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A question that does not get asked very much, especially in public, is if Christianity is compatible with democracy. Organized Christians in this age make a point of supporting “democracy” because the people in charge cannot stop talking about it, but that speaks to the sorts of people running organized Christianity. They want to be in good standing with the rulers, an irony that never gets mentioned. The thing they claim to profess evolved in opposition to secular rule.
Putting that aside, the issue of whether democracy, as in the consent of the governed through direct participation in governance by the governed, is compatible with Christianity is an important one. It is clear that as the West has become more democratic, it has become less Christian. Open hostility to Christianity is a feature of the class of people who talk about democracy the most. It certainly seems like the fans of democracy are not fans of Christianity.
Most people today who call themselves Christian or one of the sects of what we think of as Christianity are well aware of the hostility, but they blame secularism or various names for radicalism, rather than democracy. Christians embrace democracy as much as the opponents of Christianity, even if their particular brand of Christianity has no democratic elements. Catholicism, for example, is anti-democratic in structure, but American Catholics love democracy.
There are, however, Christian sects that do embrace democracy. Baptists churches, for example, hire their pastors. If the pastor finds a bigger church willing to hire him and pay him more money, he is free to leave the old church and join the new one. On the other hand, if the church congregation or the deacons decide the pastor is not to the liking they can fire him. Here is a video from a Baptist minister giving the background on why he was recently fired by his church.
The short version of the video is the pastor gave a sermon on marriage and the role of women that was based in a traditional interpretation of Scripture. The wife of the youth pastor, a more modern woman, was offended by the sermon. She and her husband organized a campaign within the church against the pastor in the video and eventually got him fired from his post. In the end, they got a majority of the congregation to agree that either he goes, or they go.
This is a very democratic result. After all, the starting point for democracy is the assertion that the majority must prevail. While there is nothing in Scripture that says this is how things must be, most Christians accept this assertion. In fact, one could argue that the most important victim of majority rule was Christ. If instead of demanding Barabbas they demanded Jesus, the world would be quite different. The point is this congregation and others like it are not organized according to Scripture.
More important, the way they are organized contradicts a basic assumption of all religions, not just Christianity. That basic assumption is that there are some things too important to be left to man. These are things that are true because the gods or God have declared them to be true. Scripture does not say adultery, for example, has to be sorted through a show of hands. For Christians, adultery is a sin, and it is not up for debate
Without knowing the content of the sermon that the pastor in the video says was the source of the conflict, it cannot be judged dogmatically. What matters is the pastor preached in a way that offended the congregation, or at least a majority of them, so the rest went along with firing him. If his sermon was theologically and scripturally correct, then it means the congregation decided they did not like that part of the Bible, so they avoid it and those who preach it.
The point here is that for Christianity to work, or any religion for that matter, the main body of its beliefs must be beyond the collective judgement of man. The collection of oughts and ought nots that make up every religion are rooted in an authority beyond the ability of man to question. Otherwise, the oughts and ought nots are rooted in the collective will of the people. The word we have for this is democracy. In other words, democracy replaces God or the gods as the moral authority.
This is why the radicals of the French Revolution firts set their eyers on the Catholic Church when they gained power. Popular consent could not coexist with an alternative moral authority or its representative on earth, so it had to go. The same logic was at work when they eradicated the aristocracy. Hierarchy is an alternative moral authority to popular sovereignty, so it cannot coexist with it. The thrown and the altar have always been the enemy of popular consent.
You see that in the story of the video pastor. The people who engineered his termination feel justified not because they find support in Scripture, but because they think they have the support of the majority. The God they truly worship is not on the Bible but in the show of hands and their sense of being in the majority. It is not hard to see how this can lead to what you see with the Episcopal Church. It is rainbows and sodomites because the god they worship is the god of democracy.
What the evidence leads to is that the enemy of Christianity is not liberalism or even secularism, but the concept of democracy. Once people of any faith embrace the idea that truth is the result of consent, there is no room for God. Any religion that tries to exist in a society that embraces democracy, will come under pressure to replace its God with the god of the people. As a matter of survival, Christians should see democracy as their primary enemy, externally and internally.
This raises an important question. Can Christianity survive in a democracy. Even if the Church rejects democracy and all its works, can it survive in a society which is governed by the principles of democracy? Is there some limit on the democratic impulse that must be in place and be viewed as unassailable in order for Christian to live in democratic society. If not, then are Christians obligated to fight democracy or simply acquiesce to their own destruction?
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I hate to be one of those guys shaking their fists at the 20th Amendment, but I wonder if the feminization of politics is also a big cause of the death of Christianity. As I understand it, many of the most devout early converts to Christianity were women because Christianity put such strong emphasis on the importance of a monogamous family and preached that women had a very important role to serve. Metaphorically, men’s relationship to their wives was supposed to be the same as Jesus’ relationship to the church. Now that the predominant “family” unit in the U.S. is… Read more »
Giving a woman the right to vote is like giving the dog the keys to the car
stupidest thing we ever did. Or it’s up there very high
Remind me of one of my dad’s favorite jokes:
A husband’s wife told him he needed to get in touch with his feminine side. He went on a huge shopping spree and crashed the car.
Or as P.J. O’Rourke said: “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
That’s a great line. Though I would extend it to say the money and power is held by the teenager’s father, who gives his son whiskey and car keys to distract from the fact that he is stealing from his neighbors.
Agreed, but there’s no sense in discussing it because it will never be repealed.
20th?
I was going to correct him and say the 17th until I looked it up and saw it’s the 19th. So I kept my mouth shut, lol. Anyway, he makes an excellent point.
D’oh!
The 19th Amendment simply speeded up and standardized a process that was long in the works. Many States already allowed women the right to vote, particularly the newer States of the West. The retraction of the 19th Amendment will do little to nothing to change this “right”. Much like the overturn of Roe vs Wade did little to nothing to change abortion “rights”.
This is modern revisionist propaganda used to justify feminist rebellion. Read the primary sources from those of the early church. Barely any mention of women at all.
A pagan Roman commentator noted that Christianity was the religion of slaves and women, both in the lower classes.
Yes, the primary sources are almost entirely male focused, because that’s the hierarchy of the formal church. The apostles were all male, etc.
It was the 19th Amendment, although a number of States had already permitted women to vote…Regardless, women created the welfare state, because they always want to “help”, as long as they aren’t directly paying…
Womyn can help: be quiet, sit down, raise children and fix dinner.
It’s the Judaization of politics that caused this hostility toward Christianity in official circles. It parallels to what happened in the Soviet Union, also another Jewish abomination.
What death of Christianity? We’re still around. Christianity as religion of most of the masses is admittedly under some issue right now. Anyway, if anything it’s the lack of observing Christian belief that brought women to the fore front in public life. The same passage that tells men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church also tells women to submit to their husbands. Catholicism, as socially agreeing with the world as it seems, still has a male only priesthood. Christianity can cope with a world that has put women in charge. At some point, it hopefully can help… Read more »
My son converted into Catholocism and from I gather these days, it’s essentially a woman pastor, dead church walking.
Not quite yet. Most Protestant denominations are further gone.
Taking women and their feeling’s seriously is the biggest crisis facing the entire world today. Replacing democracy, expelling a certain foreign tribe, securing the border — none of these things will improve anything (or even be possible to implement) so long as society collectively and at an individual level takes or suspends actions merely because woman offended.
This is why any “optimism” is a ridiculous exercise. None of those things will ever happen so there is no saving the west. It will become extinct in the generations to come and be thrown into the dustbin of history. What could have been won’t even be discussed because it breaks the rules of the egalitarian paradise. in 100 years “America” will be a shithole of epic proportions.
