I think Prager’s points are basically correct also. I would add that there are certainly a great many here who share the socialistic religion of Europe, especially among the ruling elite. Even George Bush embraces the Multicultural aspect of the Tranzi faith.

I wrote: “A permanent religious and civilizational split between Western Europe and America would mean the death of the West, and thus, ultimately, the death of America.”

A correspondent asked me “Why?” and I replied:

Europe is America’s civilizational, religious, and ethnocultural homeland. If Europe continues on its course into “Tranzi”-land (transnational progressivism) and we then as a consequence split off permanently from Europe, we will lose our own deeper roots. With all due respect to Harry Jaffa, the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence does not a civilization make. Without our substantive historical heritage that preceded the founding of America, we will increasingly become a propositional nation rather than a real one.

As an example of what I mean by a separation from our roots, consider the “super churches” used by some of the larger evangelical denominations. These vast buildings have not a hint of the aesthetic, sacramental qualities that make a church a church in sense of European Christendom; they are rootless, historyless. And that is what will happen to America as a whole if European civilization dies or if we split from Europe and reject our European cultural heritage. Further, once that happens, we will, in the absence of any particular identity of our own (other than our belief in universalism and inclusion), allow ourselves all the more quickly to be taken over by non-European cultures and peoples.

It’s already happening. Just go to any of the “super churches” described and you will notice that “racism” is now a “sin that leads to death.” Even though I’m not a Catholic, I have some understanding of Pope Paul’s oft-quoted remark on Vatican II, “The smoke of Satan has entered the Church.” While they still cling to some traditional values, these “conservative” churches are indeed rootless. Leftist-Tranzi doctrines are accepted as truth without question. There’s little, if any, understanding of theological concepts to combat such lies. All too often, “tradition” is a dirty word - used to describe the dead religiosity of churches like those in the hands of Joan Brown Campbell and Spong instead of the 2000-year record of teaching and application. President Bush provides a good example of the kind of thinking that results from this type of “Christianity Lite.”

In a post-election commentary last November, Bill Moyers summed up the hated Republican philosophy as a conjunction of “piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money.” Moyers’s tripartite list of Republicans’ evil beliefs corresponds pretty closely with the things that many Europeans hate about America itself: that we believe in Christianity, free-market capitalism, and national sovereignty.

There’s and interesting take on this general issue at NRO by someone who just attended a congress on bioethics in Lisbon:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith022403.asp

He says the Europeans believe in eternal process to maintain consensus and prevent hard-to-solve issues from ever having to be decided. They do sound rather like Eloi.

A worthwhile article, a picture of the hell of living in a world ruled by the new species we might call Homo eloiens bureaucratensis. This passage particularly struck me:

“This point of understanding crystallized for me as I pondered a private conversation I had with someone who had heard my presentation and who told me he didn’t think I believe in ‘dialogue.’ I was taken aback. ‘How can you say that?’ I asked. ‘I flew 6,000 miles to be here. I sat next to people with whom I profoundly disagree. I was cordial and collegial. I did not raise my voice. I engaged in no ad hominem. I backed up my assertions with evidence. Now it’s up to the audience to decide whether they agree with me or not.’
” ‘But you do not believe in dialogue,’ he repeated testily. ‘You only care about what you believe.’ ”

Americans, concludes the author Wesley J. Smith, believe that discussion is about reaching some substantive conclusion and taking substantive action, while Europeans—fearful of substance because it leads to conflict—believe discussion is about maintaining the process of maintaining consensus. This would seem to reverse the traditionalist view of America as expressed by Catholic historian John Rao: that because of our Anglo-Saxon pacificness and our diversity, avoiding conflict is the number one concern in American politics. Now, ironically, it appears that the historically conflict-ridden Europeans have surpassed us in that regard.