• Home
  • About
  • Awards
  • Dialogue with a Muslim: links
    • 1st response
    • Second response
    • Final response
  • Saturday Jess

All Along the Watchtower

~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

All Along the Watchtower

Tag Archives: Decadence

A decadent civilization?

26 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by John Charmley in Abortion, Church/State, Faith, Islam, Politics

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Catholicism, Christian civilization, Christianity, controversy, Decadence, Faith, history

Yesterday something remarkable happened. Bosco, our resident evangelical anti-Catholic stopped repeating his script and wrote:

No problem. I believe you. The world is like it is, no matter what we call it. We can jabber about it, but we cant do much to change it. Now, Europe has a immigrant problem. This is a game changer. The Europe of the 40s and 50s and even 60s is gone. Now its a shooting gallery, a killing field.Instead of being grateful, these muslims are running down the very people who let them in. Europe is in chaos. Trump is trying to keep them out of here, and that means the good ones with the bad ones. the good ones have to suffer because of the bad ones. Could this be the beginnings of Jacobs troubles? The muslims are raging all around Israel, but are largely leaving Israel alone. That is going to change.This is when Gods fury comes up in his face. I want out of here.

The old, shall we say, random spelling, and the same old script were both gone, and suddenly we saw something of the man behind the persona. There was enough of the old apocalyptic Bosco to stop me asking “who are you, and what have you done with Bosco?” – but the tone and content was serious. As well it might have been.

The Roman Empire into which Christianity was born was a civilization of license for the elite, and it has much in common with our own, except that here that license is for the many and not the few. We fail to reproduce at anything like the level needed to replace ourselves, and whilst the NHS spends millions on abortions, it also spends millions on IVF treatment, often for older women who have reached the age when their fertility was not what it was twenty years before. We do not join this up and suggest that ‘unwanted’ babies should be born and then matched to families who would want them; instead we kill them in the name of a ‘woman’s right to choose’, and in Europe at least, apart from some Christians, no one bats an eye-lid. For all the talk about ‘British values’, it seems that our school inspectors insist that gender ideology is taught in schools – or else. even Catholic schools adopt ‘gender neutral’ uniforms, despite the Pope himself, on this issue, speaking against the liberal tide. Dissent will, it seems, not be allowed.

Within this decadence, there are immigrant communities, some now in the third generation, who do have families, and who do have firm values based on their religion. When Bosco says that Muslims are ‘running down’ our society, I would qualify that by saying that what they are criticising is our decadence; many Christians would agree with the moderate Muslim critique that we have become a decadent society. A society which has no confidence in its own future, so does not reproduce, and which seeks it own pleasure first, and so aborts when convenient. That’s not to deny the hard cases, but it is to say they are very far from being the majority.

One of my youthful heroes was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who received great acclaim in the West during the late Cold War period because of his status as a dissident against the Soviet system. He fell out of  favour in the late 1970s when, in 1978, he delivered a stinging cruitique of Western decadence in an address at Harvard:

Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevents independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life.

A prophetic set of comments indeed. As an Orthodox Christian, Solzhenitsyn did not need to wonder what ‘values’ he supported, they were those formed by Christianity.

Many years before, in his The Idea of a Christian Society (1939), as well as other works, T.S. Eliot argued that the humanist attempt to form a non-Christian, “rational” civilization was doomed. “The experiment will fail,” he wrote, “but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the world from suicide.” He did not want society to be ruled by the church, only by Christian principles, with Christians being “the conscious mind and the conscience of the nation.” We are now well into that experiment, and it has failed. Only Christianity can redeem the times.

 

 

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

AATW writers

  • audremyers
    • Internet
    • Context
  • cath.anon
    • What Brought You to Faith?
    • 2021: Year of Hope
  • John Charmley
    • The Epiphany
    • The Magi
  • No Man's Land
    • Crowns of Glory and Honor
    • Monkeys and Mud: Evolution, Origins, and Ancestors (Part II)
  • Geoffrey RS Sales
    • Material world
    • Christianity and religion
  • JessicaHoff
    • How unbelievable?
    • How not to disagree
  • Neo
    • Christmas Eve Almost Friends
    • None Dare Call it Apostasy
  • Nicholas
    • 25th January: The Conversion of Saint Paul
    • Friday Thoughts
  • orthodoxgirl99
    • Veiling, a disappearing reverence
  • Patrick E. Devens
    • Vatican II…Reforming Council or Large Mistake?
    • The Origins of the Authority of the Pope (Part 2)
  • RichardM
    • Battle Lines? Yes, but remember that the battle is already won
  • Rob
    • The Road to Emmaus
    • The Idolatry of Religion
  • Snoop's Scoop
    • In the fight that matters; all are called to be part of the Greatest Generation
    • Should we fear being complicit to sin
  • Struans
    • Being Catholic
    • Merry Christmas Everyone
  • theclassicalmusicianguy
    • The war on charismatics
    • The problem with Protestantism

Categories

Recent Posts

  • 25th January: The Conversion of Saint Paul Tuesday, 25 January 2022
  • The Epiphany Thursday, 6 January 2022
  • The Magi Wednesday, 5 January 2022
  • Christmas Eve Almost Friends Friday, 24 December 2021
  • The undiscovered ends? Sunday, 1 August 2021
  • Atque et vale Friday, 30 July 2021
  • None Dare Call it Apostasy Monday, 3 May 2021
  • The ‘Good thief’ and us Saturday, 3 April 2021
  • Good? Friday Friday, 2 April 2021
  • And so, to the Garden Thursday, 1 April 2021