Wrong! It could easily happen if men were to “sack up.”
Take back what they’ve given in terms of political power, tell women no, and when necessary STFU!
Weak men caved, weak willed men still enabling.
To be fair, it doesn’t take much in the way of testicular fortitude. All it takes is to be in the company of men who do think the woman’s role is as part of the “sandwich ministry”. Still a thing in my neck of the woods.
Surely it goes back even further than the French Revolution? Protestantism has that each person can read the Bible for himself, and by implication interpret it for hmself or herself. No authority figure — priest, bishop, pope — can interpret the Bible for a Protestant. It is natural, then, that interpretation will suit the way of life and conduct of the person in question. What is not palatable in the Bible or its interpretation will be ignored or suppressed. And consequently any pastor placing emphasis on some uncomfortable truths in the Bible will be thrown out on his ear. In… Read more »
Yes, Sola Scriptura is the ultimate thing to blame and democracy derives from that. If any person can have his own interpretation of the Bible, the only way to agree on something is voting.
There are no official goods and evils: only counting votes. Sola Scriptura introduces relativism in the Western civilization and no civilization can survive relativism, because a society needs people to agree on what is good and what is evil. The rest is individualism and destroying society because each person does whatever he sees fit.
An interesting aspect of Biblical interpretation is that it often gets back to “translation” and understanding of long dead languages and their common usage of the time. Most people are not that savvy, or educated enough to understand the implications of seemingly minor changes in text translations. Heck, Google any passage and see the list of Biblical translations for such. Some fundamentally quite different from one another.
“the only way to agree on something is voting.”
Only matters if you care to form a consensus with people who are wrong.
Bible says there aren’t many who are going to find the narrow gate. There’s nothing to be gained by agreement.
Well, there are really two blades to that pair of scissors shredding Christianity:
I suppose Christendom could have remained intact with SS, so long as it was being interpreted solely by the appointed authority. The ZOG at least pays lip service to this by having the SCROTUS as its “appointed authority” although it is cynically manipulated seven ways to Sunday.
Our rulers HAVE agreed on what is good and what is evil. It’s pretty much rock solid with them, whether you look at the Ruling Class, or its adjuncts in the Administrative and Managerial (whatever you want to call them) elites, as well as the Cognitive, Creative, Corporate and Political classes. They know we are Other — Barbarians, Gaijin, Heratics, Unclean … whatever. They may argue amongst themselves about the various permutations of their new construct. But they are absolutely united about one thing — We are not inside the fence line. We must be marked as the Beast, then… Read more »
And those missions wherein the savage is converted and encouraged to immigrate to the West, are also costly, dontchaknow.
Yep, the “equality” issue is the one separating me from most organized Christianity. Equality in the bad sense, not the reasonable sense of “under God”.
Traditional mission work involves comfortable people getting off their hind ends and living some place uncomfortable. The savage is converted in his home. The modern habit of importing people and not converting them is entirely relatively development.
I was about to post more or less the same comment. People read their own biases and the Bible always agrees with whatever their prior beliefs were before they picked that Bible up for the first time.
For all the problems of Catholicism (I’m a Catholic) and the convergence of the Church, hierarchy is the only solution along with publishing the Bible in a language nobody can read. At least the Vatican can be fixed in theory. There is no fixing Protestantism.
Yep. Now that I think of it, Protestantism inevitably gave us “Scientology”. I’ll leave that statement as an exercise to the reader—as faculty are want to say.
That’s definitely true! He warns us of false prophets, and makes plain that there are consequences to following the wrong prophets. You are judged not on how closely you hew to what your holy man says, but rather, whether you do as He says. (John 15. 15:14 for the impatient.)
Your eternal soul depends on whether you are right. Or more to the point, whether some pope ages ago was right. How can you KNOW? He says if you search diligently…
And, self-evidently, how would one search diligently? Without sola scriptura, I mean? And who told you NOT to search diligently, but rather take his teachings as authoritative? The guy who conned you into handing over 10% of your income to him?
You are betting your soul on this. Hope for your sake your trust is not misplaced…
Muslims can read their religious text without the dissolute culture appearing as you see in France right now. I don’t think your point is correct. Also it is to laugh when I hear Catholics boast of the church maintaining doctrine; there’s a reason Protestantism happened , champ.
“Muslims can read their religious text without the dissolute culture appearing as you see in France right now.”
They have their own Imams, Mullahs, and Ayatollahs telling them what is and is not acceptable interpretation. Also the bulk of them can’t understand Arabic anyway (only around 20% are Arabs) so the Quran more or less remains a closed book to them (translations into the vernacular are not encouraged). In other words, Islam as most serious Moslems understand it (i.e., that means excluding noggers) is filtered through a body of clerics. Like Catholicism.
Catholicism is unique in her hierarchy, because there is a hierarchy. There is no equivalent of Peter’s successor in Islam.
Further, the Bible was produced by the Church. It’s not an issue of trying to interpret one man’s fever dreams in ancient Arabic. It’s much different scenario of the publisher of the book telling people what it means.
Much of teaching of Catholicism is simply common sense. Some of it’s mystical. Other than a few assumptions and/or revelations, it’s possible to reverse engineer almost all of it.
YET, all those muzzies live in a democracy. Nice try sweety.
Moved
We Catholics have maintained doctrine. Pick anything major people hate, like the teaching on divorce and it’s stayed the same since Jesus taught it to his disciples. The practice of the faith and reactions to shifting social conditions (ie the death penalty), yes do change. However, that’s the example in the New Testament itself with the Council at Jerusalem. A living Church changes with it’s need to react to new developments in human history. Protestantism happened in part because of a massive corruption in the Western Church, along with some other social tinder that was already there. Interestingly it only… Read more »
Protestantism happened because English didn’t like being ruled by Italians. Not very complicated. This friction dates back WAY before the reformation. As an Italian soul living under English rules today I understand their frustration completely. Both sides have their good and bad, but regardless they can’t co-exist under the same set of doctrines. That said, I am speaking of the real Protestantism, the one that matters historically, meaning the one created by King Henry. Luther was merely the pick that first broke the ice imo. He was silver to Henry’s gold. The potatoes to Henry’s steak. for you outsiders thinking… Read more »
You’d have a point if the Catholic Church and pope hadn’t gone woke
This is a good essay, and its central question is an important one. But the question can be extended. Hence, can any people in a democracy who value democracy above their own people survive? You know what I’m driving at here. If the majority in democracies decide to enact sweeping anti-white policies are white people obligated to accept their own disempowerment, subjugation and possible elimination because the will of the people claims this is the best thing for all? Post-war whites have proved themselves far more loyal to the concept of democracy than to their own extended family, and that… Read more »
Post-war whites have proved themselves far more loyal to the concept of democracy than to their own extended family, and that family is increasingly imperiled. Of that, there can be very little doubt.
That is Truth and for the life of me I just don’t understand that…
I believe you are touching upon what I was taught as a youngster in school. Democracy is retrained via “The Bill of Rights”—really those original principles of the Founders and the “people of the time” as to what could or could not become binding “law”. So the adage that “Democracy is two wolves and one sheep decide what to eat for dinner” would not occur in practice because sheep have “rights”. Those rights were not “given” by the Founders, but were *recognized* by the Founders. They simply restated, and mostly left to assumption, what was the common understanding and practice… Read more »
An important point. As ever, demographics are probably more determinative than any economic or political system. Alas, America began to get its demographics wrong when it actually was something of a democracy, in contrast to Our Democracy. It seems to me that even when the demographics are good, democracy is susceptible to crashing and burning. I just really don’t trust it anymore.
