Jesus came to seek & save the lost. You are getting close to the answer with the quote to change your mind and your heart and the world. Consider the state of the world at the time of Jesus. The Romans were a rough bunch. Have faith. We have hope.
I appreciate your reflections. They have a bit of curiosity and anguish (clear categories yet not seeking to be fully resolved) that I find so helpful. Where you end up with "the deepest secret nobody knows" brings to mind for me another poet with: "nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things." I've been thinking about this Paul Kingsnorth lecture a good bit lately as well. My godmother went to hear his talk in person. Ironically, I've not been able to have an extended conversation with her about it yet even though we live in the same town and attend the same small parish. But here I am enjoying substantial reflections from you on the other side of the continent. A strange age indeed. 😅 My own little hopes for any human civilizational futures tend to gather around an idea of the Apostle Paul's Stoic cosmopolitan vision, which I take from one of my favorite authors (him who shall not be named) and which I then try to integrate (which seems only obvious in my mind) with concepts from Wendell Berry such as human scale and a vast array of layered sacred authorities. And so writing inspires writing... ❤️
Gerard Manley Hopkins, yes another favorite! :) I love your amalgamation of inspirational writers and ideas. I guess that's what I'm attempting to do as well. I find Substack a great medium for that, because there are so many thoughtful and insightful people writing and sharing ideas here. I'm glad to have you as one of those "thought partners."
And now for a futile tilt at the Substack prophets: With respect to Kingsworth and his fellow travelers (yes, I’m a subscriber, so I say this with all the reverence that my modest investment warrants), the more I hear, the more I think these escapists are resigned to marching themselves into designated POW compounds (the “Virtuous Christian communities” its own inmates build and guard.) Exile from mainstream culture or summoning fairies isn’t going to bolster “The West,” which has guarded the community of the faithful pretty damn successfully to date. It will, with assistance and counsel, continue to do so. Look to Saint Augustine’s letters to his friend Flavius Bonifatius, (the Roman general “Boniface”), if you need a template on how to help an ailing “West” combat the threat.
Theologian Helmut Thielicke said, “Post-Christian paganism will always burn with a deadly hostility to the Galilean, because it was from him that it received its stigma and never again can it face him with disinterested tolerance.” If that’s the case, why cede the battlefield and persist in making the “Long Defeat” so much easier for your adversaries? Is it really better to perish in secluded, contemplative purity than align oneself with defenders of the West, and by extension, of the faith, that don’t share said purity, or that think self-exile is not a viable course of action? Defeat is where you’ll end up when you misdiagnose the problem as the “instrumentalization of faith to achieve worldly ends” when the real problem is motivating defenders (yes, even “cultural Christians”) to achieve worldly ends that safeguard the practice of your religion. Try retreating; see if Walter Miller’s “A Canticle for Leibowitz” is the end state you like, because that’s where you’ll find yourself.
But of course it’s worse. We have not one, but *two* philosophies of indifference: one that retreats and buries its face in contemplation, and the other that buries its face in its cellphone. Elie Wiesel was right to warn us about the perils of indifference; it comes in many guises.
If you think enjoying emotional expression and intimacy in worship services or rediscovering the lives of the saints and traditional fairy tales will keep churches from burning and Christians from being slaughtered, all I can say is good luck. But if you want to forestall the Long Defeat, you might check your priors. Maybe Charles “The Hammer” Martel was on to something — maybe Thomas Babington Macauley (in the Poem Horatius) was right (yes, I know Horatius was a mythical Roman pagan, but you get the point): “And how can man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods…” Oh my; get the smelling salts — that’s way too muscular and controversial for “Christianity Inc.” No wonder the loss of potential recruits to defend the West and the faith quickens.
The indifference of the cellphone worshipers is more worrisome, because they are so much larger in number, and, OBTW, they’re your recruiting pool. I’m reminded of a quote from Lewis Mumford’s “The History of the City”: “When the Vandals were hammering at the gates of Hippo, Augustine’s city, the groans of the dying defenders on the wall mingled with the roar of the spectators in the circus, more concerned with their daily entertainment than with even their ultimate personal safety.” (Of course if the spectators had cellphones in 430 they could have posted what the Vandals were doing to the faithful.)
Yes, root strategies in humility, but remember what C.S. Lewis said: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” When the Vandals were assailing city after city, the elderly Augustine took an *active* role in attempting to protect his flock. He pleaded with his friend Boniface to engage the Vandals in battle. And he didn’t retreat.
A few years prior to 9/11, I was participating in a series of counterterrorism workshops preparing New York City for worst-case scenarios. After the moderator had presented an impossibly difficult scenario, a FDNY friend of mine (a man of deep faith who subsequently perished at the Twin Towers) said “Well, we’ll go down swinging.” That we will, with or without the Substack prophets.