Top Posts & Pages

  • Reflections on church history
  • In The Footsteps of St. Thomas
  • 2021: Year of Hope
  • There But for The Grace of God Go I
  • God and Love
  • Dagon fish hats revisited
  • Raising Lazarus: the view from the Church Fathers
  • 2 Thessalonians 2 (Part 1)
  • Advent Book. Week 3 Day 6. The moon in Llyen
  • The greatest commandment

Archives

Blogs I Follow

  • The Bell Society
  • ViaMedia.News
  • Sundry Times Too
  • grahart
  • John Ager's Home on the Web!
  • ... because God is love
  • sharedconversations
  • walkonthebeachblog
  • The Urban Monastery
  • His Light Material
  • The Authenticity of Grief
  • All Along the Watchtower
  • Classically Christian
  • Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!
  • On The Ruin Of Britain
  • The Beeton Ideal
  • KungFuPreacherMan
  • Revd Alice Watson
  • All Things Lawful And Honest
  • The Tory Socialist
  • Liturgical Poetry
  • Contemplation in the shadow of a carpark
  • Gavin Ashenden
  • Ahavaha
  • On This Rock Apologetics
  • sheisredeemedblog
  • Quodcumque - Serious Christianity
  • ignatius his conclave
  • Nick Cohen: Writing from London
  • Ratiocinativa
  • Grace sent Justice bound
  • Eccles is saved
  • Elizaphanian
  • News for Catholics
  • Annie
  • Dominus Mihi Adjutor
  • christeeleisonblog.wordpress.com/
  • Malcolm Guite
  • Bishop's Encyclopedia of Religion, Society and Philosophy
  • LIVING GOD
  • tiberjudy
  • maggi dawn
  • thoughtfullydetached
  • A Tribe Called Anglican
  • Living Eucharist
  • The Liturgical Theologian
  • Tales from the Valley
  • iconismus
  • Men Are Like Wine
  • Acts of the Apostasy

Blog Stats

  • 453,435 hits

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 8,577 other subscribers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

The Bell Society

Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester - Seeking Truth, Unity and Peace

ViaMedia.News

Rediscovering the Middle Ground

Sundry Times Too

a scrap book of words and pictures

grahart

reflections, links and stories.

John Ager's Home on the Web!

reflecting my eclectic (and sometimes erratic) life

... because God is love

wondering, learning, exploring

sharedconversations

Reflecting on sexuality and gender identity in the Church of England

walkonthebeachblog

The Urban Monastery

Work and Prayer

His Light Material

Reflections, comment, explorations on faith, life, church, minstry & meaning.

The Authenticity of Grief

Mental health & loss in the Church

All Along the Watchtower

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34

Classically Christian

ancient, medieval, byzantine, anglican

Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!

Stories From Norfolk and Beyond - Be They Past, Present, Fact, Fiction, Mythological, Legend or Folklore.

On The Ruin Of Britain

Miscellanies on Religion and Public life

The Beeton Ideal

Gender, Family and Religious History in the Modern Era

KungFuPreacherMan

Faith, life and kick-ass moves

Revd Alice Watson

More beautiful than the honey locust tree are the words of the Lord - Mary Oliver

All Things Lawful And Honest

A blog pertaining to the future of the Church

The Tory Socialist

Blue Labour meets Disraelite Tory meets High Church Socialist

Liturgical Poetry

Poems from life and the church year

Contemplation in the shadow of a carpark

Contmplations for beginners

Gavin Ashenden

Ahavaha

On This Rock Apologetics

The Catholic Faith Defended

sheisredeemedblog

To bring identity and power back to the voice of women

Quodcumque - Serious Christianity

“Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart.” ( Colossians 3: 23 ) - The blog of Father Richard Peers SMMS, Director of Education for the Diocese of Liverpool

ignatius his conclave

Nick Cohen: Writing from London

Journalism from London.

Ratiocinativa

Mining the collective unconscious

Grace sent Justice bound

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou

Eccles is saved

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34

Elizaphanian

“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.”

News for Catholics

Annie

Blessed be God forever.

Dominus Mihi Adjutor

A Monk on the Mission

christeeleisonblog.wordpress.com/

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few" Luke 10:2

Malcolm Guite

Blog for poet and singer-songwriter Malcolm Guite

Bishop's Encyclopedia of Religion, Society and Philosophy

The Site of James Bishop (CBC, TESOL, Psych., BTh, Hon., MA., PhD candidate)

LIVING GOD

Reflections from the Dean of Southwark

tiberjudy

Happy. Southern. Catholic.

maggi dawn

thoughtfullydetached

A Tribe Called Anglican

"...a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church..."

Living Eucharist

A daily blog to deepen our participation in Mass

The Liturgical Theologian

legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi

Tales from the Valley

"Not all those who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien

iconismus

Pictures by Catherine Young

Men Are Like Wine

Acts of the Apostasy

  • Follow Following
    • All Along the Watchtower
    • Join 2,222 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • All Along the Watchtower
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: