Lex Anteinternet: Super Dangerous Activities and Vast Resources

Lex Anteinternet: Super Dangerous Activities and Vast Resources:  

Super Dangerous Activities and Vast Resources

 A lot of Twitter is junk, but this comment hit me a bit:

The death of any man diminishes me but, beyond a quick yet sincere Requiescat for them, my main question now is how many public tax dollars were spent trying to rescue the super-rich from their super-dangerous escapades.

Not that they asked for it.

And not that there isn't an effort to rescue any who are, in the words of the hymn, "in peril on the sea".

But there's just something existentially different about this.

Many will say that nobody has a right to tell other people what to do with their money, but that is in fact wrong, and we do it all the time.  There are plenty of things that are illegal that people spend their money on, and we aren't inclined to make them legal on this basis.

To have cash to such a surplus level that $250,000 can be spent for a single instance of amusement, no matter how profound the experience, raises moral questions of all sorts, and not just for those who are that well funded, but also for the societies allowing this to occur.

And the Titanic is the site of a mass loss of human life.  To spend that amount of money to dive on what is essentially a grave is problematic.

There's a public duty to try to rescue those imperiled, irrespective of their wealth or lack of it. An interesting thing here is that the effort was undertaken when those in the know, already knew these individuals were dead.  The U.S. Navy knew at the instant it occurred.  Those on location did as well.  It sounds as if those on location distributed the news within thirty minutes of it occurring.

I'm not saying that "expend any effort" shouldn't be attempted. That was done, and no doubt that cost at least the United States and Canada millions.

I'm saying that this shouldn't have been allowed in the first place, and that in this era of vast wealth, something should be reassessed.

Lex Anteinternet: Christian Nationalism, National Conservatism and Southern Populism. Eh?

Lex Anteinternet: Christian Nationalism, National Conservatism and S...: 

Christian Nationalism, National Conservatism and Southern Populism. Eh?

Nearly the Southern Populist anthem, Sweet Home Alabama.

I should start off with a massive series of disclaimers here, particularly as Southern Populism and Southern Agrarianism are not the same thing, although they are related.  The terms are easy to confuse.

But confusion is at the core of what we're trying to explore here.

Additionally, Southerners tend to be proud of the South in a way that not all regions of the country are proud of their regions.  Native Westerners tend to be very nativist and provincial, and proud of the West, or more often of their particular states.  Southerners tend to be proud of the entire South, with Texas and Oklahoma, at least by my observation, particularly proud of their states.  Louisiana, which has its own unique culture, does as well.  While I put Lynrd Skynrd up above, for a reason, I'd note that perhaps, in this regard, I should have posted the lyrics by Ally Venable to the song she co performed with Buddy Guy, Texas Louisiana:

Texas

Louisiana whew

That's where we come from

Texas

Yeah Louisiana

Always on the run

Well I'm just starting out

I ain't never done

Hey there neighbor

Get on in this house

Like sugarcane and cactus

We're both from the south

Texas

Louisiana

That's where we come from

Texas

Yeah Louisiana

We're both old and young

I'm the farmers daughter

I'm a poor man's son

Love Stevie ray

Little Walter too

Turn it up Buddy

I wanna jam with you

Texas

Louisiana too

That's where we come from

Texas

Whew Louisiana too

Together having fun

Teacher used to tell me

Two heads is better than one

So, I'm not trying to pick on the South, or Southerners.

Recently we've written two posts, both of which related to Susan Stubson's op ed in the New York Times decrying what she thinks is the impact of Christian Nationalism on the Wyoming GOP.  Those articles were:

Blog Mirror: Christian nationalism and how it’s hurting Wyoming

The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

Here's the thing, however.  She's confused.

What Stubson's actually writing about, but doesn't know it, is the impact of Southern Populism on Wyoming, including Southern Cultural Christianity, not Christian Nationalism.  Christian Nationalism hasn't really made an appearance in Wyoming and frankly, while it's been floating around in nascent form in the US since Dreher wrote The Benedict Option, it hasn't gathered a strong street level attraction anywhere.  It's more of an intellectual movement.

