What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Whither Christianity?

How will its future resemble its past?

My friend Matthew Roberts forwards me an interesting message, and an interesting video. Here's the video:

And here's the message:

"Christianity does not exist in a vacuum. It absorbs and adopts indigenous traditions wherever it spreads. In Europe, during the latter part of the Roman Empire, a distinctly European form of Christianity took hold. Melding European paganism and Christianity, Europe gave birth to syncretized holidays like Christmas and Easter. Yet, there is no reason why Christianity should or must be European. Christianity, growing in non-Western areas, will adopt and absorb other, non-Western, traditions. As Philip Jenkins has pointed out, as Christianity spreads throughout the Third World, most of its adherents soon will not only be non-Western, but probably anti-Western...

"...Discarding unnecessary European baggage, Mexico gives birth to a new, non-Western variety of Christianity. As the narrator in part I of the documentary states, 'the white way is not the only way to salvation.' Here he gives us Christianity 'Mexican style,' as 'Christianity has never been just the white man’s religion.'"

HT, Conservative Heritage Times.

Comments (82)

The faith is Europe and Europe is the faith.

--Belloc

For Catholics, there is simply no possibility of the Christian Faith without its European heritage. As a non-possibility it really isn't worth fretting over.

Nevertheless, I suppose, it is a good exercise to consider how one might answer the question: Will you have Christ without the West, or the West without Christ? Choose your side.

Jeff C: I wouldn't be so sure. Read Philip Jenkin's Next Christendom. Catholicism in the Third World is in the process of shedding much of its European baggage.

I should add that whomever created this video seems to deliberately confuse religious syncretism, which is sinful and illegitimate (e.g., mixing Catholicism and Mayan superstition), with perfectly authentic Christian inculturation (e.g., Our Lady of Guadalupe's message and appearance). It's rather clever, implying falsely that one must either accept or reject them together, as a package.

Catholicism in the Third World is in the process of shedding much of its European baggage.

No, Catholicism in the third world is in the process of shedding much of its Catholicism. Like the Catholic/Mayan priest/shaman in the video. The same is true of Catholicism in the first world, sadly.

1500 years of "European" councils, doctrinal defintions, papal encyclicals, saints, doctors, mystics, devotions, etc., aren't going away, despite the practices of some syncretistic "third-worlders". To reject them is to reject the Catholic Faith.

Let it be noted, too, that it was the traditional Latin Mass and its uncompromising religious culture that evangelized the new world with a hard-line against syncretism. It is only in the last half-century, under the exported influence of self-loathing Westerners, that the Christianized third world has become zealous for reviving its pre-Christian superstitions. We see a parallel in the formerly Christian West, too, with the rise of the New Age movement, Wicca, and a resurgence of "blood and soil" paganism in some quarters. It's all of a piece.

Jeff Culbreath, though I haven't had time to watch the video, I would have suspected from the "message" in the main post that the confusion you mention in your 6:24 comment is part of what is going on. As though our hyper-fundamentalist-Puritan friends were correct and having a Christmas tree or a wreath or decorating Easter eggs is the same thing as real doctrinal syncretism.

Indeed, it's interesting to see how often non-Christians (ahem) do exactly this--namely, take the positions of the most rigid among Christians to be correct as summaries of Christianity, statements of what Christianity requires or must be or excludes, and then use that acceptance as some sort of weapon against Christianity.

I love Belloc, but he was off base in that famous statement about Europe. You could imagine a Christian of 8th century Byzantium saying "The faith is the Near East and the Near East is the faith." A high civilization, at once Catholic and Orthodox, was thriving as the light of Christian society back when most of Europe was pagan and tribal. Even the Celtic Church of the Dark Age, which gave life to northern Europe in subsequent centuries, owed more to Levantine Christianity than it did to Latin Christianity.

In his writings, Belloc used "Christendom" and "white civilization" synonymously. I doubt many would today.

What I noticed was that there was the assumption that the Virgin of Guadalupe was more of a marketing ploy than a divine act. It seems this analysis of religious syncretism is plagued with the starting assumption that Catholicism isn't something distinct and definite. As such, they seem to view this as a natural development of a cultural spirituality.

However, Catholicism is something objective and dogmatic. Because of this, it can take different cultural forms while remaining the same religion. As Innocent Smith told the eastern mystic:

"We are right because we are bound where men should be bound, and free where men should be free. We are right because we doubt and destroy laws and customs--but we do not doubt our own right to destroy them. For you live by customs, but we live by creeds. ...You are steadfast as the trees because you do not believe. I am as fickle as the tempest because I do believe."

When cultural adaptation melts and melds dogmatic issues, the issue is no longer merely cultural adaptation, but a new religion that is no longer Catholic or Christian. Also, this needs to happen slowly and over time. Trying to force it as has happened in my diocese with Native American spirituality just looks silly. Having a young Indian dancer incense the altar and people with sage is not meaningful, it is out-of-place. It isn't an organic development, but a graft.

The narrator of the video, in discussing the New Christendom (a distinctively non-Western Christianity), says the following:

"What’s going on now is not a pagan survival, but Christianity Mexican style.  It’s much like when Pope Gregory wrote to St. Augustine in the 6th century during the English conversion to Christianity.   He wrote, “Don’t destroy their religious traditions; simply adapt them to Christianity.”  And it worked.  What happened then founded Western Christendom.  What’s happening now is part of a New Christendom.  The fact is, Christianity has never been just the white man’s religion."

The narrator of the video, in discussing the New Christendom (a distinctively non-Western Christianity), says the following: "What’s going on now is not a pagan survival, but Christianity Mexican style."

The narrator is wrong and the filmmaker obviously has an anti-Christian agenda. Christianity and shamanism do not mix. Period. What the video portrayed was shamanism with a "Christian" veneer. It's true that some non-Christian customs can be converted, in their rituals and externals, to the service of the Triune God. But the Church draws a sharp line at any hint of magic, superstition or idolatry, such as that portrayed in the video, despite the involvement of insufficiently catechized Christians.

"The fact is, Christianity has never been just the white man’s religion."

That's your main beef with Christianity, isn't it? - that it isn't exclusively white. Your sad dilemma is that the heritage of white civilization is inextricably tied to a universal religion, and there's nothing you can do about it. Every man has his own idols to forsake.

