The Purification of Culture through Faith

A couple of years ago, Hugo Chavez was outraged by a comment made by Pope Benedict in which he stated that Christianity was an agent of purification for the Central and South American cultures that it converted. The fact that Chavez would see this as an insult rather than a completely rational observation is disturbing. I wonder what part of human sacrifice Chavez sees as worthy of retention. Was Pope Benedict stating his utter distaste for the heritage of the Central and South American people, or was he simply acknowledging the awesome power of Christianity to bring already existing cultures out of the ghetto of potentiality and into the actuality for which they were meant – an actuality characterized by adherence to natural law and the one, true God?

This incident provides an opportunity to ask important questions: What role does and should Christianity play in the development of those cultures in which it finds itself? Does Christianity seek to impose itself at the detriment of already existing cultures or does it seek to build up that culture while leading it away from those traditional practices that do not benefit the nature of man as an image of God?

The role of Christianity within already existing cultures has historically proven itself to operate in such a way as to preserve those positive aspects and traditions of that culture, even to the point of assimilating them into their expression of Catholicism. What else would explain for the great success in the Church’s missionary work and the continued adherence to the faith of these converted peoples? A clear example of this would be the many traditions that exist within Latino Catholicism distinct from the traditions of European and American Catholicism. These traditions that characterize the culture of Latino Catholicism were obviously not forced upon them by a foreign influence. If so, they would be clearly seen in that foreign culture with which it came into contact.

To claim that the missionary activity of the Church is an infringement on the individuality of another culture is to profoundly underestimate that culture. In fact, such a stance reveals a sense of superiority on the part of the one holding that stance over the culture it is claiming to protect. To hold this position is to show little to no confidence in a culture’s ability to determine its own future. If an event of interculturality, as opposed to inculturation, takes place, then the culture that is approached by Christianity and, thus, opens itself to the transformative influence of Truth, will without doubt lose nothing of its own that is objectively positive. Rather, those elements of truth that already existed within it will naturally be brought to a greater degree of perfection while shedding off those elements that were both contrary to Truth and even destructive to the culture in which they were spawned. It would be foolish to assume that every tradition and element of cultural identity is absolutely necessary and even positive for that culture, so when that culture encounters challenges to its established ways that allow it to respond with openness and even change within itself, then such a move must be seen as a legitimate expression of that culture. It is not the loss of culture but rather its evolution. When a culture opens itself to ideas outside of itself and recognizes the need to adopt as its own those positive elements it sees in others, we not only see the upward movement of that culture, but also the reaching of the goal of that culture which is ultimately the goal of all cultures – the attainment of Truth. Truth cannot destroy. By its very nature, Truth is creative and life-giving. It is safe to assume, then, that the failure of that culture to open itself to a positive transformation in an encounter with Christianity would be to deny itself the opportunity of self-actualization and the rebirth of itself in newness of life. Pope Benedict makes this very point in his book Truth and Tolerance:

“That may lead to a profound reshaping of that culture’s previous form, yet this does not necessarily involve any kind of violation or alienation. In a positive case, it may be explained by the potentially universal nature of all cultures, which is concretized in the acceptance of what is other and the change of what is its own. A process of this kind can in fact lead to a breaking open of the silent alienation of man from the truth and from himself that exists within that culture.”

This concept of the purification of culture through faith is not exclusive to those third-world countries that tend to be the more obvious examples. It is, indeed, as absolutely necessary to our own ‘civilized’ and ‘stable’ cultures here in the New World and Europe as it is in those parts of the world that are still being evangelized. We have yet to reach a cultural point at which we can say with surety that we have attained Truth. In fact, it seems that the very opposite can be said: “We have lost the Truth that we once had.” Therefore, a new evangelization is necessary. A new purification through faith must be established. Only then will this culture in which we live experience the rebirth that it so badly needs. Without rebirth, it will drown in the stagnant waters that it has drawn for itself.

Education and Play: Seeking the Proper Order (Part II)

In Part I of this topic, I wrote of the transcendent nature of play as that which is an expression of our nature as images of God. Developing this idea a bit further, speaking of the proper place of play within academia should be taken up.