Given that the overall terms here are poorly defined, particularly in regard to Christian Nationalism, it's easy to see why the authors of these articles are confused.  It's all the easier to see why Stubson would be confused, as she's a Reagan Republican and a fallen away Catholic who fell into Evangelical Protestantism.  There's a straight line between Ronald Reagan and Southern Populism's spread into the GOP at large, and therefore, even though I'm sure he would be personally horrified, there's a straight line between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.  One, basically, begat the other.

Christian Nationalism, like it or hate it, is an intellectual movement, and is one in the same with National Conservatism.  Its founder in American politics, if not its overall founder, is Patrick Deneen and its backers can be found in the pages of R. R. Reno's First Things.  Quite frankly, that puts it in the intellectual heavyweight category.  It's issued a manifesto, and the signers of it include some well known conservative thinkers.  Deneen has issued at least two well regarded books on the topic. Its central thesis is that liberalism has failed, in part due to its success, and is now consuming itself, and the entire culture of the West with it, by a frenzied orgy of libertine, mostly sexually focused, individualism.  What needs to be done, it holds, is the preservation of democracy, but Illiberal Democracy, with the boundary lines of the culture externally enforced.  It sets its manifesto out as follows:

1. National Independence. We wish to see a world of independent nations. Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course in accordance with its own particular constitutional, linguistic, and religious inheritance. Each has a right to maintain its own borders and conduct policies that will benefit its own people. We endorse a policy of rearmament by independent self-governing nations and of defensive alliances whose purpose is to deter imperialist aggression. 

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image. 

3. National Government. The independent nation-state is instituted to establish a more perfect union among the diverse communities, parties, and regions of a given nation, to provide for their common defense and justice among them, and to secure the general welfare and the blessings of liberty for this time and for future generations. We believe in a strong but limited state, subject to constitutional restraints and a division of powers. We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation’s interests and values. We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes. 

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end. 

6. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state. But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalized markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits. A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-taking by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed. 

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs. 

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order. 

9. Immigration. Immigration has made immense contributions to the strength and prosperity of Western nations. But today’s penchant for uncontrolled and unassimilated immigration has become a source of weakness and instability, not strength and dynamism, threatening internal dissension and ultimately dissolution of the political community. We note that Western nations have benefited from both liberal and restrictive immigration policies at various times. We call for much more restrictive policies until these countries summon the wit to establish more balanced, productive, and assimilationist policies. Restrictive policies may sometimes include a moratorium on immigration. 

10. Race. We believe that all men are created in the image of God and that public policy should reflect that fact. No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test. The history of racialist ideology and oppression and its ongoing consequences require us to emphasize this truth. We condemn the use of state and private institutions to discriminate and divide us against one another on the basis of race. The cultural sympathies encouraged by a decent nationalism offer a sound basis for conciliation and unity among diverse communities. The nationalism we espouse respects, and indeed combines, the unique needs of particular minority communities and the common good of the nation as a whole.

That's not what the leaders of the Wyoming GOP hold dear to their hearts, although they'd likely say they're for all of that.

Emperor Constantine and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceean Creed, something that has more to do with Christian Nationalism than anything coming out of the populst wing of the GOP.

And, again, like it or not, Christian Nationalism looks more to Antioch of the 1st Century, and then to Rome, and Constantinople.  Its founders, the way it views itself, would be, it imagines, are found there, not in Philadelphia in 1776, or in Richmond from 1860 to 1865.

They wouldn't be getting down to Sweet Home Alabama or Texas Louisiana.

Southern Populism, however, grows out of the same soil that Southern Agrarianism did, coming up from part of the same culture.  A person might be tempted, therefore, to look to I'll Take My Stand as its manifesto, and they'd be partially correct in doing so, but not fully so.  The authors of that agrarian manifesto were correct in noting that the South had an Agrarian culture, and a Christian one.  Many American agrarians have thought, with some justification, that one must be the other, although oddly it's rarely noted that one of the most successful North American agrarian cultures was just that, but not Protestant.  The Quebec culture prior to the Quiet Revolution was agrarian, and Catholic.  For that matter, the Red River Rebellion was an uprising of Catholic agrarian Métis against the intrusion of Protestant English culture in the form of the English cultured Canadian government.  

Councillors and officers of the Provisional Government of the Métis Nation, circa 1869. Front row, L-R: Robert O'Lone, Paul Proulx. Centre row, L-R: Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, Louis Riel, John O'Donoghue, François Dauphinais. Back row, L-R: Bonnet Tromage, Pierre de Lorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Page, Baptiste Beauchemin, Baptiste Tournond, 

Therefore, the point raised by the Southern Agrarians isn't incorrect, but misunderstood, perhaps even by themselves.

