Marx had called religion, the "opium of the oppressed". Actually, this is a condensed version of what he actually said. But it does capture his basic idea pretty well. In his view, religion must be done away with for it is a painkiller and not a cure for the disease (for him capitalism) that afflicts the world.
Regardless of how much members of the Left adhere to his ideas, it seems that the secular left in the West often portray religion especially Christianity in a negative light. While Christianity is relatively strong in the US, it lacks and elite that defends it.
What I would like to promote is an elite that recognises that Judeo-Christian civilization has been beneficial for mankind and is willing to defend it. This is more urgent in Europe where the influx of Muslim immigration threatens to turn it into Eurabia. The strange thing about the Left is that they are reflexively defensive of Islam.
I would like to coin a new word - the Christianist - which I define as someone who sees good in Judeo-Christian civilization and wants to preserve it. There are two groups. Those who are believing Christians are automatically Christianists because they presumably want to preserve Christian civilization. But there is a second group.
A example of this group would be Oriana Fallaci who called herself an atheist Christian. She sees value in preserving Christian civilization against encroaching Islamization. Another would be Jurgen Habermas (another atheist) who said:
"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [to Christianity].We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else ispostmodern chatter."
For the Christian believer, I hope to provide you with a resource to defend your civilization against ignorant critics. In time to come, I hope to accumulate a series of articles explaining how the Christian faith has changed the world for the better. The first article is on how Christianity inspired the modern concept of human rights.
But it is the second group that I want to reach out to. I want to convince the post-Christians that Christian civilization is worth preserving.
As in my other blog, 'Democracy Reform', I welcome contributions from others. Those who consider themselves Christianists, please click the 'comment' button and write a short remark.