Jeff Culbreath: I really have no beef with Christianity. Trained in the classics, my interest is academic. Christianity doesn't exist in a vacuum. If it should, then Christians would try to replicate the customs of the early Middle Eastern Christians. In reality, Christianity adapts to the local cultures and traditions. While European Christianity was one manifestation of Christianity (adopting the ancestral traditions of Europeans), it seems that Christianity soon will be a largely, if not entirely, non-Western religion -- adapting and changing to the ancestral traditions of those of the Third World. Your real beef is probably with the thesis of Philip Jenkin's Next Christendom. From your perspective, you can say that Mexican Catholicism is "not Christian." But the rest of the world probably wont' see it that way. They will see your perspective as too Eurocentric.

M.A.,

While I haven't read Jenkin's book yet, I'm going to have to stick up for Jeff C. The Catholic Church has always encouraged missionaries to adapt local pagan traditions into Christianity -- witness Christmas and Easter as the narrator of the video correctly points out. And as Jeff C. also notes, certain Mexican traditions have been successfully adapted into Catholic culture -- witness Our Lady and the Día de los Muertos holiday. But that doesn't mean all pagan rituals are properly adapted into the Church and as Jeff C. also points out, the blessing of the "corn god" or whatever that "priest" is up to in that video looks less than orthodox. But so did liberation theology and the Church, to her credit, stamped that nonsense out. If anything, what you find in the Third World, is an enthusiastic embrace of traditional Christianity and morality without many fans of the liberal strains of Protestant churches you find in the West (with their support of women clergy, gay "marriage", etc.) That's why American Episcopalians are actually considering hanging their hats with an African Bishop rather than face being ruled by the goofy clergy here at home.

I remain happy that the good news of the Gospel is being spread to pagans around the world and that in places like South Korea millions of people love Christ who 100 years ago had never known Him.

Your real beef is probably with the thesis of Philip Jenkin's Next Christendom.

I haven't read the book, but if at some point in the future Christianity dies in Europe and thrives elsewhere, then that is just a fact to accept. What you don't seem to understand is that Christianity is both a creedal and an historical religion, and the formative history of the Church is and always will be European. To the extent that non-Europeans accept the Catholic Faith, they accept and adopt its European heritage - just as the first European Christians had to accept Christianity's Jewish and Middle-Eastern roots.

Now then, it is obviously true that every people brings to its practice of Christianity its own ancestral history and culture. Grace builds on nature: Christianity disrupts nothing of pre-existing societies that is good, true and beautiful. And so, in Southeast Asia for example, you end up with a religious culture that is partly French and partly indigenous. The Mass is celebrated in Latin with Gregorian chant, the clergy are trained in Thomistic theology, the rosary is prayed and there is a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. At the same time, their devotions are chanted in much the same way as they are chanted in a Buddhist temple; their altars and tabernacles might resemble a village pagoda; their ancestors are still venerated on the family altar (but no longer worshiped); etc., etc. And so Vietnamese Catholic culture becomes its own thing, neither wholly European nor wholly indigenous, but a fusion of the good found in each.

The European element survives, and although it is religiously dominant, it is both culturally transforming and being itself transformed. Euro-purists might say that such a thing is no longer European at all, and I won't quibble with them. But it is European enough to save not only the essential thing about European civilization, but many of its accidents as well.

From your perspective, you can say that Mexican Catholicism is "not Christian."

No, Mexican Catholicism is absolutely Christian. The clergy in Mexico have been battling the old superstitions for centuries, and have met with enough success to create a battalion of Catholic martyrs. But the Church has been terribly weakened in Mexico - fewer than 30% of Mexican Catholics even attend Mass on Sunday - and syncretism is as rampant there as elsewhere.

It's true that Christianity has a lot of room to accommodate cultural traditions, and it is a good thing to do so. But I'd like to ask, to what extent are Christianity and Western culture separable? It seems to me that Christianity didn't just hitch a ride alongside this other thing called Western culture; rather, Christianity largely built and shaped Western culture over two millennia. We've abandoned it today, but we still live in an unrecognized Christian atmosphere and even modern secular ideas only make sense in the light of Christianity and would never have been born otherwise. I think this is part of what Belloc was getting at.

It would follow, then, that a sufficient Christian influence in a non-Western culture would eventually shape it to look more Christian. E. g. this non-western culture practices human sacrifice, Christianity would put an end to it and replace it with a respect for life. This culture understands the chief to be a god; but Christ is the one God, and the state is not divine. This culture practices polygamy, Christianity doesn't. And so forth. Even something as seemingly "local" as artistic styles would be affected. This non-western culture has a tradition of art that highlights cyclical recurrence in history and oblivion as the goal of the spiritual life; it would be replaced by a Christian understanding of linear history and a "more abundant life" as the goal of spiritual exercise. Which of these ideas are Western? Which are Christian? Would the product of this Christian influence on the culture mean that the culture that was Christianized, or Westernized? How would you distinguish?

In short, Christianity isn't a contentless box into which any cultural artifact can be put. Christianity is a set of very strong and certain ideas that will inevitably produce cultural artifacts. Certainly many aspects of Western culture are just details that could easily be changed. Many more aspects of Western culture, however, are the direct fruit of Christianity, and would necessarily need to be replicated in a newly evangelized culture.

What disturbs me -- as well as many on the European right -- about contemporary Christianity, at least as its practiced in Western countries, is its extreme universalism. I'd say that mainstream Christian leaders support of mass Third World immigration into the First World has turned more on the right away from Christianity than any other trend I can think of in my lifetime.

Thomas Fleming makes a good argument in the Morality of Everyday Life that this extreme universalism is more a product of the Enlightenment than inherent in Christianity. In other words, unfortunate trends like universal human rights and the universal brotherhood of man are more products of modern egalitarian thinking than pre-Englghtenment thinking.

James C. Russell, in The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, and other scholars have noted that in many respects Medieval Christianity is more pagan, specifically European pagan, than what comes afterwards. Christianity at this point, they maintain, still incorporates the pagan warrior ethos. Unlike priests today who talk about universal human rights and the right of the Third World to immigrate to the First, Archbishop Turpin, in the Song of Roland, takes up arms and physically prohibits people from moving north into France. In this phase of syncretism of Christianity and Germanic paganism, the warrior ethos remains strong.

