The
[u.] S. State Dept. held its second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in
July, and it trotted out some of the same subversive declarations as the year
before:
We call upon all
governments to respect the individual’s human right to believe or not believe,
to practice any faith tradition or none.
As representatives of the
international community, we stand together in support of the interconnected
freedoms of thought, conscience, religion or belief, and expression. We
stand in firm opposition to laws that, inconsistent with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, impede the freedom of individuals to choose a faith, practice
a faith, change their religion, not have a religion, tell others about their
beliefs and practices, or openly debate and discuss aspects of faith or belief.
How
is that subversive, the typical American might ask? Because at the heart of human life,
particularly mankind’s religious life, is not the individual, but both the
individual and the community.
Mankind
was made in the image of the Holy Trinity, not the neo-Platonic Monad. Three unique Persons, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, live in an inseparable community of self-emptying humility and love
without division but also without losing their uniqueness as individual
Persons. This is how mankind is also
supposed to live its life, upholding both community and the individual. To promote one at the expense of the other
leads to terrible consequences: the
smothering uniformity of socialism/communism on the one hand and chaotic
republics/democracy on the other.
The
interests of both the community and the individual must be upheld in anything
we do. Therefore, when the State Dept.
declares that the individual’s right to choose any faith or no faith, etc.,
must be upheld anywhere and everywhere, this is nothing other than a
declaration of its intention to unleash chaos throughout the world. When the freedom of the individual is made
the measuring rod for morality, goodness, progress, and so on, then all communal
obligations and institutions will be undermined in the end. Absolute truth itself will be rejected
eventually as each and all make the inner voice of their individual conscience
the arbiter of what is right and wrong.
And
what is the result of all this?
Globalism. Mankind, uprooted from
any kind of local attachments and duties to Church, family, neighborhood, and
the like, will necessarily become a ‘citizen of the world’, where economic
concerns and laws become the main guiding force in life:
It
is sad to say, but this kind of economic utopianism preached by Milton Friedman
in this short video, this substitute church that promises to bring harmony and
co-operation to all the peoples of the world, is praised by Protestant Evangelicals,
libertarians, and others of a similar cast of mind, but it cannot be
otherwise. Their exaltation of the
individual over the community leads inevitably to it.
Thus,
it is precisely our fidelity to real community that protects us from
globalism. The concentric rings of
authority, obligation, and custom of the various communities mankind has
traditionally belonged to once shielded him from the advance of that demonic
ideology. But thanks to efforts like
this Ministerial by the State Dept., those protecting walls are being
demolished in the name of individual rights.
Unfortunately, this is simply the logical out-working of the American
Constitutional Creed.
It
cannot be any plainer, then: Americanism
is Globalism; Americanism is Gnosticism.
Sam
Brownback gave a very clear indication of this when he said,
Previewing the event,
Sam Brownback, the U.S. government’s ambassador-at-large for international
religious freedom, noted that religions of all sorts are vulnerable to
persecution.
“Almost every faith
that’s a majority somewhere is a minority somewhere else and often gets
persecuted where they’re a minority,” Brownback said at a State Department
briefing. “So that’s why a big part of our effort is to get the faiths to come
together and to stand for each other.”
“We’re not talking
common theology here — nobody agrees on theology,” he added. “We’re talking
about a common human right.”
--Associated Press
(bolding added), https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2019/july/government-restrictions-on-religion-increasing-worldwide
Human
rights trump correct theology: This is
heretical gobbledy-gook. But it is
exactly what we should expect from the Universal Yankee Empire of America.
For
the sake of truth, for the sake of salvation, for the sake of the true
flourishing of humanity, we must therefore be bold in saying this: The confessional state, the established
religion, is the norm for any ethnos.
The faith is the country, and the country is its faith. The individual must affirm his being in
community, imitating the Holy Trinity, the angels, and the saints, or
experience its dissolution in isolation from others, as Satan, the demons, and
all the enemies of God do, and will, for eternity.
This
essay on life in an Orthodox monastery illustrates very well for us what life
in a country should look like, how the communal and the individualistic should
relate to one another:
In the
monastery, the life is a single whole. Not only do we live, work, worship and
study together, but we also are welded into one body, in a communion of love.
We are called to bear one another’s burdens, be patient, gentle, kind, longsuffering,
and forgiving to one another. And in so doing, we not only build the community,
but we grow ourselves. It is a long process to enter into an authentic
communion of persons, taking years. How we treat one another has direct bearing
on how close and integral the life of our community will be, how we will pray
together, and how we work together. Community life is very demanding, like a
marriage—only with many partners! It exposes our selfishness, our pettiness and
passions, our agendas and arrogance, pride and vainglory. It makes us come to
terms with ourselves. It is a context in which we work out how to love and be
loved, and to elevate that love to a participation in divine Love.
The Fathers
have taught us that we are not saved alone. The only thing we do alone is sin,
fall, and go to hell. We are saved together, as a single body, the Body of Christ.
Our communion here—not only eucharistic participation, but living bond of love—is
a participation in the Kingdom of God. The monastic community is an icon of that
Body, a small Church. It is a communion of persons, united by one Spirit.
When we
sin, we isolate ourselves from God and from one another, from that living unity
in Christ. God does not withdraw His grace and His love: rather, we turn away
from it, reject it, try to hide—as did Adam and Eve in the garden. The
spiritual task is to open ourselves to accept that gift of love and grace, and
be transformed by it.
There is
always a tension between the corporate life of the community, and the personal
life of each member. There is a dynamic of entering in and withdrawing, going deeper
and fleeing, participation and hiding. The core of the corporate life of the community
is the celebration and participation in the Holy Mysteries, especially the Holy
Eucharist. There is always a corporate, communal dimension to our
participation, in addition to the personal dimension of our own preparation and
entrance into the mystery. The personal dimension, how we each uniquely enter
in and contribute to the whole, our personal spiritual life, is the key to this
dynamic of sin and repentance, growth in spiritual maturity and regression into
rebelliousness, the dark nights of the senses, soul and spirit, and our
experience of prayer. Every aspect affects every other aspect, both on the personal
as well as the corporate level. How I pray affects how I participate in the liturgy,
and either contribute or disrupt the experience of communion and orporate ascent
to the Kingdom. My moods, dispositions, sins and transgressions all directly impact
how I treat my brothers.
The process
of personal spiritual life in monastic context is always shared. We support,
rebuke, correct, encourage, build up and scandalize each other regularly.
--Metropolitan Jonah, https://monasteryofstjohn.org/documents/abbatialessays/Why_be_a_monk.pdf, pgs. 14-5, via https://monasteryofstjohn.org/resources/articles/
For
a Southland in which participation in the Divine Liturgy and the reception of
the Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is the touchstone of her life, both
communal and individual, rather than obsession with constitutions, human rights,
and the freedom of the individual - let us say again and again with all our
heart and with all our soul, Lord have mercy!
As
for Americanism, let all pronounce it the accursed heresy that it truly is.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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