Part I ended with the conclusion that play exists as a sort of signpost, and it is merely that. It reminds us of our ultimate end at which point we will exist in a state of timelessness, order, and perfect unity and justice. It also reveals our own sort of impatience. We want that higher existence now, not later. We even train our bodies to become better athletes and musicians in order to perfect performance with the hope that greater performance results in greater play. Greater play means greater anticipation and clarity of that world that we are seeking to imitate even if done so unknowingly. Play is our creative expression as images of God and is, thus, a gift from God that should reveal to us our true nature. But it is still just a signpost. It cannot and should not be the final destination.

As heaven is that final destination about which I write, then it is incumbent upon us to put every tool and gift God has given us to reaching that destination. This is not to say that we can somehow earn our salvation, rather it is an acknowledgement that God has placed us upon this earth to reach greater heights of holiness and love before He calls us to judgment. The most obvious gifts God has given us to reach greater knowledge of love of Him are our intellects and wills. Without them, we can neither know Him nor love Him, and this knowledge and love is expressed through the body. This reveals to us the role of education as that which forms the intellect to accept not only the truths of God’s creation which we call the sciences, but also that which the sciences were created to reveal – the wisdom and beauty of God Himself. Because the intellect informs the will, a well-formed intellect should lead to well-informed decisions, and thus a greater display of proper character. This is where play, especially the form seen in sports, is insufficient.

Is it, then, wrongheaded to believe that sports should play no role within academic institutions? I believe that it is. Because of the unifying effect of sports, it plays a role that cannot be filled by education alone, but it must be acknowledged that the role of sports within academia is only that of unification and, therefore, representation of the entire student body. Sports and other forms of play within schools are at the service of the greater good of education and the entire student body, not the other way around. They are meant to enhance education by fostering unity. Sports must be seen as the handmaiden of the gentle master that is education. This is the proper order that exists between play and education, and to stray from this is to inject within this system a principle of chaos. One begins to see the tail wagging the dog. Sports begins to demand service from education and sets itself up as an entity independent of the greater student body, seeking recognition beyond its calling. Rather than being a force for unity, it establishes itself as a source of divisiveness and even belligerence towards that which it must serve. This naturally becomes the mindset of those engaged in such play, and a culture which sees sports as the greatest good to the detriment of education is now at work. But the divisiveness doesn’t end there. If this is what the athletic world then begins to offer, then it must necessarily turn on itself, eating its own children. If its children are fed the same bitter food, then the children become divisive amongst each other, separating themselves from the good of team unity, seeking personal aggrandizement and grossly high pay for something that by its nature should neither demand nor deserve such things. This should also raise questions about the forms of play on which a school focuses. As mentioned before, there are forms of play such as music that seem to better reflect our human natures and that to which God has called us. Is it, therefore, intellectually consistent to uplift the lower forms of play while degrading the higher forms?

It is for the benefit of both academics and sports that the proper order be sought and eagerly embraced. To do otherwise would be to destroy both.

Education and Play: Seeking the Proper Order (Part I)

Peter Kreeft has written of those ways in which Heaven haunts earth. Such things as the effect of timelessness experienced when engrossed in a beautiful piece of music are things that reveal to us the other-worldly nature of many of our worldly experiences. They serve as reminders that we are not purely natural but also supernatural, that is, not only corporeal but also spiritual.

Another interesting phenomenon of human experience is that of play. In fact, it is such an important element in the human experience, Pope Benedict saw fit to mention it in relation to liturgy in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy. He makes the point that play is much like liturgy in that it is characterized by its own set of laws and time independent of the laws and time of the world in which play is done. It becomes an independent world within a world.

