#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
A Christian in France suggests one might be in the works:
On a recent Sunday, my family and I only showed up 10 minutes early for Mass. That meant we had to sit in fold-out chairs in the spillover room, where the Mass is relayed on a large TV screen. During the service, my toddler had to go to the bathroom. To get there, we had to step over a dozen people sitting in hallways and corners. This is business as usual for my church in Paris, France.
I point this out because one of the most familiar tropes in social commentary today is the loss of Christian faith in Europe in general, and France in particular. The Wall Street Journal recently fretted about the sale of “Europe’s empty churches.”
Could it be, instead, that France is in the early stages of a Christian revival?
Yes, churches in the French countryside are desperately empty. There are no young people there. But then, there are no young people in the French countryside, period. France is a modern country with an advanced economy, and that means its countryside has emptied, and that means that churches built in an era when the country’s sociological makeup was quite different go empty. In the cities — which is where people are, and where cultural trends gain escape velocity — the story is quite different.
But back to our parish. Is our pastor some outlier with megawatt
charisma? In terms of flair, he would win no public speaking contests.
But there is something that sets him apart from many of the Catholic
priests my parents’ generation grew up listening to: he is
unapologetically orthodox.
It may seem strange to suggest this at a time when liberalism in the mainstream churches and secularism without appear dominant. The Anglicans have made women bishops, the Pope is a demi-socialist, and everyone expects the Supreme Court to declare, ex nihilo, that the abominable parody known as “gay marriage” was magically written into the U.S. Constitution in hitherto undetected invisible ink.
But consider the logic of the situation. First, as with a market at its peak, there is no one left to buy into the mainstream denominations’ liberal quasi-Christianity. The pews, as they say, are already empty. The 60’s-era notion that being more tolerant, more accepting, more accommodating of the world would strengthen the Christian Church and bring in more believers had precisely the opposite effect. After all, if the Church is not only in the world, but of it, what purpose does it have?
At the same time that its intellectual bankruptcy has resulted in the undeniable material failure of inclusive, liberal, and tolerant Churchianity, the material and spiritual failures of secularism are being more apparent as well. People are beginning to realize that asserting a belief in nothing is not going to save them from either the fires of Hell or the bullets of a resurgent Islam.
Add to that the fact that the apparent wealth of the longest credit boom in world history has turned out to be mostly illusionary, and what we are seeing is the potential for a perfect storm of a return to the faith of an intensity that may be unprecedented. For decades, only prophets saw the danger. For years, only extremists were willing to speak out. But now, one has to have one’s head lodged firmly in the sand, or in one’s posterior, to fail to recognize four things:
Now, none of this means a revival is inevitable. It is not. But God works in mysterious ways and in His own time. He appears to enjoy waiting until the moment is dire, and then, using the most unlikely of sources. We cannot make it happen, but we can raise our voices and pray that He will make it happen, and that He use us as His weapons against those who have proclaimed themselves His enemies.
We are all sinful, corrupt, and fallen. I do not exempt myself from that, being worse than many, if not most, in those regards. But even I can see that something is stirring, something appears to be rumbling under the ground to which the flimsy secular chains that cover the inert corpse of Christendom are attached.
I know that there are those who believe that we are living in a permanently post-Christian era. But I suggest it is far too soon to count out a faith that began with nothing more than eleven frightened men. If Christians do not serve and worship a Living God, then Christianity should, by all reason and logic, continue to dwindle and fade. But if that does not happen, if there is, instead, a great revival, that will be meaningful evidence to the contrary.
A Castalia House blogger interviews the leading Castalia House author at Castalia House:
Q: Your conversion story from atheism to Christianity is remarkable. Some critics have been surprised to discover which of your books were written as a Christian, and which were written as an atheist. You have said that in each case you simply followed the internal logic of the story to its conclusion. How much has your faith influenced your fiction, if at all?
A: This is a very difficult question, because my firm resolution when first I converted was to simply tell stories to entertain.
I am often annoyed by stories that preach, even when they preach a sermon with which I wholly agree, such as Philip Pullman’s THE GOLDEN COMPASS. I was an atheist when I read it, a full-throat anti-Christian zealous in my love of godlessness, and even I could not stand the obtrusive excrescence of the preaching in that miserable book.