Christianity in the American South was heavily impacted by the Civil War.  Going into the war, the Episcopal Church was the central Christian denomination of the South, even contributing a Bishop to the ranks of Confederate generals.  Behind it was the Presbyterian Church, the church of displaced Scots from Ireland.  Always present in the South, however, and to a smaller degree in the North, were numerous informal Christian pastors and pastors and congregations descendant from earlier dissenters. 

Confederate Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.  Popular with his troops, he was such a bad general that one historian has noted that the shot that killed him in battle was one of the worst shots of the Civil War, as it removed him from leadership.

 

The war brought these individuals to the forefront in Southern religion.  Episcopalianism was the Church that was associated with the Southern elite and hence failure.  Just as some poorly catechized Catholics have abandoned their church in the wake of priest scandals, average Southerners did so to a large degree following the war.

The rise of certain branches of American Protestantism had occurred before the war, for that matter, which came in the midst of the Great Awakening period.  That period was particularly fertile in the US for the advancement of Protestant faiths that were not rooted in a formal structure, although they created new ones or leaned on informal preexisting ones.  This was not, by any means, confined to the South, but the war did cause a post-war condition in the South in which the Episcopal church wanted and other strains of Protestantism advanced. The Episcopal Church was simply too associated with the disaster of the Civil War and those who had led the South into it.

The war also had the impact of spreading white Southerners across the county.  The Great Migration of black Southerners would wait until the early 20th Century, for the most part, but a large-scale migration of white Southerners started soon after the war, or in reality even during it.  It wasn't massive enough to create the same sort of demographic impacts the Great Migration would, but it did result in the spread of Southerners and Southerners attached to informal strains of Protestantism across the country.  It did not, however, result in a big cultural change.  The religious shift did, however, have a significant cultural impact in the South.

Episcopalianism became northern based following the war and when the Civil Rights Era arrived, it backed it.  Black churches also, and obviously, backed it. But informal cultural Southern Christianity, which had advanced with its very loose structure, in the South after the war opposed it, and often in an unstructured cultural way.   Without the structure of Episcopalianism, or of Presbyterianism, and having adopted certain doctrines that encouraged an anti-Biblical presumption of easy salvation, a certain "do it your own" or individualistic approach, while still very conservative, became the norm such that even people which very loose religious affiliation could feel themselves part of the overall fold and could mix their cultural views with their religious ones easily.

Oil booms of the 50s/60s, 70s, and the very late 20tth Century and early 21st Century had the impact of really bringing up a lot of workers from Texas and Oklahoma during that period, and that in turn really altered the Protestant religious landscape of the oil producing regions of the West at the exact same time that the collapse of the Reformation saw the Mainline Protestant churches in the US became to rapidly contract. The Mainline Protestant Churches had dominated Protestantism outside the South, and in the Rocky Mountain West.  IN the Rocky Mountain West, however, lack of religious attachment was remarkably strong, which impacted how this worked.  Wyoming was, and indeed remains, the least religious state in the U.S., which in turn meant that religion had a very muted impact on politics.  Those who were faithful members of churches were remarkably unwilling to mix faith and politics, and even strongly religious politicians were almost never mention their religious affiliation.  A scene like we recently had, with UW student republicans giving an invocation over a right wing Secretary of State, would simply not have occurred.  Indeed, an effort by a very conservative LDS legislator in the 1980s to regulate pornography was met without right derision.

Whether this is good or bad is, perhaps, dependent upon your religious views, but it was an aspect of life in Wyoming in particular, and in much of the Rocky Mountain West.  It is not as if there were not many churchgoers, there were, but openly incorporating religious beliefs into political positions just didn't occur.

That something was changing should have been obvious, perhaps, by the growth of local mega churches, even in this region.  Prior to the 1990s, loosely defined Protestants tended to gravitate towards an established church, often a Baptist Church, which had loose affiliations, or oddly enough, if they attended church once or twice a year, a Catholic Church.  But with mega churches that muted their denominational affiliation or which claimed none (something that is in fact never really true), they started to gravitate in that direction.  This became obvious first with funerals, oddly enough, which were often held in one of these churches for people who had no real religious affiliation other than a loose or even informal Christianity.  It became a little easy to tell who these people were simply by reading in their obituaries where the funerals would be. 