It is safe to say that this sort of organized play is a particularly and peculiarly human activity. But why is this so? What is it about being human that drives us toward forsaking the world in which we are bound for a game-world even if only for a few hours? As Christians, we believe that we are images of God, a God who creates out of nothing, is bound by nothing, and has brought order to chaos. Is it any wonder that the image reflects that of which it is an image? Let us entertain the example of our beloved football game. Time begins and stops, implying an existence not bound by time’s onward march. A set of rules peculiar to that game is enforced. To stray from those rules is to invite punishment; it contains within itself its own sense of justice. It mimics a battle against good and evil in its physical aggression between opposing teams which has proven to be something of which the human mind and imagination never seem to tire. There is also the coach, the one who establishes and demands order and unity among those whom he directs. It is a sort of universe within a universe with all the necessary elements present. Not only does it become this sort of universe to those engaged in the actual play, but also to those entering into it as spectators. In the opening paragraph, I mentioned the medium of music and the role that it plays in lifting us out of time and space. What may be less obvious is that it functions in much the same way as a typical game of football. The fundamental elements that constitute them as play are nearly identical in both. In music, specifically orchestral or choral performances, there is the presence of a unifying principle, that of the musical piece itself. Within the piece, time begins, accelerates, decelerates, and stops. There are certain rules set down within the piece in order to play it effectively such as dynamics and key. To stray from this is to produce bad music, noise instead of beauty; thus there are consequences for not following the rules. The dynamics produce the effect of tension and release, elements present in a life that is not stagnant, that is, a full life. There is also the conductor upon whom are all the eyes of the musicians looking to him for guidance and following his every movement. He is the one who ultimately determines the movements of all the musicians, but they must exercise free will to follow him. One would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of the spiritual life.

Even more profound about musical play is its presence in all cultures of the world. Music has proven itself to not only be present within all cultures, but to even be a defining expression of that culture, and music also serves as a reflection of a culture’s height. A culture that embraces high standards of education typically embraces high standards of musicianship. There is an irrefutable connection between education and music within cultures. Conversely, cultures that embrace low forms of music tend to be lacking on the educational side of things. In this, we can see that some forms of play even inform and nourish our ideas about education, something that is not readily apparent as an effect of sports. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be true in that a greater emphasis on sports leads to a general de-emphasis on education. The conclusion that can be drawn is that in some way, music reflects and nourishes the entire human intellectual person in ways that sports cannot. The reason for this is the greater connection between music and human nature than between sports and human nature. As human nature includes intellect, will, and body, there are some things that appeal to all three to greater degrees than others. Music uplifts all three due to its inherent requirements of a trained intellect, a focused will, and a body trained to perform. While sports certainly requires fitness of the body, strong intellects have not proven to be key elements within athletics.

In my next post on this subject I will look at the proper relationship between the academic institution and the sports that it sponsors.

Authority, Obedience, and Selfishness

The title of this piece reminds me of the “which one doesn’t fit?” question often found on IQ tests and the like. Clearly, the answer to the above would be ‘selfishness’, but why doesn’t it fit? If we recognize that selfishness is insoluble with authority and obedience, why do the terms ‘authority’ and ‘obedience’ cause such discomfort in people? I would propose that a population conditioned by an environment and culture absolutely obsessed with individualism claiming that this individualism is what makes us ‘great’ has not a chance of escaping the pitfalls that are bound to occur – pitfalls characterized by the eventual rejection of obedience as a virtue and selfishness as a vice. When this occurs, recognition of authority as a good becomes a virtue held by a small minority, those who are diagnosed as sheltered, parochial, and even simplistic by the multitude of self-made pop psychologists who have it all figured out. They just can’t seem to figure out why their own marriages are broken, their children are self-mutilating misfits, and the list could go on.

Evidence of this as the prevailing mindset of many today (although none would ever admit to it), is most clearly seen in the elementary and high school classroom, a veritable observatory of the many and varied errors the modern family has imposed upon itself with the children serving as guinea pigs for the new human cultural experiment performed by mad scientists that go by the title of ‘mother’ and ‘father’. In this experiment, a dual hypothesis is being tested: children will be better suited to reach the goal with less guidance, and they will be able to assimilate into the real world in a productive way without being conditioned to recognize the need for authority and more importantly the need to accept another’s authority.

There is an insidious movement of parents away from the role of teacher, guide, and disciplinarian and towards the role of friend. This establishes a relationship in which authority has no place, and the results of this new experiment are quite telling. Since ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ have decided to be simply peers to their children, there has been a corresponding rise in apathy towards those things that create a stable society – education, self-discipline, faith, and marriage. This should raise a question in our minds: Why would lack of authority on the part of parents within the home lead to such a result?