Again, I have nothing against the non-Western Christianity of Mexico, Central and South America, and Africa. I wish them the best. Were I of non-Western ancestral traditions, I'd want to steer Christianity in that direction as well. I'd want to incorporate my own ancestral traditions -- not those of Europeans -- into Christianity. What they're doing in Mexico is understandable and justified.

Speaking of the warrior ethos and syncretism, look at the cross of sunlight on the priest's face in this new trailer for the movie Machete:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIxcVzwLR1k

Such a sentiment today would never be allowed in a pro-Western movie and is permitted here because the movie is pro-Mexican.

M.A.,

I'd have to read the book, but I find it hard to believe that Fleming makes a "good argument" that what you call "extreme universalism" (versus everyday, run-of-the-mill universalism?!) is not inherent in Christianity -- here is Paul in Galatians:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

I could go on, but Christ's commands and His message to humanity is universal. End of story. Now, that doesn't mean modern day Christian leaders twist the Gospel to support ridiculous ideas like open borders -- they do and I condemn them for doing so just as much as you do. But it is not clear to me that all their ideas are just as confused or that Christian theology is to blame for their (bad) liberal ideas.

Also, I think you need to check out more movies, because there are positive pro-Western Christian priests depicted in films if you know where to look. I'd recommend the historical film "Amazing Grace" as a good place to start. If you are in the mood for an action film, check out "Rambo" -- Stallone wrote the film partly to highlight the plight of the Christian minoirty tribe in Burma that is being persecuted by the junta. In the film missionaries convince John Rambo to go on one last mission to save some Christian village folk and much violent destruction then ensues. Rambo is not necessarily a good Christian warrior, but his heart is in the right place.

I think that missionary work is one of the undermining weaknesses of Western Christianity. Many of the net-results of missionary work are anti-Western in that it deracinates Western churches. Perhaps the reason why many Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe are more blatantly pro-Western is because they have de-emphasized missionary work.

Fleming addresses the Galatians quote above. He contextualizes it with quotes by Augustine, Aquinas, et al., showing that one has greater duties to those to whom one is more closely related by blood and proximity.

Perhaps I'm missing the movie where the Anglo-priest takes up arms to stop Third World immigration. That would be the inverse of Machete.... What is its title? Yea right....it would be condemned by the Vatican:

http://vdare.com/williamson/080422_immigration.htm

So, according to MA Roberts, Christians should stop being Christians, because as good Christians we have to try sincerely to fulfill the Great Commission and bring the Gospel to all nations, and attempting to fulfill the Great Commission will "de-racinate" our churches. Got it. Thanks for being so clear.

I wonder what Mr. Roberts makes of the increasingly common phenomenon of non-Western Christian leaders evangelizing in the West, in a sense calling the West back home. It us broader than just the case of Anglican or Episcopalian traditionalists seeking protection in the authority of a Latin American or African bishop.

Our Christian friends go to exotic places and minister to exotic people when they could spend their whole lives trying to spread the gospel to the people in their community. Many people here in America haven't actually heard the Gospel. This is particularly true of young people whose ideas about the Gospels come from pop-culture.I didn't know the basics until age 26. The Mormons and Jovies are the only ones who bothered to evangelize us. But I guess God gives more credit for saving African souls.

But they look like better Christians when they are ministering in some third world country to exotic looking dark-skinned people dressed in exotic clothes. Our Christian friends put on a presentation along the lines of "look what we're leaving behind and look where we're going" before heading off to Peru (and leaving their young children in the care of strangers- I guess the Holy Spirit inspired them to do that) to spread the Gospel among people who've been exposed to Catholicism.

Paul, I really don't see what the point of it is. It would be better if they evangelize in their own countries and we evangelize our own.

To MAR, the Orthodox Churches aren't pro-Western (in fact, Orthodoxy is often anti-Western) they're pro-Eastern.

The Bible's in about every language. It can be spread in any country by evangelists who want to save their countrymen. But, like Leftists, Christians like to feel good about themselves by making their hearts bleed excessively for the exotic and alien.

THat should read "Modern Christians." Modern CHristians don't exist in a vacuum and have absorbed lots of leftist ideas and attitudes. I don't think it HAS to be that way.

Nietzsche wrote that Leftists "out-Christian" the Christians. The modern Christians seem to feel the need to keep up.

Bruce: "Orthodox Churches aren't pro-Western (in fact, Orthodoxy is often anti-Western) they're pro-Eastern."

I agree that the language here is slippery. Eastern European Orthodox churches, in my opinion, are pro-Western in the sense that they are often quite tough on immigration from the Third World and do not hate themselves. Russian Orthodoxy, for instance, is pro-Russian. Serbian Orthodoxy is pro-Serbian. From my limited experience, Eastern European Orthodox Christians do not seem to be overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, globalist charity, globalist missionary work, etc. This is a good thing.

Perhaps so, Mr. Roberts. But the Orthodox Churches also tend to be profoundly suspicious of Roman Catholic Europe. They hearken back to a more Greek and Near Eastern Church, not to the Latin Church of the northern European middle ages.

"No Jew, nor Greek" does not equal an end to nations since in the end God is raising people from all nations (and "nation" is not synonymous with "state"). "No Jew, nor Greek" means distinctions here aren't eternal or else it would be "no male, no female" and we'd be free to marry the same sex once we're "In Christ."

I think that missionary work is one of the undermining weaknesses of Western Christianity.

Why not come right out with it? Once again, this statement simply proves that you want the West without Christianity. Which, in my book, puts you on the same side of the culture wars as the humanities departments of Harvard or Yale.

No we want a Christianity that isn't an accessory to the suicide (murder?) of our nations. No Kevorkian Christianity, thank you.

Paul: "Perhaps so, Mr. Roberts. But the Orthodox Churches also tend to be profoundly suspicious of Roman Catholic Europe. They hearken back to a more Greek and Near Eastern Church, not to the Latin Church of the northern European middle ages."

I agree. I am not saying I want Orthodox Christianity for NW Europe. What I am saying is that Russian Orthodoxy is actually pro-Russian. (I've heard a Russian Orthodox priest talk about non-Western immigration into the West and he made Tom Tancredo sound coy.) Serbian Orthodoxy is Pro-Serbian. This is a huge improvement on our Churches. The once Anglo-Saxon Anglican Church now cares more about Africa. American Catholicism cares more about Mexico and Haiti. As predicted by Jean Raspail, mainstream Catholicism is ceasing to be Western in any meaningful way.

