Trans as "a liberating, cool, edgy thing"

 File photo from PxHere

A mother of a teenager who is eager to take on a male identity speaks from experience of the pressure young people succumb to because of the cultural influence of promoters of  gender ideology, namely the Western education systems, social networks and news media. This from a site that has earned its credentials as being trustworthy:

In today’s culture, being “trans” is considered by many a very liberating, cool, edgy thing. We know people are (I hate these terms, but they are becoming part of the lexicon) “love-bombed” when they come out as “trans,” and are seen as brave, strong individuals. Further, many young girls fear what being a woman means ‒ how they may be sexualized, how they won’t be successful if they aren’t gorgeous, etc., and some boys fear what expressing their natural sexual desires will turn them into (monsters is what they may think, thanks to an overly enthusiastic “me too” movement that went way beyond exposing corrupt, vial practices of men like Harvey Weinstein, making many young men feel embarrassed simply for feeling strong attractions for women). Many effeminate gay males and butch lesbians still don’t feel very accepted in society. By instead being “trans,” they resolve their gender non-conformity by claiming to be the opposite sex, and have the bonus of getting oppression points (very useful for upper-middle class white kids!).

They are fed the notions that the medical changes associated with transition are safe, relatively painless, and necessary in order to prevent them from committing suicide and, as noted above, for them to be their “true selves.” They are told they will be truly happy only once they medically transition.

To question these notions is to be a bigot, so everyone who does bring up questions about the medical treatments is sloughed off as a transphobic moron, assuming they are allowed to speak at all. Parents like me are considered bigots (my daughter has used this word), transphobic (she has also used this word), and just plain ignorant. (My daughter has used much worse terms, but why get ugly?)

With all these messages about being “trans,” and so many more that I’m not mentioning, it is no wonder so many young people are flocking to it. And are these young people ‒ many of whom are on the autism spectrum, have suffered abuse, are overly sensitive, are gay/lesbian or very gender non-conforming, have anxiety and depression or other mental illnesses, or are just plain vulnerable ‒ really able to consent to these medical treatments when they are fed so much mis-information, and when they are not mature enough to understand the real, permanent consequences of these treatments?

Frankly, I see the medical transition of teens and vulnerable young adults as not only analogous to foot-binding and genital mutilation, but actually worse in many ways. At least the foot-bound and/or genitally mutilated girls did not have to pretend to be something they are not. Further, foot-binding and genital mutilation do not cause sterility, and only cause lack of function in the specific area in question (the feet or the genitals, respectively), rather than total dysfunction of the genitals combined with a host of other medical issues, on top of the mental gymnastics of pretending to be the opposite sex and putting energy toward “passing” as such.

True informed consent can only be given by a mature, mentally stable person who is provided with accurate information about the procedures to be done. This includes the medical necessity of the procedures, the potential side effects, and alternative, less invasive treatments (or non-treatments as the case may be) that may adequately alleviate their perceived suffering.

I don’t think any young person today can possibly consent to the medical treatments associated with transition because, even if they were mature enough to understand all the ramifications of transition ‒ which they are not  ‒ they are being fed so much misinformation, by their schools and universities, by the Government, by large corporations, by the medical community and therapists, by both social media and mainstream media, and by their friends and neighbors, such that they cannot possibly have the information necessary to give truly informed consent. Therefore, we as a society should be ashamed for pushing these medical treatments on to young people. 

US: A mother, teacher describes her child being indoctrinated, encouraged to transition in high school. https://t.co/eEIKRDNzNO

— Genspect (@genspect) December 29, 2022

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The twin dimensions of Christmas

Photo at PxHere

To understand the Christmas story, we need to grasp two dimensions that are apparently contradictory but which, on closer scrutiny, are both showing us the same thing. The first is what we could call the wide-angle version; the second, the close-up picture. 

Let’s start with the wide angle, says the Rev Dr Samuel Wells, in a Christmas sermon. He is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College London.