To answer such a question, we must first understand the nature of authority and, therefore, its purpose. Etymologically, ‘authority’ comes from the Latin auctor and auctoritas, meaning ‘model, teacher, and progenitor’ and ‘security, full power, and decree’, respectively. The purpose of authority is to provide a standard by which we learn and model our lives. It is meant to securely and with power guide those in submission to it into a life of goodness. Clearly authority can be abused in the most horrid of ways; nevertheless, this fact does not take away from its necessity for cultural stability. More specifically, authority in the home plays an even greater role. The role of the father, and consequently his authority, is meant to provide an image of the paternity of God to his children, thus forming the child’s notion of God and the submission due to Him by virtue of His authority. St. Paul assures us of this notion in Ephesians 3:14,15 where he writes, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.”

The natural consequence of such a lack of authoritative parenting, most clearly seen when they choose to be their children’s peers, is a corresponding lack of acknowledgement of God as Father. This rejection may not occur in an explicit fashion but can certainly be discerned in the wayward decisions of those who adopt such a way of life. How could a child conditioned to reject the notion of valid authority somehow innately accept the authority of God? Faith, therefore, becomes no longer part of the equation, nor is the concept of self-sacrifice, for if mom and dad have taken on the role of ‘friend’, then at what point will little Suzy or little Johnny ever experience the need to submit their will and desire to the greater good? This sets up children for nothing but failure, but not only children as individuals, but also the society of which these children will ultimately take control. With no appreciation for self-sacrifice and an overdose of selfishness, lasting and fruitful marriages become near-impossibilities, and as we are experiencing now, the breakdown of marriage translates into breakdown of the culture.

Another symptom of such rampant selfishness is the unveiling of its high-maintenance handmaiden that goes by the name of Materialism, which should be no surprise to the thinking individual. The materialist philosophy is a natural outgrowth of such an environment in that the one who rejects sacrifice for the greater good accepts only consumption for the benefit of self.

At the risk of sounding sheltered or parochial, I would gladly forgo the pleasure of being my child’s friend if it meant saving them from adopting the status of a selfish, materialistic, and faithless divorcee.

Independence Day...for whom?

Many have now forgotten that July 4th, the day that we celebrate as the one on which we gained freedom from tyranny and the right to self-determination, is intimately connected also with the loss of states’ rights to self-determination. It is the date of the Battle of Gettysburg, the battle that turned the tide against the Southern effort at freedom and self-determination. I’ve included a number of quotes below to help put things into perspective for those who have uncritically swallowed whole everything written in our high-school history books. These quotes come from the following website: http://www.geocities.com/mark_willey/civlwar.html

"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone I would also do that." - Lincoln to Horace Greeley of the NY Tribune August 22, 1862.

Secretary of State William Steward said about the Emancipation Proclamation: "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

Secession to protect slavery made no sense at all, even though some Southerners said so, because slavery was secured by the Constitution, by the Supreme Court and even by Abe Lincoln's public promises that he had neither plans nor desire to interfere with it. The war was actually a tariff war - Lincoln trying to hang on to millions of dollars per year in tariffs on Southern goods. In his first inaugural Lincoln promised a military invasion of any state that failed to collect tariffs for the federal government - that he would in his own words, "hold, occupy and possess" said tariffs by "using force against or among the people."

After the 1828 tariff law, the South almost seceded. In 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North. The Republican platform of 1860 called for higher tariffs; that was implemented by the new Congress in the Morill tariff of March 1861, signed by President Buchanan before Lincoln took the oath of office. It imposed the highest tariffs in US history, with over a 50% duty on iron products and 25% on clothing; rates averaged 47%. Note the close proximity of this tariff to the start of the war on April 12. Cause and effect.

