That is your cue CS Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
Additionally too many young idiots, especially women, in rebellion from their parents, will swallow the most silly rubbish pushed by college professors.
I am not enitrely sure I understand what he means by “Sunday church-scold shaped hole in their conscience.” Does he mean these people have, how to put it, residual damage from too many nonsensical hell-fire sermons and rules? Childhood stuff that put them off religion (Chrisitinity) for good?
.
I remember a conversation with my sister in law, a pre-Vatican II lapsed Catholic. I guess at one point when she was a little girl, she brushed her teeth before going to Church, and her father (my father-in-law) called the priest that morning to see if it was okay for her to take Communion since she had swollowed water and obviously had broken the pre-Communion fast. Was she allowed Coummunion?
.
All my DH’s siblings (all pre-Vat II diocesan school educated) have dumped the Church with no regrets. They are all relatively left-wing politically as near as I am able to tell.
Leftist politics as a substitute religion.
Thank you for including more of the CS Lewis quote than most folks do– I find he’s nearly as terrible for quoting as GK Chesterton, because it’s so hard to find a good place to start and stop– or, rather, a place that doesn’t cut out something important to the general point….
the rest of the essay (or at least a good enough chunk I don’t immediately identify something missing!) is here:
http://www.timothyministry.com/2012/03/cs-lewis-humanitarian-theory-of.html
I am trying to spread it around, because the stuff he was fighting is so familiar– The Humanitarian Theory of Justice.
For those who enjoy politics– does this not remind you strongly of the problems with the best, most admirable and idealistic of libertarians?
In reality, however, we must face the possibility of bad rulers armed with a Humanitarian theory of punishment. A great many popular blue prints for a Christian society are merely what the Elizabethans called ‘eggs in moonshine’ because they assume that the whole society is Christian or that the Christians are in control. This is not so in most contemporary States. Even if it were, our rulers would still be fallen men, and, therefore neither ver wise nor very good. As it is, they will usually be unbelievers. And since wisdom and virtue are not the only or the commonest qualifications for a place in the government, they will not often be even the best unbelievers.
The example I know best is someone who is chronically guilt-ridden, but I doubt it has much to do with any censorious culture in the Dunker congregation she attended as a youth. That’s not a rigorist denomination (though it was a century ago). And she’s not lapsed. Dunker clergy I gather are a varied lot; her’s is a political commentator in a robe (and an absolute tool). She has a problem common among women: she’s never acquired a well-calibrated understanding of personal agency. Type B have conscientious impulses and take the blame for the damnedest things. Type A are not and won’t acknowledge any fault which injures their self-image. Feminist discourse plays to the latter impulse.
I’m going to lay a four-figure sum of money on the proposition that de minimus 75% of the ‘woke’ aren’t suffering from her problem. Woke behavior is derived from an inclination to harbor and express socially-sanctioned aggression. People who suffer that and impose it on others tend to be female because men are less motivated to seek social sanction for their aggression and tend to express it in regulated competition when they want to color within the lines.
This Susan Buchanan person of Oak Park, Illinois doesn’t feel guilty about squat:
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/10/09/oak-park-diversity-statement/
Leftist politics as a substitute religion.
I disagree. In the course of my life I’ve never had occasion to see people spill out of local churches and do this:
https://heavy.com/news/2020/09/rochester-restaurant-protest-riot-video/
https://medium.com/@jenwillsea/how-a-white-girl-learned-white-supremacy-in-a-liberal-suburb-of-rochester-ny-a-love-letter-to-34060d56df38
Take a gander at this creature. Being woke is her business model.
I didn’t say it was a good substitute Art! Violence and religion have not been strangers, as some people can find reasons to hate in the Sermon on the Mount.
I didn’t say it was a good substitute Art! Violence and religion have not been strangers, as some people can find reasons to hate in the Sermon on the Mount.
Aggression may use a religious idiom, but that’s an aggressive impulse, not a religious impulse. (Of course, aggressive and religious impulses exist side-by-side all the time).
Easiest way to sort this sort of people out is just to explicitly talk about Jesus Christ. They will talk about all the “Christian” good work they do and how “this is what Jesus would have wanted.” But the moment the conversation starts being about whether Christ is Lord and Savior, whether He rose from the dead, whether He can forgive sins, etc. and they’ll usually not only back off, but actually get mad. I still am a little shocked by how ticked off one of my woke nominally Christian relatives got mad when he said that the world needs unity and I responded “We should pray for the Peace of Christ through unity in the body of Christ.”
A lot of these people liked the social work of the Church and the general feeling of being “nice people” but viewed God as mere window dressing.
“A lot of these people liked the social work of the Church and the general feeling of being “nice people” but viewed God as mere window dressing.”
Agree – I’ve heard first hand – Parents (the lapsed sort who go to Catholic because they don’t want the public system) are becoming offended by Catholic religion teachers teaching their children Catholicism. Small children are being taught that nobody loves them more than God. God even loves them more than their parents. So children are going home telling their parents and parents are marching to the school demanding their child not told this. That no child should be told that anybody loves them more than their parents! Which leaves the religion teacher in a conundrum, how can they teacher Catholicism without teaching Catholicism.
I’ve heard this all the time; “Its your world view..mine is different.”
For those who have abandoned organized religion many have adopted a substitute. Political Correctness.
Who owns, sells and pushes political correctness?
Da’ Left.
It’s their religion.
A void was created when they decided to abandon Christianity.
Something has to fill that void.
Manufacturing ballots was a religious practice.
??? Art, that logic train doesn’t even follow. By it you could say the crusades prove Catholicism isn’t a religion.
Define your religious impulses and myself, Foxfier, Don, and probably plenty of others can provide unique examples of each being done with leftist politics. I mean just off the top of my head…
https://twitter.com/JoLuehmann
https://www.ourbibleapp.com/decolonizing-faith
Makes sense. Unfortunately my Bishop gaslights regularly with the “racism” charge too.
Catholic high school nearby is 97% white, Public is 68% white, maybe that’s just his perception.
RUDOLPH HARRIER
*
“A lot of these people liked the social work of the Church and the general feeling of being “nice people” but viewed God as mere window dressing.”
*
Yes, little, if any, vertical dimension to unite them with God. Spiritually flatline.