Monday, June 05, 2006

Christianity and Western Civilisation

This post at Gates of Vienna is interesting. It does several things:
  1. Highlights the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity (the fundamentalist sort),
    “The first principle of the Bible is that man needs to be Free, and this comes before anything else. This is not at all a principle of Islam. In Islam, a good Muslim is to learn the Koran by heart, and to follow its rules by rote. He is not to be analytical, because his analysis can never add anything to that which Allah has already provided. The Koran, itself, is the final word of Allah to man. It is not to be amended or added to. It is to be followed only.”
    The first statement is not quite correct from an orthodox Christian point of view. But, there is some truth to it. The reason for this is simple: God is a God of reason. He created humanity with decision making faculties. (Up until 50 years ago, these faculties often used a process called logic and deduction. These days, decisions are relative. But I digress.) In a Christian framework, humans are Free - they have been since the time of Adam and Eve.

  2. Warns of the impotence of liberal Christianity:
    Modern mainstream Christianity has put itself into a cage of its own making, a cage of radical non-violence. It has, in effect, repudiated two thousand years of its own history, forsaking all the heroes who gave their lives so that the work of Christ could continue unmolested.
    There is a greater problem with mainstream Christianity: it is theologically and philosophically bankrupt. Its relativism and theological liberalism is gnawing at its ability to discern good from evil. It has no moral basis on which to defend itself militarily. C.S. Lewis, despite witnessing the horrors of WWI on the battlefield, makes a case for the stupidity of institutional pacificism:
    This, then, is why I am not a Pacifist. If I tried to become one, I should find a very doubtful factual basis, an obscure train of reasoning, a weight of authority both human and Divine against me, and strong grounds for suspecting that my wishes had directed my decision. As I have said, moral decisions do not admit of mathematical certainty. It may be, after all, that Pacifism is right. But it seems to me very long odds, longer odds than I would care to take with the voice of almost all humanity against me. (Read to a pacifist society in Oxford in 1940, found in this collection of Lewis' essays.)

  3. Warns the Church of impending disaster (a return to the “dark age” of Christianity), if it doesn’t seize the initiative needed to combat Islam on an intellectual basis.
    The most important endeavor the Christian Church can undertake, at this point in time, is to understand that the defense of Western Civilization is of utmost importance to the existence of Christianity. Without the protection Western Civilization provides to Freedom of Conscience, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy, Christianity itself would go into a dark age.
    On a political level, yes, the Church's survival is strongly correlated to that of the survival of the West. But, on a spiritual level, I disagree quite strongly. It would make the life of Christians harder. But one cannot escape the historical evidence that eras of history have thrown up: where Christian thought and influence has been strongest, it is where it is under attack (think of certain times in Roman era, the Reformation and the Church’s massive expansion in China).

Wake up, people Western Civilization is already collapsing. What we are fighting for is how much we can save and what will be built on its ruins.

Manny Is Here: Christianity and Western Civilisation

Monday, June 05, 2006

Christianity and Western Civilisation

This post at Gates of Vienna is interesting. It does several things:
  1. Highlights the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity (the fundamentalist sort),
    “The first principle of the Bible is that man needs to be Free, and this comes before anything else. This is not at all a principle of Islam. In Islam, a good Muslim is to learn the Koran by heart, and to follow its rules by rote. He is not to be analytical, because his analysis can never add anything to that which Allah has already provided. The Koran, itself, is the final word of Allah to man. It is not to be amended or added to. It is to be followed only.”
    The first statement is not quite correct from an orthodox Christian point of view. But, there is some truth to it. The reason for this is simple: God is a God of reason. He created humanity with decision making faculties. (Up until 50 years ago, these faculties often used a process called logic and deduction. These days, decisions are relative. But I digress.) In a Christian framework, humans are Free - they have been since the time of Adam and Eve.

  2. Warns of the impotence of liberal Christianity:
    Modern mainstream Christianity has put itself into a cage of its own making, a cage of radical non-violence. It has, in effect, repudiated two thousand years of its own history, forsaking all the heroes who gave their lives so that the work of Christ could continue unmolested.
    There is a greater problem with mainstream Christianity: it is theologically and philosophically bankrupt. Its relativism and theological liberalism is gnawing at its ability to discern good from evil. It has no moral basis on which to defend itself militarily. C.S. Lewis, despite witnessing the horrors of WWI on the battlefield, makes a case for the stupidity of institutional pacificism:
    This, then, is why I am not a Pacifist. If I tried to become one, I should find a very doubtful factual basis, an obscure train of reasoning, a weight of authority both human and Divine against me, and strong grounds for suspecting that my wishes had directed my decision. As I have said, moral decisions do not admit of mathematical certainty. It may be, after all, that Pacifism is right. But it seems to me very long odds, longer odds than I would care to take with the voice of almost all humanity against me. (Read to a pacifist society in Oxford in 1940, found in this collection of Lewis' essays.)

  3. Warns the Church of impending disaster (a return to the “dark age” of Christianity), if it doesn’t seize the initiative needed to combat Islam on an intellectual basis.
    The most important endeavor the Christian Church can undertake, at this point in time, is to understand that the defense of Western Civilization is of utmost importance to the existence of Christianity. Without the protection Western Civilization provides to Freedom of Conscience, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy, Christianity itself would go into a dark age.
    On a political level, yes, the Church's survival is strongly correlated to that of the survival of the West. But, on a spiritual level, I disagree quite strongly. It would make the life of Christians harder. But one cannot escape the historical evidence that eras of history have thrown up: where Christian thought and influence has been strongest, it is where it is under attack (think of certain times in Roman era, the Reformation and the Church’s massive expansion in China).

Wake up, people Western Civilization is already collapsing. What we are fighting for is how much we can save and what will be built on its ruins.

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