Liberalism against Christianity

From 2008, see the entry, “Why liberal society makes Christianity almost impossible,” especially my reply to reader Laura, in which I discuss liberal Christians’ distorted understanding of “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” and show how the context in which Jesus put his quotation of that scriptural passages provides the correct understanding.

- end of initial entry -

Robert B. writes:

Does this not sum it all up? What I mean to say is, does not the following quote make it clear that we should not give ourselves, our lands and our children’s inheritance over to the Other?

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Matthew 7:6.

LA replies:

Except that Jesus in that passage and in the Sermon on the Mount as a whole is talking about spiritual truth, the Way, the kingdom of heaven. He’s not talking about the ordinary human goods of home, hearth, and country.

Still, you are pointing to a basic fact about the Gospels which seems to have been 100 percent lost in modern times: the kingdom of heaven preached by Jesus was not inclusive of everyone and everything, but the very opposite. Throughout the Gospels, he makes the sternest distinctions between those who are ready to enter the kingdom, and those who are not: “Narrow is the gate, and straight is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” And he knew that the problem resided in man’s very nature: “But he did not give himself over to them; because he himself knew what was in man.”

At the same time, while these and other Gospel statements pertain to the kingdom of heaven, not to ordinary life on earth, the spiritually discriminating attitude of the Gospels would not lend itself to the obligatory, non-discriminatory sacrifice of our earthly goods to strangers that liberalism preaches.

Robert B. continues:

More on this subject.

It goes along with Augustine’s admonition in “The City Of God,” which is today paraphrased as “charity begins at home,” wherein Augustine makes it clear, that, by its very nature, charity must be confined to those within our local community—our fellow congregationalists, as we know them, and thus know if they are deserving of our efforts or if they are merely “swine” that will not benefit from our largess.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2011 09:41 AM | Send