The Netherlands has an entire population of Rowan Williamses

(Note: the title refers to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s call to voters not to vote for BNP candidates in the last elections.)

This just in from Dutch News:

Christians can’t vote for Wilders, say vicars
Thursday 25 February 2010

A Christian cannot vote for Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration party PVV, say 75% of church leaders in a poll of 1,200 ministers and church workers in the Nederlands Dagblad.

The ministers represent a cross-section of all the Netherlands’ Protestant churches, representing 2.3 million people, the paper says.

One third of the people polled said there were people who supported Wilders in their communities and 5% said Wilders had a lot of support.

‘Wilders and the PVV’s views contradict Christianity,’ one minister told the paper.

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Charles T. writes:

Quote from above:

“Wilders and the PVV’s views contradict Christianity,” one minister told the paper.

Actually, Wilders contradicts liberal political philosophy and strategy which the “Christian” church has so stupidly adopted.

Protecting one’s culture and population from another hostile population is in the best tradition of Ezra and Nehemiah. These two men had an incredible task of rebuilding Jersulalem and protecting the exiles from the marauding tribes swirling around them.

These clergyman should read the whole book.

The modern church has become nothing more than the liberal wing of and the mouthpiece for the political left. In the case of the church, your term of Gnosticism would be so appropriate since it blends political ideology with spiritual authority and mysticism.

It is so unfortunate that many of our Christian leaders have become so useless.

LA replies:

Much worse than useless.

Daniel O. writes from the Netherlands::

I would like to comment on your posting “The Netherlands has an entire population of Rowan Williamses”.

The most interesting part of this survey is the part that has not been surveyed. There has been a poll concerning Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party, but not one concerning Alexander Pechtold and his Democrats ‘66. This political party is as much an anti-Christian party as the PVV is an anti-Islamic party. D66 also leads the secularist movement in the European Parliament; a key figure of this movement is the militant atheist Sophie in ‘t Veld of the same political party. They consider themselves to be “secularist” in discussions about Christianity and “pragmatic” in discussions about Islam.

Yet the Protestant churches in the Netherlands are more worried by “Islamophobia” than by the current wave of anti-Christian rhetoric and aggression. This survey is not an isolated incident. Another example: prominent Dutch Protestants criticised the ban of minarets in Switzerland, but not the ban of crucifixes in Italy. Wilders, who is a non-believer but not of an anti-Christian sort, is considered by many Protestant leaders to be a greater danger than the militant atheism that is attacking the foundations of Western Christian civilization. Only evangelical Protestants are an exception to this rule.

While I am certainly not a supporter of Geert Wilders, I am definitely not a supporter of the secularist movement. Many orthodox Christians in the Netherlands seem to agree. This is one of the many reasons why an increasing number of traditionalist Protestants in the Netherlands are moving toward the Roman-Catholic Church. Protestantism in the Netherlands is a dead religion, and in all its politically correctness it has become an ignorant ally of the Islamo-secularist Unholy Alliance.

Kevin V. writes:

It seems to me, once again, given the realty of Real Existing Christianity and its universal call against voting for Wilders in the Netherlands, that nationalist and traditional conservatives like yourself who point to Christianity as part of the solution need to address how we go from where we are today to where we are in reality now. I am not aware of a single Christian church, in Europe or in the Americas, in favor of limited immigration, nationalism or keeping America majority European-American. In fact, the situation is one in which there are a number of churches, not least the Roman Catholic Church, who spend a considerable about of time, money, influence and power ensuring open borders and enforcing liberal opinion.

Given that fact, and admitting that, in an academic abstract sense you may well be right that all of these churches have misunderstood the Christianity you are speaking of, is there any reason why a European-American should not conclude that Christianity and its churches are among the forces working towards their replacement?

LA replies:

I’ve been saying for years that most of organized Christianity as it now exists is an enemy of Western civilization. But then I add: most of Western civilization as it now exists is an enemy of Western civilization. When I keep repeating like an automaton that liberalism is the dominant belief system of modern society and that virtually all modern Western people are liberals, I mean it. Liberalism dominates everything—all institutions. So Christianity is no more at fault in this catastrophe than the rest of our institutions and beliefs. The whole civilization, in all its dimensions, is infected by liberalism and must be cured if it is to survive.

As I said in my speech last February on Islam policy, if we are to have any chance of saving ourselves, we must, for starters, (1) realistically recognize how bad our present situation is, meaning, how liberalism dominates our entire society; and (2) imaginatively see the possibility of a non-liberal, revived West.

And I believe, notwithstanding how terrible our situation is, that the West can be saved. Look at how liberal ideologies that seemed so dominant and unstoppable, such as Obamism, such as Global Warmism, can collapse with shocking ease. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE. All that’s necessary, for things to start to turn around, is for people to see the falsity of liberalism and begin to oppose it.

LA continues:

As an illustration of the above, why are the English so pessimistic, so hopeless? Because English conservatives, much more so than American conservatives, are still living inside the liberal belief system that is destroying their society. They have no philosophical or political ground to stand on apart from that belief system. So the most they can do is pathetically grumble and complain, without a single positive idea. Compare the comments by conservative readers at British newspapers with those by conservative readers at American newspapers. It’s two different worlds.

Here I recommend again James Kalb’s 2000 essay in Modern Age, “The Tyranny of Liberalism.” which shows, among other things, how liberalism is irrational and cannot endure.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 26, 2010 12:48 AM | Send