Any leader has to pick his fights, and my guess is that this pope will take his to the place he knows best--Europe. In the post-Soviet Europe that Pope John Paul II helped bring to life, there is already political tension between the more actively religious peoples of Eastern Europe--particularly Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia--and an assertively secular West. In February the European Union, the official arm of secular Europe, threw down the gauntlet; it effectively collapsed the government of Slovakia over a religious issue.
In 2003 the government of Slovakia signed a concordat with the Vatican to let doctors and health-care workers in Catholic hospitals decline to participate in abortions as a matter of conscience. This January the EU's Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights (their real name, not an Orwellian satire) ruled Slovakia in violation of its EU "obligations." Translation: Tell those Catholic docs to do abortions or we will hammer you financially. The political tensions split Slovakia's government, and in February it fell.
We may assume the new pope noticed this re-invasion of Slovakia. George Weigel of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, probably our most astute analyst of the papacy as a political actor (his biography of John Paul was a bestseller), has just written an absorbing book-length commentary on the new pope's probable direction called "God's Choice" (Harper Collins). "Ratzinger has been thinking about Europe for 25 years," Mr. Weigel told me. "He needs to address the problem of a Europe in which consciences are being coerced by transnational institutions. This is the cash-out of what he means by the dictatorship of relativism. It's a real issue with real world consequences." Mr. Weigel notes Benedict will go to Cologne in September, and this could be the venue for a large, Europe-directed statement on the place of religion in contemporary society.
There is such a thing as Judeo-Christian civilization. As its name implies, it is based ultimately upon a religious ideal - a concept of God and man which is unique, and has developed into a unique civilization. For centuries now, this civilization has been under constant assault - from both within and without.
Internally, the attackers are those who reject the underlying principles of the civilization. This, by the way, does not mean that all non-believers are attacking...by no means. There is a difference between not subscribing to, say, a belief in God, and attacking the civilization built up on the foundation of a certain belief in God. Plenty of athiests and agnostics, indeed, are staunch defenders of Judeo-Christian civilization, even as they dissent from the existence of God, or a particular view of God. But there are internal opponents. People who not only take issue with, say, a belief in God or a theology which holds to the divinty of Christ, but who take issue with the whole concept of the civilization. These are people who first rose up in the middle of the 18th century (so old is "modern" leftwing thinking) who rejected Judeo-Christian civilization. For a variety of reasons, they felt that the whole structure was a fraud built up with the intention of subordinating the many to a privileged few. They held - and hold - that in order to get to true liberation, the whole structure must be destroyed. Their attitude was summed by the 19th century revolutionary phrase, "liberty will come when the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest".
The external attack had been going on quite a bit longer. Here I am likely to offend, but please keep in mind that I'm only expressing the views of a Christian who must hold that if certain things are true (ie, the divinity of Christ), then other things must be untrue.
The external attack is Islam - and has been ever since Mohammed started up his religion; a religion which is best thought of - theologically - as an offshoot of the Arian heresy, which held - at bottom - that Jesus was not co-eternal with God. By claiming a new revelation, Mohammed put his new religion in complete opposition to the Christian roots of Mohammed's theology. Conflict was inevitible - though the actual Islamic assault on Christianity was an entirely unprovoked attack by Moslem raiders in the 7th century on Christian Byzantine outposts in Palestine (next time a Moslem asks what Jews are doing in Palestine, ask him what Moslems are doing there).
Our problem is how to deal with these two challenges - a challenge complicated by the fact of our Judeo-Christian heritage: it prevents us from taking the sort of measures the most ardent opponents of our civilization take to attack us (slave labor camps and other forms of mass extermination for those internal attackers, terrorism for the external attackers). Our enemies - by rejecting our morality - are free to pretty much do whatever they want to attack us...lie, cheat, steal; what have you. We, on the other hand, have to proceed with mercy, justice and wisdom lest we negate what we are.
In Pope Benedict XVI, as in the late, Great Pope John Paul II, we have a world leader who understands the challenge and who has the courage to boldly state what needs to be done. We who love this civilization - who appreciate its freedom and its prosperity - are going to have to band together in a firm defense of what we hold dear. It isn't good enough to just talk about things or deplore the excesses of our opponents - we have to meet them and beat them. Keeping ever in mind our need to be merficul and just, we must yet be strong and unbending when it comes to defending the fundamentals - human life; the worth of each individual, the right of people to believe as they wish. It is these principles, so laboriously built up over centuries of struggle, which are under assault and in danger of disappearing. Both internal and external challengers despise the individual, are contemptuous of human life, and determined that people believe only in certain ways.
