An Aristocratical Christianity
What is Religion?
Disclaimer: I am not a theologian, a philosopher, or ordained into any priesthood or clergy. I express the thoughts below in an attempt to be of use. I don’t claim they are authoritative or beyond contest. Everyone has thought about Christianity and has fairly settled opinions. Writing about it is almost always begging for trouble. I am just trying to be helpful. I hope my intention is clear in what I write. May my good intentions shield me from The Haters.
An Aristocratical Christianity
Christianity has always been understood as being “for all” insofar as the truth is “true everywhere.” There are those however who reinterpret this to mean that everyone can and will become a Christian, that no one is bad, that everyone is acceptable to God and good just they way they are. We are led to believe that it is immoral and should be illegal to discriminate against anyone because we are all God’s children. This interpetation of Christianity requires editing out important parts of it. The rigorous moral asceticism of Christianity is never a morality acceptable to the many who, as Heraclitus says, “glut themselves like cattle.” No matter how much force a modern day egalitarian can draw from certain moral teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, there stands in that sermon a stumbling block to all attempts to make Christianity a mass-religion: “Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (Matt. 7:6) – I have always thought this verse should be paired with the Pauline admonitions that there is a difference between “milk” and “meat” and that much of what we read in the New Testament is “milk” because most men have the constitutions of children and are unable to profit from meat. (1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Hebrews 5:12; 1 Peter 2:2) Revelation is often the conduit for what is confusing and mysterious into the hearts of simple but strong men, inspiring them with a vision of what their role is in the kingdom of God.
And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. (Hebrews 3:5-6) Putting aside debates about predestination and free-will, but only for a moment, it’s easy to see that men are called to act as if their actions matter, as if they play an important role in the kingdom of God. If men fail to “hold fast” what will happen to the house of the Lord? That is perhaps an inappropriate question. Instead, you should just hold fast.
Many today console themselves saying that Christianity is growing in the “third world.” Even if “we” in Europe and America are not “holding fast” the faith grows and the house of the Lord stands. However, if Europeans and Americans stopped praising Christianity, and backing their praise with money, Christianity would dry up in Africa overnight; it would maybe last one more generation in the Americas. Christianity is not a mass phenomenon. It is a religion of the few that can give meaning to the lives of all.
Liberation Theology can be preferred to Aristocratic Christianity only when everything in Scripture and history is simplified. Plato must be ignored. The Stoics must be forgotten. The text of the Bible must be edited. On the other hand, Aristocratic Christianity can take into account the holy sayings in the Bible which extol the virtues of both the poor and the few. Aristocratic Christians can understand that the poor will always be with us and that they have an important role to play in God’s providential plan and governance of the world. — Liberation theology preaches elimination of one type of man; Aristocratic Christianity is an ideal for all. Only ideals that are for the very few can sanctify and justify the whole of mankind.
A thoughtful man can read the Bible passages so important to Liberation Theologians and little-c communists and come to holier and more rational conclusions. We read that: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matt. 19:24)--I have personally watched common pastors fumble this passage over and over, trying to explain how “no, it doesn’t really mean what it sounds like; the ‘eye of the needle’ was a nickname for gate in some city you know, so it is a real gate not a small eye of a needle… don’t worry.”--A communist interpreter points to this passage and believes the Bible sets itself against the rich man; and he likewise believes that being against the rich man means being for the poor man against the rich man. The correct interpretation is that wealth and power tend to corrupt men; just because wealth and power are difficult to manage does not mean you can do away with them. Those who rule over others are more likely to commit injustice than a powerless man who sits alone in his room. It is noble to take this risk, to risk ones own salvation for the good of your people. It is ignoble to don the Purple Robes of Power and proceed to screw everything up—hubristic men ruin their nation and community and lose their soul in the process. Life and salvation are not easy. Peace is not the norm. Nor is peace within oneself the norm. Everyone knows that wealth and power give men the ability to ruin themselves in ways poverty does not. Poverty exposes you to the depredations of others. Wealth exposes you to your own weaknesses. Most men are weak. Wealth is not good for most men or even for most of the few that have it. Anyone who has read Plato or Stoic philosophy would understand that the Liberation Theologian’s interpretation—that wealth and political rule are evil and should (and can) be eliminated—is irrational and not in accord with nature, the whole teaching of the Bible, or even the Gospels. As I showed above, even if a theologian were to restrict himself to the Sermon on the Mount, his desire to turn Christianity into a mass-religion is thwarted by Matthews’ claim that few find salvation—not just a “few rich” but a few simply.
We do not know what the afterlife holds outside of “better and worse” and that injustice here turns to justice there. No other speculation is possible or holy. Furthermore, the Old and New Testaments are replete with admonitions to be good in this life. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1st Corinthians 15:58) Any man who would save his soul at the cost of the well-being of his family or his friends has surely lost his soul. Any time we are told to love our enemies or turn the other cheek, it is clearly in the context of sacrificing our own life and advantage for something greater. Men should never impiously use Christianity to mask their unwillingness to rule or take the risks associated with wealth and power. You can and should sacrifice your own good for the glory of God but that simply can never mean shirking your duties to your family, friends, and fellows. Men who rule out of a desire to flatter their personal vanity or fatten themselves like cattle are surely doomed. The men who risk their own salvation and reputation because they know someone must take charge cannot possibly be said to violate God’s command to turn the other cheek. I believe in moments of extreme peril God has even commanded men to put themselves forward in a way whereby success will bring acclaim and power. Are we supposed to think David should not have stood up to Goliath and taken on the risky mantle of power? Many also believe an angel appeared to Xenophon, encouraging him to lead the 10,000 Greeks to freedom—an endeavor which could have gotten him killed and dishonored. And what of the New Testament? Should the Disciples and Paul not taken on the risk of teaching communities of men to live a certain way and reject the world? How often have Jesus, the Disciples, and Paul all been derided as “teachers of oppression and evil” precisely because they took on themselves the responsibility of teaching others how to live and what salvation means? Leadership is a risk. The fact that leadership is so difficult does not mean it can be avoided or that men are punished for trying their best. Men are punished not for leading, but for trying to lead and failing.