At the same time, however, this new strain, or rather newly imported strain, of Christianity did very much take root.  People who would have previously gone to a Baptist or Presbyterian Church started attending these, with the latter two suffering as a result.  A partial example of this is here:

City Park Church, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This is City Park Church, and was formerly, as noted below in the original entry, the First Presbyterian Church.

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park. 

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

This century old church became the home of the former First Baptist Church congregation on February 28, 2020, and as noted in a thread we'll link in below, had been experiencing a lot of changes prior to that.

The original entry here was one of the very first on this blog and dated at least back as far as January 25, 2011.  While the architecture hasn't changed at all, with the recent change our original entry became misleading to an extent.

That this had crossed over into politics became obvious with the candidacy of Foster Freiss. Extremely wealthy, and with little connection to Wyoming other than maintaining a home in Jackson, the Wisconsin born Freiss had connections with Texas, and campaigned in a style that recalled the South of the 1970s.  Daisy Duke, t-shirt clad, young women appeared, freezing, in campaign rallies for the first time in the state's history, and so far the only time.  A car that appeared in town, with Colorado license plates declaring "Christians for Freiss" made it obvious what was occurring.

And that's where the state's GOP went.

Not that it's done so cleanly.  A person who knows the state's demographics would note that in certain regions of the state, another religion has a strong representation in the GOP.  Some newly imported members of "Freedom Caucus" are likely members of Mainline or Apostolic Churches, with one probably being Catholic.  Chuck Gray is Catholic.  To an extent, this shows how lines blur along religious and political lines, and it's always difficult to draw bright lines.  To another extent, however, it might also show had American Catholicism has become Protestantized at the pew level with some people.¹

This isn't Christian Nationalism.

Christian Nationalism looks very much outwards, rather than inward, in its view, and if the Christianity of Wyoming's GOP, and that of the nation writ large right now, looks towards South Carolina in 1865 without realizing it, Christian Nationalism looks toward Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, and to some extent, Moscow via Kyiv in 988.

Large revival meeting, 1909, in a National Guard Armory

Put another way, the Christianity of the current GOP really looks towards a rural Southern Christian revival meeting, or at least a revival meeting, of the 1950s, while Christian Nationalism looks either to the WASP past prior to 1950, or to an Apostolic Christian ghetto of the same period.

They aren't the same at all.

Which is why Stubson's commentary was off.

The intellectual heavyweights of the Christian Nationalist movement show that.  Rod Dreher was perhaps there early, and he's a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, having converted from Catholicism, which he had converted to from Protestantism.  Patrick Dineen is a Latin Rite Catholic.  R. R. Reno is a  Catholic convert from Episcopalianism.  You can find non-Apostolic Christians in the movement, but you have to hunt for them.

Moreover, for nationalist, they're surprisingly international.  Dreher has self exiled himself to Hungary, which many in his camp look towards as a model.²   Poland is held up as an example as well.  Christian Nationalist heralded the election of Giorgia Meloni, who claims to defend "God, fatherland, and family and defines herself as “a woman, a mother, an Italian and Christian”.  Meloni, of course, comes from a Catholic country, Italy, and while her actual adherence to the Faith would seem to be questionable, whatever brand of Christian she is, she's likely culturally Catholic.

What the essential essence of Christian Nationalism holds is that the West, by which it means countries in Europe, made up of European descended people, or countries which have a European culture by whatever means, are essentially (Apostolic) Christian in culture, above everything else. Next to that, each nation, they'd hold, has its own individual culture.  After that, but only after all of that is accepted, they're for democracy.

Hence, they are National Conservatives, or Illiberal Democrats.  Their attachment to democracy comes after 1) an attachment to (Apostolic) Christianity and 2) national culture (formed by an attachment to Christianity), but it is there.

That's distinctly different from modern Populism, which doesn't seem to have a strong real attachment to democracy right now, or to the extent that it does, it's exclusionary.³   Democracy is for the right people, who are of the right culture, and who espouse the American Civil Religion.

Put in terms stated by Dinneen:

As Montesquieu pointed out long ago, democracy is the most demanding regime, given its demands for civic virtue. The cultivation of virtue requires the thick presence of virtue-forming and virtue-supporting institutions, but these are precisely the institutions and practices that liberalism aims to hollow and eviscerate in the name of individual liberty.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.  