The universe is impossibly large to imagine, stretching to trillions of stars; and who knows if there are plenty other universes beyond this one. But that which lasts forever, which we know as “God”, seems to have a particular interest in this tiny planet in this obscure galaxy. It seems useless to speculate why this planet, in this galaxy, in this universe; the point is, that which lasts forever seems to have so ordered things as to be in relationship with one part of creation — in short, us.

The whole epic magnitude of existence has come about in order for God to be among us as one of us and to be our companion and dwell with us. That’s the wide-angle version of Christmas. It answers the perennial question, “What’s the meaning of life?” The answer is, the meaning of life is for God to be in relationship with us and for us to reflect the joy and glory of that relationship by relating to one another and the wider creation in the same way. That’s the meaning of Christmas — the wide-angle version.

And so to the close-up picture. The three accounts of the coming of Christ, in Matthew, Luke, and John’s Gospels, are significantly different from one another. But they all agree on one thing. Matthew talks about a man called Joseph who discovers his fiancée is expecting a baby and is told by an angel that the Holy Spirit has brought this about. Luke sees it from Mary’s point of view, and locates the conversation in Nazareth. Luke adds the story about the census, and there being no room at the inn, and tells us about the shepherds and angels. John misses out the personal detail and describes how the animating force in the universe became a human being, but, interestingly, he adds this sentence, which we seldom talk about at Christmas but seems to me very significant: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.”

What these three contrasting accounts have in common is that the entry of the creator of all things into the human drama didn’t happen in the way we might expect. It happened in an obscure backwater of the Roman Empire. It the happened to an ordinary woman and a bewildered man with no social prominence. It happened in a shed. It was witnessed by lowly herdsmen.

I discovered what God was up to some while ago when I got to know a woman and a man who told me they wanted to get married. It was a difficult situation. The man had been married before, and for a long time had been partly estranged from his wife. The woman was much younger than the man, and from the very start of their relationship felt she had to tiptoe around her family, because it was clear they didn’t approve.

To be fair, she’d spent her whole life tiptoeing, because her family had been a scene of constant wrangling and great pain almost since she’d been born, and she couldn’t see why her finally finding happiness was taken so badly by a group of people, many of whom it seemed had never found the way to any happiness of their own. But then she became pregnant, and those who disapproved, or took offence, or just couldn’t bear the idea of someone in the family being happy, all decided this was the moment to say the whole thing was terrible, and everyone should be ashamed, and ask what did they think they were doing? But they all turned up to the wedding, and when the bride walked down the aisle, her elegant simplicity, her utterly unpretentious grace, took the wind out of the whole congregation, and all misgivings were set aside for the day.

Two months later, she gave birth. And she wrote to me and said, “You’ll never guess what’s happened. My family has been visiting and have been very kind to everyone including my husband. It’s as if this tiny child heals something inside them when they are with him, and their troubles vastly reduce or disappear around him. It made me think of the wonder of God. This little baby has achieved what my husband and I tried to achieve and couldn't over many years. And so effortlessly!” Those were her exact words.

It was one of the most moving messages I’ve ever received. And not just because this new child had changed the whole dynamic of two troubled families. But because in seventy words, this new mother had shown me what God is doing in coming among us as a baby. God is doing just what this baby was doing: something no argument, no loud voice, no lit-up sky, no heavenly vision could achieve. It’s called a dismantling of the heart. A disarming of resistance.

God comes to us at Christmas — not to blast us into submission, not to make us guilty for what we’ve got wrong, not to stir us to take up cudgels in the latest battle. God comes to us under the radar. God surprises us by appearing as a tiny baby. It’s a high-risk strategy. It’s such a vulnerable way to come among us. But it shows us unmistakeably, irrevocably, eternally, who God is and what kind of relationship God wants to have with us.

God doesn’t want us to worry about the wide-angle story our imaginations can’t encompass anyway. God says, “Receive me as you receive this tiny child. Allow me to dismantle centuries of enmity, heal decades of hurt, transform depths of antagonism. Be mesmerised by me the way you’re captivated by a tiny baby. Let me melt your heart."