Thanks, Amy, you neatly captured the gist of my comment. Elie Wiesel’s 1999 speech “The Perils of Indifference” captures the danger it poses. To me, contemplative self-exile sounds perilously close to a form of indifference. Romans 13 certainly doesn’t say abandon the battlefield — it says service is a matter of conscience. I’m disparaging retreat and inaction, not contemplation. As you well know from experience, the warrior archetype across time and societies includes mindfulness and contemplation. Psalm 144:1 says “Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” You can’t fight without a rightly-ordered mind. In Augustine’s Letter 189 (I call it his “How to Soldier” letter), he tells Boniface to contemplate his “eternal inheritance.” He says: “Some, then, in praying for you, fight against your invisible enemies; you, in fighting for them, contend against the barbarians, their visible enemies.” Even Augustine, on his deathbed in Hippo during the siege by the Vandals, did not retreat, but stayed and acted to preserve the church library; it was even claimed he healed an ill man. Flight (self-exile) isn’t a valid course of action against an implacable foe, IMHO.
This is great, Corey. I want to try to summarize your remarks to make sure I understand your position:
- Retreating from the problem of civilizational decline is not the solution; keeping the defenders motivated is.
- Post-Christian paganism will always be with us, so defenders of the Christian faith need to accept it as part of the spiritual terrain of the battlefield--meaning, train, strategize, and prepare for it.
- A bigger enemy, perhaps, is the societal indifference that comes in two forms: "airy-fairy" (my term, not yours) philosophical contemplation and mindless screen time. (Would this be because both types appear to retreat from active engagement in the world?)
How did I do?
I would still disagree that contemplation has no place (and even a place of prominence) in keeping a civilization alive and thriving, but what I love about your remarks is that they push back against my own thinking, forming that "creative tension" where the best ideas can emerge. Thank you for that!
An observation about L.A.’s fire apocalypse from a ~20 year FEMA veteran: Tragic? Without question. But societal decay? Debatable. Every disaster exhibits instances of negligence (lack of adequate preparation, poor engineering, inaccurate forecasting, ill-advised zoning, vulnerable populations, stumbling emergency response, failure to “connect the dots”). Those may be evidence of profound stupidity, craven politics, inattention, or even criminality, but not societal decay. It’s understandable in the heat of the moment (poor choice of pun, sorry) that egregious instances of negligence will be trumpeted as “symbols of civilizational decay.” Doomies and gloomies embrace a line from the movie The Martian: “Every day will be slightly darker than the last, too subtle to notice.” Sure — if you believe unraveling occurs in a million small ways, then *everything* is evidence of decay. Maybe; but distinguishing what’s unraveling from what’s rejuvenating (albeit painfully) is hard to discern. I like G.K. Chesterton’s test: “A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense has really become very uncommon.” The history of crises is evidence that man has a very, very deep well of common sense. In “Learning in War-Time,” C.S. Lewis said “We are tempted to put our callings on hold until the crisis passes. But crises there will be always, and this is the choice of the insects, who, Lewis writes, “have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.” L.A. will limp, griefstricken, into rejuvenation, and find, as the Supreme Poet said, that the “little flowers…when the white sun strikes” will grow “straight and open fully on their stems…” The City of Angels may epitomize “civilized decadence” and be a “smoldering heap of contradictions,” but I’m reminded of Galileo’s observation: ”And yet it moves.”
Amy, this is a fantastic article. You have given me much to think about. I am also going to check out Paul and Hilary's publications.
I have been thinking about the decline of the West in solitude for some time. While I was raised in a Catholic home, the majority of my adult life was without religion, which I have written about previously. However, in the past couple of years, I have experienced a personal metanoia, a rediscovery of faith. That process has been a blessing and coincided with a growing desire for self-education.
There is much to lament in our world. If one has a basic knowledge of the scripture, it is easy to see signs and portents of impending doom in current world events. That same basic knowledge of scripture would remind us that we have hope. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of Christ, saying, "We have this hope as an anchor for our soul." As a sailor and believer, it is comforting to know that amidst the storm of chaos in our lives, we are anchored in our faith.
I do not know what the future holds, but in the meantime, I will continue to study the great works of literature, think critically about topics of importance to our society, and exercise my faith in an unseen God.
Thank you for your kind and insightful comments, Matthew. I love that scripture, too, from Hebrews that speaks of hope as our anchor--and I like to make the image even more concrete by imagining the 30,000 lb anchor on my old aircraft carrier. Now that's the kind of hope we need in these times! :)
The age of Faust is about done. The Age of Pisces is about over. The great unfinished myth of the west, the Grail Myth, seems due for some attention, I’d say. History is not going to repeat itself from what I can tell. The Cup of Imagination is full. Let us be brave and drink a full draught.