Bruce: "No we want a Christianity that isn't an accessory to the suicide (murder?) of our nations. No Kevorkian Christianity, thank you."

Exactly!

M.A.,

Care to provide some evidence for your provocative thesis that "American Catholicism cares more about Mexico and Haiti [presumably than about America]"?

It doesn't help your argument when you resort to hyperbole to make a point. The American Catholic Church is a huge entity and its leaders and flock have all sorts of concerns, most of which I assure you are everyday American (e.g. growing their parish, making sure their local Catholic school stays open, suppoting local charities, etc.) Just today I was reading this speech by one of my favorite American Catholic Bishops, Charles Chaput, and I think you'll find in him a robust defender of the West:

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1344457?eng=y

Jeff: On my local news, I constantly see priests defending illegal immigrants, giving talks supporting mass Third World immigration into the West, asking for money for Haiti, etc. Most recently, I heard about some priests attending La Raza sponsored events. I've never once on my local news heard a priest call for an immigration moratorium from the Third World, ask that we give money to poor areas of the West instead of Haiti, or demand that we round up and deport illegal aliens. True, what I say is anecdotal. But I suspect it represents the reality at large.

American Christians (Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, snake-handlers et. al.) cared more about Hatians, Africans, Peruvians, Papuans than about me and my family because they never once in 26 years ministered to me (the Mormons and Jovies did -see above comment) but they do mininster to Hatians, Africans, Peruvians, Papuans and make sure that others see that they're doing this (see their publications, websites, etc.). The Anglican Church even in it's continuing, conservative form (I'm TAC or at least was) is especially into this.

Then there's the way they use the exotic and alien as props. For anecdotal purposes I'll pick on the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans (a real nice bunch and very conservative - I do recommend their Churches for traditional liturgy and hymns, traditional morality-male headship, anti-abortion, 6-day creationism, etc.).

They're literally overwhelmingly white (German and Scandinavian) with a few Wisconsin Hmong they've converted but you'd think that they're half NAM* looking at their publications (and I do look at them all the time when I go there). Now there's nothing wrong with showing African and Latino Christians, Lutheran or otherwise. Luther probably didn't think the Gospel was just for Germanics. But they literally drag them in front of the camera to create a false impression just like the diversity-obsessed leftists at my work do. They're not disproportionately twitterpated** by them?! And these are the really conservative Christians.

* Non-Asian Minority for all you non-racists
** http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/twitterpated

MA Roberts says,

It would be better if they evangelize in their own countries and we evangelize our own.

That is a profoundly arrogant comment, particularly coming from a non-Christian. What the...dickens do you know, Mr. Roberts, about what would be _better_ when it comes to the cause of Christ? I mean, let's admit it, you don't care peanuts about the cause of Christ. You don't believe in the notion of a Christian vocation or of God's calling people to a particular work. You don't believe that God might have His own reasons for calling some people to evangelize in a foreign country, to hear the call, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." You don't believe in, "How beautiful are the feet of them that bring good tidings." And, on our view, He also has His own reasons for calling some people to try to reach people within their own country. But it's all nonsense to _you_. What possible right have you to preach to Christians who accept, yes, all of this supernatural baggage, who believe in the will and calling of the Most High God, about what would be "better" as far as when, where, and how they evangelize?

I'll add this, too: I strongly suspect that if you try to have the West without Christ, you will end up with neither. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Lydia,

I will admit that I'm not a particularly religious person, but in all fairness you don't know anything about my personal beliefs. Not that it matters, but I attended church (Protestant) only a few weeks ago and my children are involved in various Christian organizations. That said, it still doesn't change the fact that much of mainstream Christianity in the West is becoming anti-Western.

Because to anyone who opens his or her eyes it's obvious that 21st century Christians are motivated as much (or more) by liberalism as by the actions of the Holy Spirit.

You can't say that about me. I'm not Anglican anymore but Lutherans are still Christians.

I made an educated guess, MA, for which I do not apologize. It was an _educated_ guess. Like scientists looking for sub-atomic particles, only with a lot more justification. And I consider that your response confirms it. But please, correct me if I'm wrong and if you really do believe that God could call, has called, and still does call people to missions work in a country other than their own. And if you correct me on that one, please explain how to make such a statement compatible with your flat and blanket statement above that it would be "better" for people to evangelize only in their own countries. And please don't change the subject. At the moment, we are not merely talking about what many people in the West happen to think or do. We're talking about your general condemnation of missions work in foreign lands. What you have said is already right there in black and white pixels, so starting to talk now in terms of mere generalizations about liberal Christians in the West can't erase it.

I don't understand any of this, at least from a Catholic point of view. Neither would the Church Fathers. If there is no universal Mass, there is no universal Church. There is no Mexican Mass or African Mass or English Mass - just the Mass done selfishly and not according to rubrics. As long as the Mass remains, the country does not matter unless people pervert the Mass within that country to become something it is not.

The Chicken

Bruce, I have a fair number of friends who are foreign missionaries. Last I looked, they were motivated by love of the people to whom they consider themselves called. If you believe in the Holy Spirit (as you seem to imply that you do), it is the height of presumption to state definitively that missionaries in our time are _not_ called by God to foreign lands. If one does not believe in the Holy Spirit, it is sheer empty pointlessness to argue from some purely pragmatic perspective of "preserving the West" or "blood and soil" that there ought to be no foreign missionaries, for it is leaving Something out (you know--God) which Christians consider relevant.

In either event, the attempt to condemn foreign missions in the 21st century tout court is...distasteful and perhaps even somewhat dangerous. A few lightning rods might be in order.

What strikes me in all this is the way in which the question of truth has been shuffled aside. Surely the question of whether Christianity is true should be primary. If Christianity is true, the big news concerning invidious pagan syncretism is that it is a perversion of the truth, not that it is bad for the survival of European culture or anything of that sort!

