Hexapsalms wrote:Brendan--
From personal experience and observation, I do acknowledge the way "multi-culturalism" is practiced in this country does push white people and their culture out of the picture, especially in the education system and in the media. When I was helping the Afghan family, one of their children who needed my help with his school homework asked me why the books he had to use was so full of everyone else's history and culture except the European American. He was only 9 years old, only a few months in this country, but he understood political correctness when he saw it.
Interesting story. It is indeed odd that a foreign child notices this, yet millions of native-born Americans would either deny it or say that multiculturalism is proper.
I am beginning to understand why this issue about the white people is important to you. It's true that over the last 50 years, Western civilization has been practicing a form of political and cultural self-multilation and flagellation over the sins of their ancestors, which I think needs to stop because it's doing more harm now than good. However, it was not good that the accomplishments of other races who had given their sweat and blood to build this country had been almost totally ignored in our history books. They are citizens too, and if they had been allowed to pursue the American dream without harassment, maybe there would not be some of the problems and vengeful hostilities towards this culture we see now.
First, it is true that other races contributed, but in the overall picture these accomplishments were non-essential. I realize some people will be offended by that, but I think its factually true. Yes, the Chinese immigrants, for example, helped build the western railways in the 1800s, but it would be incredible to think the railways wouldn't have been built without these immigrants. If the Chinese weren't available, they railroads would have had to pay a little more to attract white workers. After all, there were already thousands of Irish immigrants building the railroads at the same time. The use of Chinese labor was mostly an expedient used by big business to save some money.
As to this idea that minorities were constantly subjected to harrassment, I disagree with that. Not that it didn't happen in some places at some time, but I don't think it was a general practice in most places. In my area, for example, there never were segregated schools or segregated housing. And the black population was always small, maybe around 10%. There were blacks in my school and in all the years of attending public school I can't recall even one case of racial harrassment of blacks or overt discrimination. We went to the same schools and blacks were free to take advantage of education as much as whites. This was the case for generations. I have my grandfather's high school yearbooks and there were black highschool graduates even back in the 1920s. Also something that's never mentioned is many white people routinely helped the blacks. My wife's family used to give their black neighbors clothes and food and let them even borrow their truck.
The only real line that existed was that people were universally opposed to interracial marriage. I hardly would consider that to harrassment. Many blacks also opposed interracial marriage. One black told me his parents warned the kids that they "Didn't want no cream in the coffee."
For the record, I will say white folks are no worse sinners than anyone else in this world. Every race practiced some form of colonialism. Who began the practice of slavery? No one knows. Did whites sell other races into slavery? Yes, but slavery was practiced by nearly all races throughout the world in all the ages right down to the present day. But while slavery is still practiced in many parts of the world today and even on the increase, who is NOT practicing slavery now? White Europeans and Americans. WHY? Because of their superior breeding? Their superior technical culture? NO! It's because of CHRISTIANITY, which contrary to paganism, sees the victim as someone that God especially loves (as His Son was a victim), not as someone on whom the Fates have fallen, not as someone who deserved this destiny because of some inferiority. It took many centuries for European Christians, and later American Christians, to understand the depths of the Gospel in regard to the victim. Even then, a civil war had to be fought to end this practice. There were no wars over slavery in other non-Christian cultures (that I know of). Why? Because in those culture the victim remains a nobody.
I would generally agree with everything you just said. Unfortunately, none of that seems to gain whites any points with the blacks. Its too bad that the racial situation has degenerated into a zero sum game, one in which any concession by whites only seems to encourage more demands from blacks. For example, in Martin Luther King's day, the demand was only for equal rights. But that was quickly followed by demands for affirmative action and institutional policies that discriminate against whites. Now there's increasing clamour for reparation payments. There's no end in sight.
There is an excellent article to illustrate this by Philip Yancey in the 2/8/1999 issue of Christianity Today entitled "Why I can feel your pain" In it he says: "...the gospel set loose something new in history: (quoting Gil Baillie) 'the most astonishing reversal of values in human history. Today the victim occupies the moral high ground everywhere in the Western world.' Women, minorities, the disabled, environmental and human rights activists--al these draw their moral force from the power of the gospel unleashed at the Cross, when God took the side of the victim. In a great irony, the "politically correct" movement defending these rights often postions itself as an enemy of Christianity, when in fact the gospel has contributed the very underpinnings that make possible such a movement." So maybe what's going on that's tearing down the "white" culture isn't so much directed at the whites, but at the Christian culture that white people had identified themselves with for centuries.
