Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Rules of the Club

He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.
(Matthew 12:30)

As I've said before, any restoration of the West is going to have to involve a recongition of the importance of Christianity in the formation of Western identity. Our "slouch to Gomorrah" has primarily come about from Western society's rejection and, in some instance, perversion of its Christian faith. It follows therefore that any restorative movement is going to have to acknowledge the role of Christianity in any reinvigoration of the West.

So where does it leave the others, who neither have faith or a Christian heritage.

It may surprise many of you that I have a very strong sympathy with regard to honest Atheism. My own predilections are strongly empirical and I can understand how a man looking at the universe around him sees no God.  The apparently inert response of a supposedly loving and active God in a world of so much injustice and evil is a very strong argument against his existence. Looking at the world around me, the empirical data, superficially, is powerful evidence against His existence and it's sometimes only the gift of Faith that lets you see God when the rest of your senses are telling you He is not there.

Christian theology affirms that faith is a supernatural gift doled out to those whom it pleases Him. And why God chooses to dole it out to some rather that others is a mystery. I certainly didn't warrant it and I know plenty of other better people than myself who don't believe.

Now this poses a problem. As a Christian, how can I expect the non believers to believe in the things that God has chosen to withhold from them? How can I, in good faith, expect them to believe in stuff that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't been given faith? The answer is, I can't.

Expecting an atheist to believe in God is like expecting me to deny him, a violation of conscience. Furthermore, it's contra Caritas, which protects conscience.

So given the hugely influential presence of Christianity on European identity can an Atheist or Jew be part of the European Right?

As I've said before, the fundamental criteria of Rightism is commitment to the Truth.  But as God seems to dole out the supernatural gift of Faith to whomever he pleases and he withholds from some, I don't see any obligation for non believers to uphold the articles of Christian faith which from their perspective, they don't believe to be true.  However, I do expect them to be honest in all other things.

In fact, some of the writers that have been most acknowledging of the Christian tradition, have been atheists such as Theodore Dalrymple and John Gray.  Gray, particularly, recently savaged Steven Pinkier's book and exposed it for the  propaganda polemic it was. One doesn't have to believe in the Christian religion to acknowledge its role and social utility in the formation of the West. But what characterises these atheists, as opposed to the New Atheists, is their honesty.

As I see it criteria for non Christian inclusion in the European right are;

a) Honesty with regard to the facts of European history and empirical observation.
b) A goodwill towards Christianity, which at its bare minimum is a tolerance of it.