As the North American Review (Boston, October 1862) put it: "Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation". (Source for this section - When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Succession, by Charles Adams)
Note on the Gettysburg Address by H.L. Mencken

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." --THE SMART SET, May 1920

The United States is a voluntary association created by the states and states have and had every right to secede. Lincoln was wrong. He did not have the authority, either Constitutional or moral, to make war on the South. The Declaration of Independence itself provides for secession - "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

"If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of 5 millions of Southrons from the federal union in 1861." -- NY Tribune 12/17/1860

To determine the moral right in this matter, ask yourself this simple question: "Would any colony have agreed to join the Union if it had known it would have to fight to get out?" Not a single one would have.

"Opposing secession changes the nature of government from a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism where one part of the people are slaves." -- NY Journal of Commerce 1/12/1861

Jefferson Davis in his inaugural address stated that, "the American idea [is] that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established." Similarly President James Buchanan in his annual message to Congress in 1860 said, "The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens...If it can not live in the affections of its people, it must die."

Horace Greeley wrote "We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets" (11/9/1860).

George Mason University Professor Walter Williams argues that Lincoln's defeat of the South meant the abrogation of the Tenth Amendment - that the concentration of imperial power in Washington was an inevitable result of the war. His analogy is that if you tell a wife she cannot divorce under any circumstances, then her husband can treat her any way he wants. The federal government can treat states any way they want and they want to reduce them to subjugated vassal extensions. As we shall see below, the war was death to the Constitution of the United States in many ways.

Founding Father Alexander Hamilton argued at the Constitutional Convention, "To coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised...What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying state at war with a non-complying state: Congress marching the troops of one state into the bosom of another? Here is a nation at war with itself. Can a reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -a government that can only exist by the sword?"

For more, please visit the following site that provides many parallels between the Founding Father’s reasons for declaring independence from England and the difficult situation of the South: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo6.html

The Christian Credo in a World of Faciendum

The question of the place of belief within a culture dominated by the notion of self-validation via its ability to produce, progress, and make that which is ‘makable’ is one that may be more relevant today than at any other time. It is an issue taken up by Pope Benedict in his book Introduction to Christianity written before his elevation to the throne of St. Peter.

When the defining criteria for culture devolves from the credo and the essens (belief and knowledge of being) to the faciendum (faith only in the future of what can be made), the reduction of the human person to the status of object seems to be a natural consequence, and its effect on the place of belief in such a world is equally detrimental. The reduction of the human person and the alienation of belief are not unrelated events. Rather they represent a symbiotic relationship, although the ‘bios’ of ‘symbiotic’ does seem to be a mischaracterization of the dynamic of such a relationship when one considers that ‘life’ is almost never the priority of that system.

The revolution that has taken place is the dethronement of ultimate causes and, thus, the rejection of the absolute of intrinsic value and dignity. This has been replaced by the exalting of the scientific mindset in which the greatest possible good is to make and to continue to make with the goal of constant progress – better bodies, better sex, more money, etc. In short, narcissism, perversion, and greed become preferable to the transcendent and metaphysical reality of the nature of things. When these become the new virtues of a society, the old virtues are cast off as relics of the past unable to answer the more pressing needs of humanity which can only be answered by the things we see, touch, and make. That which is measurable can be used for greater and ever more evolved factums. That which is immeasurable can be used for nothing and must therefore be discarded as unnecessary. It is seen as a hindrance to the never-ending roll of the progress-ball. Belief, therefore, becomes a laughing matter if not something to be vehemently scoffed at.

When credo begins to demand that the world of faciendum acknowledge its claims regarding the intrinsic value of man, it is seen not as a voice of reason, but as a clown unable to remove its makeup even in the ‘real world’, unable to make itself relevant in a culture that is ‘all grown up’. What is necessary is a reevaluation of the method by which our credo is presented. Tough questions must be asked and honestly answered. Why is that which is most relevant, that is, the intrinsic dignity of man based on his being an image of God, still seen as irrelevant? Confronting the culture on its own terms, I believe, is the only way to present a credible apologetic for belief. It must be the goal of Christianity to clearly demonstrate the transforming effects of belief through clear and rational argument, effects that would certainly not go unnoticed in a world obsessed with constant progress. In this regard, Christianity and the modern world are in constant competition, as both see the need for constant progress towards perfection.