It is a long battle we are engaged in - but one I do believe we'll win. My faith in God tells me so, but also some practical common-sense: who is likely to triumph: those who hate, or those who love? The haters can gain power, for a while, a do all manner of horrific things, but it is those who love who actually build anew and raise up their fellows - and in so doing, they ensure their eventual triumph.
Posted by Mark Noonan at April 14, 2006 09:24 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.blogsforbush.com/mt/president.cgi/6926
Comments
Of course, popes never lie...
;)
Posted by:
Simon at April 14, 2006 10:08 AM
"These are people who first rose up in the middle of the 18th century (so old is "modern" leftwing thinking) who rejected Judeo-Christian civilization."
I don't buy into this Judeo-Christian civilization thing. Man is corrupt. You cannot fully put your faith into any "civilization."
As Augustine wrote:
"In the earthly city, the people thereof receive the rain and food the Father gives them, but their darkened hearts are deprived of His unchangeable light, and they give him not thanks. These citizens prefer their own impious and proud gods and delight in their own strength, which represents itself in the person of their rulers. Oftentimes, the greed and selfishness of these rulers grasp for self-serving privileges and divine honors at the expense of their subjects, so that they lead their people into bondage and make war upon liberty itself."
This is why politics and religion don't mix; and why I feel that truly religious people don't push their religion into politics.
Politics corrupt. It's the matter of "earthly" city. The city of god is above politics.
Posted by: Tom Shipley at April 14, 2006 10:41 AM
Tom,
Indeed, and agreed - but a civilization is a precious commodity, and it can be swiftly lost.
It is called Judeo-Christian because it is impossible to separate out the Jewish elements from the Christian elements...and while the civilization took many things from the pagan Greco-Roman civilization, the plain fact of the matter is that there was a gigantic departure in worldview between, say, the 2nd century and the 5th...a new civilization arose, with a new ethic and a new way of doing things.
Politics and religion don't mix - a truism; but not entirely accurate either. A better way to phrase it is that the enforcement of religious beliefs by political means doesn't mix. There has to be a separation of the city of God and the city of man...but the city of man cannot sustain itself without due attention being paid to the city of God.
Our civilization, Tom, is built on some assumptions - and those assumptions are Judeo-Christian. You can say all you want that you don't believe in either religion, but the plain fact of the matter is that what you hold dear is based upon them, and cannot survive the destruction of them. This is why wise athiests are stout defenders of the religious traditions of our civilization - because the thing that keeps it going is the millions of believers who keep at it day after day because they believe.
You should ask yourself: how many people would bother raising kids if they didn't believe in God? And you've already got your answer - when you see the birth rates in Europe, and also in the liberal areas of the United States...people who don't believe, don't sustain. The left is living off of the moral capital of the believers while at the same time trying to errode belief in the really rather stupid presumption that Joe Average, sans belief, will continue to work and pay the taxes and have the children necessary to sustain the liberal elite in their urban enclaves.
In the end, it is fight for the civilization, or die.
Pick your option, Tom.
Posted by: Mark Noonan at April 14, 2006 02:34 PM
Our civilization, Tom, is built on some assumptions - and those assumptions are Judeo-Christian. You can say all you want that you don't believe in either religion, but the plain fact of the matter is that what you hold dear is based upon them, and cannot survive the destruction of them.
That is not the fact of the matter. At least an equal portion of what our country holds dear is based on the Age of Enlightenment thinking of the 1700s (and continued into other "Ages" thereafter), which for the most part, was quite at odds with Christianity.
Mark can try to credit his religion for everything, but that is simply an ignorant, simplified way of looking at the world.
But please Mark, tell us again how you have studied history and know so much about it; even though you manage to leave out huge chunks of it every time.
