This is Part Two of a two-part post on how our liberties can only be sustained within a culture heavily influenced by Christianity and guided by a commitment to biblical virtue and morality. Therefore, if we wish to preserve American liberty, we must actively promote the Christian ethos. This is particularly true since it is under assault by the devotees of cultural-Marxism and their dupes, who are triangulating against Christianity in order to collapse western civilization in America. (Read Part One here).
EVEN ATHEISTS AGREE - WE NEED THE CHRISTIAN ETHOS
Tom Holland, an atheist historian, was struck by how Christianity transformed the culture and gave us the so-called “common sense” values, liberty, and individual rights we take (or used to take) for granted in Western Civilization. From The Stream:
While studying the ancient world, Holland writes, he realized something. Simply, the ancients were cruel, and their values utterly foreign to him. The Spartans routinely murdered “imperfect” children. The bodies of slaves were treated like outlets for the physical pleasure of those with power. Infanticide was common. The poor and the weak had no rights.
How did we get from there to here? It was Christianity, Holland writes.
Christianity revolutionized sex and marriage, demanding that men control themselves and prohibiting all forms of rape. Christianity confined sexuality within monogamy. (It is ironic, Holland notes, that these are now the very standards for which Christianity is derided.) Christianity elevated women. In short, Christianity utterly transformed the world.
In fact, Holland points out that without Christianity, the Western world would not exist. Even the claims of the social justice warriors who despise the faith of their ancestors rest on a foundation of Judeo-Christian values. Those who make arguments based on love, tolerance, and compassion are borrowing fundamentally Christian arguments.
…While many — including Holland — cannot quite bring themselves to believe Christianity is true, they are starting to believe that Christianity might be necessary.
Numerous atheists are coming to the same conclusion. They can see the increasing cultural decay and they have recognized that without the grounding of Christianity, Western Civilization is going to be lost. And with it, classical liberties.
Consider Jordan Peterson (not a Christian) weeping tears over the beauty of Christianity and the transcendent meaning found in it, and urging the church to become stronger. Or take the virulent atheist Richard Dawkins now admitting that a return to God might be needed to preserve society.
People have used milquetoast terms like “Traditional Morality,” but even atheists are acknowledging that what we need is traditional Biblical morality and the riches of the Christian ethos.
Liberty for even atheists and the godless can only be sustained within a gracious Christendom. Many of them have embraced this reality and aligned themselves with the larger Christian movement.
If even non-believers are asking the church to get with the program and promote our virtues, convictions, and morals, you know what time it is.
THE WICKED WILL NOT ALLOW THE RIGHTEOUS TO BE
There was a popular idea that if we all just agree to let each other do our own thing, then we can all live together in peace. But those who are actively pursuing immoral lives will come to hate the very presence of the righteous because our lack of approval stings their conscience and makes them feel convicted. This dynamic of the godless mindset was described 2100 years ago:
"We were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been... Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist...Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry...Let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
“...Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us... the very sight of him is a burden to us... let us test him with insult and torture...let us condemn him to a shameful death." (Wisdom of Solomon)
When the godless are ascendant in power, they seek to blot out, silence, and push the righteous to the side - there will be no gentleman’s agreement to allow each person their sphere of individual autonomy. “Let our might be our law of right” becomes their guiding light. They have no fear of God and therefore no moral anchor to adhere to “the fair application of justice.” Who has authority to say what is right and wrong if you have no transcendent reference point for right and wrong? Those with power - period.
THE EXTRAORDINARY INTOLERANCE OF THE WICKED
This inherent inability of the evil to tolerate the godly is why when
progressivesgodless Marxists gain a critical mass in a college campus, they shut out conservative speakers with violence if needed.This is why when
radical democratsAmerican Communists gain power they eagerly stretch the laws to persecute their morally sound opponents, and shelter their lawbreaking allies.This is why cultural Marxists have aggressively created a coalition of politically-protected sexual deviancy: for the purpose of win/lose conflict with followers of the New Testament. It’s not enough to privately engage in such activities, they want everyone to celebrate it. The communists did it in Hungary in the early 1900’s and now they are repeating it here. Along with “racialized consciousness” and ESG scores, this is now the tip of the spear for the Marxist agenda against the pillars of traditional American society.