On the Christian view, Jesus Christ does not exist to serve our ends, even our noble ends. We exist to serve His. Nor (it should go without saying) can the act of going to other lands and carrying the Gospel be plausibly argued to be an intrinsically wrong act, so that (as in the case of suicide bombings) a command to do it constitutes a reductio of Christianity. Since Christians believe Christianity to be true, it is silly, to put it no higher, to try to get them to abandon the Great Commission on the grounds that the Great Commission is bad for white consciousness raising.

Lydia,I don't claim that NO missionaries are called by God to foreign lands. I claim that lots of Christians are motivated by left/liberal beliefs and assumptions and emotions that they think are God calling them.

I also claim that they had little interest in evanglelizing to me but have lots of interest in evangelizing alien peoples.

No kidding we had Christian friends who gave a powerpoint presentation dwelling extensively on all the wonderful things they were giving up to go to Peru as missionaries. No one seemed to have a problem with this.

Look, Bruce, I yield to no one in political scrappiness, but apropos of your 6:19 post, it's probably a sign that you are too wrapped up in politics if you use a political smell test as a means of discerning hidden motives and determining that people aren't _really_ called of God to be missionaries. Newsflash: God can call and use people who are politically liberal on issues such as race, multiculturalism, immigration, etc.

And it's pretty rare that you would be called upon to decide whether _others_ are truly following God's call anyway. Most of us have enough to worry about being sure we are following God's leading in our own lives.

If I may take it from your comments that you are a Christian, Bruce, then obviously God used someone as a means of your salvation, and probably many someones, in a whole chain going back to the apostles. We owe a debt of gratitude to the dead as well in this regard. The Apostle John, dead now for over 1900 years after a life of hardships and dangers, wrote, "These things are written that you may believe in the name of the Son of God." Instead of spending a lot of energy resenting and expressing resentment against people who in your opinion should have done more to get the Gospel to you, thank God for whoever _was_ responsible for your learning the Good News, even if his work was that of writing a book. Another profitable activity would be seeking to bring the Gospel to others. In other words, ask not what the Body of Christ can do for you; ask what you can do for the Body of Christ.

TAC like I said but we're looking elsewhere since they're Romeward bound (and for other reasons). Thanks for the advice.

Of course I can't know peoples motives for sure. Like you, I take educated guesses and anyway I'm speaking in generalities. I don't try to discern the motives of every Christian act of charity or evangelism.

I didn't express resentment and I don't resent them. I stated an opinion. That opinion is that they aren't terribly interested in spreading the Gospel in their own communities. Exotic places and peoples seem to excite them more.

BTW where the heck is Burton. He posts this and then bails. He's always an interesting read.

And I don't think that Christians shouldn't evangelize in other countries. But I do think that they need to concentrate on evangelizing their own communities.

I agree with Bruce re Burton.

But in my experience the kind of folks who are willing to go to foreign lands to preach the Gospel are also precisely the same people who will strike up a conversation with the tatooed hipsters at Starbucks and end up inviting them come to the church's next art gallery or whatever. At my church we've seen in recent years Muslim converts and middle-aged Yankee Jewish converts -- in part due to leadership, but also due to the persistence in charity, faithful prayer, and general charisma of the mission-minded folks in our congregation.

I assure you I am in no hurry to drag such brothers and sisters before examination at the bar of my politics in order to credit their work for the Gospel.

Lydia,

Look, Bruce, I yield to no one in political scrappiness, but apropos of your 6:19 post, it's probably a sign that you are too wrapped up in politics if you use a political smell test as a means of discerning hidden motives and determining that people aren't _really_ called of God to be missionaries. Newsflash: God can call and use people who are politically liberal on issues such as race, multiculturalism, immigration, etc.

My wife and I've seen the types Bruce is talking about all over the place in metro DC. They'll go to a foreign hellhole for a week or two, living in relative comfort usually, and then act like they were real "missionaries." The first church I went to had **real** missionaries as in "go live for 2 years in Africa on the last of your savings" type medical missionaries. I know the difference and can say that there are a lot more of the type that Bruce describes, at least around here, than we'd like to admit.

Paul, exactly:

also due to the persistence in charity, faithful prayer, and general charisma of the mission-minded folks in our congregation.

I assure you I am in no hurry to drag such brothers and sisters before examination at the bar of my politics in order to credit their work for the Gospel.

Mike T, when I was much younger and more knowledgeable about evangelical culture, those short missions trips were partly for the purpose of giving young people information about missions and knowledge about whether they were called to that work. I went on a 7-week trip (alone, not with a group, meeting the missionaries I was working with in Recife) to equatorial Brazil twenty-five years ago. Part of the time I lived in "relative comfort" (depending on how you define "relative" and "comfort"), part of the time I definitely didn't. But either way, I wasn't under any illusions that I was "being a real missionary." Most of the time I felt that I wasn't working nearly hard enough.

Whether the people Bruce excoriates for talking too much about what they were giving up to go to Peru were going for a 2-week stint or for several years I can't be sure, though I'd be inclined to think from the presentation he describes that it was probably the latter. If so, they shouldn't have boasted anyway, but I tend to think humility is a better response than scorn. St. Paul says, "It is a faithful saying:...If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." Given the comfortable life I've ended up in, I sometimes think of that verse and wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. Given all that the Bible says on various related topics, scorn for missionaries (from Christians, especially) just isn't something I have a lot of patience with.

Missionary work has not been constant throughout Christianity. After the conversion of Europe, Western European Christians largely resigned from missionary work for centuries until the discovery of the New World. Compared to those of Western Europe, Orthodox Christians have barely converted anyone. Regardless, the fact of the matter today is that missionary work has proven detrimental for the West. It has radically deracinated Western identity.

Different aspects of religious texts will be emphasized and de-emphasized in different historical periods. This is a fact. The current obsession of Christians with Third World missionary work and Third World charity is just as much a reflection of the political correctness of our age as it is of Christianity. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's obsession with helping and adopting the Third World is but a secularized form of the modern missionary drive in Christianity. Or are the two related? Is political correctness in opposition to Christianity or did it grow out of it? Is political correctness a Christian heresy (as Spengler thought Bolshevism a Christian heresy)? I'm not saying I agree with this, but it is a thought for discussion.

Bruce: The Colors of Beneton ads are but secularized forms of Christian missionary literature that I've seen over the past 15 years. They both have the same fons et origo and serve the same function.