“demographics are probably more determinative…”
Ima stop you right there. You do realize the wheels started coming off in Washington’s first term, right? The Whiskey Rebellion was about people who had been using liquor for money, because it was so difficult to transport corn in bulk through the Pennsylvania backcountry, and were now told they would have to pay a tax on their money, right? Adams’ administration made criticism of the President a jailable offense, for Pete’s sake. Almost the entire country was English, and the women and minorities got no votes in the matter.
Yes, our idea of Our democracy coming from the Founders is truly a modern myth. The Founding Fathers did indeed create a republic with aristocratic representatives and man who was supposed to temporarily replace a King for the people. They hated democracy as rule of the mob.
It was also quite the shock to Plato’s opinion of democracy, when I finally read that work.
I have long thought that if you get a bunch of European people to occupy a plot of land, whatever government they come up with will mostly work fine for a long amount of time. It really doesn’t matter how the government is arranged at all. Scandinavian socialism worked as long as the populations of those states were Scandinavian. In part because we are talking about high IQ, intelligent, hardworking people, but also because they got together and configured a society that suited their norms and values, so they implicitly accepted the social compact and they also implicitly lived it.… Read more »
Wish I shared your optimism. I’m more in Acton’s camp — “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
This is the only plausible explanation for why the early Constitutional Republic went as badly as it did. Even the radical Jefferson succumbed to it.
My loyalty to my extended family and my closest friends far exceeds an abstract loyalty to “democracy” and I strongly believe that this latter is a poison pill at present.
“Post-war whites have proved themselves far more loyal to the concept of democracy than to their own extended family, and that family is increasingly imperiled. Of that, there can be very little doubt.” Time for some random generational theory. 🙂 Yes, the Silents and the Boomers are committed to democracy, in part because the WWII were a very democratic people. Those several generations really like the idea of everyone being “equal”. If not a suit and tie and brill cream for everyone, it’s Steven Jobs wearing farmer pants and a black turtle neck, also for everyone. Unfortunately Silents and the… Read more »
“Unfortunately Silents and the Boomers also suffer from a group indifference to their children.”
It’s the children who became indifferent to their parents. Sure, the parents sold the house and moved to Florida or Arizona, but only after the kids moved out and scattered across the country. Which is a consequence of the destruction of small business.
When Johnny could marry his high school sweetheart and get a job in town, the extended family could remain vital. Not so when married some shrew who hates flyover and they live in a condo in the big city.
Christianity and “democracy” (or something vaguely resembling it which goes by that name) have coexisted quite well for a very long time, so there’s no particular reason that they couldn’t continue. Except for the reason it ran up against in ZMan’s Baptist example. Proud and unrestrained feminine power which will not tolerate any offense to its feelz. A problem that “democracy” also runs into. The problem is neither christianity nor “democracy.”
I guarantee you if the pastor had stood up there and preached that men must do x, y, and z, there would not have been a protest.
Correct. It’s not the democracy that is the root cause, it’s the gynocracy. Worshipping women will always lead to destruction regardless of the purported system of government.
I would argue that ‘gynocracy’ is one of the inevitable results of democracy.
The Christians thought the feminine problem important enough that they put a story on the nature of woman right up at the front of their book. It’s one of the 2 or 3 parts of the bible that everyone, christian or non christian, knows. Yet still, here we are.
I upvoted, though I don’t think the apple is probably a statement about women. I don’t think there was some magical quality to an apple that made Adam rebel against God. More likely, it’s a metaphor for man making rules for himself, rather than let God make the rules.
After all, God says not, “Nudity is not wrong,” but “Who told you it was wrong?”
And yet there can be no gynocracy without democracy. Consequently, wherever there is democracy, gynocracy must be a danger.
I don’t think so. It’s very easy for any system to go off the rails in a gynocentric society. It’s hard to argue China is a democracy and it has many of the same problems.
It’s not even clear democracy is the cause of gynocentrism. All the stupidity of gynocentrism starts in the ruling class. It’s not like the ruling class is conforming to popular opinion. Instead, popular opinion is conforming to the ruling opinion.
Perhaps. That said, matriarchy is far more prevalent in democracies than any other form of government, and I don’t think that is coincidental. The rulers may instigate, but the masses validate. Both sides of the equation are important, even essential.
I think gynocracy arises from affluency, prolonged peace and general lack of hardship. Thus it was in Rome…
An unfortunate fact.
Specifically from safety and abundant resources, I would say. Once those conditions are attained, the women look around and say “what do we need men for?”
Men get pushed aside as soon as our services are no longer needed. Otoh, women get put in their place as soon as they can’t be indulged.
And let us not forget (this just occurred to me) that (((they))) follow the matrilineal line of the family.
So, as (((they))) promote democracy, doesn’t it fit, alone with other hypocrites attributes?
Just some musings.
Democracy as presently used by liberals in the media and democrats, is supposed to encompass all things good. That is NOT what our Founders thought. They understood that the bottom line was democracy had never worked anywhere in the world where it had been tried. A woman asked Ben Franklin a question as he left Independence Hall …”Mr. Franklin …what do we have?” His reply was..”A Republic madam…if we can keep it.” Todays liars… todays fools are constantly spewing their mantra of “our precious democracy” to whomever will listen. My advice is to ignore their mendacity. Promote our Republic. Be… Read more »
Rah, rah, zip boom bah. Voat harder, murkans.
What does “American” even mean anymore?
Is it really “our” republic when whites become a minority?
Feel for you, dude. Like most here, I think we are way beyond “Promoting Our Republic.” It’s dead, Jim.
Unlike most, I don’t think there’s nothing that can be done. We can always promote our interests. Every time I read comments here, hoping for other ideas, I’m reminded of Veggie Tales.
I’ve never been to Bwoston in the fwall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaWU1CmrJNc
Yes.
i was wondering where the damn husband was, to put his wife in her place and tell her to zip it.
He is probably a real turd, if he allows his wife to engineer the ouster of the pastor.
Blech.
Most likely he becomes lead pastor.
Ambition is not just a corporate or political thing.
Good essay.
I might also add that in the 20th century the Spanish Civil War showed that the Catholic Church was the main target of destruction for the
” republicans”. The forces of eglatarianisnin within Spain had to destroy any other moral authority. A good book on that period is The Last Crusade by Warren Carroll.
These same forces are at work in North America in the 21st century.
My understanding of Italian fascism or Mussolini really was that this was the last gasp of the Catholics to wrest control from the secularists, of many kinds. Or iow a challenge to modernity in its many forms. I know people like to make Italian fascism into this abstract concept, but knowing my family who was there at the time it was always really about the Catholics versus the Jews. Fascists were the Catholics. Commies were the Jews. Everyone saw it that way too. I know Z likes Paul Gottfried and considers his writing on the topic to be superb scholarship,… Read more »
This is all accurate, however, like the Germans that part of history has been largely purged from the public conscious. You will find almost no Italian who understands this nuance just as you will find few Germans that know the full story behind how & why the Reich came to be. The years of crushing economic policy/poverty, debauchery, (((foreign influence))), sanctions, all of it. Speaking about Fascism in Italy is like trying to talk about National Socialism in Germany, do so VERY carefully because it is a very sore subject still. We from the outside looking in have much clearer… Read more »
Ah, but you’re forgetting the Irish and the Spanish back at that time. Spanish surnames, yes, vowel ending as a rule, but the Irish nearly not at all.
