The decline of Western civilization

The West has been warned with increasing frequency, most recently by Netherlands MP Geert Wilders, that radical Islam is making such great strides that Europe will become "Eurabia" in a few decades and that the United States is not far behind. In a speech he gave at Columbia University on October 21, Wilders spoke alarmingly of numerous incidents and ominous trends as evidence that a dynamic Islam is growing at the expense of what used to be called the Christian West.

Wilders himself has been caught in the middle of this rise and fall. For his outspoken opposition to radical Islam, he was even barred from the United Kingdom until the British courts intervened.

Because the "cultural sensitivities" are so great on this issue, it has become virtually a crime to speak frankly and truthfully about what is going on. Here is a sampler that Wilder provides, taken from the mass media reports over the last several years:

The Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard made a Muhammad-cartoon and all of a sudden we were in the middle of the so called 'Danish cartoon crisis'. The Italian author Oriana Fallaci had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her book 'The Rage and the Pride'. An Austrian politician, Susanne Winter, was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence because she spoke bluntly about the prophet Muhammad. The Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested by 10 policemen because of his drawings. And the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a radical Muslim.

This discouraging trend can only be explained by the dynamics of radical Islam as contrasted with the decline of European Christendom. This, in turn, points to the likelihood that religious conviction, thought to be some to be irrelevant in the "post-modern" world, is decisive. Islam, after several centuries of decline, has been reshaped into a messianic force. There is nothing comparable to this among Christians.

As ominous as the constant threat of violence may be, the long term trends in Europe may be more worrisome. For decades, Europeans have permitted large-scale immigration of Africans and Asians to provide cheap labor. Unlike the United States, European nations do not encourage assimilation or movement toward citizenship. As long as Americans pledge loyalty to the principles and institutions of our country, anyone can potentially become a citizen. Not so in Europe.

As a result, millions of largely Muslim inhabitants have no compelling reason to adopt the customs of their host countries. Indeed, as their numbers increase, it is their customs and their laws that take root. Those periodic riots in Paris among unemployed Algerians or Moroccans stem from their permanent outsider status. Increasingly there is pressure to allow Muslims to govern themselves by Sharia law, a repressive code that is the rule in the despotic Muslim nations today.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has even suggested that the United Kingdom acquiesce in the establishment of Sharia there, indicating that preemptive surrender is the proper response.

Europeans generally have acted as if the Christian religion which gave their continent its distinctive identity for centuries can be abandoned without consequences.

In Europe there are many massive–and empty–Christian cathedrals. Meanwhile, Muslims are increasing their numbers through birth rates far in excess of the Europeans’, which have fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 per family.

Another way of putting this is that one cannot oppose something with nothing. If the Europeans altogether abandon the faith that inspired millions of people before them, they can be sure that Muslims will not. Some analysts have predicted that the UK, France and Germany will lead the way into a Muslim future by 2050. Major cities are already dominated by Muslims.

The American birthrate among citizens has fallen below 2.1 as well, with the vast influx of illegal aliens from south of our borders keeping that figure up for all inhabitants. The percentages of Muslims are still far below Europe but the official deference to their sensibilities is strong.

The evidence is overwhelming that as this trend continues in Europe, the change from Christianity to Islam will not be peaceful but increasingly violent. There will be increasing persecution of non-Muslims wherever Muslims are sufficiently numerous to impose their will. The Western world’s half-hearted response is not working. One can pray that a powerful spirit returns to Western civilization, but it will not come as long as it holds that what men believe about God makes no difference.

America's spiritual core awakens

The secular progressive movement has been effective in limiting the spiritual component of issues from being more significant in popular discourse. In fact, spiritual aspects of issues have been ignored completely by the mainstream news and most political office holders. But the passion of the crowds and the grassroots nature of the opposition to President Obama’s health care overhaul is I believe derived from our nation's spiritual core as much as it is from intellectual evaluation. The spiritual question we face as a nation is simple and comprehensive, it is: “Is there enough?”

Enough what? Many will ask and then attempt to throw the question away, unwilling to consider the deeper meaning. “Is there enough, of anything?” Is there enough food? Is there enough wealth? Are there enough votes? A portion of the population answers this basic question in the negative. There is not enough, of anything. Therefore we must take from one group that has and transfer it to those without. Democrats in general fall into that mindset and President Obama has organized his entire administration around the premise that redistribution of all things including power is not only possible but mandatory for survival.

Nowhere in the policy and discussion of this administration do you find reliance upon or confidence in the proposition that humans create their world and that the universe is abundant. Many in the world experience starvation, but food is limited by choices of those in power, more than by material limits. North Korea suffers shortages because of Kim, not because there are limited resources.