This is why they engage in the “relentless criticism of all that exists”, declaring men can be women and that math is racist. In 2020 they shut down churches as illegal activities and simultaneously praised busloads of rioters being brought in to burn down small businesses.
This is why they demand you celebrate and affirm them. Say the pronouns. Wear the mask. Take the jabs. Join the revolution, comrade - or else.
This is why they engage in crybullying - claiming to be victims to shield themselves from any criticism, while simultaneously bullying you into compliance. They make other people’s decisions your problem and use fake statistics - “If you ban abortions, thousands of women will die in back alley abortions - do you want women to die?” “If you don’t use their made-up pronouns, transgenders will kill themselves.”
To them, it becomes all about power; power engaged in a struggle against God. This the nature of humans who kick against God’s righteousness. It is an eternal principle of human nature.
Contrary to popular opinion, you can legislate morality - that’s what laws are. You can’t legislate piety or faith, that’s true. But legislation absolutely influences people’s behavior and their perception of appropriate action (eg, is it a right to kill your unborn baby or the crime of murder?). It will either be guided by the absolute truth of the Bible or by the absolute power of corrupt people.
The American founders understood this dynamic - there would either be freedom in a society saturated with a view of transcendent justice and morality as found in a gracious Christianity, or there would be tyranny based on nothing but power. These were the two ultimate options. The founders did not dream of anarchy, nor of a secularized society, but rather of “No king but King Jesus.”
LIBERTY FOR THE SAKE OF LIBERTY CANNOT BE SUSTAINED
Liberty as we were blessed to know it in America can only be sustained by reconnecting with the Source and Author of liberty and law, and this necessarily includes seeking to come under his Lordship in every sphere of our society and lives, including seeking political office-holders who will seek to implement into policy Biblical, historic, classical Christian values and virtues, who will call popular sin and depravity for what it is without apology, and who invite everyone to repent and freely come under the saving grace and authority of Jesus.
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” - John Jay (First Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court)
Contrary to the shrieking of radical Leftists, this is the only way that even their general liberties can be maintained.
EMBRACING THE REALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BATTLE
All of us either struggle with sin or give in to it. Real love requires us to hate what is evil, to protect what is good, and to save what is lost. Don’t suppress your hatred of evil and remain passive and congenial while evil forces destroy God’s gifts. Fight the good fight of faith. Bear witness. Call damnable evil damnable evil. Never apologize or compromise the gift of God’s law and God's liberty.
It is up to us - the recognized “enemy” that Marxists are trying to defeat so they can destroy the American project - to fight back and do what we must to regain the ground that has been lost. We must rebuild the foundations if we are to have liberty and justice for all. We must rebuild the foundations if our country is to sustain the knowledge of what liberty and justice are.
God himself calls us into the fight. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will. Confronted with a cancer or a slum the Pantheist can say, ‘If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realise that this also is God.’
The Christian replies, ‘Don’t talk damned nonsense.’
For Christianity is a fighting religion. It thinks God made the world—that space and time, heat and cold, and all the colours and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables, are things that God ‘made up out of His head’ as a man makes up a story. But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again.
As we have seen, even people with doubts about the actual truth of Christianity can recognize and support this project to set things right, according to the morality of the Bible and the authority of God. Reagan had his own moral failings. But not so long ago, he put it well:
I know I said this would be a two-part essay. But I’m going to make the “action steps” Part Three. It’ll be a quick read, and include a printable one-page handout for you to use. I’ll publish it in the next day or two.
Until then, keep fighting the good fight!