- Take it up with Richard Weaver and with history.
What part of My kingdom is not of this world do you not understand?
I asked you what alternative may be suggested --- what did you give me but more of the "look at those guys" they are all to blame for everything sort of garbage.
No, I will not be sent on a wild goose chase to "take it up with Richard Weaver", (particularly when there is no link provided) but I do reserve all right towards opportunity to "take it up with history", even Ecclesiastical History as I point towards certain aspects of History myself, while taking those matters also up with you. You are the one presenting the argument with which I am objecting. If you can't back up your own declaratory statements but with the opinions of others and some Romanist-centric view towards history, then why even come on this particular forum to discuss those sort of things, at all? Get thee back to some papist hole somewhere, if by way of tying in the Reformation to Marxism, and now to "cultural relativism" by default one is also including the Constitution of The United States as being part of this demonized political equality (one man, one vote, each is allowed opportunity to be heard, just state your case).
Just what is that you are implying as "cure", anyway? Is it a return to caesaropapism, or the seemingly more preferred Papocaesarism?
"What was the Enlightenment except an exploitation of the disorder sowed by the Protestant Revolution? What was that religious revolution except a misdirected reaction to corruption in the medieval papacy? What was that papal corruption except a pernicious consequence of Papo-caesarism? What was that unbalanced ecclesiology but a short-sighted way to protect the Church against invasion by civil rulers? What was that regal invasion but . . . and so on and on and on—all the way back to Adam’s choice to believe what was nothing less than Satan’s Lie?" ~Dr. Ed Peters
Many "Protestants" (actual protestants -- if we are to adhere to the information provided by Alex Murphy as to definitions and explanation for what those person's beliefs in actuality are -- rather than some loosely implied straw-man re-creation of that) and Orthodox also, have throughout history pointed towards the flaws and inherent drawbacks of caesaropapist/papocaesarist systems. Those are not all that it's cracked up to be, as history itself (which you dare mention) plainly enough shows.
But now, for Christians looking towards Christ for salvation, perhaps the worst aspects of it may be abandoned, and true Christianity in form which both the Protestants and the Orthodox would recognize -- meaning -- the sort which converts one from the inside out, rather than forced attempts at maintaining an outwards scrubbing, as the plan for the conversion and setting apart from the world, and keeping holy, entire nations, can better commence, even under some possible period of renewed martyrdom. Did Christ promise us anything less?
Passional Christi und Antichristi, by
the Lutheran Lucas Cranach the Elder. This
woodcut of the traditional practice, that had
developed over time, of kissing the Pope's foot
is from Passionary of the Christ and Antichrist.
The two fingers the Pope is holding up is the
traditional sign of blessing given in the
Catholic Church.
where the papacy is as king, thus seen as something of anti-Christ regardless or despite of the apparent "two-fingered blessing" offered. Elsewhere (Russia), there was never any real kissing of "papal" feet, though that two-fingered blessing would be "orthodox" enough for some centuries, but could help cause one to be slaughtered or burned at the stake by Caeseropapists.
History is not the true friend of Papists, my FRomish FRiend...
You (and Richard Weaver) wish to pin the blame of Marxism itself partially on "Protestants", putting those sort of things together as one inevitable progression or train of thought, when on the contrary, not only is the evidence of the U.S. Constitution standing in defiance of that which you seem to imply when pointing towards Weaver's suppositions, there are those whom were close indeed to Marxist communism when it first asserted itself as "system", who can trace the development of communism back to the claims of "universal religious authority" having sought also for itself secularized, temporal rule.
Excerpted from;
"... Hardly can it be presupposed and even less can it be desired, that anew there should be a return to a realising of the work of Christ in the world, of the Kingdom of God, by the forceful methods of the kingdom of Caesar. This jumble and confusion would already be impossible in the coming period of Christianity. And if there should be a coercive confessional state, then this would be a socialist or communist state, based on a contrary atheistic religion, a state which would persecute Christians and the Church of Christ. In Russian Communism is given a prime example of such a Satan-ocratic state. The Church of Christ in this world always was and will be oppressed, -- either by a false protection, converting it into tools of the state, to Caesar's ends, or by persecution. The third period of Christian history brings with it a final freeing of Christianity from the temptations of a pagan Roman imperialism, from utopian visionary dreams about the universal might of tsar or pope, i.e. from the idea of a coercive and quantitative universalism. The Christian world is being freed from those pagan and anti-Christian temptations, is being cleansed, is being rendered more spiritual and deeply profound. The pretensions to a coercive quantitative universalism ultimately has passed over to Communism, to the godless kingdom of Caesar. Communism shows itself by force to be a compulsory theocracy, it exists as an utopia. The Christian world, however, strives ultimately towards the Kingdom of God, which is not of this world and which comes imperceptibly. But that, which is "not of this world", can be manifest in this world and it ought to be manifest. The new epoch within Christianity signifies a passing over from the symbolic significations of the truth of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ within the kingdom of Caesar, a passing over instead towards a real transfiguration, towards a real realisation of the truth of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ, without pretension to an outward state. The old "Christian state" did not try even to realise Christianity within social life. Having been set free from the pagan temptations, from the regarding of Caesar's principles as divine, it will enable the reapproachement of the Eastern and Western Christian world. Their divisions were primarily temptations of the kingdom of Caesar. In the Kingdom of Christ, in the Kingdom of God, there cannot be divisions. The divisions occurred within the kingdom of Caesar, and were construed as sacred, as being of the Kingdom of God. We ought to recognise, that there transpires not only an outward, a political, social revolution, but that there transpires also an inward and spiritual upheaval, opening up a new period for Christianity. The mixed-up kingdom, in which " the things of God" and "the things of Caesar" were not sufficiently separated wherein one substituted for the other, has ended. The Christian state also was a jumbled half-Christian state. An half-fast Christianity is already an impossibility. A time of choosing has begun. Christianity can be only a qualitatively inward, spiritual power in the world, and not a quantitative, outwardly coercive power. Christianity can but be really a power realising the truth of Christ. The new wine is being brought forth in the Christian world and it is impossible to pour it into the old wine-skins. ..."Nikolai Berdyaev, 1925 [emphasis added]