Plenty of Irish names ending in a “y” which if you know your literacy, means the “y” acts like — and is pronounced like– a vowel.
So, no.
McCaffery
Rafferty
McGillicuddy
And plenty more
Falcone: Jewish museum in Florence has on display a lot of Fascist Party Jewish members identifications. The original fascism was extremely popular with Italian Jews, as it was a Mussolini”s variant of socialism (Mussolini was originally a communist).
Mussolini himself was not antisemite, and a lot of European Jews flew to Italy until 1943 to escape Holocaust you don’t believe in.
Only in 1943 under Hitler’s pressure the Jews in Italy were rounded up and sent to camps.
Vittorio De Sica’s 1970 movie “The Garden of Finzi Continis” depicts this part of Italian-Jewish saga, which is over 2000 years old.
You have no idea what you are talking about
“Mussolini himself was not antisemite, and a lot of European Jews flew to Italy until 1943 to escape Holocaust you don’t believe in.” Hitler was rounding people up into concentration camps. Nobody argues that. Of course people would want to escape a minimum security prison where food supplies could be cut at any time. It is “blood libel” ,however, to accuse Hitler and particularly the German people of a mass murder wish.
This is true.
Then again Italian Jewry had fewer of the highly endearing (heh) Ashkenazi traits (*) which seem to have developed during and post genetic bottleneck after they moved into Germany and were therefore more (ahem) Tolerable.
*Ignoring minor historical details like burning down the Venice Arsenal in the lead up to Lepanto to help the Ottomans. To be fair (much as I hate to be), that’s no more treacherous than the Bourbon kings of France were in their dealings with the Turks contra rest of Christendom.
Well I don’t think democracy is going to survive democracy but I’m going to quote Father Scott Emerson from the diocese in Madison
“How many have laughed at the Church, announcing that she was passe, that her days were over and that they would bury her? The Church has buried every one of her undertakers.”
An apposite post. And also a signal example of why the wanton dispensation and ingestion of black pills is foolish, albeit understandable. There have been many dark times in the past–for Christianity, for whites–some of them perhaps even darker than the present, yet here we are, still alive if not kicking quite so energetically as in past times. Somehow, someway, we will ultimately prevail. We always do.
There have been many dark times in the past but I do think this is the worst time The Church has ever seen. But I don’t find that disheartening I was talking to my priest recently and said it’s a glorious time to be Catholic isn’t it and he smiled and said yes it is.
As a “cradle Catholic” vintage 1946, no longer a Roman Catholic in metaphysics but quite so in morals and ethics, I can only say that in its present avatar with its present pontiff, no, it’s in no way a “glorious time” to be a Catholic.
These are times that make saints
I am Catholic, I confess my sins regularly, I go to church every Sunday, I listen to the readings (which are laid out in a regular schedule for, presumably, the remainder of human history) and the homily, I take the Eucharist, I leave in a slightly better mood than I went in, and I try to live my life as a decent Catholic. What is my point, the present avatar with its present pontiff has very little influence on my life as a person or a Catholic. I respect his position as the head of the Church and that’s it.… Read more »
To give you some hope, I have come to believe the current pontiff has been subject to a decade of fake news. He’s not an American conservative, but he’s not unorthodox either.
Either way, yes, there’s always a new pontiff on the horizon.
Jorge is NOT the pope!!
Never has been.
we are in a period where the See is vacant.
I don’t see how any of this is helpful to any Catholic. If he is not the Pope then God will judge him accordingly when it is his time. I wasn’t in the room and I don’t know and have to have faith that the actions of Benedict, Francis, and all the bishops were guided by the Holy Spirit. Yet this sort of talk just undermines and divides an institution that desperately needs unity. If this talk stops one person from going to their local church, where, as you point out, the sacraments are still valid no matter who is… Read more »
I’m afraid that the present Pontiff is subject to a great deal of fake news. He may in fact be the saint we needed, not the one we wanted.
In the that, it is a glorious time to be a Catholic.
Oh dear.
Are you taking about Jorge the homosexual interloper?
Goodness.
Go read some Ann Barnhardt and learn more about this bad, bad man.
You got some readin’ to do, Montefrio.
Jorge is NOT the pope. Never has been.
He is an evil man (and a homosexual, I believe), and a plant by the Cabal.
Benedikt XVI resigned ingrate error.
do not be fooled or scandalized.
and for Heaven’s sake (literally), so read some Ann Barnhardt!!
None of what happens within the hierarchy changes that Jesus is present in the Eucharist.
Start there.
Agree, I have faith that good people will prevail once again.
I doubt I’ll see any return to an actual somewhat moral functioning system though.
And people wonder why the Orthodox Church and some traditional Catholic parishes are gaining so many converts! I’ve noticed the number of non-biblical, non-denominational churches with no iconography, no judgement and no message of love and redemption. No mention of hell, but hey, Jesus loves you! Their buildings are nothing more than multi-purpose empty halls with a message as changeable and as empty as their seating arrangements. I call them happy-clappy, rockband Jesus churches. They’re Sunday social clubs. It’s not Christianity. I’m sure there are some nice people there, but they’re not worshipping the one, true God. They instead worship… Read more »
This kind of church could also be described as the church of the Buddy Christ.
Some of them are getting converts in a highly modernistic reaction to modernity. They are going to the Orthodox and “traditionalist” Catholic parishes attempting to recreate a Christianity that never was. It’s simply the flip side of the rock band movement, because it’s all about how people feel about it, not what’s real.
Oh ye of little faith…
“If instead of demanding Barabbas they demanded Jesus, the world would be quite different.” I’m pretty sure the Jews would have found another way to kill him. They are quite cunning at getting others to do their dirty work.
Bar – Son.
Abba, Abu – Father.
Barabbas – Son of the Father.
Are you certain you understand the meaning of that story? The words would not have been lost on the early Christians who understood the language.
Haha, nice catch. But it only matters if you capitalize the “S” and the “F” which would be a pretty high honor for a murderer. Barabbas can also be translated as son of the teacher, which would indicate that his father was a Jewish leader. This would strengthen my understanding of that story.
Capitalization, fair point, as are vowels. But how can you tell whether the mob is yelling, “Release Son of the Father” or “Release son of the father”?
The mob could have shouted to release the Messiah, or the Son of David (most probable), or even his given name, a version of Joshua which means “God saves”.
Yes, good catch in terms of irony. God is like that. But the crowd didn’t want the murderer by accident of poor communication. They wanted the murderer.
The best case I can see is that Satan created the situation where the ambiguity would work such that He would be nailed to a cross, and The Plan be subverted.
But, again, the people in the mobs and the early church would have known the meanings of these words. Why no explanation?
There was no ambiguity. The mob that day most probably would be asking for the Son of David if they wanted Jesus. That’s his most common title of address by the Jews who believed in him. Messiah is a close second. “Son of the Father” is title that Jesus gives himself during the Gospels, but not that day. I can not think of a time where anyone address him by that title. That Satan had the mobs howling to release the “son of the father” and they received the cold blooded murder they clearly wanted is about Satan having it’s… Read more »
Look, I agree Satan thought he “won” that day.
There are scriptural references for “Son of God” and “Son of the Father.” Where are the references for “Son of David”?
Christianity is compatible with democracy, but Puritanism is absolutely not. Because those fanatics will not abide democracy thwarting their need to control everything within reach. From Cromwell to Lincoln, Puritans overrode democracy with armies and cannons. Cromwell dissolved Parliament, and reigned as an uncrowned king, and Lincoln imposed Yankee Puritan morality on the South at the point of a bayonet.