Now that I am in the other camp of the endless war between light and darkness, I confess I am still nonplussed and unamused by preaching disguised as entertainment, whether it supports my side or not. The idea of ‘Christian entertainment’ is a sound one, as long as it is entertaining as well as being Christian. There is an odor of self satisfied smugness and piety which is as repellant as the musk of a skunk clinging to much Christian entries into the literary world, which one never finds in older works, such as Milton or Dante, and never in the works of masters even in so humble as genre as science fiction. I challenge anyone to find anything nakedly and blandly pious or preachy in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, R.A. Lafferty, Gene Wolfe or Tim Powers, but there is clearly a spiritual dimension to all their works.
So I vowed a great vow never to let my personal feelings creep into my books, but merely to tell a tale for the sake of the tale, keeping faith with my readers. I am not their teacher, nor their preacher, nor their father confessor, and I have no duty to instruct them, and no qualifications to do so, no more than the jester in a King’s court has the authority to criticize the laws and policies of the King. My customers are my kings, and my job is to do pratfalls and take pies to the face to amuse them.
In the space of a single hour my great vow was overthrown when a reader, practically in tears, so deeply and thoughtfully praised the vision of spiritual reality presented in one of my short stories, the wholesomeness of the moral atmosphere portrayed there, that the reader likened it to a man trapped on some alien world of chlorine gas and sulfurous clouds being allowed to step on the fair, green fields of Earth for a single breath of wholesome, springtime air.
The reader was talking about my Christian faith, and the strength and firmness and clarity it lent to my writing. If I can wax lyrical about Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage, as I did in THE GOLDEN AGE, then surely I can wax lyrical about truth, virtue, and beauty.
The king is sad, and the jester needs to bring him comfort, for I know tales of a country where these sad things do not reign, but a king kindlier and mightier than any mortal king. As a jester, I owe it to my kings here on Earth and the King of Kings in heaven not to hide or waste my talents.
You’ll definitely want to read the whole thing. And afterwards, if you happen to find yourself still failing to be in possession of excellent books by the interviewee such as THE GOLDEN AGE, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM, and THE BOOK OF FEASTS & SEASONS, I find it impossible to imagine that you will not want to swiftly rectify the situation.
It’s an excellent interview with a fascinating author. Scooter did an excellent job of formulating much deeper questions than one generally sees in the SF genre, in addition to demonstrating that he was actually very familiar with the author’s material.
In the Year of Our Lord 2014, Christianity is under attack all over the globe. Tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered for their faith in the East and Middle East. In the West, what was once Christendom is under assault from a godless elite who fear and resent the threat that Christianity has always posed to secular authority. In the South, Christianity is growing, but it is as devoid of understanding as it is full of enthusiasm.
No ruler who is not himself a Christian will ever be entirely comfortable with subjects who do not view him as the highest and most legitimate authority. Most will be varying degrees of hostile, as we see across a broad spectrum from totalitarian dictators to democratically elected politicians. Augustus Caesar was the first, but was by no means the last, to insist that Christians accept his word as divine fiat, and future efforts in similar veins will be equally unsuccessful.
Predictions of Christianity’s eventual demise tend to strike me as little more than either fearful or wishful thinking; as the Church’s most serious enemies know, even the merest glow of an ember of faith is sufficient for the Lord God Almighty to turn it into a wildfire that scours the world. And one never knows when the winds of revival will again begin to blow.
A Time of Testing is upon us. Jesus said the world would hate us, as it hated him, but too many Christians, comfortable in the ruins of Christendom, still believe that it is possible to befriend the world, to be of it in good standing as well as in it. Soon enough, they will discover that just as tolerance of evil is not a virtue in God’s eyes, even a nominal Christian identity will be sufficient to damn them in the world’s eyes.
So choose this day, of all days, whom you will serve. If it seem to you that the world is good, a place of certain progress towards eventual human perfection, then serve those who are of the synagogue of Satan, the government, the elites, the world. Build your great global temple to Man, consecrate yourself as a human brick in the Pyramid of Progress.