Mark, can you also discuss those great Judeo-Christian values of slavery and horrific treatment of women/minorities. Not that those things were only isolated with Christians, but Christianity was used to defend those "values". In fact, Christianity told people that minorities were inferior to the white man and tried to rationalize it with pseudo-scientific thinking. Thank God (yes, I realize what I am saying) that the Age of Enlightment showed us (although the acceptance has been painfully slow) how stupid it was to think minorities were inferior to the white man.
Now there are plenty of Judeo-Christian values that are great and are for the benefit of mankind in my opinion, but it is also naive to believe these originated with Judaism or Christianity, or cannot exist outside of these religions.
The left is living off of the moral capital of the believers while at the same time trying to errode belief in the really rather stupid presumption that Joe Average, sans belief, will continue to work and pay the taxes and have the children necessary to sustain the liberal elite in their urban enclaves.
In order to believe such a thing you would have to be assuming that current atheists in general do not work or pay taxes. Can you provide some evidence for your horrible stereotype?
And where do you get this idea that Atheists don't want to raise children? Having and raising children has nothing to do with religion, but rather is an innate and biological "urge" that exists in almost every last living thing to ever grace this earth. Life on this earth, including humans and human ancestors, procreated just fine without religion being involved for billions of years.
Posted by: Brokeback at April 14, 2006 03:55 PM
"In the end, it is fight for the civilization, or die.
Pick your option, Tom."
I choose C. none of the above.
Brokeback pretty much summed it up.
"Now there are plenty of Judeo-Christian values that are great and are for the benefit of mankind in my opinion, but it is also naive to believe these originated with Judaism or Christianity, or cannot exist outside of these religions."
Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campell really does a good job of displaying this. It's amazing how similar the stories of christianity, judaism, greek mythology, hinduism, Buddism, tribal folklore, etc... are.
Just off the top of my head, Icarus and Tower of Babel share great similarities. There's also some eastern indigenous tribal story that's very similar to Christ's crucifiction.
Very interesting stuff.
Posted by: Tom Shipley at April 14, 2006 04:32 PM
Mark,
How can you explain, then, all others cultures on this planet that are thriving and have thrived that have either different religious beliefs than Christianity or no religion at all? Take China, for instance, which is primarily Buddhist. If you remember, China's population is well over a billion and growing strong. They have not fallen into utter decay and stopped having children because they believe in a different God than you. (Yes, there are some cultural practices that you or I may not agree with, but that doesn't change the fact that the Asians are probably the most populus race on the planet.)
Mark, ALL religions have the ability to be corrupt, as well as they have the abilty to do good for mankind. Other religons have problems too, but Christianity is FAR from perfect in some of its views.
I honestly do not believe that Jesus Christ ever intended many of the things done "in His name."
Perhaps it would be wise to look at the whole picture when making assumptions about other cultures and assuming yours is the best.
Posted by: Robert at April 14, 2006 04:54 PM
Post a comment
Of course, popes never lie...
;)
"These are people who first rose up in the middle of the 18th century (so old is "modern" leftwing thinking) who rejected Judeo-Christian civilization."
I don't buy into this Judeo-Christian civilization thing. Man is corrupt. You cannot fully put your faith into any "civilization."
As Augustine wrote:
"In the earthly city, the people thereof receive the rain and food the Father gives them, but their darkened hearts are deprived of His unchangeable light, and they give him not thanks. These citizens prefer their own impious and proud gods and delight in their own strength, which represents itself in the person of their rulers. Oftentimes, the greed and selfishness of these rulers grasp for self-serving privileges and divine honors at the expense of their subjects, so that they lead their people into bondage and make war upon liberty itself."
This is why politics and religion don't mix; and why I feel that truly religious people don't push their religion into politics.
Politics corrupt. It's the matter of "earthly" city. The city of god is above politics.
Tom,
Indeed, and agreed - but a civilization is a precious commodity, and it can be swiftly lost.
It is called Judeo-Christian because it is impossible to separate out the Jewish elements from the Christian elements...and while the civilization took many things from the pagan Greco-Roman civilization, the plain fact of the matter is that there was a gigantic departure in worldview between, say, the 2nd century and the 5th...a new civilization arose, with a new ethic and a new way of doing things.
Politics and religion don't mix - a truism; but not entirely accurate either. A better way to phrase it is that the enforcement of religious beliefs by political means doesn't mix. There has to be a separation of the city of God and the city of man...but the city of man cannot sustain itself without due attention being paid to the city of God.
