I have never thought it likely that we could retain the blessings of our civilisation without the foundation on which they were built. But, after discussing it with Douglas Murray a few years back, I think it is well past time to be more explicit about it. Thirteen years ago, in Maclean's, I wrote a fulsome column on Ayaan Hirsi Ali that nevertheless noted "I have an unbounded admiration for her personally, but a not insignificant difference philosophically, of which more momentarily..." This was the momentarily:
Which brings me to my big philosophical difference with Ms. Hirsi Ali: in 2006, she was one of a dozen intellectuals to publish a manifesto against radical Islam and in defence of 'secular values for all.' Often in her speeches, she'll do a heartwarming pitch to all of us—'black, white, gay, straight'—to stand firm for secular humanism.
My problem with this is that, in Europe and elsewhere, liberal secularism is not the solution to the problem but the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated. The post-Christian, post-modern multicultural society is too vapid to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. So they look elsewhere. The Times of London recently interviewed a few of Britain's many female converts to Islam, such as Catherine Huntley, 21, of Bournemouth ('I've always been quite a spiritual person') and Sukina Douglas, 28, of London ('Islam didn't oppress women; people did').
Well, while Mohammed recruited Ms Huntley and Ms Douglas, the good Lord has now very belatedly gained Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Why I Am Now a ChristianI congratulate Miss Ali on her newfound faith. She writes:
We can't fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that 'God is dead! seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in 'the rules-based liberal international order'. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.Solipsistic hedonism - which is what "secular humanism" boils down to for many of its adherents - is never going to cut it against harder, cruder forces. So this short post-Christian liberal humanist moment is just that - an interlude. Ayaan is right: what has to be saved is Christendom - a word that none of the people who rule our world could utter with a straight face. And, as many viewers of the show referenced above pointed out, Douglas Murray's hope for his fellow unbelievers that a nostalgia for hymns and the language of the Book of Common Prayer and the beautiful old buildings will prove sufficient is unlikely to succeed. I love the ancient churches of medieval Continental villages, but on what basis, given their emptiness Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, can you object to their conversion into mosques?
As for progressive liberal atheism, here is what I wrote in National Review a year or so before that essay on Ayaan - that's to say, a decade and a half ago:
The Swiss minaret ban and the leaked climate e-mails are really the same story — or, more precisely, are symptoms of the same disease. In The Times of London, Oliver Kamm deplored the results of Switzerland's referendum, consigned it to the garbage can of right-wing populism, and for good measure dismissed my analysis of Euro-demographics ("This is nonsense," he pronounced magisterially). Instead, Mr. Kamm called for a "secularist and liberal defense of the principles of a pluralist society."
That's not the solution to the problem, but one of the causes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for liberalism and pluralism and whatnot. And, in the hands of a combative old bruiser like Christopher Hitchens, they're powerful weapons. But most people are not like Mr. Hitchens. And so in much of the post-Christian West "a pluralist society" has subsided into a vast gaping nullity too weak to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. In practice, the "secularist and liberal defense" is the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated.
It is only human to wish to belong to something larger than oneself, and thereby give one's life meaning. For most of history, this need was satisfied by tribe and then nation, and religion. But the Church is in steep decline in Europe, and the nation-state is all but wholly discredited as the font of racism, imperialism, and all the other ills. So some (not all) third-generation Britons of Pakistani descent look elsewhere for their identity, and find the new globalized Islam. And some (not all) thirtieth-generation Britons of old Anglo-Saxon stock also look elsewhere, and find global warming. "Think globally, act locally" works for environmentalism and jihad. Adherents of both causes are saving the planet from the same enemy — decadent capitalist infidels living empty consumerist lives. Both faiths claim their tenets are beyond discussion. Only another climate scientist can question the climate-science "consensus": You busboys and waitresses and accountants and software designers and astronomers and physicists and meteorologists are unqualified to enter the debate. Likewise, on Islam, for an unbeliever to express a view is "Islamophobic."
https://www.steynonline.com/13921/onward-christian-soldier!
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Why I am now a Christian (Read 554 times)