National Conservatives would seek the thick preservation of virtue forming and virtue supporting institutions.  Liberals would rip them down.  Populists, right now, would simply dictate their views, expecting them to be accepted.  As Dinneen notes, and correctly, about Liberalism, and by extension the opposite views of National Conservatives/Christian Nationalists:

[W]hat is bemoaned by the right is due not to the left but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to liberal economics. And it seeks to show that what is bemoaned by the left is due not to the right but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to the dissolution of social norms, particularly those regarding sexual behavior and identity. The “wedding” between global corporations and this sexual agenda is one of the most revealing yet widely ignored manifestations of this deeper synergy.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

That's also why, quite frankly, these two movements, while they are overlapping right now, are in actuality deeply antithetical to each other, and it's also why, ironically, the very thing that Stubson misidentifies and fears grew out of and is part of the thing that she claims to wish to preserve.

Because National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism is, at the end of the day, rooted in the same concern that caused Dreher to write The Benedict Option, it looks at something much larger than the nation.  The nation that National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism seeks to preserve, overall, is Christendom, with various nations just subparts of that.  Christian Nationalism, or once again National Conservatism, look at nations the same way that Carolingians did.  Yes, there are countries, and yes they do matter, but not as much as something else does.  Southern Populist, however, are America Firsters.

Autograph of Charles the Great.

Put another way, Christian Nationalist feel that the Council of Nicea is of paramount importance, but would reject the concept that the U.S. Constitution is some sort of religious document.  They aren't "Constitutional Conservatives", confident that this somehow equates with religiosity, but rather Council Conservatives confident of their religious grounding.

If that's understood, there really aren't any Christian Nationalist in Wyoming politics, openly.  There may be, without their realizing it, but they aren't the same group as the Freedom Caucus.  The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is made up of populist strongly influenced by Southern Populism, which is where their religiosity comes from.  It's why they can speak in religious terms with such confidence and also support somebody who is a serial polygamist and have a leader who has been accused of serious moral misconduct at some point in the past.  The movement can, at its core, believe that its members were once saved and therefore always saved, and battle with certainty, whereas Christian Nationalist worry about the entire West losing its soul.

All of this undoubtedly sounds like an endorsement of Christian Nationalism, but it isn't.  It is a condemnation of current American populism.  And we are expressing some sympathy with Christian Nationalism in its recognition of what Patrick Dineen has written in regard to liberalism and how it is destroying Western culture, which it is.  Liberalism has succeeded so well, it's now consuming itself by consuming reality.  

Its warning would be simple, recalling its oldest lessons: at the end of the path of liberation lies enslavement. Such liberation from all obstacles is finally illusory, for two simple reasons: human appetite is insatiable and the world is limited. For both of these reasons, we cannot be truly free in the modern sense. We can never attain satiation, and will be eternally driven by our desires rather than satisfied by their attainment. And in our pursuit of the satisfaction of our limitless desires, we will very quickly exhaust the planet.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.

So if this isn't an endorsement of National Conservatism or Christian Nationalism, why?

Well, because prior experience shows that mixing politics with religion, officially, can have unintended results.  It fails, I suppose, to take heed of the council given in the letter to Diognetus, it not immediately, sooner or later.

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.  

That last line is particularly distinctive, "As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution.  Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."  

A lot in the Populist right, like those practicing American Civil Religion itself, have excused themselves from an awful lot.  Apostolic Christians really can't.

And if the West's needs to be rescued from liberal excess, National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism needs to be careful.  For one thing, it would need to be serious about this item in its manifesto:

6. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state. But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalized markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits. A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-taking by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed. 

That gets directly to this:

[W]hat is bemoaned by the right is due not to the left but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to liberal economics. And it seeks to show that what is bemoaned by the left is due not to the right but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to the dissolution of social norms, particularly those regarding sexual behavior and identity. The “wedding” between global corporations and this sexual agenda is one of the most revealing yet widely ignored manifestations of this deeper synergy.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.

That will be a tall order for conservatives who have held for decades that free enterprise equals corporate capitalism, and still do.  Right wing populists basically, and contrary to their tradition, hold the same thing.