Some in this country suffer financial hardship. I include myself in that group. But it is my experience of lack, not the imperative of lack that is at work. I know I can create a new business and recover my life. I need not take anything from another in order to have some of it.

President Obama believes that health, not health care, is limited and so he proposes equalizing the amount of health mandates by taking from some and redistributing to others. President Obama is willing to sacrifice the health of some to change the experience of illness of a few. Wellness is abundant in the universe but free people sometimes experience lack and suffering. Reducing the wellness of some will never increase the wellness of others.

Across the country thousands are seeing the debate about health care and financial recovery and are reacting in a truly spiritual manner. They know something is wrong with the core belief of lack and redistribution. Americans want solutions that recognize creative genius and American excellence. Obama promises a future of failure and works from the basis that there is never enough of anything. So he takes what others have.

When kindness is against the law

[T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.- St. Paul In the face of domination of the world by the Roman Empire, the most energetic of the Christian apostles asserted that moral virtue was still lawful. Of course, Paul knew that virtues were not widely practiced or held in high regard. Are virtues any more safe to practice now than they were two millenia ago?

This question may strike some as perverse, for are we not living in a society, as Abraham Lincoln once said, "conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us[?]" And are we not committed to caring for the less fortunate through vast government programs?

It is true that, while the tribulations of the human condition are not absent in our country, the daily practice of the virtues by millions of people–in families, at work and play, in government and the private sector–make self government not only possible but eminently desirable.

But no blessing can be taken for granted. Virtuous living, like any other great and good thing, requires practice and even habituation. Are there any threats here and now to the continuing beneficial effects of human virtue in our midst?

Let’s focus on the virtue of kindness. Some years back, genuine concern was expressed about the utter lack of kindness implicit in the random acts of violence too often committed in our inner cities, college campuses, places of business and governmental offices. The not entirely playful response by some was to urge everyone to engage in random acts of kindness instead.

No doubt the suggestion was well meant. But a moment’s reflection makes it clear that violence can be discouraged much more by habitual acts of kindness. In a well-governed political community such as ours, it is no accident that people tend to be kinder to each other than in tyrannical regimes in which the rulers treat their subjects as if they were a lower order of being.

Indeed, when slavery was legal in America, even the most benevolent slave master was free to indulge his whims. Thomas Jefferson, a slave master himself, wrote, "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other."

Classical philosophy and Christianity both teach that friendship is the cement that holds societies together. The Greek philosopher Aristotle observed that democratic societies, which are based on the principle of equality, are more conducive to friendship than any other. Jesus taught us where we can to make friends out of enemies.

Those of us living today, as Lincoln observed in 1838, "toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of [these fundamental blessings]." As in antebellum days, so in ours, we have the obligation to pass moral virtue on to our descendants.

The most fundamental threat to the lawfulness of the most gracious virtues lies in widespread rejection of what Jefferson called "the moral law.". Clearly, portrayal of gratuitous sex and violence in the popular arts does not teach kindness. For if other persons are merely the objects of one’s unbridled will, no kindness will be shown except by accident or cold calculation.

The rebel, the person with "an attitude," has been glorified in movies and television for years. More, the Constitution and laws of the country have been perverted by the special protections that have been carved out for anyone who does as he pleases with no regard for the rights of others. We are enjoined by elites to be kind to such obnoxious persons rather than expecting them to be kind to us.

The massive government programs that take the responsibility of caring for the needy from families, friends and neighborhoods and assign it to impersonal bureaucracies have made kindness almost unnecessary. Kindness depends on reciprocity as well as good intentions, for people more freely come to the aid of others when they know that, if circumstances were reversed, they could count on that aid. In fact, we are coerced into being compassionate by the law. Is that kind?

There is no law against kindness or the other virtues, but we are living on the edge, so to speak, pushing matters to such an extreme that, as Alfie was inclined to believe in the popular song of that name, "only fools are kind" and "it is wise to be cruel."

"Ad hate-a-man" argumentation

Nothing is more vital to a healthy body politic than reasoned debate. But that hardly means it is very welcome, as the side with the least defensible argument has the most to lose. The fallacious argument known as "to the man," or "ad hominem," is the most common weapon resorted to when an advocate can’t win an argument on the merits. It attacks a person rather than his argument. In this era of unprincipled politics, ad hominem argument has long since morphed into what I’m calling "ad hate-a-man," or the claim that arguments disliked are really based on hatred of members of groups rather than on any legitimate points. Since races, genders, "lifestyles" and religions distinct from the presumed white, male, Christian majority in America have become privileged, minions of the far left castigate their critics as racist, sexist, homophobic bigots.

