurrence.

Someone took a swipe at Calvin’s treatment of Servetus and I stood up for Calvin by noting that if magistrates had stayed consistent by dealing with future Servetus’ in a similar manner we would not have arrived at the point where homosexuality is seen as normative, and we would not have arrived at the point where homosexuals are allowed to evangelize our children through the curriculum in the government schools and we would not be slaughtering 1.3 million babies every year.

Rev. Tim Bayly, for reasons known only to him, took strong exception to this comment and even after I cited the fact that all of Christian Europe was after Servetus and that the Westminster Confession article 23 requires this kind of action from the magistrate Rev. Bayly still didn’t want the discussion taking place at his blog. I suppose it is possible that Tim has some former homosexuals in his congregation and so he doesn’t want to upset them by what he views as a heavy handed approach. I guess I should say that new laws forbidding crimes wouldn’t be enforced ex post facto. Converted homosexuals are my brothers in Christ and no law passed after the fact would effect them.

Rev. Bayly seems to think my position is uncharitable and unloving. It is popular to think that way and so I don’t fault him. Rev. Bayly really needs to ask himself though if it was uncharitable and unloving of God to require capital punishment for public blasphemers in the Old Covenant and if it wasn’t then what has changed?

The reality, is that when Calvin supported the decision that the Geneva Magistrates made on Servetus it was the most loving thing he could have done. Would the Magistrates and Calvin had turned a blind eye to the teachings of Servetus it would have been like ignoring a Cancer festering in a healthy body. When Calvin supported the decisions of the Magistrates in Geneva against Servetus he at the same time supported the health of Families, Churches, and the Societal unity in Geneva. To have allowed Servetus to go unchecked would have been hatred against God and His glory and it would have been a violation of God’s law word regarding blasphemers.

We have seen where Servetus’ Unitarianism has led in our own country. What started with the theological blasphemies of Servetus, by way of a long and winding ideological path that has snaked further and further away from the old Christian paths, has led to the death of 1.3 million babies every year in this country. It has led to the feminization and homosexulization of our culture. A little leaven does indeed leaven the whole loaf.

Some will contend that it is hard hearted and mean spirited to suggest that the State should bear the sword against public Blasphemers. But let us consider again the flip side of this. If public Blasphemers and publicly expressed God haters are allowed to hold sway we must ask the question who will they exercise the use of the sword against? Our culture reveals that they will yield the sword against those that they consider involved in public blasphemy against their god or gods concept.

One of the gods of our age is the god of sex without fertility. Getting pregnant is a public blasphemy against that god. The penalty that the State makes provision for is death for the conceived child. So the sum of this is that Magistrates will always bring the sword against public blasphemy. The Geneva magistrates brought it against Servetus for publicly blaspheming God. Our current magistrates create an environment where the sword is brought against the unborn for publicly blaspheming our sex without fertility god.

It would seem to me that since the Magistrates always ends up bringing the sword against the blasphemers of some god that we should advocate for magistrates bringing the sword against those who blaspheme the God of the Bible, thus showing a tender-heartedness and love towards those who are being killed in the name of false religions and false gods.

Rev. Bayly commented that under my belief system only a handful of people would be left alive. The truth however though, is that under God’s system the land would flourish and the 1.3 million yearly aborted that Rev. Bayly cares about so deeply would be among a host of those left alive.