How Long?

Reading Chesterton and Dostoyevsky really makes me realize how little has changed in the past few hundred years. What they have to say is almost as relevant today as it was when it was written. The modernism that Chesterton opposed has been somewhat battered by postmodernity, but the faith that science and materialism will lead us into all truth is alive and well. Communism has come and gone, but the secularism that Dostoyevsky feared and which so devastated Russia is still with us.

Isn't it time for secularism to move along? I'm not sure what will replace it, and whatever does will probably not be any friendlier to Christianity. Still, though, it seems like it's about time for something new.

In the meantime, however, I am enjoying the fact that we stand on the shoulders of giants - there is a few centuries worth of Christian thought that speak directly to the issues we now face.

The Decline of Liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins

This opinion piece (from, astonishingly, the L.A. Times) is hard-hitting and spot-on about the demographic problems facing the mainline protestant denominations. It turns out that (gasp!) if you reject the exclusivity of Christ and preach a social gospel, you can't provide any compelling reasons to actually be a Christian and no one wants to go to your church.

Episcopal Trouble

http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=2195
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5100640.stm

The vast majority of Anglicans have not accepted the concept of the ordination of women as bishops and the vast majority of Catholic Christians around the world don’t accept women’s holy orders at all. To think that she is going to educate people on what the Catholic Church has believed for over 2000 years is feminist hysterics.

-Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, on the election of Katharine Schori as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church has essentially refused correction over the ordaining-a-homosexual-bishop issue. This is the latest in a long line of actions in defiance of the beliefs and practices of the worldwide Anglican communion. And this may be the one that gets us kicked out (to be honest, I really hope so). After Gene Robinson was ordained, there was a lot of caution. A few rogue parishes pulled out (thereby immersing their congregations in protracted legal disputes over the church property), but the general conservative consensus was, "wait and see." The Anglican church put together a comittee to examine the issue, and they produced the Windsor report, calling the Episcopal church to repent and not ordain any more homosexual bishops.

But we had to wait until now (the next general convention) to see how the Episcopal church would respond. They did so by electing a woman as their presiding bishop and voting down a resolution promising not to ordain any more homosexual bishops.

I think this act of defiance was the last straw for a lot of people. Entire dioceses now want out, and it seems very possible that the Anglican communion will excomunicate the Episcopal Church. Lord, have mercy on us.

It's times like this that make me wish I was Catholic. Of course, there are plenty of conservative protestant denominations... but the mainline churches used to be conservative, too. What I wouldn't give sometimes for the rock of the Catholic magisterium.

From Population Bomb to Empty Cradle

Touchstone has run an article in its March issue on The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, the massively influential (and massively wrong) 1960's book predicting that an exploding world population would be causing mass starvation by now. The author seems to have been freaked out by the baby boom, and done his extrapolations based on that. But he also didn't account for advances in agriculture which have dramatically improved yield.

Apparently the book is also really critical of the Catholic Church's stance against contraception. The Population Bomb and Humanae Vitae were released at almost the same time, and Ehrlich accuses John Paul II of contributing to the future mass starvation of billions of people. History seems to have vindicated John Paul II.

This whole issue really interests me because the reversal from Population Bomb to Empty Cradle has happened in the last few years. Emily and I can still remember growing up in a world that looked down on our parents for having large families. It would be a mistake, of course, to make a lot of crazy prophecies of doom. World population is not in trouble now and likely never will be. But Europe, Russia, Japan, and several other countries are in very real danger of losing their cultural identity, because the only thing that appears capable of sustaining their population (and their welfare systems) is massive immigration.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Mankind has never before been in such control of his reproduction, and it makes me wonder: are men so inherently selfish that, given the choice, they will breed themselves out of existence for an extra boat or RV? The only thing so far that seems capable of motivating people who have access to contraception to reproduce above replacement level is religious belief (Mel Gibson has 7 children. How many does Richard Dawkins have?). I have to admit, it brings a smile to my face to think that secularists may actually be removed from the gene pool by natural selection. John Paul II has called this culture the culture of death, and that may prove to be true in the most literal sense, as its rejection of the life-affirming act of procreation chokes it out of existence.