❒ Rev. Dr Samuel Wells  

❒ Sermon source here 

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The logic of God gleams at Christmas

Photo by PxHere

Matthew's gospel says the birth of  Jesus isn’t just one of myriad consequences of the original Big Bang. On the contrary, the conception and birth of this particular baby is the single event around which every other event in the universe clusters. That's the theme the Rev Dr Samuel Wells* explores in a sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, just before Christmas this year.

In delving into Matthew 1:18-25 (see in full below), Wells relates an experience of 30 years before:

Just as I was beginning studying for a PhD, I sat next to a very fervent Christian at a wedding reception. ... [M]y neighbour asked me, besides being a priest, what I was involved in. I said, ‘I’m doing a PhD in theology.’ ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I don’t bother with theology. The Bible’s always been enough for me.’

There’s few things more deflating than to run into a self-assured lack of curiosity, mixed with an air of superiority and condescension, all dressed up in the language of being a simple creature, free from the self-imposed complexities that beleaguer others. I can’t deny I wondered for a moment if doing a PhD in theology was a waste of time. But 30 years later, I realise the response I might have done well to give to that affectedly humble smugness dressed up as piety. I should have talked to him about today’s gospel reading from the back end of Matthew chapter 1. 

Why? Because what I want to show this morning is how this passage opens up pretty much every door in the conventional theological textbook. It’s a whole manual of doctrine on its own. Let’s walk through these few verses and see the entire theological panorama come to life.

Straightaway we have a fascinating word. Birth isn’t a notable word in English, until you realise the Greek word it’s translating is genesis. This is a huge theological claim. Matthew’s saying the conception and birth of Jesus are a more significant moment than the creation described in the book of Genesis. He’s saying, this is the real beginning, for which the creation of the universe was just preparation. We’re used to thinking of the Big Bang and the cosmology that outlines the first few seconds at the start of the universe. And probably most of us have wondered at what feels like the miracle of conception and the growth of a baby in its mother’s womb and the agonising yet fabulous process of being born. Matthew’s saying the birth of this particular baby isn’t just one of myriad consequences of the original Big Bang. On the contrary, the conception and birth of this particular baby is the single event around which every other event in the universe clusters. That’s mind-blowing; and yet we’re only five words into this passage.

After starting with creation, the second big theological theme we move to is Israel. We’re quickly in the company of two Jews, Mary and Joseph, seeking to live faithful lives according to the covenant God made with Moses. The significance of Israel in theology is that almost from the very beginning our understanding of God is one of the essence of eternity being eager to be involved in the ordinariness of human affairs – in this case, the traditions of betrothal and marriage. Interestingly the Old Testament also begins with creation and Israel, the call of Abraham to be the father of God’s people coming only a few chapters after the two portrayals of the creation of all things. Matthew’s emphasising that you can’t talk about God without talking about God’s chosen people, the children of Abraham, and without talking about very earthy and ordinary human relationships in which the life of God is embedded.

Only when we’ve located ourselves in such a way do we get the first reference to God. We’re still in the same opening verse, and we’ve covered a lot of territory: now we stumble upon the Holy Spirit. This tells us two things at the same time. First, there’s something beyond our experience and beyond our existence that’s above, beyond, outside or within that existence. I call it essence – that which lasts forever, in contrast to existence, which lasts a limited time. How that essence relates to existence in general terms is a mystery, although we assume essence was responsible for creation.

But this is the point – the Bible isn’t much interested in God in general terms. The Bible’s interested in God in relational terms – a God who’s invested in Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah; in Sarah, Deborah, Ruth and Esther. And the discovery that’s veiled in the Old Testament, yet clear in the New, is that essence is relational within itself – it’s inherently made up of communicative encounter between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Any relation we have to God is a joining in the relation already taking place within God. God is relationship. The Holy Spirit is the name for the way God extends relationship to us, by making Christ present to us, and how God turns that relationship into abundant life, here and everywhere.

But let’s not get carried away with God. This is a very human story. We trust the Bible to tell us about God because it’s so acute at telling us about humanity. Joseph’s plunged into a moral, social and relational crisis. Mary’s pregnant and he’s not the father. His duties as a faithful Jew mean he should publicly humiliate her. His dignity as a child of God mean he has no desire to do so. Here we land in our fourth aspect of theology, after creation, Israel, and God. That aspect is ethics. Ethics is about how we live in the light of God’s grace. Joseph’s depicted as a man torn between justice and mercy. That’s territory in which ethics often dwells. It turns out the one to blame is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit’s merciful action blows apart our notion of justice. As so often.

