Can you be a defender of the West and argue that the Christian religion is false?

Over at Mangan’s the discussion on Christianity and conservatism has continued, with Dennis Mangan and Rick Darby objecting to Clark Coleman’s paradigmatic statement, which I adopted and have been relentlessly arguing for, that “One cannot be a conservative in the West and openly disdain Christian belief.” Mr. Darby says that I’m reducing Christianity to a one-dimensional belief system and trying to suppress all criticism of it. I reply that that’s obviously incorrect. Christians, including conservative Christians, are criticizing aspects of Christianity all the time. I myself oppose the current, liberalized Christianity, which I describe as nothing less than an enemy of Western civilization and Western man; I’ve criticized the pro-Palin evangelicals for their emotion-centered Christianity that led them to reduce traditional morality to anti-abortionism, to celebrate illegitimacy, and to embrace feminism. The issue is not whether one can be a conservative and criticize various expressions of Christianity; the issue is whether one can be a conservative and publicly and persistently deny the truth of Christianity itself.

Mr. Mangan says that merely to disbelieve in Christianity is not to disdain it. To which I answer, of course. But Mr. Mangan has not simply been stating his personal disbelief in Christianity, he has been actively making the case that the Christian religion as such is founded on falsehood, and thus, whether it is his intention or not, he is feeding the increasingly atheist and anti-Christian culture of the West.

Here is Mr. Coleman’s e-mail to me of last week, which I quoted at the earlier, huge thread at Mangan’s:

I think the main point has not been absorbed by Mangan, given his comments about how you are saying that certain topics should not be discussed, etc., which is not what you are saying. Namely, one cannot be a conservative in the West and openly disdain Christian belief. It is not a matter of saying that doubts about Christianity should not be discussed. Let liberals and leftists discuss such criticisms, and we can respond. Free speech and all that. It is a question of what conservatism is trying to conserve.

- end of initial entry -

December 27

Philip M. writes from England:

“Mr. Mangan says that merely to disbelieve in Christianity is not to disdain it. To which I answer, of course. But Mr. Mangan has not simply been stating his personal disbelief in Christianity, he has been actively making the case that the Christian religion as such is founded on falsehood”

Surely this amounts to the same thing? If you didn’t think Christianity contained falsehood, you’d be a Christian. [LA replies: Not the same thing at all. And if the difference is not already understood between simply saying that one is not a believer, and making positive statements that the Bible and Christianity are false, I don’t know how I could make it understood.]

Your post spoke of “the West” rather than just America. Given that, I have to say that whilst conservatism in America may have Christianity at its core, in Europe the Nationalist parties get little help from the Chuch anyway. In fact, Christians almost only attack those trying to stop the Marxist/globalist destruction of our cultures. They attack us for defending them.

As a consequence, over here they cannot call the shots on who is and who is not a conservative. [LA replies: Of course. The issue would never come up, given that the Christians there are on the left.]

Non-believing conservatives are one of the few groups not undermining the church or trying to change it in any way—including Christians. We (non-believers) will be largely responsible for salvaging the remains of whatever Christian culture we have left, if anyone does.

About a year ago in Lincoln (where I live) the Church sold a disused church to the Muslims to convert to a mosque. It was done without consultation. The first residents knew about it was when a local vicar shoved a letter through nearby residents doors saying how wonderful it was that the former church would now be a place of prayer and worship again. The campaign that we in the local party put together contained NO Christians, nor did any Christians anywhere is the city offer a single word of support. They refused to let us use their halls for meetings. Instead they write letters about our “racism” and how Christianity involves “love of neighbour.”

The only time I can remember the Bishop of Lincoln writing about anything in the local paper was to argue that prostitution should be legalised. The responses against were from non-Christians.

So maybe what you say has validity in America. But in this part of the West, I would say that if Christians are going to kick us out of the conservative bandwagon, perhaps they’d better get on board it first?

December 28

Alan Roebuck writes:

I must respond to to Philip M. when he says that Christians are busy tearing down the Church and Western Civilization:

How does he know they really are Christians? Surely even an atheist such as him can understand that most contemporary English Christians have radically redefined the faith, so that they are actually pseudo-Christian traitors. Is it not clear that the Christians of more than, say, 150 years ago would have thoroughly repudiated what contemporary pseudo-Christians believe and do? Do words have meanings, or is a “Christian” anyone who calls himself such?

On the other hand, I suppose we would have to expect this type of thinking from an atheist. In the atheists’ worldview, nothing can be known about Jesus, in which case he has no authority to define Christianity. And in that case, Christianity means whatever the majority of people who call themselves Christians means; nothing more and nothing less. But Philip and those like him must understand that when Larry and I refer to Christianity as essential to conservatism, we mean the traditional version, not its contemporary bastardization.

Ayn Rand had a book titled “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.” It seems that Christianity too has become an unknown, especially in Europe.

LA replies:

Yes. Just as Philip understands that most Britons today actively or passively support the liberal belief system that is leading to the end of Briton, and thus they cannot be called true Britons, he ought to understand that most Christians today subscribe to the liberalized version of Christianity that is the opposite of traditional Christianity, and thus they cannot be called true Christians.

Terry Morris writes:

In reply to Alan Roebuck, Malcolm Pollack writes at the most recent thread at Mangan’s:

I think that expecting those who do not share your Christian beliefs—including those of us to whom they seem most likely to be, as you suggest ours are, “absurdly false”—to defend them against criticism, or stand by mutely for the sake of a culture they think might actually be improved by such criticism, is self-centered and grossly unfair, as well as quite unrealistic … (emphasis in bold mine)

Self-centered? Grossly unfair?

In an earlier thread Bruce Graeme, with whom Pollack agreee, argued that atheists, unlike Christians, are not susceptible to guilt, which I take to mean they are void of a conscience. If a person is void of a conscience and not susceptible to guilt, then what right has he, and from whence does it emanate, to complain about an opponent being “self-centered” and “unfair,” nay, “grossly unfair?”

LA replies:

Also, Malcolm Pollack, just like Dennis Mangan, is ignoring the caveat clearly made by Clark Coleman, me, and others. We are not trying to take away people’s right to call the Christian religion false. We are saying that people have no right to call the Christian religion false, and to call themselves conservatives. In the same way that a person has no right to support Communism, and to call himself a conservative. In the same way that a person has no right to say that Britain and America are historically guilty countries that have no right to defend themselves, and to call himself a conservative. In the same way that a person has no right to call the white race a cancer on history, and to call himself a conservative.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 26, 2008 08:05 PM | Send