Dear
Spengler, If Mecca is ever razed by an invading
army, it will not be Israeli or American or European,
but will march up from Africa south of the Sahara -
though it would take a couple of generations more for
the impending Christian transformation of Africa to
proceed that far. If I were an Arab, I would be looking
anxiously south. The current crisis in the Anglican
Communion is revealing. Elan and freshness of thought
are actually with the conservatives. The prominent role
of the Nigerian Archbishop Akinola is also telling (his
province contains many more practicing Anglicans than
Britain and North America combined).
The
challenge from Islam may produce a number of surprising
and unexpected responses in the West, of greater
significance than the military conflict. Interesting
times ahead.
Sincerely, Douglas
Bilodeau Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Dear
Douglas, Thank you for bringing this issue
forward. Prof Philip Jenkins of Pennsylvania State
University predicts an "historical turning point" in
Christianity, "one that is as epochal for the Christian
world as the original Reformation". In the October 2002
edition of The Atlantic Monthly, he wrote, "In the
global South (the areas that we often think of primarily
as the Third World) huge and growing Christian
populations - currently 480 million in Latin America,
360 million in Africa, and 313 million in Asia, compared
with 260 million in North America - now make up what the
Catholic scholar Walbert Buhlmann has called the Third
Church, a form of Christianity as distinct as
Protestantism or Orthodoxy, and one that is likely to
become dominant in the faith." (Click here for the article.) This may
look like a "Third Church" to Catholic eyes, but what I
perceive is the proliferation of Anglo-Saxon, that is,
American, Christianity, albeit in the patchwork raiment
of local peoples. Growth of church membership in the
southern hemisphere concentrates in denominations of
American or British origin. Observes Prof Jenkins, "it
is Pentecostals who stand in the vanguard of the
Southern Counter-Reformation. Though Pentecostalism
emerged as a movement only at the start of the twentieth
century, chiefly in North America, Pentecostals today
are at least 400 million strong, and heavily
concentrated in the global South. By 2040 or so there
could be as many as a billion, at which point
Pentecostal Christians alone will far outnumber the
world's Buddhists and will enjoy rough numerical parity
with the world's Hindus."
Samuel Huntington's
characterization of American civilization as
"Anglo-Protestant" has merit, but his shot goes astray.
No predestination prevents other peoples from adopting
the Anglo-Protestant principle as their own. Of the
6,000 languages spoken on the planet, two go extinct
every week (Why radical Islam might defeat the
West, July 8, 2003). We are well into a Great
Extinction of the Peoples, such as has not occurred
since the collapse of Rome. Just as the endangered
peoples of the 4th century embraced Christianity as a
promise of immortality beyond the grave of their
culture, so the peoples of the South flock to the same
Cross. Seventeen hundred years ago they acknowledged the
authority of Rome. Today the source of Christian
authority is America.
The secularists who
dominate American foreign policy seem to think that they
can export the shell of the American system, namely its
constitutional forms, without its religious kernel. It
seems that the peoples of the South know better. It is
no stranger that America's hold over the world's
imagination should find religious expression first and
political expression later, than that radical
Protestants should have founded America in the first
place. The new Christians of the South will surprise us
for ill as well as good. Such matters of the spirit lie
beyond anyone's capacity to predict and well may have
huge strategic impact, as you
observe. Spengler
Dear
Spengler, Your recent assertion that the
philosophical underpinnings of American civilization are
more Hebraic than classical Greek is intriguing. The
Hebrews saw themselves as God's chosen people, and it is
certainly true that we Americans similarly see our
country as being called out from among nations to bring
a message to the world. But, where the Hebrews and early
Christians preached a message of universal brotherhood,
ours seems to have devolved into one of universal
suffrage. It is one thing to construct a model of
society where all are equal in the sight of God, but
quite another to found a government on the principle
that a crack addict is entitled to an equal voice in the
affairs of state as, say, a Medal of Honor
winner.
The founding fathers of the United
States, men born of the Reformation, Enlightenment and
Age of Reason, extended this principle by declaring that
"rights" were inherent in the individual and that
political power flowed from God to the individual, who
then passed on limited authority to the state. However,
these principles are far from being "self-evident". They
are, in fact, not only a mystery to most of the rest of
the world, but increasingly to Americans as
well.
But does the proposition that the only
acceptable form of government is one that derives its
legitimacy from the consent of the governed imply that
only a Boolean choice either of "one man one vote" or
tyranny is possible? Or is there room in this world for
more than one legitimate definition of
democracy? Peter Taber
Dear Mr
Taber, That America's roots are Hebrew rather
than Greek is widely argued. See for example the
Catholic writer Michael Novak's On Two Wings
(San Francisco 2002): "The way the story of the United
States has been told for the past 100 years is wrong. It
has cut off one of the two wings by which the American
eagle flies, her compact with the God of the Jews - the
God of Israel championed by the nation's first
Protestants - the God who prefers the humble and
weak things of the world, the small tribe of Israel
being one of them; who brings down the mighty and lifts
up the poor; and who has done so all through history,
and will do so till the end of time." His book contains
many an interesting anecdote, although from an American
vantage point, therefore, even the crack addict is
important in the sight of God (although I believe a
crack addict once convicted of a serious offense may
lose the right to vote in American
elections).
Democratic constitutions clutter up
the dustbin of history. Every satellite of the failed
Soviet empire had one. Democracy does not work unless
the people truly believe that the individual is
sovereign - not the people, I hasten to add. Since
the odious J J Rousseau, we have had enough varieties of
the "fuehrer principle" to choke on, in which an
absolute leader embodies the spirit of the nation,
disdaining the vulgarities of democracy in which
candidates must persuade even crack addicts. One cannot
be a little bit pregnant. Either the individual as a
living image of God has such rights as pertain to his
station, or not. If democracy comes to the peoples of
the southern hemisphere it will come as a consequence of
the evangelizing described above by Douglas Bilodeau,
not as a set of transitional measures by the political
scientists of the Pentagon.
