Jesus Christ rose from the dead, appeared to His disciples, and sent them to the corners of world bearing the message that the Kingdom of God has arrived. The Kingdom advances from its epicenter in Jerusalem, rippling through space and time, ever in conflict “against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Nevertheless, these forces could not entirely resist the dedicated evangelism of true Christ followers, and missionaries traversed the globe shining the light of Christ’s resurrection in every dark space they could reach.
Christianity triumphed over the powers of Roman darkness, brutality, and culture of death. Say what you will about the Church gaining temporal power, the churchmen of the age of Nazianzus and Augustine stubbornly refused to love what the pagans loved. Their hearts were captivated by the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Their hearts were set upon the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Because of this they provided a deep intellectual frame for loving God in a hostile world, a source of theological unity and structure to keep the Kingdom advancing in the face of determined, Satanic obstruction. As Jesus prophesied, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Jesus Christ began to stitch the patchwork mosaic of the barbarian tribes of Europe together through His work through the Church and through common stories, values, philosophy, and experience. A culture of life began to blossom under the dark shade of Roman tyranny, fostered by Christians’ faithful adherence to the “house rule” found in Ephesians 4-6, Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and the Sermon on the Mount.
Liberation from decay began its upward march in Europe, which would eventually burst forth in the fruit of human rights, abolition of slavery, the scientific method, the arts and humanities, medicine, commerce, and the greatest leap in quality of life that the world has ever witnessed. And these are just the crumbs falling from the Table of the Lord! What joy shall fill the earth at the final consummation of His Kingdom when the world, the flesh, and the devil no longer shade the bloom, when snakes no longer slither in the garden?
But there remains a dragon between our time and that, a dragon capable of sweeping the stars from the sky and blackening the earth with its devastation. It has whipped up a furious cloud of deconstruction, postmodernism, and revisionist history. It descends like a plague of locusts upon our institutions, devouring the fruit. Its cultural Marxism gushes out like acidic fire, dissolving all those woven fibers of shared meaning, philosophy, and experience—leaving in its wake a desolate Hobbesian nightmare, a war of all against all—the Shire come Mordor.
The result can only be catastrophic to our shared society. These postmodern nihilists strip love from the world and claim it is just a power play “dressed for the opera.” They offer no beauty of their own but denigrate all beauty in an attempt to show the best of Western culture—John Donne, Rembrandt, and Beethoven—as ugly, false, and scatological. Or as Roger Scruton once remarked from the halls of Scrutopia, “They wish to parade the best works through the streets, naked and thrashed!” They offer suicide as the only cure for Western atrophy.
When Christians sleep, barbarians invade. That is certainly evident on campuses across the nation. The university has become the diversity; rampant tribalism, segregation, and disorder spoil an entire generation. What devastation shall be wreaked when these ones gain the halls of power? They shall burn what they could not create, raze what they could never build.
Where are our bulwarks? Where is the Ambrose of our time? Where is Augustine, Athanasius, and Anselm? Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere they are needed. Why should we allow the acid of critical theory to dissolve all the grandest things ever created?
Notre Dame is an omen, either that the barbarians are here to stay or that we Christians are no longer worthy of her.
you who seek the Lord:
look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
“Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is my law;
fear not the reproach of man,
nor be dismayed at their revilings.
For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool,
but my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation to all generations.”
Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces
, who pierced the dragon?
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Isaiah 51:1, 7-8, 11
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