Jesus did not ask the Apostles what to do, or call a vote, he was the leader and they followed him. Hierarchy is the natural order of humanity and democracy is a natural subversion of that. Can Christianity survive democracy? Of course not, for evidence look around. The most powerful Christian force we had in this age of democracy post-WW2, the “Moral Majority”, was largely a Zionist operation. When somebody puts on a blatantly obscene, offensive, and blasphemous display, as they did a few days ago in Paris, Christians are told that they need to submit before the “god of… Read more »
Christianity will survive, it has since Jesus. What changes is Christianity’s organized face. We often conflate the two.
Matthew 18:20 (King James Version) “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Some of my most admired individuals wrt Christian practice congregate in their homes with small bands of fellow Christian’s—having given up on larger organizations as having become too “worldly.” As far as I’m concerned, let the secular forces of today purify the “Church” by exposing those elements that would weaken and change Belief to the worldly.
Agreed. If the gate is truly narrow, most people who call themselves Christian are not finding it. Should give one pause whether any large, centralized sect is close enough to The Truth that their adherents will make it.
Christianity can (and will) survive democracy – it has survived far worse. Whether it will “thrive” under democracy is a different question (also depends on what you mean by “thrive”).
A more relevant question is what kind of society will you have in which Christianity does not thrive? We are seeing glimpses.
As for being a spent force, I suppose you could say in some ways. Another way to see it is a purification of nominal Christians or cultural Christians.
What I meant was that Christianity cannot really exist in a democratic society. And it can’t. We see that today. A Christian has to either subvert his or her beliefs entirely or subsume them to the liberal order. But this western liberal democracy is going to fall apart long before Christianity does, absolutely.
Yep.
Nietzsche wrote that Christianity is “Plato for the masses.” It’s hierarchical and anti-democratic.
Christianity is only egalitarian insofar as it believes that everyone has value in the eyes of God, but its ethical and moral principles have been historically developed by a hierarchical priesthood loosely modeled after the concept of Plato’s guardians.
Maybe the eastern Mediterranean has always been a fucking mess and we should think about doing things our way, instead of adopting theirs.
Organized Christianity revealed its true nature when it laid down for the closure of its churches and fully endorsed the covid lie. The Catholic Church’s pope is a disgusting vermin anti white vermin.
He’s so anti-White, he encouraged Russian Catholics to be proud of Russia. The ZOG slapped his hand for that one.
The founding fathers were aware of the perils of Democracy, and that it is like a virus that eventually consumes individual rights, which is why they enshrined our rights as God given. When Ben Franklin said the newly formed government was “a republic, if you can keep it”, he had no illusions about its fragility. We kept it more or less from 1787 to 1860, and it has been a race to tyranny ever since.
In principle correct. However “democracy” seems now a term of art. I can’t point to a single case of the original Athenian form of democracy currently extant—albeit, I’ve not looked very hard. So we term our Republic a “democracy”, so what. With such broad understanding, the Roman Empire was a democracy. We might be better off ditching the term, “democracy”.
However “democracy” seems now a term of art. To my knowledge, only Americans use the terms “republic” and “democracy” as mutually exclusive. The German Federal Republic (by no coincidence) mirrors the American federal republic, with a president, federated states with their own legislatures, government and judicial, and a two-chamber federal system elected the same way as in America, with senators and representative. But I’ve never heard a German even suggest that Germany somehow isn’t democracy. Germany and the US are not direct democracies, of course, but still systems that take collective decisions by voting: eligible citizens vote for the legislators,… Read more »
This is a great article Z!!
“If his sermon was theologically and scripturally correct, then it means the congregation decided they did not like that part of the Bible, so they avoid it and those who preach it.”
And therein lies the problem. There are today very few Christian Churches that teach exclusively Biblical principals. This is why you get Gay Church leaders, women preachers and all manor of subversives in Churches. No. Democracy has no place in Christian Churches.
“Let God be true and every man a liar.”
Yes, you nailed it Christianity = following the will of God Democracy = following the will of the people (in reality, the will of the elite that brainwashes the people) Christianity teaches that our wills can be corrupt (original sin, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17;9). So we need to follow the will of God lest we self-destruct. Christianity is an absolutist religion: there are goods and there are evils, independent of the opinion of the people. Democracy teaches that anything is good as long as receives the majority of… Read more »
“It is clear that as the West has become more democratic, it has become less Christian.”
Instead of “democratic,” I think what you really meant was Jewish-controlled. I don’t see any Christians, practicing or not, running to the courthouse complaining about nativity scenes at city hall. It’s always somebody of Jewish heritage, whether practicing or not.
“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
Maybe this is the way to look at it? Just because the Church is (must be) authoritarian and hierarchical, doesn’t mean that this should translate into the secular world. A related question is whether Christians should embrace theocracy (beyond Vatican and various religious orders).
The Baptists, on the other hand, are severely confused.
Actually, the entire Reformation can be in a sense considered a demand for “democracy”. Prior to the Reformation, the people had no voice in the Church except to put up and shut up. The translation of the Bible into native languages from Latin and the encouragement then for the people to read and decide God’s Will for themselves was truly a democratic process for the time.
Yes, that is pretty much the point. There is no place for democracy in the Church.
There’s some truth there, but the Reformation would not have happened (at least in the way it did) had the Catholic Church not abused its position as The (self-appointed) Authority. Hard to argue that this organization piling up treasures on earth was doing His will.
Definitely. But the abuse was an excuse (not from Luther, he was a decent God fearing man) for the nobility of the time to seize assets and power from the Catholic Church. If it wasn’t for the German nobility’s protection, the Pope would have had him burned at the stake in St Peter’s Square to the delight of all.
No, the Pope would not have burnt him at the stake. That’s what Protestants tend to do to witches. I also highly recommend reading some Luther for yourself, particularly late. I’m not so sure Luther was “decent God fearing man”.
Think he probably believed himself to be the man of the cloth he wrote that he thought he was. He just thought that several papal decrees, (popes being human, after all) were in error, maybe especially about chastity.
Gotta love The Canterbury Tales
Most of those treasures were voluntary gifts from several generations. There were reform movements already underway by the time Germany’s scrupulosity problems exploded over everyone in Northern Europe.
The authority comes from Matthew 16, where Jesus appoints Peter the head of his Church in a covenant with a name change. The Catholic Church claims his successor continuously (yes, more or less) though 2000 years of history. You don’t have to believe it, but it’s not self appointed. The record of it is right there in Scripture.
“Most of those treasures were voluntary gifts from several generations.”
Oh, bullshit! They were “voluntary” in the same sense that income taxes are. The priesthood impressed upon them the dire consequences of not giving “voluntarily”.
I dunno. I’ve always found the maniacal plainness of certain Protestant churches to be much more questionable than elegant cathedrals built and beautified by many successive generations of the diocese.
Great insights.
Perhaps the question is, “Can anything survive in a democracy?”
You put the mob and the fever of its passions above all, and based on what we are seeing, it looks like the lone survivor will be the ashes of everything.