Jesus came to seek & save the lost. You are getting close to the answer with the quote to change your mind and your heart and the world. Consider the state of the world at the time of Jesus. The Romans were a rough bunch. Have faith. We have hope.
Thank you for those encouraging words, Gail!
I appreciate your reflections. They have a bit of curiosity and anguish (clear categories yet not seeking to be fully resolved) that I find so helpful. Where you end up with "the deepest secret nobody knows" brings to mind for me another poet with: "nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things." I've been thinking about this Paul Kingsnorth lecture a good bit lately as well. My godmother went to hear his talk in person. Ironically, I've not been able to have an extended conversation with her about it yet even though we live in the same town and attend the same small parish. But here I am enjoying substantial reflections from you on the other side of the continent. A strange age indeed. 😅 My own little hopes for any human civilizational futures tend to gather around an idea of the Apostle Paul's Stoic cosmopolitan vision, which I take from one of my favorite authors (him who shall not be named) and which I then try to integrate (which seems only obvious in my mind) with concepts from Wendell Berry such as human scale and a vast array of layered sacred authorities. And so writing inspires writing... ❤️
Gerard Manley Hopkins, yes another favorite! :) I love your amalgamation of inspirational writers and ideas. I guess that's what I'm attempting to do as well. I find Substack a great medium for that, because there are so many thoughtful and insightful people writing and sharing ideas here. I'm glad to have you as one of those "thought partners."
And now for a futile tilt at the Substack prophets: With respect to Kingsworth and his fellow travelers (yes, I’m a subscriber, so I say this with all the reverence that my modest investment warrants), the more I hear, the more I think these escapists are resigned to marching themselves into designated POW compounds (the “Virtuous Christian communities” its own inmates build and guard.) Exile from mainstream culture or summoning fairies isn’t going to bolster “The West,” which has guarded the community of the faithful pretty damn successfully to date. It will, with assistance and counsel, continue to do so. Look to Saint Augustine’s letters to his friend Flavius Bonifatius, (the Roman general “Boniface”), if you need a template on how to help an ailing “West” combat the threat.
Theologian Helmut Thielicke said, “Post-Christian paganism will always burn with a deadly hostility to the Galilean, because it was from him that it received its stigma and never again can it face him with disinterested tolerance.” If that’s the case, why cede the battlefield and persist in making the “Long Defeat” so much easier for your adversaries? Is it really better to perish in secluded, contemplative purity than align oneself with defenders of the West, and by extension, of the faith, that don’t share said purity, or that think self-exile is not a viable course of action? Defeat is where you’ll end up when you misdiagnose the problem as the “instrumentalization of faith to achieve worldly ends” when the real problem is motivating defenders (yes, even “cultural Christians”) to achieve worldly ends that safeguard the practice of your religion. Try retreating; see if Walter Miller’s “A Canticle for Leibowitz” is the end state you like, because that’s where you’ll find yourself.
But of course it’s worse. We have not one, but *two* philosophies of indifference: one that retreats and buries its face in contemplation, and the other that buries its face in its cellphone. Elie Wiesel was right to warn us about the perils of indifference; it comes in many guises.
If you think enjoying emotional expression and intimacy in worship services or rediscovering the lives of the saints and traditional fairy tales will keep churches from burning and Christians from being slaughtered, all I can say is good luck. But if you want to forestall the Long Defeat, you might check your priors. Maybe Charles “The Hammer” Martel was on to something — maybe Thomas Babington Macauley (in the Poem Horatius) was right (yes, I know Horatius was a mythical Roman pagan, but you get the point): “And how can man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods…” Oh my; get the smelling salts — that’s way too muscular and controversial for “Christianity Inc.” No wonder the loss of potential recruits to defend the West and the faith quickens.
The indifference of the cellphone worshipers is more worrisome, because they are so much larger in number, and, OBTW, they’re your recruiting pool. I’m reminded of a quote from Lewis Mumford’s “The History of the City”: “When the Vandals were hammering at the gates of Hippo, Augustine’s city, the groans of the dying defenders on the wall mingled with the roar of the spectators in the circus, more concerned with their daily entertainment than with even their ultimate personal safety.” (Of course if the spectators had cellphones in 430 they could have posted what the Vandals were doing to the faithful.)
Yes, root strategies in humility, but remember what C.S. Lewis said: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” When the Vandals were assailing city after city, the elderly Augustine took an *active* role in attempting to protect his flock. He pleaded with his friend Boniface to engage the Vandals in battle. And he didn’t retreat.
A few years prior to 9/11, I was participating in a series of counterterrorism workshops preparing New York City for worst-case scenarios. After the moderator had presented an impossibly difficult scenario, a FDNY friend of mine (a man of deep faith who subsequently perished at the Twin Towers) said “Well, we’ll go down swinging.” That we will, with or without the Substack prophets.