Our civilization, Tom, is built on some assumptions - and those assumptions are Judeo-Christian. You can say all you want that you don't believe in either religion, but the plain fact of the matter is that what you hold dear is based upon them, and cannot survive the destruction of them. This is why wise athiests are stout defenders of the religious traditions of our civilization - because the thing that keeps it going is the millions of believers who keep at it day after day because they believe.
You should ask yourself: how many people would bother raising kids if they didn't believe in God? And you've already got your answer - when you see the birth rates in Europe, and also in the liberal areas of the United States...people who don't believe, don't sustain. The left is living off of the moral capital of the believers while at the same time trying to errode belief in the really rather stupid presumption that Joe Average, sans belief, will continue to work and pay the taxes and have the children necessary to sustain the liberal elite in their urban enclaves.
In the end, it is fight for the civilization, or die.
Pick your option, Tom.
Our civilization, Tom, is built on some assumptions - and those assumptions are Judeo-Christian. You can say all you want that you don't believe in either religion, but the plain fact of the matter is that what you hold dear is based upon them, and cannot survive the destruction of them.
That is not the fact of the matter. At least an equal portion of what our country holds dear is based on the Age of Enlightenment thinking of the 1700s (and continued into other "Ages" thereafter), which for the most part, was quite at odds with Christianity.
Mark can try to credit his religion for everything, but that is simply an ignorant, simplified way of looking at the world.
But please Mark, tell us again how you have studied history and know so much about it; even though you manage to leave out huge chunks of it every time.
Mark, can you also discuss those great Judeo-Christian values of slavery and horrific treatment of women/minorities. Not that those things were only isolated with Christians, but Christianity was used to defend those "values". In fact, Christianity told people that minorities were inferior to the white man and tried to rationalize it with pseudo-scientific thinking. Thank God (yes, I realize what I am saying) that the Age of Enlightment showed us (although the acceptance has been painfully slow) how stupid it was to think minorities were inferior to the white man.
Now there are plenty of Judeo-Christian values that are great and are for the benefit of mankind in my opinion, but it is also naive to believe these originated with Judaism or Christianity, or cannot exist outside of these religions.
The left is living off of the moral capital of the believers while at the same time trying to errode belief in the really rather stupid presumption that Joe Average, sans belief, will continue to work and pay the taxes and have the children necessary to sustain the liberal elite in their urban enclaves.
In order to believe such a thing you would have to be assuming that current atheists in general do not work or pay taxes. Can you provide some evidence for your horrible stereotype?
And where do you get this idea that Atheists don't want to raise children? Having and raising children has nothing to do with religion, but rather is an innate and biological "urge" that exists in almost every last living thing to ever grace this earth. Life on this earth, including humans and human ancestors, procreated just fine without religion being involved for billions of years.
"In the end, it is fight for the civilization, or die.
Pick your option, Tom."
I choose C. none of the above.
Brokeback pretty much summed it up.
"Now there are plenty of Judeo-Christian values that are great and are for the benefit of mankind in my opinion, but it is also naive to believe these originated with Judaism or Christianity, or cannot exist outside of these religions."
Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campell really does a good job of displaying this. It's amazing how similar the stories of christianity, judaism, greek mythology, hinduism, Buddism, tribal folklore, etc... are.
Just off the top of my head, Icarus and Tower of Babel share great similarities. There's also some eastern indigenous tribal story that's very similar to Christ's crucifiction.
Very interesting stuff.
Mark,
How can you explain, then, all others cultures on this planet that are thriving and have thrived that have either different religious beliefs than Christianity or no religion at all? Take China, for instance, which is primarily Buddhist. If you remember, China's population is well over a billion and growing strong. They have not fallen into utter decay and stopped having children because they believe in a different God than you. (Yes, there are some cultural practices that you or I may not agree with, but that doesn't change the fact that the Asians are probably the most populus race on the planet.)
Mark, ALL religions have the ability to be corrupt, as well as they have the abilty to do good for mankind. Other religons have problems too, but Christianity is FAR from perfect in some of its views.
I honestly do not believe that Jesus Christ ever intended many of the things done "in His name."
Perhaps it would be wise to look at the whole picture when making assumptions about other cultures and assuming yours is the best.