In Defense of Christianity
Having ignored their inheritances, America and Europe wonder why their houses are falling apart.
The death of Europe and America (as we know it) are in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable, but nevertheless visible and drawing nearer—like a distant planet in the lens of an approaching satellite. Western Civilization is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or the dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants. Hussein Obama, The Beneficent, and Angela Merkel, The Iron Butterfly, have orchestrated the peaceful invasion of their own countries by a Muslim Horde still fighting the Last Crusade. The ultimate absurdity is that all this has been done without firing a shot. This invasion of desperate displaced mostly young men of military age is just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated (ie, dried up, morally empty or bankrupt, lacking passion) civilization.http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/18120/strategic_engineered_migration_as_a_weapon_of_war.html
Europe and America no longer believe in the Great Commandment to love yourself. Unless you can love yourself first, then you are incapable of loving your neighbor or anyone else. Christ never taught that self-love is wrong or evil. It is the Second Greatest Commandment in Christendom and Judaism; the First being that you should love God with all your heart, mind, and strength.
Europe is dried up and dying because it has become morally incompetent. It isn’t that Europe stands for nothing. It’s that it stands for shallow things, shallowly. Europeans believe in human rights, tolerance, openness, peace, progress, the environment, pleasure. These beliefs are all very nice, but they are also secondary.
Americans and Europeans no longer believe in the good things in their own history. All they see in their own history is the despicable and the destructive. Manifest Destiny was a license to kill, maim, maul and destroy. To bring culture, Christianity, and civilization to the New World was to rape, pillage and commit genocide.They no longer believe in absolutes; good or bad, right or wrong. The cavalry no longer rides in at the last minute and saves the day. Saint George may not have had the absolute moral authority to slay that evil Dragon.
What Europeans no longer believe in are the things from which their beliefs spring: Judaism and Christianity; liberalism and the Enlightenment; martial pride and capability; capitalism and wealth. Still less do they believe in fighting or sacrificing or paying or even arguing for these things. Having ignored and undermined their own foundations, they wonder why their house is coming apart.
That’s what makes the diplomacy of Angela Merkel, undisputed regent of European foreign policy, so odd and disconcerting. The German chancellor leads a party called the Christian Democratic Union, one of the chief purposes of which is to rally the German right to a reasonable conservatism.
Yet there she was in Istanbul on Sunday, offering a deal in which Europe would agree to visa-free travel for Turks in Europe starting next year, along with quicker movement on Turkish membership in the European Union, if only Ankara will do more to resettle Syrian and other refugees in their own country. Europe would also foot the bill.
This is machtpolitik in reverse, in which the chancellor is begging small favors from weaker powers on temporary matters in exchange for broad concessions with far-reaching ramifications. There are 75 million Turks, whose per capita income doesn’t match that of Panamanians. The country is led by an elected Islamist with an autocratic streak, prone to anti-Semitic outbursts, who openly supports Hamas, denies the Armenian genocide, jails journalists in record numbers, and orchestrates Soviet-style show trials against his political opponents. Turkey also has borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. These would become Europe’s borders in the event of Turkish membership.
This is the country Ms. Merkel proposes to bring into the bosom of Europe. Her apologists will say she’s being disingenuous, but that only compounds the disgrace of her overture.
It also compounds the danger. Could Europe’s liberal political traditions, its religious and cultural heritage, long survive a massive influx of Muslim immigrants, in the order of tens of millions of people? No. Not given Europe’s frequently unhappy experience with much of its Muslim population. Not when you have immigrant groups that resist assimilation and host countries that make only tentative civic demands.
And not when a heedless immigration policy, conducted in fits of moral self-congratulation, leads to the inevitable reaction. In Switzerland on Sunday, a plurality of voters cast ballots for the Swiss People’s Party, known mainly for its anti-immigrant stance. Its sister parties throughout Europe are also the political beneficiaries of the migrant influx, trafficking on legitimate grievances against the postmodern state to peddle illiberal cures. Few things are as dangerous to democracy as a populist with half a case.
It says something about the politics of our day that this column will be condemned as beyond the moral pale. Such is the tenor of the times that it is no longer possible to assert without angry contradiction that Europe cannot be Europe if it is not true to its core inheritance. This is the marriage of reason and revelation that produced a civilization of technological mastery tempered by human decency.
“It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost the capacity for self-love,” a prominent German theologian noted about a decade ago. “All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure. What Europe needs is a new self-acceptance, a self acceptance that is critical and humble, if it truly wishes to survive.”
That’s Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Benedict XVI. He’s out of fashion, which makes him that much more worth hearing.(In part based on, WSJ, Stephens, Bret)
Hungary may be an exception to the rule. American Ambassador Colleen Bell recently harshly criticized recently the policy of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s government, saying among others that “systematic corruption” and “xenophobic characterizations of refugees as invaders” are a serious concern in Hungary”. The US Ambassador also raised concerns, among others, over Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant upgrade project, the changes to the Hungarian election law and the country’s law and tax and regulatory environment. Few days earlier Colleen Bell paid a visit to Hungary’s legendary Hortobágy region, where she attended the St. Demetrius festival and delivered a speech about the importance of environmental protection.
The Hungarian Foreign minister said in response that since Hungary is a member state of the EU and not the United States, “the issues raised by the ambassador will be discussed with the European Union, in fact, we have already discussed them.” “We know that the US would like to see more and more migrants in Europe, clearly this was why they addressed the issue, however, Hungary remains the only European country that was able to stop the flow of migrants on its border,” Szijjártó said. Meanwhile cabinet chief János Lázár told a press briefing that Hungary “does not want to take in or allow anyone to pass through the country” even if the US Ambassador may request this. He said Hungary is a member of the EU and not the United States and “would not tolerate interference by any non-EU member state.”
http://hungarytoday.hu/news/hungarian-government-rebuffs-us-ambassador-criticism-95577
http://powderedwigsociety.com/germans-panic-as-muslims-march-through-germany/
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/18120/strategic_engineered_migration_as_a_weapon_of_war.html
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