Moreover, National Conservatives will have to be careful not to so blend their faith with their politics that the politics takes over and damages the faith. Ultimately, that's the lesson, maybe, of Quebec. Ireland, and Spain, all of which have been down a type of this road before.  It might well prove to be the lesson of contemporary Russia as well.

Charles DeGualle was a devout Catholic, but he did not attempt to force France into being a religious state.  Éamon de Valera basically did.  Now, having said that, in spite of the news regarding Ireland, Ireland is still a very devout Catholic state, so it can be argued that De Valera was right.  In both instances, democratic systems were preserved, which meant that the state's allegiances could be changed.  It's notable that they have survived that with a retained, if bruised, conservatism that might not otherwise be there.  Of course, once again, you can argue that about Spain.

Deneen seems less keen about preserving democracy, and that a danger here.

Elections provide the appearance of self-governance but mainly function to satiate any residual civic impulse before we return to our lives as employees and consumers.

Patrick J. Deneen.  That suggests a willingness to disregard democracy as being unreal.  History has shown, however, that to be incorrect.

Moreover, a close association with the state can be damaging to the very values that are sought to be protected.  Quebec's religious conservatism suffered heavily when the Quite Revolution came about, in no small part because the guardians of that tradition turned out not to be as loyal to it as thought.

And, finally, we have to recall that in some quarters, namely the US, and perhaps to a lesser extent Canada, well. . . in other places too, a close association with the state by Apostolic Christians can be corrosive.  In the end, Protestants don't really like us, and in the end, we have to make compromises with the state if we're really intending to govern from the pews, so to speak.

So does this mean that the Christian Nationalist have no point, and all is folly?  We must descend into Gomorrah unimpeded?

No.  But there are dangers here.  And probably the first thing we need to do is to be simply clear about our values in a secular society, and even in the pews, where there are also plenty who are willing to compromise Christianity.

These are, any way you look at it perilous times.

Footnotes

1. Javing said that, at the pew level, and influenced by the net making things more available now than at any time in the world's history, the direction is toward 1) orthodoxy or 2) Catholic traditionalism.  The 

2. Viktor Orbán is a member of the Protestant Hungarian Reformed Church, which might be compared to Presbyterianism, but his wife is Catholic and their children were raised as Catholic.  Katalin Novak is also a member of the same church. Hungary has a surprisingly diverse religious make up, with the Catholic claiming(37.2% of the population, Calvinist 11.6% , Lutheran's 2.2%, Eastern Catholic's 1.8%.  18.2% claim no religion and 27.2% simply won't respond to a question on the matter.

3.  Many hardcore right wing populist assert right now that elections that have not gone their way were stolen, which they were not.  However, just below the surface on some of this rhetoric is the suggestion that those who vote the other way are illigitimate voters.  Illiberal Democrats would seek to stifle "progressive" views anti democratically, but right wing populists take a more frightening position that those who hold the opposite views don't count at all.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Hageman Says She Would Vote To Impeach Biden

So Harriet Hageman has stated that she'd join Insurrection Barbie in a move that brings the nation's perilous attachment to democracy four or five steps closer to the brink.

The sad thing is that Hageman, whom I'm sure when she was younger probably would have found this abhorrent, probably means it now.

What on earth happened?

Make no mistake.  Save for the last time it was attempted, every act to actually impeach a US President has been, frankly, stupid and ill-advised. This would be the stupidest.

People advancing such causes will regret it.  The lucky ones will regret it in this World. The unlucky ones in the next, when they cannot atone for it here.  But account for this we all will, including those who are in the stands watching the circus consume itself with horror.

Vulgar.

Missing Titanic sub crew killed after 'catastrophic implosion'

This is a tragedy.  May God rest their souls and may the perpetual light shine upon them.

There's something really wrong with diving on what is, after all, a massive grave.  Now the wreckage of this submarine befouls the grave.

I've been to plenty of locations where the dead lay, including battlefields. But there's something about this that is simply intrusive beyond all measure.

It really ought to stop.

Lex Anteinternet: The Titanic and Too Much Money.

Lex Anteinternet: The Titanic and Too Much Money.: 

The Titanic and Too Much Money.

I hope they are rescued, but people spending $250,000 for a private submarine trip anywhere have too much money.

Lex Anteinternet: Looking for Constantinople and Rome.