But if instead you see the world as a place of evil, of corrupt men and fallen women, of darkness growing darker, of nihilism, of human liberty constrained where it is not twisted into libertinism, then the symbol of the child born in the manger will serve as a light against the darkness, a beacon of God’s Love and Man’s Hope.
Once, there was only darkness. But ever since the Star of Bethlehem shone in the night sky, the Light has been winning. That is what we celebrate today.
Merry Christmas.
Thus spake the Rev. Billy Graham:
Reverend Billy Graham, arguably the most well-known and respected evangelical preacher of the last 50 years, said in a recently published commentary that America was “founded by men who believed in prayer” and that prayer can turn “the tide of history,” adding that while “America is just as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah” and deserves “the judgment of God,” this judgment can be lessened through prayer.
“Even though America is just as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah ever were, and as deserving of the judgment of God, God would spare us if we were earnestly praying, with hearts that had been cleansed and washed by the blood of Christ,” said Rev. Graham.
It’s hard to argue otherwise without throwing out the entire metric. Post-Christianity is a bitch, and a pretty nasty one at that, as the West is gradually beginning to discover.
Someone clearly needs to explain the difference to Sen. Ted Cruz, who is not someone that any sane conservative should be supporting for president:
Cruz, the keynote speaker at the new “In Defense Of Christians” organization’s dinner in Washington DC, had offered the crowd–a number of whom were Christians from the Middle East, including Palestinian Christians–public support for Israel. After doing so, some members of the crowd booed at Cruz, and they persisted until he left the stage, noting their hatred and saying he can’t stand with them if they don’t stand with Israel.
“Tonight, in Washington, should have been a night of unity as we came together for the inaugural event for a group that calls itself ‘In Defense of Christians.’ Instead, it unfortunately deteriorated into a shameful display of bigotry and hatred,” Cruz said in a statement provided to Breitbart News. “When I spoke in strong support of Israel and the Jewish people, who are being persecuted and murdered by the same vicious terrorists who are also slaughtering Christians, many Christians in the audience applauded. But, sadly, a vocal and angry minority of attendees at the conference tried to shout down my expression of solidarity with Israel.”
Why on Earth is Cruz babbling about Israel and Jews when the topic is “In Defense of Christians”. It’s no secret that Israel is openly prejudiced against Christians and Christianity, although it does not persecute them. And Jews are not Christians; simply becoming acknowledging Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior is enough to legally render a Jew a non-Jew in the eyes of Israeli law.
From Wikipedia: “The Supreme Court of Israel ruled in 1989 that Messianic Judaism constituted another religion, and that people who had become Messianic Jews were not therefore eligible for Aliyah under the law.”
Now, I support Israel and defend its right to exist. But it was downright weird, and totally inappropriate, for Cruz to attempt to transform an event dedicated to the defense of persecuted Christians into public Holocaustianity.
China is going about it the wrong way:
In China the government is now taking on Christianity, treating some practitioners as potentially dangerous to the state. Christianity has been in China for centuries and currently is about five of the population and growing fast. In some provinces where Christians are prominent (lots of churches) and numerous the government is shutting down churches and arresting clergy and prominent Christians for the least infraction of the law. This effort is most visible on the North Korean border, where foreign Christians (some of them ethnic Koreans or Chinese) have been assisting North Koreans who have escaped from North Korea. Another hotspot is the southeastern city of Wenzhou, long known as a “Christian city” (because about 15 percent of the population is Christian) where local authorities are shutting down dozens of Christian churches.
Even before the communists took over in the late 1940s Chinese governments had long seen religion as a constant threat. What is especially alarming is any religion that attracts too many members and become more visible, especially as critics of the government. Some Christian sects are doing this and now comes the usual government response.
While Chinese are free to worship any way they want, the government picks religious leaders and imposes discipline. Thus the ongoing war against Falungong and Tibetan Buddhism. Both of these religions refuse to accept government control and are persecuted for that. This included sending thousands of practitioners to slave labor camps and often using some of those prisoners for organ donors. These victims never survived this process. But the persecution has not wiped out these two movements, and this, government officials know, sets a dangerous example for other Chinese. Throughout Chinese history governments have been overthrown by religious movements that harnessed and directed mass discontent.
