Until Liberaldom Is Ashes

“And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the LORD commanded.” – I Kings 11: 9-10

Recently while doing my monthly check of the news, I saw a panel of experts discussing the economy. All agreed that the national debt had reached crisis proportions and all agreed that no one in the Republican or Democratic parties was really addressing the problem of the national debt. The experts went on to explain that if really intelligent people (like themselves) were consulted, and if peripheral issues such as illegal immigration and abortion were not allowed to distract the nation from the one big economic issue, all might yet be well.

Let’s give the panel members the benefit of the doubt and assume that when they said intelligence was needed they really meant what was needed was wisdom, which is greater than mere intelligence. Is wisdom enough? Solomon was the wisest of all the kings of Israel, yet he destroyed Israel by marrying heathen princesses and placing images of Ba-al, Ashtoreth, Chemosh and Molech in full view of the Temple of the Lord. All this the wise Solomon did to please his wives. And in order to maintain his wives and himself in luxury he taxed his people beyond their ability to pay. So it seems that even if the wise panelists could be put in charge, we would not reduce our national debt by one dollar. Something besides mere wisdom is needed to rule a country.

Let’s go back to Solomon. What was that wise man's fatal flaw? He did not love God as his father David did. David’s sins were scarlet, but he never ceased loving the Lord and trying to do His will. If we permit legalized murder in the form of abortion, and if we permit national genocide in the form of legal and illegal colored immigration, are we doing the will of God? And if we are not doing the will of God, how can we expect to “turn the economy around”? Solomon was left one tribe out of the twelve for “the sake of your father David.” Will the Europeans even be allowed to rule their own tribe? Do they even want to?

It’s insane to talk about reducing the national debt in our modern Babylonian state. Concern about leaving one’s children with enormous debts is a Christian concern. The post-Christian debauchee views existence much like Louis XV of France: “After me, the deluge.”

The deluge has come, and we would be fools indeed to look to the people who caused it to rescue us from the deluge. Conservative and liberal alike have bid us view issues of sound economics and knowing the will of God as distinct and separate issues. But they are one issue. And in saying that, I do not mean to imply, as some preachers do, that we can get stock tips from the Bible or that faith breeds wealth. What I do maintain is that the right type of economy comes from a people who are concerned with knowing and doing the will of God. Life is a vale of tears no matter what the economic system, but human suffering can be eased by the proper, the Christian, ordering of society. Goldsmith makes this point in his poem “The Deserted Village”:

In all my wanderings through this world of care,
In all my griefs -- and God has given my share --
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose:
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return -- and die at home at last.

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands, in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!

Let’s suppose a European such as myself got to sit on that panel of experts. And let’s further suppose I tell the panel of experts that, “We can never wipe out our national debt so long as we ban the master of the revels, Jesus Christ, from the body politic.”

What would be the panelists’ reaction? The reactions would vary from condescending smirks to indignant scowls, but none of the panelists would say, “By George, you’re right! We have left out the Son of God – what an oversight!”

I know that the case will be made that religious faith must be kept separate from economics because men fight over religion. Yes, men do fight over religion, but then they fight over economics as well. A man is dead without a poetic vision of life that stems from his faith. How can he make good decisions about anything important if he deliberately narrows his vision in order to exclude the silken, poetic thread of life, faith.

In the one great religious poem of the 20th century, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis emphasizes that Aslan, the Christ figure, is not a tame Lion. The religious impulse is pure fire and desire; it can lead a man to heaven or, if diverted from its true source, to hell. Rev. Dimmesdale in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter allows his passion for God to become a passion for another man’s wife, but ultimately his passion finds its true home, at the foot of the Cross.

The poetic impulse, our passionate desire for something more than nature, for the transcendent, has always been considered dangerous by the managerial philosophers and theologians. Plato wanted to ban the poets from his Republic, Martha wanted Mary to stop her dreaming and help with the dishes, Aquinas wanted to keep God within the confines of his syllogisms, the born-againers want to confine religious passion to their single-room apartment, and on it goes; religious formalism has always been at war with religious faith. There were and are good reasons for leaving Christ out of the pictures; He is, after all, not a tame lion, and men who follow Him tend to be rather unpredictable and hard to handle. But what is the alternative? The alternative is the soul-dead ant heap of humanity called 'modern Europeans'.

The Europeans died when, like Solomon, they separated religious passion from wisdom. Solomon was the wisest of the wise, but he became a fool because his passion was for heathen women and heathen gods. The Europeans’ love for the Negro and the gods of the colored people made Christendom into Satandom, and no economic policy can succeed that does not confront this blasphemy.

The Christian Platos who so thoroughly banished passion from their Christian republics did not know what they were spawning. Man needs to be passionate about his faith. If he can’t be passionate about Christianity because the Christian Platos forbid it, then he will become passionate about some other god, or many other gods. The modern Christians bring blacks into their churches because they can’t be passionate about the Son of God, but they can be passionate about the black man. We should not seek to end Negro worship by abandoning Christ, as the neo-pagans so aggressively demand; we should abandon the abstract, passionless Christianity of the dried-up religious experts of the Western world.

In my freshman year at college, my assigned roommate was a chess enthusiast. He subscribed to several chess magazines and belonged to the college chess club. I had never played chess before in my life, yet when I played the chess enthusiast in a game, I won. I didn’t win because I was a natural-born chess genius, I won because my unorthodox play confused my very logical roommate who was used to a more traditional, logical game. My victory, quite understandably, irritated my roommate. I hadn’t technically violated any of the rules, but I didn’t, in his judgment, “play the game correctly.” I think the managerial-type theologians have, over the Christian centuries, been irritated with Christ. “You’re not playing the game correctly,” they tell Him, but then they had no reason to expect Him to be a tame Lion. And they have no right to demand that His followers be tame lions either.

Dostoyevsky wrote so eloquently in “The Grand Inquisitor” chapter of The Brothers Karamazov about the conflict between the clerical formalists who can’t abide what, in their eyes, is the whimsical and irresponsible behavior of Christ who plays the part of the passionate Pied Piper, imploring His people to respond in kind to His passionate love song:

“'So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what was offered Thee? There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness--those forces are miracle, mystery and authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing so. When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Thee, "If Thou wouldst know whether Thou art the Son of God then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shall hold him up lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art the Son of God and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father." But Thou didst refuse and wouldst not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak, unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in making one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou didst come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart?”

Yes, “the free verdict of the heart” is what is missing from modern Christianity. When the European of the old stock, the European with a heart that still loves, returns from exile, the liberal world will hear the sound of the same hosannas that made Satan tremble and gave life to the European people. It is useless to proscribe passion; it will out. In the counter-revolution, we will oppose the liberals’ passion for their heathen gods of color with our passion for the Son of God. The passionate European, the European who loves and hates with all his heart, is the Trojan horse within the walls of Liberaldom, and he will not sheath his sword until Liberaldom is ashes. +