In Defense of Christendom: Having ignored its inheritance, Europe wonders why (trc)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 25, 2015 (last year) | Bret Stephens

[Beautiful_Gracious_Skies]

... Europe wonders why its house is falling apart.

The death of Europe is in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable... Europe is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of ... migrants. Those desperate people are just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated civilization.

Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent.... 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.

What Europeans no longer believe in are the things from which their beliefs spring: Judaism and Christianity; liberalism and the Enlightenment; martial pride& capability; capitalism& wealth. Still less do they believe in fighting, sacrificing, paying or arguing for these things. Having ignored& undermined their foundations, they wonder why their house is coming apart.

What is Europe? It is Greece not-Persia; Rome not-Carthage; Christendom not-the-caliphate. These distinctions are fundamental. To say that Europe is a civilization apart is not to say it is better or worse. It is merely to say: This is us and that is you. Nor is it to say that Europe ought to be a closed civilization. [snip]

It also compounds the danger. Could Europe’s liberal political traditions, its religious and cultural heritage, long survive a massive influx of Muslim immigrants,... ? No.... Not when you have immigrant groups that resist assimilation and host countries that make only tentative civic demands.[snip]

It says something about the politics of our day that this column will be condemned as beyond the moral pale.... This is the marriage of reason and revelation that produced a civilization of technological mastery tempered by human decency....[snip]

[Beautiful_Gracious_Skies]

At the very end of the article, a quote from Benedict XVI (Ratzinger):

“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.”

[Paladin2]

That even Scandinavia has embraced Islam is the death-knell.

Apparently all of the Vikings moved to the USA or Russia over a couple (or more) of Centuries.

[NobleFree]

it stands for shallow things, shallowly.

Very nicely put!

[I want the USA back]

The Europeans have voted for socialists who promise to give them other peoples’ money. As part of the bargain, the socialists have sold them out to the muzzies who are breeding rapidly.

[karnage]

America has been on the same road to perdition.

It will take more than Trump! to end the slide.

[Flavious_Maximus]

How much longer will the mus-limbs allow the Scandinavian countries to fly it’s national flags? Those flags that dare display a cross?

Will the Swedes, Danes, Fins and Norwegians bow to the moon god in order to placate the savages?

[Savage Beast]

If it were not so horrifying, Europe's suicide would be downright comical. It is certainly an epic farce.

The absurdity of it is so obvious and so astonishing as to leave one speechless and gasping for something to utter.

Evidently Europe's finally going to succeed; its suicide appears imminent. After all the wars, famines, plagues, pograms, et al. failed, en fin, it was Europe's rejection of Christ and embrace of atheism--the ultimate hubris--that dealt the coup de grâce.

[IronJack]

Europe doesn’t believe in any of those things. It pays them lip service but if it means actually thinking about them or the consequences, they just shrug and light up a Gauloise.

[Sergio]

bkmk

[SaveFerris]

[ The death of Europe is in sight. ]

From the ashes will come the Antichrist (at some point; don’t know exactly when, of course). Europe is on a strange course, what with all the islamic invasion from the Middle East. Thank Obama, Europe. It was Hillary and Obama bombing Libya, and then Obama in Syria that put most of this in motion.

There was The Kaiser, then Adolph Hitler....then....

Now, Angela Merkel is stirring the pot in Germany...

(in before the Kaiser Roll jokes)

[SaveFerris]

[America has been on the same road to perdition.]

Personified in 8 years of Barack Hussein Obama. He has done more to pervert America in 8 years than I would have ever believed possible.

[Paladin2]

It’s totally sad. Good thing my ancestors got the heck out ~150 years ago

[nathanbedford]

In discussions with my German neighbors, while noting their utter obtuseness concerning the danger presented by Muslim infiltration, I had always concluded that, at least with the middle class people with whom I talk, the standard explanation of guilt from the Hitler time was explanation enough. Perhaps there is another explanation, at least for another portion of Germany's demographic.

If we shift our attention to the elites in America, we have a long concluded from our intimate observation of them that they are actively anti-Christian. They go out of their way to offend and to frustrate every public expression of faith. They seek to undermine the church, the family as endorsed by the church, the Christian education of the youth, the sexual tenants of the Christian religion etc. From all of this evidence we conclude that there is a real animus against Christianity. I believe it is part of a Frankfurt School/Saul ALinsky strategy to destroy capitalism and democracy to make the way free for their version of socialist nirvana.

I do not see why we should assume there is any difference with the elites here in Germany or in the rest of Europe. They are all socialists, they see Christianity as well as liberal democracy to be impediments to socialist progress, why should we not believe that they welcome Muslims precisely because Muslims have demonstrated for a millennia and a half their unremitting jihad against Christianity?

The elites, whether in America or in Europe, are not stupid about immigration and the dangers of diversity. They believe they have enlisted agents to do their dirty work. No, they are not stupid, they are really malevolent.

[pluvmantelo]

Just a reminder that Mr. Stephens, prior to the election, said that it was important for Donald Trump to lose the general election so utterly that the Republican party and its voters “learn their lesson” and never nominate someone like him ever again.

[DiogenesLamp]

Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent.... 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.

For years I have argued with Atheists telling them that they have been of Christian inertia in their societies, but that it would eventually devolve into secularism, and then they would get to find out why that Christianity stuff was so important in the first place.

No, you can't have a functional society without Christianity, or something like it. Eventually it will degrade without the source of morality being replenished in the young every generation.

[DiogenesLamp]

Personified in 8 years of Barack Hussein Obama. He has done more to pervert America in 8 years than I would have ever believed possible.

That "community organizer" imbecile didn't do a D@mn thing. It was the media that did it to us. They have made sickness normal and tolerable by their constant streams of propaganda disguised as "news" and "entertainment."

Odumba is merely a product of their influence. On his own he is a big nothing.

[DiogenesLamp]

Just a reminder that Mr. Stephens, prior to the election, said that it was important for Donald Trump to lose the general election so utterly that the Republican party and its voters “learn their lesson” and never nominate someone like him ever again.

That is not the lesson I would have learned. The lesson that I would have learned is that this entire nation of Sodom needs to be drenched in fire.

These Liberal elites do not grasp the nature of the beast they are taunting. We are not Europe. We grew up with a different mindset than those poor saps who are rooted in Monarchy and Aristocracy.

[Pining_4_TX]

So why is the US obsessed with NATO and Russia when Europe is committing suicide by Islam? If they won’t fight for themselves, why should we lift a finger to defend them?

[Beautiful_Gracious_Skies]

Too bad Stephens had to make that declaration.

This article came out pretty well. We’ll have to see what he’s writing about now.

[Beautiful_Gracious_Skies]

This is because man, of his own nature, is inherently sinful. He’s Baaad!

Man is ruled by greed and selfish desires, not the betterment of society as a whole. And absolute power corrupts. Morality holds the fabric together. Our nation and its governance devolves with the rejection of Judeo-Christian principles.