Losing Their Religion

Couldn't help the title. The New York Times, always the far-Left trendsetter, has fired a big out-in-the-open salvo against religion in the United States. Julia A. Seymour and Amy Menefee write a brilliant critique of it in the above-cited link and I do not presume to able to improve on what they have already written.

I'd actually like to address, though, the coordinated and unrelenting nature of this, just one of the more open attacks on organized religion, specifically Christianity. For whatever their reasons, many on the Left look upon organized religion and most notably Christianity as no longer relevant in the modern world. To them, it is an archaic institution that tries to stifle social advancement and expression on the one hand while reminding us of an intolerant and dark past on the other.

Ask many to speak on Christianity frankly and they will speak of Inquisitions, forced conversions, colonialism, Creationism, and just about anything negative the Church can be remotely tied to in history. The popular ones are "silent consent of the Slave Trade" and Vatican inaction during the Nazi occupation of Europe. Your typical writer and editor for the New York Times will fit neatly into this category, and I don't even have to stretch to suggest that.

Setting aside that the last two points are popular "historical" fallacies of the Left, there is no denying that the Church often dabbled too much on the secular side, especially after it gained power following the fall of the Roman Empire. Some might argue (myself included) that these points have been overemphasized versus all the good that Christianity has accomplished and still accomplishes to this day. This promotion of a negative legacy and the consistent teaching of it over other aspects of Christianity were merely the first steps in an overall plan to eliminate Christianity from the bulk of American society. What I'm talking about doesn't even reach wide-eyed conspiracy theory proportions. It's simply historical fact.

Since the Renaissance, there has always been an effort to redefine morality and to divine its true nature. Who's morality applies? Who is to say what is moral and what is not? While the philosophers of that day worked within the framework of the Christian God to work out their moral puzzles, in the last century there was an increasing trend to define morality without the troublesome framework of a deity.

This has evolved through primarily Marxist thought and walked hand in hand with the development of communist totalitarianism and national socialism during the early part of the 20th Century. Whenever confronted with the idea of trying to replace the Christian God, many of the great Leftist thinkers of that age (and even today) were forced to come up with an equally (to them) powerful force that could replace that God, but be moldable to their desired needs and social agendas.

The State provided perhaps the best vessel for this need and the worst regimes of the 20th Century bear witness to the true evil that can be bred by putting all faith and moral power into its hands. Nazi Germany, usually falsely declared Christian, was a state-worship socialist society with Hitler as its Godhead. The U.S.S.R. had the Communist Party with occasional anti-Christ figures like Stalin to guide its people. China had Mao as its anti-Christ and his legacy is a death toll that stretches to an estimated 100 million plus lives. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with their over 3 million dead through the 60's and 70's are almost a sideshow compared to the damage those philosophies caused elsewhere, though no less tragic.

With this history, and perhaps it is truly our own ignorance that allows it to fester, there is still a determined effort by many on the Left that such a philosophy can be made to work here and throughout the West if only the right people are in charge and making the laws. True angels of light, it is assumed, and many of those same leaders on the Left undoubtedly see themselves as such, can shape and form a more benevolent society that cares for all its people from cradle to grave, more than any Christian God ever could.

Enter the Church and organized Christianity. Although other religions exist and thrive in the United States, it is from the Judeo-Christian tradition that our culture attained its moral compass and on which our original society was built. I find that a difficult point to argue. Unfortunately for the Left in the West, it doesn't have the tools that Mao, Hitler and Stalin had. It cannot forcibly close churches and imprison priests and reverends, well, not yet at least. The Left must resort to other forms of attack on religious institutions and we see them daily.

The pedophile homosexual priest scandals rocked the Catholic Church, arguably one of the strongest world Christian institutions. Whatever possessed leaders of the Church to hide these criminals will haunt them until they have to answer for it in the afterlife, but to blame the whole Church seems rather scurrilous. Any scandal that arises which has at its base some figure of Christianity is pounced upon by the Left and trumpeted for all the world to see by a media whose editors and reporters largely subscribe to the philosophy of the Left.

Certainly, the major spread in the Times fits into this framework combining two of its favorite things: taxes and religion-bashing. Part of the philosophy of the Left is that taxes are good because they allow the State/god to take care of its minions. Organized religion flies in the face of this by enjoying tax-free status in most areas and freedom from most regulations. Would that the rest of us were so lucky.

But that is not the argument in this case. The argument is that we are "owed" what the churches are stealing from us in the form of money we can't take from them. Those immune from the Left's desire to redistribute income are the enemy and churches are the worst of all. Imagine a group whose goal is to reshape society in their own image rather than the one using the foundation of Judeo-Christian religion. How are they any better? Is not their own argument useful against them?

I've often heard it argued by those who oppose organized religion that they do not wish to be governed by someone else's morality. In the very next breath, though, they often talk about how society should be through the eyes of their own personal morality. How is that any different? Well, it's a lot different if you think along the lines of the Left, which sees their overall philosophy as their god and themselves as the enlightened demi-gods of that new religion. Call it socialism or secular humanism or naturalism. Whatever.

The attempt to redefine morality from the Baby Boomers through the current generation has been a disaster and has led to a society where violence and what was once considered immorality run amuck. Society breaks down as the structures of the Left meant to replace the Church fail. Like mad captains of a ship fast sinking, though, they will not admit defeat. A little more tar will seal the hole and we must throw our life preservers overboard to reduce weight. More money and less adherence to the morality of old is demanded as payment for seeing the true fruition of their grand vision of a New Morality.

Thanks, but I'll stick with that tried and true old morality. It may not be perfect, but it is a morality that values individual liberty, personal responsibility, humility and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you and it sounds a lot more appealing than the alternative being thrust upon us by the likes of the Left. I think you can count me in the column of those who think the churches are more necessary than ever and also in the column of allowing them to keep their favored status. If anything, I think the rest of us should enjoy that status to a great degree as well. There's an idea for a Great New Society.