Spengler
Dear
Spengler, In regards to your response (Letters, April 6th, 2004, "Are
Americans good enough to be Americans") to my previous
letter, may I further inquire into your thought
process?
You stated in your last paragraph,
"Nothing in your history qualifies you for the role you
now play on the world stage."
Once again, it
would appear that you embrace the faulty notion that
"history" is a finite definition, which allows for the
permissible reaction and participation in challenging
the dynamics of current events with success.
If I
may, history is nothing more than the resulting sum of a
previously unknown and undefined mathematical equation,
which resulted from a complex interaction of the then
present variables. In other words, history is infinitely
fluid, non-defining and not restricted by a static model
because variables are just that, variable. Nothing in
history is repeated in its entirety or pure form, which
would then qualify it as an absolute model of study
worthy of repetition. You also stated in your response,
that: "You [America] are in the first phase of a
civilizational war with peoples and countries for whom
no veil separates past and present."
I would
argue, "past and present" (I assume you meant history)
is not a necessity for success. Just ask Japan. What
better quote (if you want history), than the one made
about awakening a "sleeping giant". What history, can I
ask, at that time, should Japan have followed prior to
its attack on Pearl Harbor? Japan had a lengthy history
of military existence and strategy that far surpassed
anything in the United States at that time.
But
what may I ask, was the result? Again, I would offer
that the United States, in its youth, has the advantage
of acting without the model of "history" which could be
more advantageous than you realize, frozen as you are
from the constrained thought process most likely
inherited by the so called "higher institutions" of
education (probably European). The commonly quoted and
often-worshipped statement, "those who fail to learn
from history are doomed to repeat it", is an obscene
cult-like mantra, in my opinion, bequeathed to those who
refuse to think for themselves.
New wars require
new ideas, not history. Iraq is not Vietnam. The radical
movement of Islam is not communism.
In closing, I
would argue that success in warfare (whichever form), or
economic superiority, comes not from history, but from a
basic "survival instinct which is often heightened
(intuitively) from perceived or real threats. Intuition,
not history, is the defining chasm that learned men have
failed to heed. History proves that. Jim
Van
Dear Mr Van If we are to ignore
history and rely on intuition, permit me to enquire as
to what your intuition might be regarding the objectives
of America's war in Iraq. To successfully fight a war,
it is helpful to know who the enemy is, what the goal of
the war is, and most important, to know what would bring
the war to an end. If America's goal is to introduce
democracy into Iraq, what will you do in the event that
the mission fails? Do you fall back to the tri-partite
division proposed by Leslie Gelb, the former chairman of
the Council of Foreign Relations? Do you install a
congenial strongman, as Daniel Pipes proposes? If you
install a strongman, how will you be able to tell
whether he is congenial? If you split the country into
three, how will you manage amongst the contending
factions? What will your mission be then? During the
first three decades of the Cold War, America's mission
was "containment", that is, nothing in particular. Under
the Reagan Administration the mission became to bring
down the Soviet empire - and against all skepticism
you succeeded. Russia let its pensioners starve, sold
its women, reduced its life expectancy by 10 years,
declared bankruptcy, in short, suffered all the
humiliations of the defeated party. The answer, of
course, is that your intuition will lead you from one
mission definition to another, until you are lucky
enough to stumble on the right one, or unlucky or
exhausted enough to give up. If you win the war, as
America has on most occasions in its history, you stand
to lose the peace - as you have done every time it
has fallen to your lot to make the peace.
Spengler
Dear
Spengler, Let me first tell you I appreciate your
insight into many problems. However, your analysis is
one of the saddest things I read. What you are saying is
that any nation that becomes humane and is not
interested in subjugating another nation is destined to
extinction. I am not European (neither by nationality
nor origin), but I think most of what Europe is today is
one of the most beautiful things. Human rights, freedom,
personal happiness, peace. Why does it have to
die?
Something really interesting is what you
think of Asia. I mean going by your analysis, the
teeming millions of India and China, hungry for success,
land, opportuities etc, should end up at the top.
Because although you tend to favor America, let us not
forget that the white (and I mean white/blonde)
population of America will slowly become a minority
while Africans, Asians, and Latinos populate all of the
US. It is a politically incorrect but factually
correct assessment that the national character and face
of US will change beyond recognition. This is actually
the same for Europe, because even there, there are
enough North Africans, Central Asians, Indians and
Chinese to simply make up a new France, Germany, UK,
etc. Geranamo
Dear
Geranamo, No one is sadder than this writer at
Europe's passing (Why Europe chooses extinction, April
8, 2003). It horrifies me to think that the hope of
mankind lies in a land where one can obtain neither a
decent cup of coffee nor a proper cup of tea (What is American culture?, Nov 18,
2003). Only with great difficulty can I reconcile myself
to this - the hope, that is, not the coffee.
American civilization may be Anglo-Protestant, as
Huntington maintains, but the Anglo-Protestant spirit
well may pass to entirely different peoples. Without
diminishing by one whit the enormous achievements of the
Chinese, the Indians, and other Asian peoples, their
economic success nonetheless depends upon the Pax
Americana which has given them a stable world market, a
reserve currency, a banking system, international trade
agreements, not to mention the 7th Fleet, which helps
keep Asia at peace. I have thought it pointless to cavil
at the Chinese for being heavy-handed with dissidents;
it is China's next generation which will have to
address the matter of rights and opportunities for even
the humblest of its citizens.
Spengler
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