This Pope is Different...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA10Ak01.html
It isn't pagan nationalism to call us "the last, best hope of earth", Leithart not withstanding. God, of course, is our final refuge, as well as our initial, and in between. However, I do not agree with F. Neuhaus that America is Babylon http://www.firstthings.com/menus/ft0512.html. We have that potential, of course, as any nation does, but so far, America has always thought well with its heart, though not so well with its head. In this sense, we are the opposite of Europe. America (and those under her aegis) are the only places on earth where the idea of God defending the weak, the stranger, the poor, the immigrant, the countrified, the city slum-dwellers has taken strong hold. God has chosen the poor and despised of the earth to confound the mighty. America is more than just haunted by that idea. It remains deeply embedded in her thoughts. It is, as they would say, self-evident here. Popularism, the politics of freed plebes, continues to basically determine policy. (Warning - this following website by Oriana Fallaci contains some language, if memory serves, but it sums up well how even a secularist might react to Islam - she said she thinks and reflects better in a cathedral, even though she doesn't believe in God) http://italian.about.com/library/fallaci/blfallaci09.htm Karl Rove is right - conservatism is the dominant political philosophy of the country, and that is because Christendom is on the retreat in Europe and Christianity in America. And so we conserve, as well we should. The Christian is always conserving and yet always experimenting. If the Mandarins of Europe can't keep the Oikumene from collapsing, it's up to the Christians. Just as the milites Christi filled up the Roman legions in the late period of the Empire, so do Christians fill up the armies and airforce and navy of America, as well as providing the cultural leadership that the liberals have lacked. We are the only "creative minority" left in this country.
It isn't pagan nationalism to call us "the last, best hope of earth", Leithart not withstanding. God, of course, is our final refuge, as well as our initial, and in between. However, I do not agree with F. Neuhaus that America is Babylon http://www.firstthings.com/menus/ft0512.html. We have that potential, of course, as any nation does, but so far, America has always thought well with its heart, though not so well with its head. In this sense, we are the opposite of Europe. America (and those under her aegis) are the only places on earth where the idea of God defending the weak, the stranger, the poor, the immigrant, the countrified, the city slum-dwellers has taken strong hold. God has chosen the poor and despised of the earth to confound the mighty. America is more than just haunted by that idea. It remains deeply embedded in her thoughts. It is, as they would say, self-evident here. Popularism, the politics of freed plebes, continues to basically determine policy. (Warning - this following website by Oriana Fallaci contains some language, if memory serves, but it sums up well how even a secularist might react to Islam - she said she thinks and reflects better in a cathedral, even though she doesn't believe in God) http://italian.about.com/library/fallaci/blfallaci09.htm Karl Rove is right - conservatism is the dominant political philosophy of the country, and that is because Christendom is on the retreat in Europe and Christianity in America. And so we conserve, as well we should. The Christian is always conserving and yet always experimenting. If the Mandarins of Europe can't keep the Oikumene from collapsing, it's up to the Christians. Just as the milites Christi filled up the Roman legions in the late period of the Empire, so do Christians fill up the armies and airforce and navy of America, as well as providing the cultural leadership that the liberals have lacked. We are the only "creative minority" left in this country.
posted by Matthew C Smallwood | 6:08 PM
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