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Ashamed Of The Faith

Donal Graeme
June 11, 2014

Escoffier, who sometimes posts at Veritas Lounge, left a superb comment recently over at Dalrock’s blog, in the post Worse than fear. Worse than malice. His comment can be found here. The comment, like the original post,  addressed why so many Christians, especially Christian men, are willing and eager to set aside scripture when it comes to matters such as marriage. I am going to repeat his whole comment as a block, both because it is that good, and for ease of reading; my comments will come afterwards:

I want to add a supplementary / alternative reason to explain this embarrassment over the text of the Bible. Itâs been touched on but not really fleshed out.

That is, that these nominal Christians under discussion are all moderns first and Christians second (if second). Worse, they donât even know they are moderns, or what it means to be a modern, or what modernity is.

Modernity, to say the least, conflicts with the Bible. It was designed to, on purpose. Yet it has been so successful in taking over nearly all conscious and sub-conscious thought that hardly anyone any more recognizes it for what it is. That includes most contemporary Christians, to whom âmodernityâ is simply synonymous with ârealityâ or even âmorality.â

Thereâs a particular strand of modernity thatâs particularly relevant here, namely historicism, and specifically rational historicism (as opposed to radical or irrational historicism). This is the idea of âprogress.â âProgressâ is cooked into the original conception of modernity, but it came to take on a different meaning much later. Originally, it more or less just meant âWe can improve the material condition of man on earth; human beings have a lot more power than either the Bible or classical philosophy will admit.â

Rational historicism takes this idea much further and posits a unidirectional progress, which is worked out through impersonal forces (the so-called historical dialectic) over which man may be an unwitting instrument, but which he didnât design, doesnât direct, and canât control. âHistoryâ is nonetheless rational, moving âforwardâ (with occasional, necessary steps back) to ever-âbetterâ states and eventually to an end state in which all dialectical conflicts are resolved, all moral and political problems solved, and final wisdom achieved (if not necessarily accessible to all). In pop-culture terms, the Star Trek universe is basically the cartoon version of this end state.

Nearly everyone today believes in this âarcâ at least in a simplified way. The present is believed to be inherently more enlightened that the past. We Donât Do That Anymore Because We Know Better. And the future will be inevitably more enlightened than the present.

The source of this impression is ultimately perverted or corrupted or mistaken philosophy, but one does not need to have studied philosophy at all to have been affected, even âconvinced.â The astounding success of modern natural science and its offspring, technology, serves to âproveâ to such people that âprogressâ is real and that the present is superior to the past. Technological progress is assumed to be coeval with moral and political progress.

But it is never explained why this should be so. Actually, certain modern philosophers did try to make such a case, but they hardly proved it and their case is open to serious theoretical difficulties which have been pointed out by other philosophers. However, that whole dialogue may as well never have happened as far as the average modern person is concerned. He is simply unaware of it and takes on faith that the present is morally superior to the past.

This, then, is a significant source of the embarrassment. The modern Christian (modern first, Christian second) is embarrassed by the evident conflicts between his nominal faith and his actual, if unconscious, modernity. Modernity trumps. So the offending Scriptures have to be dealt with one way or another. There are many possible ways: insist that it doesnât say what it seems to say, come up with Rube Goldberg interpretations to square it with modernity, call it âmetaphoric,â say that it was right for that time but not our time, and so on. The latter is a kind of âLiving Constitutionâ framework for the Bible. It assumes that God has left to us the task of âupdatingâ Scripture as the âtimes change.â The changing of the times is held to be the true constant, and really the true God, but only implicitly.

To begin with, Escoffier’s use of the word “moderns” can probably be translated quite accurately into “liberals”, in the sense of the word as I used it in my post The Sound of Inevitability. As for which word is better or more precise/accurate (they aren’t the same thing), I think that is a matter of semantics. Both can work, although for the remainder of this post I will use moderns and modernity instead [the same applies to liberalism and modernism as describing the same over-arching philosophy].

Escoffier is also on the mark when he states that most people “donât even know they are moderns, or what it means to be a modern, or what modernity is.” Most people adhere to all sorts of philosophical beliefs without realizing it; they lack both the knowledge to categorize their beliefs as well as the introspection to observer them. This double barrier makes it especially difficult to explain to people their own beliefs, as even if you correct their ignorance they might still not get it. All of which means that for most people understanding what they actually believe is probably not feasible.

