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I do not think that there is such a stark difference between these options and specific denominations. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can move yourself and your family into religious enclave, creating space for the community to flourish. You can vote for laws in accordance with Christian ethics inside your local community and promote for these laws to go state or even nation-wide. And you can also go into enemy territory and "win the argument".
The same goes for going backwards in time for similar analysis. Yes, protestants were always fractured and individualistic. But they were political power of their own and Christians were able to push for things that David French would now maybe see as unimaginable. For instance, it was absolutely common to have prayers and bible readings in public schools up until 1960s. It was not until 1952 supreme court ruling that stroke down blasphemy laws in favor of supposedly neutral and secular reading of first amendment, the same goes for porn and other things. Christians held bottom up political power, and politicians they voted in had to reflect their moral preferences and uphold their worldview. It does not have to be anything coming top-down from a pope or archbishop.
I think this is exactly what is going on now. For instance if Muslims can create their own communities and then pass laws in line with their preferences like anti-LGBT laws in Dearborn, Michigan - all in line with supposedly "neutral" and pluralistic views, then why cannot Christians do the same? The supposed neutral "French" position does not even make sense in many instances as they are quite binary - you either allow children to tansition or you don't. You either have progress flag displayed during July in your school or you don't. You either allow or disallow crosses or prayers in public schools. In the end, there is no "neutral" position. If you have population of progressives in a city, then they will remove religious symbols from the school and replace them with their own things. What many people start to realize is that they can utilize their political power and implement their ideas in the same way as all these other ideologues do.
I've always balked at most Protestant notions of belief and conviction in the US. Their doctrinal and interpretive anarchy across tens of thousands of different sects perfectly exemplifies what's wrong with their thinking. Not too long ago this debate was pointed out to me by a relative that I found funny as fuck. Watching the Catholic (Gordon) and Dyer (Orthodox) bully the Protestant (some random dude) I couldn't help but laugh at, while he kept trying to insert himself in the discussion to remain relevant to the debate. And then later this debate by Gordon and Dyer again I could tell was largely unintelligible to most people. It took me a couple days to get through but I enjoyed it solely for the bloodsports.
Theologians like WLC think as far as separation between church and state go that Christianity should always and forever remain independent of the state and that the strength of our belief should stand on its own merits. I think he's wrong about this. Several states in the world if you go back in time were massively Christian save for the later influence and spread of Islam which came to president and dominate over a majority Christian culture and way of life. Turkey has always been one of my favorite examples of this. And Christianity historically (in addition to Islam) didn't largely become influential through Jesus' preachments in the NT. It spread through war, military and economic might; and force. For better or worse, I think any honest person has to admit the state has a relevant role to play in promoting religion, lest you end up getting dominated by the religion of those who think opposite to you. My historical/biological lineage is rooted with the Nordics in Scandinavia, although individually I'm a born and raised American. Maybe that’s why I’ve always intensely loved the cold weather, even before I could speak. I still have relatives over there who my extended family maintains ties with and when I see what's been going on with Muslim migration, I can feel my adrenaline pumping. I've got a few grenades of my own I'd like to let off if harm comes to their doorstep. You're living in our home. The men need to put their Viking helmets back on and reintroduce the Blood Eagle to a few people.
In the Catholic corner as a counterpart to what's going on in Dearborn, St. Mary's in Kansas has become something of the Mecca for traditional Catholics (SSPX), in an interesting way almost similar to what the Jews also have with places like Kiryas Joel. Novus Ordo Catholics are continuing to decline as one should expect, but the traditional corners of our faith are booming with huge families that I hope in the future will come to dominate and overturn the crisis of what's been happening in the church. A restoration of a real commitment to Mere Christianity in the US would be a wonderful thing to have as it would rebuild communities and bring people together. I continue to hope and pray for better days in the future ahead.
I think that there is a huge equivocation when it comes to what the separation of church and state actually means. In my notion the separation means, that the state is sovereign in a sense that all the power comes from voters through legislature, executive and judiciary. In other words it is not possible for a Pope in Vatican to create some order which will be automatically valid law for people in such a sovereign state. But it is absolutely possible for such an order to be brought through standard political process and pass as a binding law.
What secularists and progressives achieved, is that they expanded this definition of separation over to untenable proposal, that no religious ideas can be part of the state. They somehow convinced Christians that their ideas have no place in political process and that they cannot influence the laws. This is obvious stupidity, as first it is impossible to judge. E.g. if a state adopts laws against murder because all the MPs are Christians and murder goes against sixth commandment - does it mean it is now somehow religion inside a state? Is it possible to pass such a law only if one has "neutral" stance such as adopting utilitarian moral reasoning for passing such a law? It does not make sense and it is incredible that supposed Christians like French are just going with this explanation as a reason why to just lie down and let everybody else - be it communists, progressives and atheists or even Muslims - to use political power to entrench their own version of non-Christian ethics and ideas into state structures. To me it seems insane.
Right. I agree with you here. I'd argue for religious requirements for political participation, much in the same way you can't be a member of the Communist Party in China without being an avowed atheist. There's actually not much disagreement I have with either the politics or theology of the twin paradigm that ruled the European continent back when it was the church/monarchy power duopoly that ran the show. The only real problem with it that I see is that it came at a bad point in history. You take a look at high tech feudal societies today like Saudi Arabia that are religiously very cohesive and absent the consanguinity in the population, what's your problem? Not that there aren't any of course but they're problems I'd gladly trade for the ones we have in the west. Or take an elective monarchy like Malaysia. Much the same thing can be said for a lot of the ways they benefit from their style of governance. Church and monarchy is better than democracy and capitalism IMO. (Come at me bros, I'm feeling bold today). You could perhaps argue industrialization wouldn't have happened under the former, but I see no reason to think that.
It is as you say the secularists have definitely succeeded in muddying the waters that don't even blur but rather draw up a distinction that religion has no place in politics. Laws against murder specifically can be morally justified without recourse to divine commandments. You can justify them by natural law. You can justify them by moral sentiment. You can justify them by social consensus. You can justify them almost any way you want to. I suppose if you tried to anchor that law through religious justification that's where you'd piss off the non-religious segment of the population. Then again our mere existence is enough to piss them off in the first place. I'm all for disregarding their opinion. If they want to argue in basis of facts and evidence then let us come to the table. Until then, "butthurt," is not a defense. I'm passing legislation whether they like it or not. They have no problem requiring me to tolerate degenerate influences, they in turn can tolerate the 'horror' of Christian hospitality and charity and the Stalinist demand that they observe common decency in the community.
The only "religious requirement" should be "the voters won't vote for you if they don't like your religion (or lack thereof)" and even that can be a big problem.
And anything you hope to accomplish by this requirement could be worked around by sufficiently dishonest politicians simply by choosing a Unitarian Universalist or some other mostly secular, politically liberal, religion.
This is happening all the time anyway. People vote for their identities not the abstract contents of the legislative policies of their representatives.
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