Then we get the appearance of an angel – which is how this passage portrays the irruption of God’s essence into our existence. It sets up the experience of a dream as a liminal space between God’s reality and ours. And the two significant aspects of theology that arise here are providence and vocation. Providence is a theological theme many people struggle with. It’s about how God’s purpose is being worked out as year succeeds to year. People struggle with it because it’s hard to see how God’s purpose can possibly be worked out through holocaust or tsunami. 

People also feel nauseated when an individual or nation arrogantly assumes the mantle of the bearer of God’s destiny. But the Bible’s full of moments like this when God’s purpose is visible despite adverse circumstances. Likewise vocation. Vocation is our discovery of the unique part we are called to play in God’s story. Joseph literally overnight goes from a bewildered critic or silent victim of God’s mysterious ways to a crucial agent in advancing God’s story. We do the same. ‘Do not be afraid,’ says the angel. ‘Do not be afraid,’ says the Holy Spirit to us today, when we’re called to take up our part in that story.

We’ve seen six great theological themes at work; but we’re only half-way there. The child’s name is Jesus. This introduces two more dimensions of theology. One is the notion of the kingdom, or realm, of God. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, and Joshua was the one who took possession of the Promised Land. As we transition from Judaism to Christianity, we change from an understanding of blessing based on the land to a notion of grace based on the coming-alive of all those in exile – those oppressed in body, mind or spirit, those suppressed by foreign invader or sinister prejudice or unrestrained cruelty.

These are ways we perceive God’s future now and live today the life God prepares for us to share forever. In the naming of Jesus we also discover the reality of sin. Sin is everything that prevents us fully being with God, ourselves, one another and the creation. Jesus is the full and utter relationship of God that overcomes all these obstacles, whether made by ourselves or others, arising from painful memory or wilful disregard. Hence here we have an insight into the theme of salvation.

The way the angel persuades Joseph in his dream is to quote a line from Isaiah. Here we find the notion of revelation. Many theological textbooks begin with the doctrine of revelation, because they find it impossible to explain issues like authority, narrative and divinity without some idea that particular discoveries and experiences are blessed and honoured by a community. But Matthew has no abstract idea of revelation. He just plunges straight in with it, portraying Jesus within the context of what God has long prepared and always done. 

Within the notion of revelation is the doctrine of scripture, and we can see at work here Mathew’s confidence that, even with only the Old Testament to play with, the ways of God have already been disclosed such that identifying the unique and overwhelming significance of Jesus is not difficult.

Then to the greatest theological theme of all, that of incarnation. The angel announces Emmanuel, and quickly explains that means ‘God with us.’ These three words sum up everything theology has to tell us, and invite us into all the mysteries that theology has in store for us. It’s Matthew’s gospel in three words. It describes the wonder of Jesus – fully human, fully God – the call for our response, to be fully with God, ourselves, one another and the creation, and the embracing inclusivity of the us God chooses to be with. It also gives us eschatology, the promise of how things will be beyond now and into forever: that too is summed up in those three words, God with us. That’s all we need to know about revelation and all we need to anticipate about heaven.

But there’s two final verses, and one last doctrine to articulate. Joseph goes ahead and he and Mary live according to God’s call, making room for Jesus and responding to the implications of Jesus for their lives. That’s what we call church. Maybe church didn’t begin at Pentecost; maybe it began here, when the difference Christ makes began to be felt, understood, and responded to.

So here’s pretty much the whole of theology in eight verses: creation, Israel, Trinity, Holy Spirit, ethics, providence, vocation, God’s realm, sin, salvation, revelation, incarnation, the last things, and church. Theology is simply attending to the work of the Holy Spirit in scripture and elsewhere and discerning what that means for who God is and how we should be. 