Criticism of racial preference schemes, such as affirmative action or racial diversity, in which members of minority races are given the edge in hiring, college admission and contracting, is invariably put down to racism. The initial and wholly defensible goal of the civil rights movement half a century ago was a color-blind society in which merit rather than race was the basis for distributing jobs, schooling and business. But that was abandoned before the ink was dry on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and honored today only by those who oppose racial preference.

Similarly, if anyone suggests that the natural differences between men and women are of more than passing significance, especially where strength, endurance and decency are relevant, they are dismissed as sexists wanting to keep women "barefoot and pregnant." Nor do the interests of women themselves matter very much to advocates of "liberation" if they are so benighted as to prefer marriage and family to a lifelong career in the marketplace.

The most potent form of "ad hate-a-man" currently concerns the homosexual agenda. Routinely, whenever anyone argues that the natural division of the human race into men and women indicates that homosexuality, lesbianism, etc. are not a basis for marriage, it is often the occasion for screaming and, at times, violence. Homosexuals who keep their relations private but do not support "gay marriage" are not uncommonly "outed" for their apostasy.

There was a time, not long ago, when the Judaeo-Christian tradition in America, which combined government neutrality regarding religious denominations with robust Biblical faith among our people, was a solid basis for both good government and good citizenship. As statesmen from George Washington to George Bush emphasized, morality does not exist in a vacuum and, for us, is the beneficent contribution of Biblical faiths.

Nothing symbolized this tradition more than public ceremonies, such as graduations, where pastors, priests and rabbis alternated in the offering of invocations and benedictions. That this is not unconstitutional is attested to by the fact that our Declaration of Independence teaches that our rights as human beings derive from our Creator, Who is referred to as lawgiver, Divine Providence and Supreme Judge of the World.

The Old and New testaments teach a morality based on piety and emphasizing reverence for parents, self control and respect for the rights of others. The American founders did not need to conjure up some "new morality" that was appropriate to life in the new republic. The morality of the Bible was more than sufficient.

Nothing is more central to the practice of that morality than love. Believers are taught that sin, or falling short of the glory of God, is to be avoided and certainly not to be loved. But nothing in that teaching prescribes or even implies hatred for the sinner. Those who insist otherwise are mistaken.

There is much concern about torture, or alleged torture, these days, which may be seen by some as simply being subjected to something they dislike. Would it be torture for those who believe that Christians and Jews are hateful, particularly those who reject abortion and same-sex marriage, to sit through a service and be subjected to all that alleged hatred?

Or would they be shocked to find out that believers are admonished to "judge not, lest [they] be judged?" Indeed, past critics of Christianity feared that its "nonjudgmental" attitude was inconsistent with the requirements of citizenship. But believers have long appreciated the fact that greater freedom of religion exists in this country than in any other and their patriotism runs deep.

All that "hatred" which some profess to see in those who disagree with them exists only in their imaginations.

The Aussie & the atheist

What some people won't say about themselves with bumper stickers or tee shirts. I saw a charming one and an infuriating one this week. "Good grammar costs nothing," said the Asian girl's shirt in line behind me to board a flight. Such exhibitionists either want or deserve remarks from strangers, so I asked her what it meant. Standing up for the English language when most people no longer bother, she replied in a thick Aussie accent. My sentiments exactly, I said. Los Angeles would be her last stop homebound after six weeks of travel in Europe and America. In the worst economy since the 1930s to hear some people tell it, mind you.

"Religion stops a thinking mind," scolded the tee on a dumpy fat guy at the pizza parlor last night. It was illustrated by one of those stat-line medical monitor waves. Him I didn't accost because A, I didn't trust myself to be civil, and B, his childish plea for attention merits nothing so much as cold silence.

After a moment I realized the slogan was someone's oh-so-clever twist on "Abortion stops a beating heart." I wanted to ask his rejoinder to that undeniable fact, and to pile on with the additional facts that abortion really does stop (or forestall) a thinking mind as well as extinguish (or divert from this world) a feeling soul.

I wanted to challenge him for examples of societies where God is ignored or banned but free and noble thought flourishes -- or to refute the conclusive truth that thought has risen highest in those societies where God is lifted highest.

But it would have been a waste of breath, so I just ate my pizza and reflected on the late George Roche's mordant comment, "The world is full of slobs." Yet not quite full of them, for there is still room for the occasional grammatically idealistic Aussie Asian girl. And thank heaven for such as she!