MAR, The Colors of Beneton version of Jesus Blesses the Children is all over Christian literature (e.g. my kids' homeschool literature). It always seemed like a PC spin on Luke 18:15 to me. As if 21st century Christians seriously question the fact that all races can be Christian and have to be reminded.

An accurate depiction would show Middle Eastern children coming to Jesus which is what acutally happened.

After the conversion of Europe, Western European Christians largely resigned from missionary work for centuries until the discovery of the New World.

Tell it to King Alfred who supervised the baptism of the Viking King Guthrum. It was part of their peace treaty. Tell it to the "great company of Irish saints," as Lawrence Brown put it, who spread across northern Europe during the Dark Ages, converting, feeding, educating, preserving. Tell it to St. Benedict; in Whittaker Chambers beautiful phrases, "At the touch of his mild inspiration the bones of a new order stirred and clothed themselves with life, drawing to itself much that was best and most vigorous among the ruins of man and his work in the Dark Ages." The monasteries of Dark Age Europe are among our most powerful recorded examples of mercy and evangelism.

Or what about that astonishing scene where St. Francis walks into the Saracen camp and so captivates the Sultan that the latter actually allows him to preach the gospel to his Court? And of course the Franciscans were allowed stay in the Holy Land after the doom of the Crusader kingdoms.

Or again, what of the knightly orders that emerged out of the same age? Even the most brassbound secularist must acknowledge that Christian missionaries basically invented the idea of hospital of charity. Our very word for this institution derives from them.

Really, the more I examine the critique advanced here, the more I see behind it precisely a deracinated image of the West. It is one where the great spring of Christian civilization is removed and half our heroes falsified.

He wrote "after the conversion of Europe" Paul. A "Viking King" and "Northern Europe" are part of Europe. He did write "largely" not "completely."

I think part of the reason his statment is true is that Christendom was bounded by Islam and the Atlantic Ocean.

Meh. It would be better to just leave off talking about before or after the conversion of Europe. The job was never complete. The Vikings were just one of multiple irruptions of heathen tribes against the tatters of Rome's empire. Every one of them was answered not only by what steal and brawn Christian men could muster, but also by whatever desperate call to repentance at the Cross they could make.

Alfred and Guthrum fought and made peace in the late 9th century. Latin Roman power had been gone for centuries. Constantine was as distant a figure to Alfred as Luther is to us. The heartlands of Greco-Roman Europe had been Christian for centuries when Guthrum was baptized.

Also, the fact that Islam was aggressive and predatory, unapologetically so, gives mediaeval Christian missionary work a distinctly martial cast. But a true estimate of the Crusades would disclose a strong evangelical impulse among the many human motivations behind that extraordinary age.

The Jesuits' missions in China, while they occurred after the discovery of the New World, were not _in_ the New World.

Paul's points are also highly relevant

But what's the point of this historical disquisition from MA Roberts? It's pretty clear: The Great Commission is just a sort of "thing" that Christians of later centuries have _chosen_ to emphasize. Since (he says) missionary work wasn't so much emphasized in a middle period of centuries, missions (he implies) aren't really central to Christianity. And thus he continues his blanket condemnation of contemporary missions work ("Regardless, the fact of the matter today is that missionary work has proven detrimental for the West. It has radically deracinated Western identity") now adding to that repeated statement some questionable historical claims meant to assure the Christians to whom he is speaking that the Great Commission really isn't so important and that any emphasis on it is just an artifact of particular historical periods rather than a real perception of a command of Jesus Christ.

If this is intended to bolster the weakness of his purely pragmatic "argument" (which I have already pointed out in pretty forceful terms above), it's not very successful. Some of us think we can read the Bible for ourselves.

In all seriousness, I have nothing against Christianity. As I said previously, I am actively involved in Christian organizations. My purpose here is to discuss the unfortunate anti-Western tendencies of contemporary Christianity - both in the West and the Third World.

No one has yet answered my pertinent questions:

Why do the mainstream Christian religious leaders in my area support the recolonization of the West with the Third World? Why are these Christian leaders more concerned with charity to the Third World than with aid to poor areas of the West? Why are they attending functions sponsored by La Raza? Why are they supporting the demographic replacement of the West? In short, why have they all but declared war upon the West?

Maybe because they are fools about some of those issues. Whoopee. I guess we shouldn't do missions then, or something.

How does it follow from this that missions should not be taking place in foreign countries, that it would be "better" (as you said above) for people to engage in evangelism only in their own countries, that foreign missions is a malign influence (because "deracinating") and therefore, as you have repeatedly implied, should not be engaged in by Christians, and that the portions of the Bible that seem to mandate it may be ignored?

The trouble, Mr. Roberts, is that you ignore the truth-claims of Christianity and try to tell Christians what they ought and ought not to be doing based on your own (truth to tell, rather narrow) political agenda without taking seriously what Christians believe that Christians are called upon to do--namely, preach the Gospel to all nations. Your attitude, therefore, is patronizing and annoying, whether you realize it or not.

You are urging Christians to take on the attitude which C. S. Lewis rightly criticized in _The Screwtape Letters_ as "Christianity and..." In this case, "Christianity and the race problem" or "Christianity and the deracinating of the West"--as though we are supposed to moderate or modify our Christian duties and commitments based on (what MA Roberts tells us is) their sociopolitical impact. You are entirely tone-deaf to what I have pointed out in comment after comment, which is that Christianity will not be _used_ like that and will not be _demoted_ like that to a mere social force.

I notice, too, the way that you go back and forth between (in slang terms) _dissing_ foreign missions, on the one hand, essentially condemning them as merely being bad for the race (!), and, on the other hand, making statements about liberal bishops who consort with La Raza, which I would imagine no one in this conversation would insist is an activity central to Christianity! This shows a lack of focus and logical rigor on your part, as well as a desire to make your sweeping and negative statements about missions and then distract attention from them.

M.A.,

Politically, when it comes to immigration, I think we are on the same side (or at least could find common cause). But it does no good to our cause (to restrict Third World immigration to the West and help the West assert its European heritage) when we make sloppy arguments or hyperbolic arguments. Again, I know you suggested earlier that your experience in the Kansas City area is all you have to go by, but here are some questions back at you based on your 9:18 AM post:

1) What do you mean by "mainstream Christian religious leaders in my area support the recolonization of the West with the Third World"? Are they calling for certain States to be turned back over to Mexico? Would they like to have small towns in Maine become charter cities of Somalia? Or do you mean that they support high levels of Third World immigration, that you and I both think are harmful to U.S. interests? If the later, then shouldn't we drop the inflammatory rhetoric and try and persuade them and our fellow citizens of the righteousness of our cause?