It is interesting to compare other religions and see if it is Democracy (which entails a whole lot of modern consumerism, atomization, and urban living) or something else. I am not familiar with the retention or loss of faith among Buddhists, Shintoists, or Hindus. I have seen some data (no expert) on retention, increase, and loss of faith among Muslims. There it is very mixed. Among Muslims in the West, religious feeling and faith increases. But it is NOT NOT NOT interested in converting White people (or blacks) — rather asserting dominance mostly now by stabbing attacks including the one… Read more »
Religion, in all its forms, is simply a codification of ancient wisdom and the means to pass on this wisdom to succeeding generations. And wisdom is simply useful knowledge that has stood the test of time and proven itself in the practical aspects of life. As such, you cannot vote new wisdom into existence. Moral authority is an artifact of the success of ancient wisdom in promoting beneficial outcomes within the community it serves. When you follow a path that “works”, both the people and these ideas persist with it. When you forsake this wisdom, you decline, die, or collapse… Read more »
“The short version of the video is the pastor gave a sermon on marriage and the role of women that was based in a traditional interpretation of Scripture. The wife of the youth pastor, a more modern woman, was offended by the sermon. She and her husband organized a campaign within the church against the pastor”
Upon this Rock, I will build my church….
If I had been a member of that church, I would have left and never come back. There is so much wrong in that church that it’s almost Satanic. They should have gotten rid of the youth pastor and his shrew wife. She’s an instrument of Satan rather than a mate for a supposed man of God.
If democracy and Christianity were compatible the government wouldn’t have gone out of its way to destroy it
then again, the structure of the federal government parallels that of the Catholic Church.
in the end, they are rival institutions regardless of their similarities and differences
That’s the key, isn’t it? They are rival institutions. When their goals align, they are happy to enlist each other; when they do not, then they are mortal enemies.
Protestantism was probably doomed from it’s beginnings. The fundamental premise “every man can read the Bible in his own language and decide what is right” has led to this point…infinite splintering and an al-la carte religious buffet of options.
A formal ecclesiastical hierarchy (Catholics, Orthodox) with specific advancements for advancement/funding/dogma seems to work better.
The Lutherans held out the longest, but ultimately succumbed and may as well be Unitarians or Baptists.
Unfortunate: “parallel institutions” are the only bulwark against the state.
From Judges 21:25 in the Bible: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (King James Version).
You can translate the Bible into English, but you can’t make people understand or follow its wisdom.
And you can also interpret it however you like.
Where exactly does it say that “doing what was right in his own eyes” gave bad results? Ruth? Why did He tell Samuel that the Israelites should not have a king if kings were such a great idea? The books of Kings and Chronicles (and Esther) are littered with examples of how doing what was right in the king’s eyes was a disaster. Heck, even David, the best of them, had his friend killed so he could pork his wife.
Moses also tells the Israelites they should not have kings, as they will send the young men to war (run with the horses) and get killed, and the young women will become concubines. Doesn’t really matter whether this is @TomA’s wisdom of the ancients or revelation, the Book pretty clearly says why kings are a bad idea.
“A formal ecclesiastical hierarchy (Catholics, Orthodox) with specific advancements for advancement/funding/dogma seems to work better.”
How so? Aren’t there Pride flags outside Catholic churches in your AO? Doesn’t the Vatican itself have a morally casual attitude toward homosexuality?
The Catholic Church indeed seems to be “moving” toward homosexuals and other sorts of aberrational behaviors. I stopped paying attention after they got to “being a homosexual is OK, but acting upon such impulses is still sinful”. In other words, come on over—just keep it in your pants.
I’ve yet to see such things.
Simon Magus
but trad Catholics also do this. They hunt down priests they think will fit their community. Bishop sandborn has created a whole industry of making priests for trad chapels to hire.
“We, then, both priests and people, have a right to know whence our pastors have received their power. From whose hand have they received the keys? If their mission comes from the Apostolic See, let us honor and obey them, for they are sent to us by Jesus Christ who has invested them, through Peter, with His own authority. If they claim our obedience without having been sent by the bishop of Rome, we must refuse to receive them for they are not acknowledge by Christ as His ministers. The holy anointing may have conferred on them the sacred character… Read more »
Imo the Catholic church is more democratic than Z is making it out to be, not that this invalidates his larger thesis however. The Pope for example is elected. Not by the parishioners, true, whose analog in the democracy are the voters. But is the US presidential election fundamentally different ? Superficially, for sure, but at its root?
You have a point. It’s almost… federal. Not like this satanic Protestant nation, though!
Whatever, one is the remnant of Rome imo, the other looked to the Roman republic for inspiration. Makes sense.
This kind of “democracy” is equivalent to high nobility electing a king and that’s very far from the democracy we all must endure in our everyday lives.
By restricting the right to vote to landowning men, the USA was intended to function under a type of high nobility making the decisions
what we have now is as anti foundational as it is anti Christian
in summary, it’s father hatred as the defining ethos of current day life in the west
And the anti-father manifestations of it scream we are a people with serious daddy issues. But insofar as God is the father it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I don’t think these are entirely equivalent. The early US could be described as aristocratic republic, but there was no firm hierarchy and obligations were much looser if any. The Church is organized a lot more like a regular monarchy.
The point was that in the early days of the nation, the “nobility” was not a birthright. You could earn it through hard work and superior ability. This is along the line of my pleading for “earned suffrage”. Democracy today requires only that you “fog a mirror”. That didn’t cut it then and does not today.
It isn’t far at all. Under actual existing (especially Our) democracy, the people don’t decide anything. Is there any time in living memory when any Western government has followed public opinion? Nothing comes to mind. When the regime doesn’t like the people’s attitude, it changes it—to what “high nobility” have decided it should be, absent our consultation. Democracy is that, not “mob rule” or “the majority” or whatever. Nothing like the people’s/egalitarian/etc. state conservatives complain about exists anywhere. A government by the people—a state that amplified the people’s attitudes—would be unprecedentedly right-wing. And, of course… The elite phenomenon that the… Read more »
Your discourse above—well reasoned—is precisely why I think the term “democracy” is a term of art. The inventors of such in Athens did have “mob rule”, even when there were only a few eligible citizens who got together in the Pnyx to hear pleas and decide matters of law and punishment. The mob as you will was smaller, but nonetheless unrestrained by reason and often emotional in decision making.
I’ve always questioned why the need for an organized religion to have “interpreters of God’s will” at all because everyone has their own agenda, instead I prefer the “Tevye” version where if I want to talk to God, I just talk to God..
See TomA’s comment.
Most trad Catholics aren´t sedevacantistas per Bishop Sandborn, although Miss Ann Barnhardt present a very good case for why they now should be.
Which is not really the same thing at all.
“Render unto Caesar…”
Two of the three branches of Christianity are what’s left of the Roman Empire imo, and the third is of the people who inherited the West, which makes the question of what’s Caesar’s and what’s God’s complicated. Not meaning to be a smart ass. From the point Romans became Christian, the religion became the vehicle of civilization and empire.
Given that the administrative state runs everything and that our vote means nothing anymore, you seriously think we’ve become more democratic?
I don’t want democracy, you don’t want democracy, they don’t want democracy, we don’t have democracy!
The question, as always, is who is to be master; that is all.
You have to wonder whether the fact that the names of the days of the week, and many months of the year, were never stripped of their pagan roots was a capitulation of the church to the people. Because you know there were serious dogmatists over the years who must have been enraged that we were still naming a day after Woden or Odin in English or mercury in Latin. further, at least in Italy, towns and villages would have their patron saints. It was the will of the people who selected which saint to worship. Patron saints are a… Read more »
Wednesday — Wotan’s Day
Thursday — Thor’s Day
In essential matters, unity
In doubtful matters, liberty
In all things charity.
Seems that leaves room for democratic processes in doubtful matters (where the Church has not spoken dogmatically one way or the other).