Thanks, Amy, you neatly captured the gist of my comment. Elie Wiesel’s 1999 speech “The Perils of Indifference” captures the danger it poses. To me, contemplative self-exile sounds perilously close to a form of indifference. Romans 13 certainly doesn’t say abandon the battlefield — it says service is a matter of conscience. I’m disparaging retreat and inaction, not contemplation. As you well know from experience, the warrior archetype across time and societies includes mindfulness and contemplation. Psalm 144:1 says “Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” You can’t fight without a rightly-ordered mind. In Augustine’s Letter 189 (I call it his “How to Soldier” letter), he tells Boniface to contemplate his “eternal inheritance.” He says: “Some, then, in praying for you, fight against your invisible enemies; you, in fighting for them, contend against the barbarians, their visible enemies.” Even Augustine, on his deathbed in Hippo during the siege by the Vandals, did not retreat, but stayed and acted to preserve the church library; it was even claimed he healed an ill man. Flight (self-exile) isn’t a valid course of action against an implacable foe, IMHO.
This is great, Corey. I want to try to summarize your remarks to make sure I understand your position:
- Retreating from the problem of civilizational decline is not the solution; keeping the defenders motivated is.
- Post-Christian paganism will always be with us, so defenders of the Christian faith need to accept it as part of the spiritual terrain of the battlefield--meaning, train, strategize, and prepare for it.
- A bigger enemy, perhaps, is the societal indifference that comes in two forms: "airy-fairy" (my term, not yours) philosophical contemplation and mindless screen time. (Would this be because both types appear to retreat from active engagement in the world?)
How did I do?
I would still disagree that contemplation has no place (and even a place of prominence) in keeping a civilization alive and thriving, but what I love about your remarks is that they push back against my own thinking, forming that "creative tension" where the best ideas can emerge. Thank you for that!
An observation about L.A.’s fire apocalypse from a ~20 year FEMA veteran: Tragic? Without question. But societal decay? Debatable. Every disaster exhibits instances of negligence (lack of adequate preparation, poor engineering, inaccurate forecasting, ill-advised zoning, vulnerable populations, stumbling emergency response, failure to “connect the dots”). Those may be evidence of profound stupidity, craven politics, inattention, or even criminality, but not societal decay. It’s understandable in the heat of the moment (poor choice of pun, sorry) that egregious instances of negligence will be trumpeted as “symbols of civilizational decay.” Doomies and gloomies embrace a line from the movie The Martian: “Every day will be slightly darker than the last, too subtle to notice.” Sure — if you believe unraveling occurs in a million small ways, then *everything* is evidence of decay. Maybe; but distinguishing what’s unraveling from what’s rejuvenating (albeit painfully) is hard to discern. I like G.K. Chesterton’s test: “A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense has really become very uncommon.” The history of crises is evidence that man has a very, very deep well of common sense. In “Learning in War-Time,” C.S. Lewis said “We are tempted to put our callings on hold until the crisis passes. But crises there will be always, and this is the choice of the insects, who, Lewis writes, “have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.” L.A. will limp, griefstricken, into rejuvenation, and find, as the Supreme Poet said, that the “little flowers…when the white sun strikes” will grow “straight and open fully on their stems…” The City of Angels may epitomize “civilized decadence” and be a “smoldering heap of contradictions,” but I’m reminded of Galileo’s observation: ”And yet it moves.”
Amy, this is a fantastic article. You have given me much to think about. I am also going to check out Paul and Hilary's publications.
I have been thinking about the decline of the West in solitude for some time. While I was raised in a Catholic home, the majority of my adult life was without religion, which I have written about previously. However, in the past couple of years, I have experienced a personal metanoia, a rediscovery of faith. That process has been a blessing and coincided with a growing desire for self-education.
There is much to lament in our world. If one has a basic knowledge of the scripture, it is easy to see signs and portents of impending doom in current world events. That same basic knowledge of scripture would remind us that we have hope. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of Christ, saying, "We have this hope as an anchor for our soul." As a sailor and believer, it is comforting to know that amidst the storm of chaos in our lives, we are anchored in our faith.
I do not know what the future holds, but in the meantime, I will continue to study the great works of literature, think critically about topics of importance to our society, and exercise my faith in an unseen God.
Thank you for your kind and insightful comments, Matthew. I love that scripture, too, from Hebrews that speaks of hope as our anchor--and I like to make the image even more concrete by imagining the 30,000 lb anchor on my old aircraft carrier. Now that's the kind of hope we need in these times! :)
The age of Faust is about done. The Age of Pisces is about over. The great unfinished myth of the west, the Grail Myth, seems due for some attention, I’d say. History is not going to repeat itself from what I can tell. The Cup of Imagination is full. Let us be brave and drink a full draught.
Thank you for that lovely image, Henry—the Cup of Imagination is full. I’d like to think so too! 🍻