I wish my conversation partner at that wedding 30 years ago had realised that the Bible is not like a packed lunch or first aid kit tucked away to get you through all eventualities, but an invitation to explore every aspect of what it means for God to be with us. And I hope he experienced the wonder of making that exploration together, with others committed to find, listen to and share that truth and put that truth to work. That’s the gift of what we’re doing right now: that’s the wonder of church.

* Rev. Dr Samuel Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College London. 

❑ Sermon source here

Matthew's Gospel 1:18-25

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about : His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.

25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

(NIV: Source)

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Evil resides in the heart of every person

 “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. He was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and returned to Russia in 1994.

UPDATE:

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, commencement speech delivered 8 June, 1978 at Harvard University. 

Solzhenitsyn told the graduates of his profound sadness at what he had observed in his four years in the United States. The West as a whole was guilty of the abuse of freedom. Some excerpts:

The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It's time, in the West ‒ It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counterbalanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually, but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature [my emphasis - BS]. The world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems, which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless Soviet society.

... [T]he fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.

The turn introduced by the Renaissance evidently was inevitable historically. The Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, becoming an intolerable despotic repression of man's physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. Then, however, we turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs. 

Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense. That provided access for evil, of which in our days there is a free and constant flow. Merely freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds a number of new ones. 

However, in early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic.

The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistically selfish aspect of Western approach and thinking has reached its final dimension and the world wound up in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the 20th century's moral poverty which no one could imagine even as late as in the 19th Century.

As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say that "communism is naturalized humanism."

This statement turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorships; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. This is typical of the Enlightenment in the 18th Century and of Marxism. Not by coincidence all of communism's meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today's West and today's East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.

The interrelationship is such, too, that the current of materialism which is most to the left always ends up by being stronger, more attractive, and victorious, because it is more consistent. Humanism without its Christian heritage cannot resist such competition. We watch this process in the past centuries and especially in the past decades, on a world scale as the situation becomes increasingly dramatic.

I am not examining here the case of a world war disaster and the changes which it would produce in society. As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we have to lead an everyday life. There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging everything on earth ‒ imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible  ‒ The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfilment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times. Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge: We shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but ‒ upward.

Some months after this address Solzhenitsyn reflected on the response to his speech:

Western society in principle is based on a legal level that is far lower than the true moral yardstick, and besides, this legal way of thinking has a tendency to ossify. In principle, moral imperatives are not adhered to in politics, and often not in public life either. The notion of freedom has been diverted to unbridled passion, in other words, in the direction of the forces of evil (so that nobody’s “freedom” would be limited!). A sense of responsibility before God and society has fallen away. “Human rights” have been so exalted that the rights of society are being oppressed and destroyed.

And above all, the press, not elected by anyone, acts high-handedly and has amassed more power than the legislative, executive, or judicial power. And in this free press itself, it is not true freedom of opinion that dominates, but the dictates of the political fashion of the moment, which lead to a surprising uniformity of opinion. (It was on this point that I had irritated them most.) The whole social system does not contribute to advancing outstanding individuals to the highest echelons.

The reigning ideology, that prosperity and the accumulation of material riches are to be valued above all else, is leading to a weakening of character in the West, and also to a massive decline in courage and the will to defend itself, as was clearly seen in the Vietnam War, not to mention a perplexity in the face of terror. But the roots of this social condition spring from the Enlightenment, from rationalist humanism, from the notion that man is the center of all that exists, and that there is no Higher Power above him. And these roots of irreligious humanism are common to the current Western world and to Communism, and that is what has led the Western intelligentsia to such strong and dogged sympathy for Communism.

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Where to go for the soul to appreciate its worth

A child has been born to us

O Holy Night has some striking words, good reason – along with its winning melody – for its popularity each Christmas. Central to its theme is the role of Christ in enabling us to recognize who we are in our fallen state: "Til He appears, and the soul felt its worth." Though we live in a humble state of war within ourselves and without, God was willing to become human, with the one person, Jesus, having two natures, which is the mystery of the incarnation.

One commentator offered this reflection about God's guidance on our soul's worth:

We can't know our true worth by ourselves. It took God to write the ultimate headline —written in the Word made flesh, expressed from all eternity, now born in time, and dwelling among us.

