‘One day
Saint Polycarp saw the ruler sitting in his chair and watching as the blood of
Christians flowed like water.’—From the
life of Martyr Polycarp of Alexandria (+4th century)
The murder
of six innocent Christians at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, by a
deranged young woman in the grips of the demonic ideology of transgenderism
seems to have opened the
eyes of many to the reality of the spiritual warfare going on here in the
States, that the forces of Good and evil are locked in a battle for the souls
and bodies of the people we see all around us.
Much of the
ruling class and many Blue States and cities agree with President Biden, who
put out a
statement on April 1st that reads in part,
‘Transgender
Day of Visibility celebrates the joy, strength, and absolute courage of some of
the bravest people I know — people who have too often had to put their jobs,
relationships, and lives on the line just to be their true selves. Today, we
show millions of transgender and nonbinary Americans that we see them, they
belong, and they should be treated with dignity and respect. Their courage has
given countless others strength, but no one should have to be brave just to be
themselves. Every American deserves that freedom. Transgender Americans shape
our Nation’s soul . . . .’
In a
situation so unprecedented, so at odds with traditional mores, is there
anything in the Southern tradition that can possibly help us here in Dixie to
reestablish our feet on solid ground, to help us regain our bearings?
Deo Gratias, we have not been left
without such help. Another one of
Virginia’s great sons, the Rev. Robert Lewis Dabney, provides us with a
diagnosis and a cure for the madness that is overwhelming society. In his book The Sensualistic Philosophy of
the Nineteenth Century Considered, he foresees clearly the effects of
rejecting traditional Christian teaching about God and man and accepting in its
place various materialistic and atheistic theories. He begins an exceptional string of passages
by explaining the motivations of modern man for denying God:
‘We saw that
the practical effect of Darwin’s speculations was to make man one among the
beasts. But Huxley and his comrades
would end by reducing both man and beast to the level of the clod. Why is it, that any mind possessed even of
the culture displayed in these ill-starred speculations, does not resent the
unspeakable degradation which they inflict upon mankind? Men would not thus outrage their own natures,
without an interested motive. That
motive is, doubtless, in many, the craving for license from moral restraints,
and release from that accountability to a holy God, which remorse
foreshadows. In the more decent it is
probably a semi-conscious vanity of intellect, itching for a place apart from
the common crowd of thinkers, and a semi-conscious craving for liberty of an
irresponsible self-will. They wish not
to have this Christ to reign over them.
To the sinful mind viewing its destiny superficially, it may seem a fine
thing to have no omniscient Master; to be released from the restraints of law;
to be held hereafter to no account for conscious guilt. But let us see whether even guilty man has
any motive of self-interest to say in his heart, “There is no God,” whether
atheism is not at least as horrible as hell.’
This
describes very well the transgender crowd – seeking liberty from moral
restraint, freedom from accountability to God.
But there is a price to be paid for these actions. Following this rebellion, he says, comes
profound sadness:
‘Some
materialists have professed to believe in immortality. But should it be that man is immortal, and
yet has no God, this itself will be eternal despair. For no materialistic theory can then expel
from the man those immutable realities, sensibility, hope, fear, sin, guilt,
accountability, remorse . . . . But now,
if the materialist-theory is true, there is no remedy for these miseries. There is no God omnipotent to cleanse and
deliver. There is no Redeemer, in whom
dwell the divine wisdom, power, love, and truth, for man’s rescue. The Bible, the only book that ever professed
to tell fallen man of an adequate salvation, is discredited. Providence and Grace are, banished out of the
existence of helpless, suffering man.
There is no object to whom we can address prayer in our extremity. In place of a personal God and Father in
Christ, - the fountain and exemplar of all love and beneficence, to whom we can
cry in prayer, on whom we may lean in our weakness and sorrow, who is able and
willing to wash away guilt and heal depravity, who is suited to be our adequate
portion through an eternal existence, - we are left to confront this infinite
Nature, material, impersonal, reasonless, heartless.’
And now he
pours out words of heart-breaking eloquence that capture the despair that is
crushing the hearts and souls of so many people, and leading them to commit
horrific atrocities:
‘There is no
supreme, rational, or righteous government over man [in the materialist
scheme—W.G.]; and when the noblest sentiments of the soul are crushed by wrongs
so intolerable, that their perpetual triumph is felt to be more hateful than
death; there is not, nor shall there ever be, to all eternity, any appeal to
compensating justice! But our only
master is an irresistible, blind machine, revolving forever by the law of a
mechanical necessity; and the corn between its upper and nether millstones is
this multitude of living, palpitating, human hearts, instinct with their
priceless hopes, and fears, and affections, and pangs, writhing and bleeding
forever under the remorseless grind. The
picture is as black as hell itself. He
who is “without God in this world,” is “without hope.” Atheism is despair’ (Christopher Coldwell,
edr., Naphtali Press, Dallas, 2003, pgs. 152, 153-4).
Without
Christ, without hope, drowning in their pain and fear, people like Audrey Hale
have no reason to refrain from lashing out at those whom they believe are
mistreating them.
To the
question, then, that inevitably follows these abominable evils – What must we
do to prevent them from happening again? – the answer, vis-à-vis Rev. Dabney,
is not difficult to discern:
. . .
The rest is
at https://identitydixie.com/2023/04/11/a-southern-response-to-the-nashville-school-shooting/.
A slightly
different version is here:
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/a-southern-response-to-the-nashville-school-shooting/
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us
sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