Escoffier is also correct that most people in the West are moderns first, and Christians second (assuming that they are Christians). There are a number of reasons for this:

  • Training (or indoctrinating) of someone to be a modern begins at a very young age, often before matters of faith
  • Everyone is immersed all the times in modern thinking and modes of thought, whereas overtly Christian approaches are much more rare
  • Modern thinking has already infiltrated a significant amount of Christianity, and corrupted a number of critical fields of doctrine
  • Modernist thinking is baked into everyday assumptions of “how things work”, as well as our understanding of history and our present place in it

And the list goes on. Now, I’m not sure if modernity was in fact explicitly designed to subvert Christianity. Escoffier might be on the right track here, but whether he is or not determining whether this is the case would take up a post by itself. So I will leave it be for now.

“Historicism” is an interesting strain of thought. From my experience most people are just like Escoffier describes: subscribers without realizing what they are subscribing to or even that they are subscribing to something at all. It is the dominant paradigm of the present age, and as Escoffier notes, pretty much everyone buys into it. I think these two sentences are a perfect summation of what most people believe:

The present is believed to be inherently more enlightened that the past. We Donât Do That Anymore Because We Know Better.

Most people really do buy into the idea that we know better now, and it shapes their thoughts and beliefs when it comes to anything historical. And yes, that includes Scripture. And nowhere does this manifest more than when Scripture concerns women in some way:

  • Wives required to submit to their husbands? Barbaric.
  • Women not allowed to teach or hold authority over men? Outdated.
  • Women required to cover their head while praying? Oppressive.
  • Women advised to maintain a quiet, gentle spirit? Misogynistic.

As far as I can tell, pretty much every part of Scripture (or Tradition) that addresses women in some way is now interpreted through the modernist filter. And that means if it doesn’t agree with modern thinking and beliefs about women, it must be discarded.

This brings us to the final paragraph of Escoffier’s comment, which I will repeat again for ease of reading:

This, then, is a significant source of the embarrassment. The modern Christian (modern first, Christian second) is embarrassed by the evident conflicts between his nominal faith and his actual, if unconscious, modernity. Modernity trumps. So the offending Scriptures have to be dealt with one way or another. There are many possible ways: insist that it doesnât say what it seems to say, come up with Rube Goldberg interpretations to square it with modernity, call it âmetaphoric,â say that it was right for that time but not our time, and so on. The latter is a kind of âLiving Constitutionâ framework for the Bible. It assumes that God has left to us the task of âupdatingâ Scripture as the âtimes change.â The changing of the times is held to be the true constant, and really the true God, but only implicitly.

There are a couple of key points here. The first is that people are embarrassed by what Scripture says. And by people, I mean “Christians.” They really are ashamed of what the Bible has to say about things like marriage, divorce and “the role of women.” Those teachings are incompatible with modernist thought, and in fact scandalous nowadays. To be associated with them is to be a social pariah. As Escoffier points out, modernity trumps Christianity in terms of their values hierarchy. They have either forgotten, ignored or never learned the admonition of Saint Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world. No, they have conformed, and in many cases do so with gusto.

Yet, for reasons which only they know, they don’t want to give up all of Christianity. They still want to keep some of it- usually the happy, nice, fun parts like the resurrection and grace and forgiveness. But the hard parts, and the parts that conflict with modernity? Those must be “dealt with.”

Ultimately, I think Escoffier is correct when he says that “the changing of the times,” that is, the belief in “Progress”, is the real God of most “Christians”, not the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. They do not keep the Great Commandment and “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut 6:4-5). It is the world, and its empty philosophy, that they truly love.

Update: Novaseeker has created a post highlighting Escoffier’s comment, and Dalrock has created his own post as well.

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Post Information
Title Ashamed Of The Faith
Author Donal Graeme
Date June 11, 2014 7:00 PM UTC (9 years ago)
Blog Donal Graeme
Archive Link https://theredarchive.com/blog/Donal-Graeme/ashamed-of-thefaith.25294
https://theredarchive.com/blog/25294
Original Link https://donalgraeme.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/ashamed-of-the-faith/
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