God became a baby! What a challenge to the arrogance of this age, in which fame, wealth and power are the idols heralded by a blind culture, where the goal is no longer "to enjoy the examined life founded on reason". Only with our eyes on the divine finger at work in our own life can we discern our own value, and that of each fellow human, as being reckoned fit for a relationship with God.

The carol, of French poetic origins, is traditionally translated this way:

O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

'Til He appears and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born

O night, O Holy night, O night divine!

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand

So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming

Here come the Wise Men from Orient land

The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger

In all our trials born to be our friend

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger

Behold your King; before Him lowly bend

Behold your King; before Him lowly bend

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His Gospel is Peace

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother

And in His name, all oppression shall cease

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we

Let all within us praise His Holy name

Christ is the Lord; O praise His name forever!

His power and glory evermore proclaim

His power and glory evermore proclaim 

The Adoration of the Magi is a tapestry depicting the story of the Three Kings who were guided to the birthplace of Jesus by the star of Bethlehem. It is sometimes called The Star of Bethlehem or simply The Adoration. Ten tapestries of the same type were completed by the British company, Morris & Co., including one in 1894 for the Corporation of Manchester.

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Christmas: History gains its true perspective

The genius that leaves the modern in the shade. Photo by Denis Zagorodniuc

Some wise words, beginning with "History often needs shock treatment to get it back into the correct rhythm."

The writer points out that Marxism, both the "historical determinism" of yore, as well as its version flaunted by promoters of the Woke today, "promises a solution to historical woes: Cancel the past and replace it with a glorious future according to the dictates of powerful elites. [...] The proposal is utopian and ends in tyranny. So we must look elsewhere for a solution that protects human dignity."

Our observer of the world's ways continues:

Christianity offers us a view of history to evaluate all historical developments. The evangelists and early Christians were humble and honest historians. They fearlessly reported the genealogy of Jesus, which included saints and sinners, and accurately depicted his messengers—the Apostles—including their sins. The humility of the early Christians enhances the reliability of biblical history, and the Cross is hardly the stuff of huckster advertising.

Further, the Resurrection fulfils all of scripture. In the gospels, we hear a litany-like repetition of the phrase, “So that Scriptures may be fulfilled.” Portions of Mary’s Magnificat prayer of joy are rooted in Old Testament prayers. Jesus prays the psalms on the Cross. The references reinforce the unity of the Old Testament with the New Testament and restore the integrity of salvation history from start to finish.

The early Christians didn’t cancel history but evaluated the past by the Word. “So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.’” (Acts 17:22-23) 
Ancient civilizations challenge modern arrogance. History teaches: Been there, done that.

Among the discolored ruins in Athens ravaged by time, the custodians provide a bright white recently-hewn block of marble. The unweathered stone provokes the imagination and allows us to visualize the glorious remnants as brightly elegant, unique structures that rival the splendor of modern skyscrapers. The ancients were hardly our inferiors in construction management. Confidence in ancient history helps us dismiss the false promises of Marxism that place faith in relentless human progress. 

However, that bright white piece of marble also suggests that [...] gospel historians were not, by default, inferior to modern progressives. The truth of honest testimony is immutable. “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” (2 Peter 1:16)

Truth in its absolute form, as derived from historical information, has been the focus of much of the theological argument in the Church over the centuries. Therefore, we can say this: "The Church safeguards the integrity of salvation history." Our writer states:

The deposit of faith of the Church—rooted in Scripture and Sacred Tradition—guarantees the unity of all of history and carefully guards the eternal truths of the Gospel. The Apostles’ Creed summarizes history from start to finish. The “one, holy, Catholic Church” delivers the Word until the end of time. Jesus is the Lord of history. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. (cf. Rev. 22:13)

The saving history of Jesus critiques all of history—individual and collective. Confident in the Word, we encounter Him throughout history in the Sacraments and realize our worth in His eyes. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The writer of this piece is Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, a priest of the U.S. Diocese of Arlington. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master’s in moral theology. Read his full article here.  

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