“You have to wonder whether the fact that the names of the days of the week, and many months of the year, were never stripped of their pagan roots was a capitulation of the church to the people. “ Bingo. The Church in its early years was eager to gain converts, so in many instances simply undertook pagan acts and holidays and made them “Christian”. They retained Latin month names and “Julian” calendar when in Rome and happily changed the days of the week to Germanic and Celtic names when proselytizing in Northern Europe. Christmas is dated as a matter of… Read more »
Institutionally, Christianity developed within the context of a monarchical empire. Even after the empire fractured, the Roman Catholic Church functioned in conjunction (though not always in harmony) with the various kings and lords in what was called Christendom. The monarchical order seemed to reflect the divine order, and rulers quickly claimed theocratic sanction for their rule, hence the “divine right” of kings. Protestantism upset the apple cart, and set the stage for democracy. If every conscience could determine the tenets of faith, why not government? The answer, of course, is that individuation ultimately renders both concepts meaningless. Voltaire dismissed the… Read more »
Organized Christianity cannot survive Democracy. Disorganized Christianity will always survive democracy (and just about everything else) because its practitioners simply go underground and practice their faith in small groups. The narthex of the church, what people today think of as the lobby or vestibule, once served an important liturgical purpose: it kept nonbelievers out of the worship space, but they could still listen to the proceedings. I’ve also read that in times of persecution, the narthex isolated sounds from within so people could worship in secret. Christians will just erect digital and physical narthexes to separate themselves from nonbelievers. As… Read more »
The Framers understood very well that this form of democracy could only survive under a moral and religious people, yet they were the first to separate religion from government.
Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together–Madison
Only at the federal level.
Now that I think about it, the situation with the pastor reminds me of the situation with Urban Meyer and one of his assistant coaches, Zach Smith. A former butthurt assistant named Tom Herman (who became head coach at Texas) leaked the story that Urban Meyer was covering up for a wife beater on his staff to a sports reporter and the national media ran with it as an example of Me Too. Instead, it turned out to be bad blood between a husband and wife, where the wife needed to be on some bipolar meds. Tom Herman was miffed… Read more »
“Baptist” almost always misunderstood — they are mostly anarchic. However a local congregation rules itself is fine. The SBC meets to decide whether a given congregation is sufficiently “Christian” to be a member of the club. I’d expect that particular church will be given the boot.
The one my son attends just redid their ConBy, and by their new rules, anything even tangentially connected to the faith is decided by the elders. The congregational meetings are mostly to inform them of the decisions that have been made.
From what I’ve seen the past couple of years the SBC is pretty much pozzed in a lot of respects. There is a constant struggle to purge the bad but at best it’s a draw. I’m not a SBC or anything, just an interested observer because there are so many SBC churches around me.
I don’t think it’s that bad yet. I’m not a baptist, either, and there are a lot of them around me, so it’s hard not to overhear stuff at the cafe. From the sounds of it, this last conference they ejected a couple for having women pastors.
anything even tangentially connected to the faith is decided by the elders.
Soooo, democracy replaced by oligarchy?
Rule by your oldest living male ancestors is not oligarchy, it’s patriarchy!
Oligarchy may be better than democracy, and patriarchy better still than oligarchy.
In thinking over this, I’m reminded of the Boy Scouts and derby cars.
I would say the church in an analogous sense defines the weight and the type of wood that must be used in all derby cars. But then the individual can use his imagination and make any car he wants from that stock material. Similar to old stock car racing too
its a central authority passing down rules but allows for some individualism at the ground level, this seems to be the only way to actually govern in the real world.
I. Call me crazy, I have a feeling Rome will crush Judea, collapse, and the Germanic barbarians will take over. All over again, it seems to me we’ve somehow gotten stuck back 2000 years ago after a good run.
II. Some Anglicans think they’re Jews, some Romans thought they were Trojans. What is it about Asia? Why are Westerners attracted to it? I see a witch casting a spell.
Perhaps democracy should be “thrown” from the altar…
I liked this essay. As many I was educated in a Catholic school that took Democracy for granted. The sacred belief is that democracy=’peace and justice for all’ and then overthrowing it is mustache-painter/fascist thinking. Liberte-Egalite-Fraternite is fake. Democracy is appealing for the libertarian/white European mind but it does not work in a multicultural society on the long run. A homogeneous society will enshrine some religious beliefs and make them taboo for the “democracy” in place. It is provocative. I think this is the correct approach, we have to stop taking everything we learned as given and question things using… Read more »
Hans-Hermann Hoppe might indeed agree with you.
The solution of course is limited government. A government that is constitutionally limited in how it interferes in and regulate private human activity will, by definition, protect the right of Christians to live by their religious tenets. The reason why we even have a problem today with this is because the Christian right did not accept this approach to the issue of same sex marriage, among others. Rather than working to get the government out of the marriage business, they instead tried to use the court system to prevent same sex marriage using religious arguments. Because the court can only… Read more »
Isn’t it ironic how a fairly good case can be made for people under the rule of despots—especially in centuries past—being freer than people under the rule of modern “democratic” governments which they supposedly have a say in?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under despots than under omnipotent democratic rulers. The despot’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
The most meaningful, most overlooked word in that quote—the one that makes it stupid bullshit—is “sincerely.”
The nice religious ladies sponsoring the import of Somali rapists, e.g., aren’t doing it for the good of their future victims—or of anybody.
They know. Everybody does.
they instead tried to use the court system to prevent same sex marriage using religious arguments. You have this pretty much bass-ackwards. They used democracy to shoot down heauxmeaux marriage, and had a very solid track record (40-1 or something). The heauxmeauxes then turned to the courts to undo democracy, which in a sense, is why the courts exist. Even if they used purely secular arguments (and there are some good ones), the courts were in the mood to laissez les bon temps rouler. Of course, the courts are human (maybe lizard) institutions and therefore get a lot of shit… Read more »
A little bit of history because you are not getting it. Prop 8, banning same sex marriage in CA, was passed in 2008. Liberals challenged this in the federal district court. The judge took the case seriously because he knew it was going to be very big deal. He specifically asked the attorney representing the religious factions to present specific evidence that allowing same sex marriage would change the way straight people treated marriage and that the effect had to be causative. The attorney was unable to do that. in fact, the story I heard was that he walked out… Read more »
The first argument was not bogus. Everywhere that homo marriage has been legalized, heterosexual shacking up has increased, and heterosexual marriage has decreased. But even with that as an established fact (which it probably wasn’t at that time), it’s still difficult to explain why, especially in a legal sense.
Marriage has been declining among straight people since the 1970’s. There is no evidence that same sex marriage has had any causative effect on the rate of decline.
Your explanation is well made, but I’m not a big fan of “activist” judges who direct from the bench just what evidence they will consider in rendering a verdict. We’ve seen this in AZ in recent trials wrt voter fraud in the last two election cycles. In one case, an unexamined and uncounted box of several thousand ballots was discovered. The County was sued to open the box and count/examine the ballots. The judge said two things needed to be shown first, 1) the count would change election results, and 2) the box had been deliberately excluded—rather than simple incompetence… Read more »
At a conference so I missed the boat on this one a bit. Others have focused on this issue, but I will repeat: the issue here is not so much democracy; it is taking women seriously.
Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day) writes periodically on the topic of the destruction women cause in a church. He’s spot-on when it comes to this topic.