In many instances its hard to distinguish whether the main target is white people, western civilization, or Christianity. Indeed the the enemies may deliberately change targets for tactical reasons depending on the situation. I think the way to view this situation is from the enemy's perspective: white, western and Christian are more or less synonymous, so as long as at least one of those are being attacked, their purpose is being served. I think we can agree, however, that Christianity will be under attack anytime the anti-Christ forces have the opportunity.
It's not altogether true, as you say, that white people are alienated from Christianity because it represents the now-hated "white western cultural nexus." How would you explain the first major revolt against Christianity that happened during the French Revolution of the 18th century? It was not simply an anti-Catholic movement, nor was it an anti-Western movement, but it was definitely a full-fledged anti-Christian, neo-pagan movement that continues today.
You are correct in that the French Revolution wasn't a attack on white people. I view the FR as basically a revolt of nihilism, sentimentalism, pathological liberalism, and emotionalism. It was a precusor to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Both cases were fundamentally anti-Christian as are all such movements.
The ancient European paganism never totally went away when Christianity spread throughout Europe, beginning its resurgence among philosophers and spiritual explorers in the Middle Ages. Something more insidious is at work here of which the current bashing of Western culture represents only one small part.
This is true and, as you mention, these people have been around a long time, but they were never able to gain power. So the question becomes what caused them to suddenly arise and gain so much influence? There are many explanations. Prof. MacDonald claims that what happened was a coalescence of these pre-existing forces with the radical Jews who came into America out of Russia and Europe in the early to middle 20th century. We had the early Bosheviks who left Russia and operated out of New York City in the pre-Bolshevik days and then the second influx that occurred with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s - the social marxists of the Frankfurt School being the most well-know of the latter.
The question ought to be asked is why Christianity, eastern or western, has had such a hard time standing up to resurging paganism and secularism. Why does it allow itself to become corrupted with false doctrines and practices? Why does it allow wolves among the sheep? A muslim asked me earlier this year why the Anglicans ordained a homosexual bishop. He wouldn't listen to my explanation that the Anglicans are liberals who are being sinful. He said: "I don't care, who is liberal or conservative. You are all Christians. I see no difference."
I have gotten into many debates with these pagan types, some heated. Their main problem with Christianity stems, I think, basically from the frustration that modern Christianity has been largely undermined and has become weak, effeminent, and lost its fighting spirit. The Christian churches, despite still having substantial memberships, seem unable to affect positive change. The pagans see themselves as something forceful and uncompromising and possessing the warrior spirit that is needed to set things right. They want to sweep away everything that is weak, corrupt, and effeminent. In their minds, the main source of our problems is that Christianity has weakened the society.
Of course, these pagans are under satanic influence and many are more nihilistic than idealistic, but I hate to admit that the churches have certainly fueled the growth of paganism by their toleration of corruption. With every financial scandal or exposure of a pedophile priest, the pagans say "See, its all rotten."
That aside--I agree with you that Orthdoxy may offer Westerners a chance to taste authentic Christianity. I can see why Protestants can get hung up on Tradition, especially when they don't have a clear idea of what the Body of Christ (the Church) means. Their approach to Christianity is entirely personal and psychological, the very mind-set that would pull apart the idea of the Church as one body.
Yes, this individualistic mindset in Protestantism is something that can be hard to deal with. I think at some level it gets down to a lack of trust in Christian institutions. These people say they will adhere to what they think the Bible says and not what any church tells them. They don't trust institutional churches.
It also a fact that many Protestants are well-read in the Scriptures and in comparison, many Orthodox people aren't. That is a difficulty that should be dealt with if we hope to have significant success with them. If that problem can be overcome, I really think its possible to gain many converts. In this era of confusion, people are looking for the kind of stability Orthodoxy represents. Not just represents, but actually is. But getting people to open their mind initially is the main obstacle, IMHO.