2) When you say "these Christian leaders more concerned with charity to the Third World than with aid to poor areas of the West" you already admitted this is not based on any formal analysis but on your ancedotal impressions. How about some actual analysis before spouting off?

3) La Raza is awful and I would rightfully be mad if one of my church leaders decided to get behind the organization. Do all the "mainstream Christian leaders" attend La Raza functions? Aren't there some sensible Christian leaders in Kansas City you can hang out with?

4) See number (1) above.

5) "Declared war"? Who are you trying to persuade with this kind of talk? You are a smart guy (I read your book review in the latest "Chronicles" -- nice job!) and you can do better.

Lydia: I don't disagree with everything you're saying, but aren't practical concerns important? If you take the Bible completely literally and give up all practical considerations, why not be like some of the early non-European Christians, forsake all worldly obligations, and live as desert monks? Didn't St. Augustine say that people have worldly, practical obligations?

Jeff: Thank you for the compliment and constructive criticism. I am not wanting only to "spout off." Sorry if I gave that impression. While what I write above is anecdotal, do you really not think it's an unfair generalization? Most of the major religious leaders in the U.S. (archbishops, cardinals, National Association of Evangelicals, etc.) have all come out in favor of mass amnesty. Many of them also support increases in legal immmigration from the Third World. Roy Beck summarizes recent statements:

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-15-2010/anti-amnesty-christians-are-those-who-supported-slavery-segregation-reli

Notice that Christian leaders are using the same left-wing civil rights language on immigration that has overtaken the pro-life movement.

As an aside, from my experience, the immigration issue has driven more people on the right away from Christianity than any other issue I know of -- especially in Europe. Right-wing, patriot-minded Christians look at what their Christian leaders and saying and doing and think to themselves, "Are these people even on my side?" Sadly, the "conservative" Christian leaders are often just as bad, if not worse, than the left. Opus Dei, for instance, in my experience, is one of the biggest open-borders rackets around. While studying in Rome, I once had some OD members tell me that flooding the First World with the Third World is necessary for the spiritual revitalization of the West.

From the Roy Beck article above:

"A Brookings Institute conference today about the near unanimity of the nation's religious leaders in favor of amnesty and more foreign workers cast the debate in stark moral absolutes.

The Christian leaders repeatedly compared the fight for legalization of illegal aliens to the battles against slavery and segregation and pledged to convert and mobilize their members in the pews to force a vote on "comprehensive immigration reform."


And these people are on our side????

La Raza is awful and I would rightfully be mad if one of my church leaders decided to get behind the organization.

Jeff S., I wonder if you misunderstand Mr. Roberts. I think he would say that LaRaza is fine, for the Mexicans, and that the White Race should have its own La Raza, and that mutual racial antagonism between the Mexicans and the Whites is always unavoidable, due to deep and intractable racial differences, and that's why we belong in separate countries.

Jeff Culbreath: Why the slander? I never said that. Smearing someone as a "racist" - which I am not - is one of the worst left-wing tactics of our age.

And not only is the charge of "racism" one of the worst left-wing tactics of our age -- it's becoming a regular Christian tactic. In the last few years alone, I've probably heard at least a dozen Christians say they oppose abortion and evolution because they are "racist."

Mr. Roberts, I didn't call you a racist. You're a race realist, not a racist - correct? Is there something specific in my statement that you disagree with? The part about racial antagonism being unavoidable due to inherent racial characteristics? The part about Whites needing their own organization to peacefully promote white racial interests? The part about Whites and Mexicans needing to live in separate countries?

I don't disagree with everything you're saying, but aren't practical concerns important? If you take the Bible completely literally and give up all practical considerations, why not be like some of the early non-European Christians, forsake all worldly obligations, and live as desert monks? Didn't St. Augustine say that people have worldly, practical obligations?

MAR, this is kind of shallow as a slide away from your statements about missions. (And I could ask for a citation on St. Augustine, but never mind that.) Is your implication that if we believe that Christians should take the Gospel to foreign lands this is tantamount to not believing that Christians have any practical obligations?

You've made certain statements implying, quite clearly really, that foreign missions should not occur, that Christians should not be doing foreign missions, because the activity of foreign missions is "deracinating." Do you now want to retract those statements? Do you stand by them? If you stand by them, do you not realize that those who think Christian missions are indeed central to Christianity are not going to be moved by an attempt to _get rid of Christian missions_ in the name of "not deracinating the West"? Do you understand _why_ Christians should not be moved by such an argument? Do you, perhaps, begin to get a glimmer of why that is a poor argument for that conclusion?

I don't disagree with a modest modification of September 2, 2010 11:04 AM. I don't know why MAR recoils from it.

"LaRaza is fine, for the Mexicans, and that the White Race should have its own La Raza, and that mutual racial antagonism between the Mexicans and the Whites is always unavoidable, due to deep and intractable racial differences, and that's why we belong in separate countries."

How about:

We should have our own organization(s) to defend our interests (don't think it should be patterned after La Raza), mutual antangonism is likely to be a general feature (not ALWAYS unavoidable) due to deep and intractable racial AND cultural differences and we DO belong in seperate nations.

"Race realist" is about as vague and meaningless as "racist." It's what the milder white nationalists call themselves to avoid a name with both "white" and "ist" in it because that sounds scary. For example, Peter Brimlelow uses the label race realist even though he's obviously interested in the fortunes and future prospects of white people.

Better to just say what we believe rather than use meaningless labels.

ANd while we should be realistic about the likelyhood of mutual antagonism we shouldn't embrace mutual antagonism. ANd in addition to intractable racial AND cultural differences there's simply the conflicting interests of distinct peoples.

I suppose another way to phrase the general critique would be that the leftism/liberalism attempts to out-Christian the Christians and a lot of modern Christians feel the need to keep up. Or the left often occupies the moral high ground (in the popular imagination) and modern Christians have to be co-occupants. Fairly simplistic and ignores some things but that's my thought.