Lex Anteinternet: Looking for Constantinople and Rome.: 

Looking for Constantinople and Rome.

Catholic, Orthodox theologians agree on first new text since 2016

This is huge.

It's a long document, we'll just skip to the conclusion.

Conclusion

5.1 Major issues complicate an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in the Church. The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches. Our historical study of synodality and primacy in the second millennium has shown the inadequacy of both of these views. Similarly, it is clear that for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific. In 1979, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios said: ‘The dialogue of charity … has opened up the way to better understanding of our respective theological positions and thereby to new approaches to theological work, and to a new attitude with regard to the common past of our Churches. This purification of the collective memory of our Churches is an important outcome of the dialogue of charity and an indispensable condition for future progress’ (Joint Declaration, 30 November 1979). Roman Catholics and Orthodox need to continue along that path so as to embrace an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in light of the ‘theological principles, canonical provisions and liturgical practices’ (Chieti, 21) of the undivided Church of the first millennium.

5.2 The Second Vatican Council opened new perspectives by fundamentally interpreting the mystery of the Church as one of communion. Today, there is an increasing effort to promote synodality at all levels in the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a willingness to distinguish what might be termed the patriarchal ministry of the pope within the Western or Latin Church from his primatial service with regard to the communion of all the Churches, offering new opportunities for the future. In the Orthodox Church, synodality and primacy are practised at the panorthodox level, according to the canonical tradition, by the holding of holy and great councils.

5.3 Synodality and primacy need to be seen as ‘interrelated, complementary and inseparable realities’ (Chieti, 5) from a theological point of view (Chieti, 4, 17). Purely historical discussions are not enough. The Church is deeply rooted in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and a eucharistic ecclesiology of communion is the key to articulating a sound theology of synodality and primacy.

5.4 The interdependence of synodality and primacy is a fundamental principle in the life of the Church. It is intrinsically related to the service of the unity of the Church at the local, regional and universal levels. However, principles must be applied in specific historical settings, and the first millennium offers valuable guidance for the application of the principle just mentioned (Chieti, 21). What is required in new circumstances is a new and proper application of the same governing principle.

5.5 Our Lord prayed that his disciples ‘may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). The principle of synodality-primacy in the service of unity should be invoked to meet the needs and requirements of the Church in our time. Orthodox and Roman Catholics are committed to finding ways to overcome the alienation and separation that occurred during the second millennium.

5.6 Having reflected together on the history of the second millennium, we acknowledge that a common reading of the sources can inspire the practice of synodality and primacy in the future. Observing the mandate of our Lord to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 13:34), it is our Christian duty to strive for unity in faith and life.

This doesn't resolve the schism, but it's really edging up on it.  The Pillar notes that in the head of the Greek Orthodox Church had his way, the schism would likely end immediately.

We're getting pretty close.

The final break, more or less, between the Catholic and Easter Orthodox Churches can somewhat be dated to 1453, making it only a few decades older than the start of the Reformation in 1517.  We've written in regard to the collapse of the Reformation here recently, and here's an example of how that's playing out.

Conservative Anglicans Call for Break With Archbishop of Canterbury Over Same-Sex Blessings

African bishops have emerged as leaders of the church’s conservative wing

African bishops are indeed the leaders of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion, with the Anglican Communion's conservatives being very close in their outlook to Latin Rite Catholicism.  Indeed, the theological point they assert is that they are a separated church, like the Orthodox, a position that Rome does not agree with.

Anyhow, it's interesting to note that as the Reformation more and more collapses due to the seeds of individuality it inserted into Western Culture in the first place, the more conservative branches pull more and more towards Catholic orthodoxy, something liberal Catholics may wish to take note of as they sometimes try to tack in the opposite direction.

Lex Anteinternet: Nature worship producing the unnatural.

Lex Anteinternet: Nature worship producing the unnatural.:

Nature worship producing the unnatural.

In the Roman Empire, long before the end, we find nature-worship inevitably producing things that are against nature. Cases like that of Nero have passed into a proverb, when Sadism sat on a throne brazen in the broad daylight. But the truth I mean is something much more subtle and universal than a conventional catalogue of atrocities. What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago.

G. W. Chesterton, in St. Francis of Assisi.

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences.

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences.: 

Pride and Unintended Consequences.

