While conscience continues to be formed by the Judaeo-Christian moral tradition, it is being undermined by several forces. Peter highlights the corrosive effects of the two world wars and the disillusion that they have brought. But he is also conscious of the deliberate way in which Marxists and neo-Marxists have sought to undermine “bourgeois morality” as preparation for the revolution. Whatever advanced its arrival was good. Today’s radical secularists may have lost the thirst for revolution but the social agenda of neo-Marxism has become an end in itself. There remain strong connections, however, between the New Atheism and the Old: restricting the freedom of speech in promoting a politically-correct utopia; interfering with the right of free association; extending the role of the State; and schemes to “protect” children from the religious influence of their parents are some of the areas which are seen by Peter as points of attachment to the old way of doing things.
The New Atheists confuse fundamental human rights with the right to instant self-gratification and self-indulgence, which not only weaken society from the inside but also render it less able to counter any threats to it from outside.
He gives is a good account of the substitutes for true religion, such as the post-war cult of Winston Churchill, or national or local observances, such as Remembrance Day ceremonies. There is a great deal of criticism of a kind of hyper-patriotism founded on a false religiosity. But what is the basis for a critical but real patriotism? Must it not be in the defence of a shared story that is not so much about race or place as about the transformed understanding of persons and of society brought by the story of the Bible? Hitchens says of the terrorists that they “know how to die” because they have a shared story, even if it is a false one. Can our soldiers make sense of their situation in the context of a shared story? If their sacrifices are to mean anything, we must provide such a story that is worth defending and even dying for.
Before commenting on the content of Bishop Nazir-Ali’s article (and, rushing to order Hitchen’s book) I have to take note of the contrast between Bishop Michael’s clarity and the incomprehensible Episco-babble that comes out of the PB and so many US bishops. Just the quality of writing alone sets him very far above his PECUSA brethren.
WRT the content of the review, it certainly succeeds in generating a hunger to read the book, but also summarizes very nicely the connections between atheisms of many kinds and progressivism/Marxism/socialism–call it what you will.
I will have to read the book to understand the issue more fully, but I did wonder exactly what was being said in regard to Remembrance Day ceremonies being a substitute for “true religion.” My wife and I attended last year’s Remembrance Day observance in the courtyard of Bath Cathedral. My sense of that event was that, although it was conducted in the traditions of the Church of England as well as established forms of British patriotism, it clearly furthered the kind of non-sectarian “civic religion” that does tell a shared story “worth defending and even dying for.”
Another puzzling comment is the description of the “post-war cult of Winston Churchill.” If memory serves, he was voted out of office even before VJ day by a coalition of progressives and Labourites who, at the least, were influenced by Soviet Marxism. In one of Hitchen’s previous books, he draws a sharp contrast between Churchill’s funeral and that of Princess Diana, making the point that the former PM’s ceremony was an example of the civic religion (although he does not use that term) of the UK in 1965 while the circus around Diana’s in 1997 showed that a religion of celebrity had taken its place.
Final comment from an old soldier: Until the Second Coming, the survival of any society will still depend on producing young men and women who are willing to risk dying for it. Unless that society is first willing to conceive and bear them (and not murder them in their mothers’ wombs), to nurture them in body, mind and spirit, and always to show them the worth and virtues of their own culture; that society has little future. I ask myself often if the culture some refer to as the “post-Christendom West” is worth dying for. In my time, I believed that it was and acted on that belief, but I wonder if the next generation would agree.
Yes, Jim, Bishop Nazir-Ali’s thinking and article are a refreshing contrast indeed to the incoherent (often deliberately obfuscating) babble coming out of the spin factories in places like TEC headquarters in Manhattan, or the ACO offices in London (or various diocesan offices and seminaries). The same applies to the marvelous letter by Uganda’s eloquent ++Henry Orombi that is featured in a thread above.
Ironic, isn’t it? It’s strange that men like Michael Nazir-Ali and Henry Oromb who aren’t native English speakers can write with more clarity and power than so many Anglos whose muddied and muddled language reflects their equally confused minds, mixed up hearts, and conflicted wills. No vague, uncertain bugle calls here (1 Cor. 14:8).
I’m glad that the Pakistani-born bishop took early retirement from Rochester (UK), leaving him freer to speak and write on behalf of the wider Church, especially the persecuted Church worldwide. But this article sounds more like a return to his former role as head of the CMS, the evangelical Church Mission Society. As the saying goes, “[i]Once a missionary, always a missionary.” [/i]
David Handy+
Oops, sorry for the formatting error. That should be, “[i]Once a missionary, always a missionary.[/i]”
David Handy+