It should be obvious that if the Communist Party was serious about destroying the Christian faith in China, instead of outlawing Christianity, it would provide Christians with easy sex and money and require them to watch at least eight hours of American television every day. It’s incessant temptation that weakens the Christian, not hatred, violence, and persecution.
Because it has been a long time since The Irrational Atheist was published, because my refutation of the “religion causes war” argument has been widely accepted, and because Richard Dawkins has increasingly rendered himself a parody of his former public persona, it’s easy to forget that the core arguments remain timeless. Here are a pair of recent reviews of the book, the first by a Christian, the second by an atheist. If you haven’t read it yet, you might want to consider picking up a copy sometime.
Trench Warfare. Acerbic and Funny
I bought this the first time I saw it on a shelf in hardcover. I rarely ever buy books on impulse, but this was one of those times. It sat on my shelf for about six years, however. Finally, I had the time to delve into it. The Irrational Atheist is a direct response to “new” atheism that is unlike most other responses (most other significant responses being quite a bit more respectful than Day’s). If you enjoy reading about theological, moral and social issues AND sarcasm, well this book is for you.
Day focuses his arguments in the very thick of the new atheist’s claims. Christian apologists and philosophers have rarely taken these guys seriously, mostly because none of them (except Dennett) deserve to be taken seriously in the realm of philosophy. And while the response of the apologists has been necessary for the churches to hear, none have really focused on some of the “lower” issues. By this I mean issues such as whether or not atheism is gaining converts in the U. S., whether or not religion ‘causes’ war, whether atheists are smarter than non-atheists, whether religion stifles science, etc.
From knowing nothing of Vox Day other than what he has written in his book it’s very obvious that he’s an intelligent man. Imagine Dennis Miller writing a book in response to the new atheists and you will kind of get a glimpse at the wit and humor that comprise this work. These issues of history and social issues seem to be his strong point and he handles them with brilliance. The heart of the book includes detailed chapters into his personal beefs with each of these writers. My guess would be he has the least respect for Sam Harris and the most for Dennett, but Hitchens would be neck and neck with Harris.
The last few chapters discuss various other related issues: the Holocaust, Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, human sacrifice, atheism’s responsibility for the destruction of millions of lives, a chapter on some of the theological arguments used by these writers and an appendix of a discussion between the author and Socrates concerning the Euthyphro dilemma.
If this topic interests you I heartily recommend this be on your shelf. As I said, most Christian apologists or philosophers answer via way of philosophy or theological correction or biblical defenses, all of which are very important. Day prefers to get down in the trenches and battle them head-on, via some literary lex talionis. Not for the faint of heart.
This atheist loves the book. Logical refutations (finally!) of atheist talking points.
I am an atheist, and I really like this book. Vox Day’s style is a
direct and a refreshing relief from wheelbarrow loads of empty
platitudes. To summarize the book: “God loves you, but I don’t. Here’s why blindly following the high priests of atheism is stupid.”The author says (paraphrasing, don’t remember exact phrasing): “This
book isn’t to convert you or argue in favor of God. I don’t care at all
if you believe or not. This book is to demolish the atheist arguments.”Although
there is no chance I’m going to be converting to Catholicism, or any
other sky deity religions, I have to applaud the hard logical reasoning
and fresh insights as Vox takes a hammer to the arguments of Hitchens,
Dawkins & Harris. It’s a refreshing change from all the arguments
that boil down to “God exists, therefore God exists”.
That’s a fair summary. And before the Churchians leap in to wag their fingers, I will readily admit that my failure to love everyone is indicative of my imperfect Christianity. I’m also not particularly good on turning the other cheek, avoiding impure thoughts, and avoiding the use of rough language. But I fail to see that blatantly lying and erecting a false veneer of superficial spiritual perfection would be an improvement upon the open and honest expression of my thoughts and feelings on various matters.
Paleo asks about teaching Christian submission:
My wife and I (deacons / community group leaders) have been helping a late-twenty something single woman understand what it means to be a Godly woman. Surprise, surprise, *submission* and male-only eldership have been huge stumbling blocks for her. She is familiar with the pertinent scripture (she is a PK) so we decided to do two things:
- let her see how it works in practice (My wife is a successful business executive – VP level – who puts her family first and has no problem reconciling wifely submission)
- begin sharing a (non-biblical, secular) historical rationale for the idea that civilization is predicated on patriarchy. And conversely that Feminism and civilization are ultimately incompatible.