To anti-Christians right-wingers I usually say that most all major Western institutions have absorbed a lot of left/liberal thought processes. For example the university (probably more so than the Churches). You wouldn't attack the university itself (its essence and it's existence as an institution) because of this. Ditto the Church.

M.A.,

Thanks for that link to the NumbersUSA article. There was certainly stuff in it to get me angry (just about any quote from Jim Wallis is bound to get me riled up) -- the quotes from the Episcopal Bishop were smarmy and intellectually bankrupt. But both Sojourners and the Episcopalians are fairly small left wing Christian organizations -- the more worrying quotes were from the Southern Baptists and Catholics. However, their quotes are in support of immigration amnesty and however misguided we both think such a policy is, I don't detect any sort of hostility to U.S./Western culture (e.g. at least Land wants the illegals to take English classes). We need to figure out a way to get these folks to realize our "low/no immigration from the Third World" position is NOT anti-Christian and as Roy from NumbersUSA points out, many of their own flock support our ideas -- so the leaders need to be convinced of our cause or at least convinced that they should stop preaching one position on an issue that doesn't have one Christian answer.

Also, the story about Opus Dei is just plain scary. I thought those guys would intuitively "get" the idea that just because we are all equal before Christ doesn't mean all the races have the same IQ or cultural capacity to absorb Western institutions overnight.

Anyway, all I'd say in conclusion is not to let individual differences with Church leaders on this or that political issue turn you away from Christ -- you end up sounding like a liberal "Catholic" who wants gays to "marry" and decides they can't in good conscience keep going to church until the church changes her ways. As Lydia said so eloquently above:

"On the Christian view, Jesus Christ does not exist to serve our ends, even our noble ends. We exist to serve His."

Lydia: Lydia, no I do not want to retract my statements. From the perspective of Western identity, I do believe Third World missionary work is detrimental to the West.

Bruce: I agree that people should try to steer Christianity away from open-borders globalism and back to more particularist moorings.

Jeff Singer: Thanks for the understanding. As I've said numerous times on here, I am a Protestant. I agree that we should try to get these Christian leaders back on the bus.

Regardless, as long as Christian leaders are saying things like this:

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/june-15-2010/anti-amnesty-christians-are-those-who-supported-slavery-segregation-reli

I expect more right-wing criticism of Christianity in the near future. In fact, in the 21st century, I would be surprised if most of the interesting criticism of contemporary Christianity is from the right - not from the left. Presently, notwithstanding Richard Dawkins and Cristopher Hitchens, much of the current criticism of contemporary Christianity in Europe is coming from the right -- not from the left. There are multiple magazines devoted to it.

Now, on to Jeff Culbreath's smear.

Jeff, it's true that I'm quite critical of propositionalism. As anyone familiar with the history of politics and Latin knows, traditional terms like 'natio' and 'patria' imply link by blood. They stand in opposition to propositionalism. Aristotle saw legitimate government (whether monarchy, aristocracy or politeia) as a reflection of the unique ancestral traditions of the citizens in question. A traditional state is but a reflection of long-standing, interrelated tribes. Likewise, in the vein of Cicero, I'm an ancestral realist. Ancestral traditions are important and help to shape us. We likewise have obligations to our ancestors.

I also am a partisan of the West. I wish to see the survival of the West and its children.

As to your assertions of 'racist' and 'race realist' -- no, I am not -- but I assume you you really have no desire to learn about me. If you did, you could email. No, the reason you bring up these terms up in public is to try to smear my name. Everyone knows the politically correct weight such associations have. This Roger-Mahony tactic is a low blow. And I refuse to participate. Good bye.

Lydia, no I do not want to retract my statements. From the perspective of Western identity, I do believe Third World missionary work is detrimental to the West.

And therefore, it would be better if it stopped? Right?


As I've said numerous times on here, I am a Protestant.

You haven't _exactly_ said that. You've said you have not long ago attended a Protestant church and are active in a Christian organization. What you _haven't_ said--and it's a pretty striking omission--is that you are a Christian and believe Christianity is true. This (the assertion that you are a "Protestant" in this latest comment) is the closest you've come. So: Are you a Christian? Do you believe in the existence of the Christian God? Did Jesus rise from the dead?

And in particular: Did Jesus or did He not command His church to take the Gospel to all nations? If so, how do you square this with your desire that Christian missionary work, at least to the third world (and, you've implied above, by anyone in any country other than his own) must stop? Should not missions work be determined by the question of where it is needed for its own purpose of spreading the Gospel?

I don't think race realist is a smear. Heck, I don't think white nationalist is a smear in that it's not inaccurate.

I don't understand the argument that the spreading of the Gospel to third world nations is detrimental to Western nations. In other words, why? I don't follow. Spreading the social gospel would be detrimental but I don't think we're talking about that.

More detail please.

For inquiring minds, I confess the Apostle's, Nicene, and Anathasian creeds and mean it. I was baptized Anglican Catholic (TAC) and was an active layreader. My issues have with TAC and my parish nothing to do with this topic (although my priest was a left-winger who would say nothing when an abortionist-lady communicant declared "no man's gonna tell me what to do with my body" but then jumped all over an older lady for saying something mildly bigoted).

There are no other continuing Anglican parishes in my area and those who didn't leave ECUSA in the 70's, well I won't go there. We've had to give up Episcopal government/Apostolic lines (the Romans say we don't have them) and become Lutherans (not officially) because I won't swim the Tiber.

I don't say I'm "protestant" I say I'm "Protestant and Catholic" but that's another story.

To Bruce @ 8:36 & Paul @ 9:34 last night: sorry, guys - I'm teaching introductory philosophy classes at the local Jesuit University on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so from Monday evening through Thursday afternoon I tend to be too preoccupied preparing for & conducting classes to make much of any contribution to anything else.

Ten years ago, I could have lectured on the Euthyphro & the Apology & the Crito & the Phaedo in my sleep - but, coming back to them after a long hiatus, I find them more...difficult than I used to think. So I'm finding myself shorter of time than I might have expected.

Matthew: the one case where I think you're being a bit unfair here is in your response to Jeff Culbreath. I don't think the views that he attributed to you at 11:04 a.m. this morning were *all* that outrageous, and I don't think it was *all* that outrageous for him to attribute them to you. And I'm not quite sure why you think otherwise.

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