Links please
It has become clear that blasphemy laws served as an important check on societal disintegration, as well as laws banning indecent exposure etc……None of this would be possible if we returned to1900…
“Catholicism, for example, is anti-democratic in structure, but American Catholics love democracy.” Astute observation here. The issue is that American Catholics are far more influenced by the culture around them then they realize. Our media assume “Our democracy”. Public schools do, so now also Catholic schools do. Catholics watch the same pundits and TV as Protestants. It’s about pop culture infecting the common culture of American Catholicism. It also spills out into the “litgury wars”. It’s fought mostly online, but people believing they are uber Catholics for saying terrible things about Pope Francis. They try to decide on doctrine and… Read more »
I’m an atheist but not a “materialist” in the metaphysical sense. Metaphysically, if you will, I’m a Taoist/Zen Buddhist, have been for more than fifty years (I´m 78) and when my time is up, I’d like to go out per the lyrics of this tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFGs7HP15d4 . I don´t know whether the lyricist or the singers are Catholic or Taoist or Zen Buddhists, but I´m inclined to doubt it. That said: So what? The Christian moral and ethical order has been subverted, but it is the foundational moral and ethical order of the USA and the rest of the West… Read more »
Seems to me that Christians have coexisted for centuries in democratic nations. The English approached the question in a very interesting way King Henry just made himself the head of the church and the state and POOF! Everything was just peachy.
Well, as I understand it, the situation was a bit more complex. Up to that time in England, the Church and the King were at odds in the realm of secular power. The church also rivaled the King in wealth. Something had to give and the Reformation was a pretty good excuse. Henry basically grabbed the church assets. Whereas up to that time he did well enough with the Catholic Church. Afterwards, there was quite a long time of power struggle between Protestants and Catholics and lots of blood shed even after Henry died. Too lazy to look up when… Read more »
No, there was widespread contempt for the catholic church animated as it was by southern European chauvinism. The Tudors had won the War of the Roses recently and were still dealing with the aftermath. By denying Henry the right to divorce the catholic church was trying to pitch England ,a christian country ,back into a civil war to benefit Charles V.. Disgraceful.
Throughout its history the catholic church has waged war against northern European countries which is why the north largely went Protestant because it was quite clear Christianity was not the organising principle of the catholic church,
No argument wrt Catholic Church corruption, but the nobility in Protestant countries were quite happy to seize Church assets, as was Henry. Henry had no “right” to a divorce. Annulment, possibly, if we leave “right” out. But yes, the Pope was less than happy with Henry’s desire for a male heir via divorce (and other means). I yield to your knowledge in this matter. I’ve often wondered what we’d find out today if we did a bit of disintering and some DNS analysis. Do we really think that all those heirs were sired by the king after he got rid… Read more »
doesnt Luther say every man is able to accurately interpret scripture for himself? There’s your foundation for democracy and a big government to deal with all these would be popes
ot kinda funny:
Olympics: Arabs Do Nazi Salute as Israeli Anthem Plays
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/07/29/olympics-arabs-do-nazi-salute-as-israeli-anthem-plays-n4931173
Looks nothing like a Nazi salute and they are speaking Arabic not English so not saying heil Hitler. But OY VEY! It’s Annudah Shoah in the making! 🙄
[…] ZMan does a deep dive. […]
i say yes, with conditions, Christianity is compatible with democracy. there must be some moral code of conduct within the democracy, with men and women who strictly judge according to the moral code of man. in America the moral code is recognizing god as the creator of all things who has passed down wisdom to create the constitution, bill of rights, declaration of independence and the bible. while america has a great history of following the moral code, now a days not so much. much of the population has turned away from the moral code. many judges lack the strict… Read more »
This essay is extraordinarily confused, which is fairly typical of Z-Man whenever he gets to talking about religious, ethical, philosophical, political, or other topics that require you to use words according to their—you know—definitions. While it’s sure to garner a lot of opinionated comments, it’s a safe bet that most of those, like the essay itself, are going to miss the point. The fact that the tenets of Christianity are not revised by majority rule does not, in and of itself, place it in the category of “antidemocratic” when it runs counter to the popular will, any more than Christianity… Read more »
“This essay is extraordinarily confused, which is fairly typical of Z-Man whenever he gets to talking about religious, ethical, philosophical, political, or other topics that require you to use words according to their—you know—definitions. While it’s sure to garner a lot of opinionated comments, it’s a safe bet that most of those, like the essay itself, are going to miss the point.”
You’d be more persuasive in argument if you did not begin your missive with ad hominem attacks against your host and his audience.
The professor can’t help himself. The kids in his community college classroom never really listen to him as they are endlessly scrolling on TikTok and ignoring him, so he has to come pontificate and bloviate here to us, the hopeless midwits.
I find him extremely entertaining actually because the Dunning Kruger effect never really lets one down when you get extreme forms of it.
See, now that’s an ad hominem!
Thanks prof, I try! 😉
Now get back to your loquacious self schooling us plebes about how things really are.
I don’t think you understand what ad hominem means.
As usual, you make an (gratuitous) assertion without elaboration. Would you care to elaborate on how your quoted segment is not and could not logically be considered as insulting and belittling to the audience here?
Then I’m certain some other astute, regular, commentators will be happy to post other examples of your previous posts here and on UNZ where you have commented derogatory upon Z-man and his audience.
The definition I use: “…is a rhetorical strategy where someone attacks their opponent’s character or personal traits…”, and I illustrated exactly where my interpretation stems from in your posting.
The point being that you might find a more receptive audience here if you simply managed to disagree less disagreeably. You’re a smart guy who has interesting things to say–even though I disagree with many of them. It’s a minor shame you seem disinclined to stowe the snark when posting your animadversions.
Ostei. I disagree with your comment “…smart guy…”. Nothing could be further from the truth. My definition of a smart guy is one who posts more than gratuitous assertions regarding the matter at hand. Pejoratives are not replacements for wisdom, fact, or knowledge. ID posts for himself. His standard “word salad” is simply to impress others, but most importantly himself. A “smart guy” teaches as well as expounds. Yes, we all post assertions—or opinion—on this blog, but most everyone has earned some modicum of respect over time and certainly few, if any, have repeatedly posted commentary that decries our commentators’… Read more »
Christ is not at the head of the church, the Pope is. Christ essentially deputized the Pope to act on His behalf . that quibble aside, you seem to be conflating the church “on paper” with the church in practice where not all of its many tentacles reach fully into the local parish. And when the priest or bishop as the case may be gets too far out of line, there are procedures to excommunicate him, but this seems to be done with some reluctance from Rome. yes it’s a hierarchy, monarchical in some ways, but even kings had to… Read more »
“Christ essentially deputized the Pope to act on His behalf” At risk of the whole millstone thing, (you seem sufficiently “based” that you can consider opposing views without losing your faith) how exactly did He do that? Was it in the part about “call no man Father” or “call no man teacher/rabbi”, or the part about building a church on the man who not more than a few sentences earlier had told, “Get thee behind me Satan!” Or is your faith that he deputized the pope simply that the pope said so? A pope whose job depended on you accepting… Read more »
Incidentally, I did upvote you. I just think the glasses you are wearing are way too rose-colored.
I don’t think Z was saying that Christianity has needs be opposed to democracy because political systems fall within Christianity’s creedal ambit. Rather, he was suggesting that the political atmosphere of democracy seems to suffuse the church and poison its members, leading them to the false, anti-Christian notion that Christianity’s very structure must be converted to a democracy, i.e. that the church must mimic the secular government. And if that indeed is his point, I think he’s got a pretty good case.
“ the Church is perfectly able to accommodate itself to democratic institutions, if that is the form that society has already taken.”
Indeed. And so, finally, the Pope is no longer Catholic.