When I gently argued that female suffrage is directly related to the precipitous decline of the family and that the current declining peace and prosperity is directly related to that – well she lost her mind and has just notified us that she’s leaving the church.
Long set-up for my question: Is it possible to winsomely argue against feminist disasters like female suffrage in this day and age?
Is it possible? Of course. Does that mean a stubborn, prideful, rebellious woman is going to accept a logically flawless train of reasoning? To ask the question is to answer it.
The extent to which these attitudes are rooted in sinful rebellion are obvious from the fact that women holding them would rather leave the church than accept the Biblical and historical truths. And the church is as much better off without them in the fold as it is without unrepentant murderers, adulterers, thieves, and homosexuals. This may be a sub-optimal outcome, but it is by no means a negative one.
Paleo did make one mistake. He “gently argued”. He says that he would like to “winsomely argue” with these women and logically convince them of the error of their ways. (I will pause so the veteran players and masters of Game can stop laughing before I continue. Everybody done? All right then.) The problem is that women simply don’t respond to logic and sweet reason. They’re not wired that way. They respond to strength, confidence, and authority, all of which a man in a position of legitimate authority throws away when he starts treating her as if he’s insecure and afraid of hurting her feelings with the truth.
The Church grows when men thunder from the pulpits. The pews are filled when its leaders fearlessly reject sin and tell the sinners they must repent before they can stand in communion with the Body of Christ. If anyone is offended by the Word, the problem is with him, not with the man who speaks it.
Now, I don’t wish to be hard on Paleo or even to criticize him. He’s doing a lot more than the average feminized Churchian, who fears the female membership more than the Lord God Almighty and worships the unholy spirit of equality. But the fact that his heart is in the right place doesn’t mean that he’s going about it in the right way.
Jesus said “Fear not”. Game says “be bold”. The fact that the lesser truth is in harmony with the greater Truth should lend confidence that speaking the truth boldly, whether it makes the listeners uncomfortable or not, is the only way for every leader in the Church. Never back down. Never temporize.
The Church of England just assisted its own suicide:
The Church of England finally voted yesterday to let women become bishops – to the anger of many traditionalists. The move was passed by a comfortable majority at a tense gathering of its parliament, the General Synod, in York.
It ended 14 years of hand-wringing and faction-fighting, delighting Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and almost all of his fellow bishops.
The decision freed the Church from the risk of intervention by politicians.
MPs had threatened to step in to force the Church to accept women bishops in 2012, after a disastrously botched vote saw traditionalists narrowly block reform.
David Cameron described yesterday’s vote as ‘a great day for the Church and for equality’. Ed Miliband said it was ‘wonderful news’, while Nick Clegg called the decision a ‘long overdue step’.
Of course, any church that was founded on the political basis of an adulterous king’s divorce was always going to have questionable theology. But this will serve to finish off what has been a dying denomination that severed itself from the roots of faith several generations ago.
I would encourage any Anglicans of my acquaintance to leave the organization, just as I encouraged Episcopalians to do the same a few years ago, except for the fact that I don’t know any Anglicans anymore. They already left.
While they are far from the only red flag, female leadership is an inerrant sign of a church that does not take the Bible or Christian doctrine seriously. Once female leadership is embraced, it’s only a matter of time before God is declared to be a Goddess, marriage is declared to be malleable, and the Crucifixion is declared to be some sort of poetic metaphor rather than a literal historical event. It was only 21 years from when women were first permitted to become priests to this event, and in another 21, I expect the Church of England will be rapidly approaching its extinction.
Remember, the same snakes that have methodically destroyed these churches are at work in your church as well. They’re always assiduous about being helpful, filling in the gaps, and working hard for the church body. There is a very good reason the Roman Catholic Church saw fit to create its various inquisitions, which were not aimed at its enemies outside the Church, but at those within it.
Look at the pictures of the fake tears of the triumphant crocodiles. They’re already planning their next offensive.