Yesterday, I ran this item, which noted the following:

Lex Anteinternet: On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compellin...: 

All of this fuels part of the counter reaction which is raging in our time.  People wonder how a late septuagenarian serial polygamist with weird bad hair can openly demand to be crowned Emperor and stand a good chance of having it happen, or how a thirty-something single Californian who has never held a real job but who spouts conspiracy theories and cloaks himself in the mantle of true conservatism can win office and be prayed over by college Republicans, or how individuals can be voted onto school boards with the intent to remove books.  Well, an administration that demands you accept the unnatural, a political party that requires you accept the new eugenics, and the stocking of books in school libraries that are openly sexually perverse are a big part of the reason why.

In other words, going from the widely accepted "look, we don't tell you what to do in your bedrooms, so just leave the same sex attracted alone, and they won't bother you", to "you must accept children being taught sodomy" and "you must let gender mutilation of minors occur" is a big part of that.  People on the left might claim that's the manifestation of Christian Nationalism (which it really isn't), but a lot of the reaction is just a species knowing what is biologically correct and reacting to being attacked. 

It wasn't the first time I noted this.

It's sometimes claimed, although I haven't researched it, that the moral descent of Berlin in the 1920s lead in part to people voting for the Nazis in the early 30s.  I.e., their revulsion over what they were seeing lead them to an extreme reaction, it's claimed.  At least one writer has noted:

It seems grotesque in retrospect, but Hitler posed as a moral crusader gallantly battling the forces of iniquity, corruption, and even deceit. Many Germans, horrified by the loosening of moral standards in Germany after World War I, were duped by his promises of moral rejuvenation. Hitler’s project resonated with many who were disgusted by the rampant hedonism and carnality of Weimar high culture and popular culture. Whether one views Hitler and Nazism as a Utopian and technocratic expression of the modernist project, or as an atavistic reaction against modernity, or as some blend of the two (“reactionary modernism” or “conservative revolution”), or as something completely unique, it is clear that Nazism promised a resurrection or awakening of the German people that involved a revival of morality that was in the process of decay and degeneration.

Hitler as Moral Crusader and Liar, Richard Weikart, abstract.

Extreme wealth in upper Russian society certainly contributed to the rise of the Communists in late imperial Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution.

The point of this is this.  While the Southern Populist ethics that have spread into the American middle class country wide (more on this soon) are full of hypocrisies, people do have a limit. Most people don't think night and day about politics, which opens the void to people like Rep. Ward of Casper, whose reaction to a Pride event in Casper lead to this headline:

Wyoming Lawmaker Calls For Boycott Of Businesses That Sponsored Casper Pride Fest

Ward's rise as a legislature in a state that she has almost no connections with stunned me.  She's of the extreme right and has a Weltanschauung that she's imported from the Rust Belt, where she previously lived and politics. She's associated herself in politics with Christianity, but in a way that suggest she doesn't understand her claimed faith very well.  In Illinois, she showed up associated with some outrage over a school teacher who claimed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, which in fact they do.  In Wyoming's last legislative session, she made the claim that Christians are not their brother's keeper, and that the story of Cain and Able in the Old Testament really only meant that you just weren't supposed to kill your brother, but otherwise could let him suffer.

Middle Class Germans of the 1920s were heir to a long Christian tradition.  Upper class Germans were as well, and frankly lower class Germans were too, that latter class being the one most vulnerable to Nazi and Communist agitation.  Russia had a long history of Christianity, leading into 1917.  

Wealthy societies produce largess.  Largess produces self-indulgence, and a lot of the self-indulgence will, seemingly almost inevitably, turn into sexual narcissism and individual domination.  Disgust inevitably results by those who don't chose that path, which is, at the end of the day, most people.  But when a society becomes focused on it, those willing to stand most in the opposing spotlight, no matter how extreme they are, will take up most of the opposing light.  

Immoderation leads, inevitably, to immodesty, which leads, almost inevitably, to opposing immoderation.  When toleration becomes a demand for absolutely acceptance, in categories of extremes, those masses simply trying to get through their days will listen to the loudest voices.

Southern Populism gave us what the Southern Strategy took into the GOP.  Losing the moorings on genuine civil rights, amongst other things, gave us a warped left wing view that individualistic self definition is a right, no matter how destructive or delusional.  That latter left wing view is pushing the other, far right populist view, to success, at least temporarily.