Monday 30 November 2015

High status doubts versus taboo doubts among mainstream 'Christian' leaders

In 'Liberal Christian' circles - which include most of the leadership of most of the largest and most powerful Christian churches it is a high status action to express, to discuss and elaborate, one's 'doubts' about Christianity - for example doubts about theology, doctrines and ethics; about the nature and reality of God, the divinity of Christ, the truth of miracles, prophecies, the Virgin Birth; the truth of the Bible and the meaning of key passages (especially relating to sex and sexuality)...

High ranking Christian leaders are eager to describe their doubts about such matters; and such doubts are status-enhancing in The World.

But to discuss doubts concerning the core tenets of modern Mainstream Leftist Politics is a strict taboo - such doubts are status-threatening in The World, and they are avoided.

So we do not hear mainstream Christian leaders expressing doubts about the value of the abolition of slavery, we do not hear them discussing racial differences, we do not hear them challenge the value of overseas aid - or describe its multiply destructive effects, nor do they question the validity of policies aimed at promoting multiculturalism and 'diversity'; nor do they even dissent from the official doctrines concerning the theory that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is (for sure) going to cause net-harmful global warming - but that this outcome can be prevented by immediate international pluvial action: this theory is regarded, in practice, by high status powerful Christian leaders - as an undeniable fact of life: far less open-to-doubt than the divinity of Christ.

(Leftism is, I believe, fundamentally anti-Christian. Nonetheless, given that all political views are highly imperfect, distorted, simplistic, pragmatic phenomena - it certainly is possible to be a Leftist and a real Christian - so long as it is the Leftism that is contingent and doubtful - not the Christianity.).

The reason for this behaviour of Christian leaders isn't complex nor difficult to understand - it is simply that these leaders are not fundamentally Christians; but instead their fundamental belief is in Leftist politics. They are solid socialists who are Christianized (to a greater or lesser extent), but not solid Christians.


We know this because they doubt Christianity, but they do not doubt Leftism. They are 'tolerant' (which means they do not care) about Christian heresy, apostasy, or decline, or imminent extinction in The West; but they are zealous and fanatical Leftists who try their hardest to prevent political dissent among their ranks: membership of 'right wing' parties or advocacy of anti-Left policies is not tolerated, and is excoriated from the highest levels; and is either explicitly forbidden (eg membership of some legal political parties is grounds for non-appointment or dismissal), or else such people are covertly sanctioned and excluded.

Leftism is the main enemy of Christianity. but this is not because the political Right is correct; it is because the majority of self-identified Christians - and almost all the leadership - are dishonestly fundamentalist Leftist activists whose Christianity is a fake and a lie.

Whether mainstream self-identified-Christian leaders themselves acknowledge or deny this fact concerning their fundamental beliefs and their contingent beliefs is neither here nor there, it is unambiguously and undeniably revealed by their preferences and actions - most clearly by the nature of their doubts.

6 comments:

Ugh said...

Interestingly the 'non-denominational' church I attend regularly rarely strays from scripture during the sermon, it's generally acknowledged as a teaching Church. However, there are undercurrents and off handed remarks that point to extreme leftism. I value the Jesus-centered focus and the deep dive into scripture with the interpretation of the Greek text it's based on, but get my hackles up when they sprinkle on anti-conservative shibboleths and especially the guilt trip of white privilege (I'm white, and so are they).

It leaves me confused. Ever so often sitting in the congregation I feel like my walk with Christ is slightly illegitimate because I'm male and white - neither of which I had much of a say in. What irks me the most is they never discuss what I'm supposed to due about my white privilege.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Ugh "they never discuss what I'm supposed to due about my white privilege. "

Perhaps the answer would be on the lines of 'cringe and submit'.

But it really is strange how a scriptural church, of the kindd which is loathed by the politically correct Left, will nonetheless be Leftist - but that is usual.

Probaby it is best accounted for by infiltration by fifth-columnist pseudo-Christians of the kind I describe - they seek authority in order to subvert, and eventually invert real Christianity - but so incrementally that they usually carry the congregation with them.

Thus have *all* the major social institutions in The West already fallen.

Unknown said...

I figure you usually hear from me when I disagree, so I may as well tell you that, this time, I entirely agree.

Moreover, the popes had been warning for two hundred years that there was an active movement to infiltrate at least the Catholic Church in this way, and the last solid pope, Pius XII, took special steps to make sure that the doctrine on heresy and its effects would be well-established. Indeed, there was substantial theological activity in the 30 years prior to the collapse (Vatican II and subsequently), designed to firmly cement the position of St. Robert Bellarmine and his teaching on what heresy did, especially with reference to the papacy. It is fitting that St. Robert's theology, which distilled the Church's tradition during the epoch of the Protestant apostasy (a time when many were afraid a Protestant may be elected pope, and wondered what the implications of that would be), should attain such clear marks of approbation precisely as the movement of apostasy did finally come to Rome herself.

Bruce Charlton said...

@CP - Thanks for that perspective, I wasn't aware of the details.

AnteB said...

Very good post, Charlton.

I find it strange that a lot of Christians, both in the public and people I know personally, sometimes pushes leftism further than even the secular left. At least when it concerns mass immigration. Here in Sweden the situation is so extreme that the immediate logistics required to manage all the immigrants coming is exhausted and many government agencies are on the verge to collapse, so even the secular (and very leftist) government have taken steps to reduce immigration drastically, at least in the short term.

The response of the churches and many Christians? They think it is horrible and that the borders need to be kept open because we are commanded to welcome the stranger and so on. There is no sense pragmatism or responsibility and absolutely no concern for the nations of Europe as such. And it is not just the leadership. I don´t understand it.

Bruce Charlton said...

@AB - It is an effect of secualr hedonic nihilism to be unable to make tough prudential decisions, but always to put oneself 'on the side of the angels'. It may also be an aspect of feminization.

Wha people nowadays experience as moral dilemmas (or what they state to be dilemmas) are nothing of the sort. To say so is merely to advertize their moral *incompetence* - they are simply telling you that their 'morality' is emotivism - based on their own feelings, and all options happen to make them feel bad.

NOT a moral dilemma - for a *real* morality.