Christianity and Culture and War

Continuing to track down sources of recent reads, this week I acquired a copy of  T. S. Eliot's Christianity and Culture (1948). The collection of lectures and essays is referenced in Pat Buchanan's The Decline of the West (2000) (see previous post), also Robert Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996).

Eliot's abiding concern here is to make Christianity central to Western nations during the modernist era. He does not intend any "social justice" agenda. He does not advocate a faith that would conform to conditions created by modernization -- technology, political liberalism, and "the mob." This last phrase (Eliot's word choice) is similar to what Ortega y Gasset scrutinized in The Revolt of the Masses (1930). Eliot affirms, rather, a particular and enduring power for Christianity. Yet it's not a preacher's sermon, elaborating on scripture. Nor is it the feminist critique of pacifism that is Virgnia Woolf's Three Guineas (1938), nor the decadent road recits, of Greece and America (respectively), that are Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945). 

The first half of the book, "The Idea of Christianity," was originally a series of lectures he delivered in early 1939. They conclude with remarks referencing the Czechoslovakia crisis Hitler had provoked the previous year, the one "resolved" by the now infamous Munich Agreement and Chamberlain's fallacious declaration of "Peace in our time."
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The term "democracy," as I have said again and again, does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike -- it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.

I believe that there must be many persons, like myself, who were deeply shaken by the events of September 1938, in a way from which one does not recover; persons to whom that month brought a profounder realisation of a general plight. It was not a disturbance of the understanding: the events themselves were not surprising. Nor, as became increasingly evident, was our distress due merely to disagreement with policy and behaviour of the moment. The feeling which was new and unexpected was a feeling of humiliation, which seemed to demand an act of personal contrition, of humility, repentance, and amendment; what had happened was something in which one was deeply implicated and responsible. It was not, I repeat, a criticism of the government, but a doubt of the validity of a civilisation. We could not match conviction with conviction, we had no ideas with which we could either meet or oppose the ideas opposed to us. Was our society, which had always been so assured of its superiority and rectitude, so confident of its unexamined premises, assembled round anything more permanent than a congeries of banks, insurance companies and industries, and had it any beliefs more essential than a belief in compound interest and the maintenance of dividends? Such thoughts as these formed the starting point, and must remain the excuse, for saying what I have to say.
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Note well, from Eliot's postscript to this (dated September 6, 1939):
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[T]he possibility of war, which has now been realised, was always present to my mind.

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Comments

[Faultline USA]

Yes. Eliot’s concern is as true and foreboding today as in 1939. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

[Layla]

Your observation is on the mark. That fact that little has changed is quite interesting when you realize that it may be a different time, but inherently the heart of man remains the same.

[Debbie]

Have you read the book "Culturism"? It's very interesting, going back to the beginning of the US and the foundations of what makes up American Culture, why we should defend it, why those who move here should embrace it, and the problems that come with expecting others to accept our culture (which means we must accept their culture, even if we don't agree with it). Very interesting.

Thank you for the kind words and prayers for my hubby after his heart attack. We appreciate every kind word.

[JMK]

Thanks. May you find much patience and perseverance and grace in getting through this ordeal.

[JMK444]

In the quote, "The term "democracy," as I have said again and again, does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike -- it can easily be transformed by them," the word "DEMOCRACY" could easily be replaced with "CHRISTIANITY" and that would also be very true.

Hitler sought to transform Christianity, or at least incorporate some of its vestiges into his occult paganism (Thule Gestalt), while Stalin sought to eradicate all religions in favor of a singular, equally "faith-based" belief system - atheism.

Today, various strains of "Liberation Theology," which makes Christ out to be some kind of "Commune Communist," is the greatest threat to both Western culture and Christianity itself.

[Gabe]

*Today, various strains of "Liberation Theology," which makes Christ out to be some kind of "Commune Communist," is the greatest threat to both Western culture and Christianity itself.*

As a Catholic, I totally agree with your assessment. Liberation theology is another version of godless communism, while hijacking all the terminology of Catholicism and Protestantism and redefining them in Marxist terms. Islam is the other huge threat. One more threat is the homosexual agenda, which weakens our societal fabric, thus making us prey to Marxism and Islam.