It seems clear to me that when the Disciples and others were told to love their enemies and turn the other cheek they were being given commands as men who were to spread the New Way of life and salvation taught to them by Jesus Christ. They were commanded in other words to be brave because “the World” would persecute them. They knew they would be persecuted. They were commanded to disregard mere life and choose instead to do their duty to God. They weren’t told that they should accept persecution if they could stop it, much less accept the persecution of their loved ones and fellows. Furthermore, they were taught to understand the source of that persecution—weakness and fanaticism. The Disciples and later Apostles knew they would be persecuted but they also understood that their persecutors were merely men making a grave error. In other words, they knew the men were in a sense blameless and objects of pity insofar as they were objects of wrath. But these admonitions to the Disciples and Apostles could in no way be made to mean “good men do not have a duty to work and to rule,” i.e., to use wealth, strength, and intelligence for the sake of their family, friends, and fellows.
Peace is not an end in itself; it is only good for the sake of good deeds and noble thoughts. Men can establish peace by betraying God, their loved ones, their fellows and ultimately their own selves. Men can live miserable lives in times of peace. Hate often grows in direct proportion to the growth of peace. I have seen peace produce insolent men because peace often produces clueless men. Just because “peace reigns” in any given time does not mean there is not some war afoot. “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” (1st Thessalonians 5:2-3)
There is much more to be said and thought through on this question of “Aristocratical Christianity.” I believe much can be made of the Katechon, the Angels, the war between God and Satan, the inspired poets such as Milton and Dante, and the resurgence of political theology in this specific time of crisis. I believe there is good reason to hope Christians can free themselves from “mankind” to form their own societies at the edge of the world.
Recent Debates
What kind of religion is Christianity? Let us say there are two kinds of religion that make up two polar opposites. The bad kind of religion levels all distinctions, holds men back from the work of cultivating their virtues, disarms entire populations, and much else. The good kind of religion resists this tendency and does more; the good kind of religion gives man an ideal, and there is no greater ideal than the true God. Through this ideal a good religion “marshals the lower to serve the higher.” The poor in body and spirit are given meaningful work because they make up part of the whole effort of a society to please the gods.
The secret is this: the poor are always immiserated when they are made the purpose of a religion or political order. Life improves for the poor only when they can contribute to a cause greater than their own suffering. The good kind of religion vindicates the existence of poverty by giving the poor a role to fulfill which earns them gratitude. The bad kind of religion makes the poor insolent by teaching them that everything should be about improving their lives, that the world and in fact God (or History) has nothing in mind but the alleviation of the evils of poverty and weakness.
In other words: the parts of society that exist in every society—the poor and rich, the weak and strong, the ruled and rulers—can only cohere and cooperate when the lower serves the higher and the higher serves an ideal, a transcendent and glorious thing. It is my claim here that Christianity is a good religion but has been mistaken for a bad religion because everything today is re-written in accordance with the feverish insolence of the mobilized poor; i.e., little-“c” communism has reinterpreted the world in accordance with the wishes of an irrational psychotic poor person.
Today, Nietzsche is the champion of ideals, real ideals. Unfortunately for Christians, Nietzsche never missed an opportunity to attack Christianity.
What if Nietzsche, in his attacks on Christianity, understood that he was attacking a religion warped by time and circumstances? Philosophers often mistreat religions and other philosophers whom they know knew better but whom they also know cannot be saved in the present circumstances. For example, Aristotle pretends Plato, in writing the Republic, was writing a treatise rather than a dialogue; Aristotle knows how people will read Plato and treats Plato accordingly because it’s no use pretending people are more perceptive than they are (and those who are perceptive don’t need Aristotle’s guidance in reading Plato).
I add, this is not a defense of Christian nationalism against recent attacks from the online Right. Christian nationalism will, practically speaking, end up being an Empire of Our Lady Guadalupe; Ahmari and Vermeule (who is very fat) will be its leaders. That is not to say there is not a very interesting argument at the heart of the Christian nationalist idea in its rejection of religious neutrality or “secular government.” It is time for Christians to come to terms with Lockean liberalism and the Christian nationalists are doing that. Christians who understand what Stephen Wolfe and others are saying are becoming better Christians. However, there is no reason to believe the mass of people calling themselves “Christian” will ever understand what Wolfe is saying or could be made to go along with it—which is fine if you are concerned only with purifying the ideal (as I am) rather than mobilizing an effective political movement to win back the nation (which is not going to happen).
Nations (today) are nothings. Nations (today) are a waste of time. Nations today are, every single one of them, characterized by Mass Society. There is no saving mass society. There is no equality between the mass and their rulers, or the mass and the few who know what freedom is and prefer it. There is nothing anyone can do to impress an ideal upon hundreds of millions much less billions of people. Anyone concerned with “mankind” or “mass society” in this way will be dragged down and humiliated. Even if a leader succeeds in saving his nation for a generation, the mass will undo his work and destroy whatever culture and monuments they find in “their” nation because culture and monuments are always and everywhere insulting to mass society.