The Commandments and the restoration of civilization
The Commandments and the restoration of civilization
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/09/07/the-commandments-and-the-restoration-of-civilization/
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt. 10:34). The bloodshed and pain of a sword – metaphorical or literal – are unpleasant. Divine revelation evaluates and indicts every person and culture. G. K. Chesterton observes: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” A compelling national interest includes the protection of civilization.
A culture describes community-based patterns of commonly accepted behavior, conscious or unconscious. One or more cultures make up a civilization, and every society has identifiable ruling characteristics.
A Christian civilization based on the Ten Commandments — the greatest being to love God and neighbor (Mt 22:36ff) — requires our awareness and free cooperation. God’s law measures all human actions and institutions and calls us to reform. The relevant precepts for our purposes parallel the Ten Commandments.
First Three Commandments:
Reverently worship the one God instilling the virtuous pattern for all forms of respect.
Fourth Commandment:
Respect the lawful authority of the family and patriotically love the country.
Respect national boundaries as extensions of family boundaries.
Fifth Commandment:
Control anger and hatred, wage just wars, and do not murder.
Recognize the compatibility of science and the empirical method with religion.
Hate abortion, euthanasia, genocide, properly-defined racism, etc.
Sixth and Ninth Commandments:
Honor marriage (one man and one woman), hate divorce, pornography, and illicit sexual behavior.
The Seventh and Tenth Commandments:
Respect private property and refuse to make excessive welfare demands on the government.
Institute Godly charitable agencies that are attentive to the poor.
Renounce greed in all its forms.
Honor the rule of just law and pay just taxes.
The Eighth Commandment:
Recognize and abide by the authentic meaning of words.
Define a lie as an assertion that willfully does not coincide with objective reality.
Respect the privacy and reputations of others.
Celebrate human freedom created in the image and likeness of God.
The entire world needs a redemptive culture, examining itself in the light of Revelation.
Our traditional American culture — derived from Christian civilization — is historically exceptional and worth defending: One nation under God and the rule of the Constitution. But the widespread rejection of the Ten Commandments has dangerously degraded our civilization.
The existing structure of civilization is traditional, rooted in Christianity, but a fading shadow of it. Here is a snapshot of the central cultural attributes — some good, some bad — roughly in the order of the Ten Commandments:
Shadows of the First Three Commandments:
Worship God and attend churches and synagogues.
Shadows of the Fourth Commandment:
Emphasize individual rights and the centrality of the family.
Reject the social engineering of the “Great Society” legacy and its destructive effects on the family.
Favor the liberty of family-owned companies and small businesses.
View the American flag as a sign of patriotic honor.
Support border control to maintain social stability and family safety.
Use limited government spending to purchase voter blocs, but worry massive government spending will tank the economy.
Oppose excessive government regulation.
Generally, respect the rule of law and – albeit with a vague understanding – the Constitution.
Shadows of the Fifth Commandment:
Vote pro-life, with several inconsistent exceptions.
Avoid thinking about developing medicines using aborted embryonic tissue.
Tolerate “gay marriage,” cross-dressing, and genital mutilation for adults, but oppose the exploitation of minors.
Generally trusting of health authorities but increasingly suspicious of the necessity and safety of vaccines (autism, allergies, and heart failure).
Notice and appreciate ethnic differences and mostly avoid vicious remarks, but enjoy robust and playful ethnic jokes.
Proudly support the right to self-defense and the Second Amendment.
Support most foreign military interventions but quickly weary of the inevitable mission creep, excessive spending, and lack of exit policy.
Realize that Congressional declarations of war are ideal, but nervously hope various Congressional authorizations provide the necessary authority.
Shadows of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments:
Uphold the traditional marriage but permit easy divorce.
Live and let live when it comes to adult behavior in marriage, the family, and education.
Believe it is possible to limit adult debauchery and protect young people, but unable to prevent obscene excesses with kids.
Shadows of the Seventh and Tenth Commandments:
Generally, defer to scientific experts with emerging doubts about man-made climate change
Allow the IRS to determine a charitable organization and supplement agencies with private donations.
Shadows of the Eighth Commandment:
Strive for honesty and principle but bend principles when compelling personal interests require.
Argue well and respectfully.
Despite the flaws, this traditional structure partially acknowledges the Ten Commandments and is, overall, worth purifying and defending.
A competing secular, politically-correct civilization has also formed over the last fifty years. The September 1st speech by President Biden in Philadelphia is a major, culturally significant event. His handlers reinforce the stark contrast between our time-honored but wounded civilization and modern totalitarian secularism. Here is the vision – an effete brave new world compared to the declining alternative — roughly in the order of the Ten Commandments:
Replacing the First Three Commandments:
Reject God’s supremacy and “organized religion.”
Replacing the Fourth Commandment:
Use centralized government authority to undermine family and individual rights.
Aim for ideological control of every American institution: government, academia, Hollywood, the media, the Internet, and government schools.
Undermine the authority of parents by invoking the expertise of atheistic academics and elites to solve every social problem.
Favor the dominance of technology, pharmaceutical, and military oligarchs, and consider citizens as cogs in the machinery of government and industry.
View the American flag as racist but occasionally recognize use as a prop.
Use open borders to undermine social stability and promote voter fraud.
Use massive government spending to purchase voter blocs, destabilize the economy with inflation, and introduce increasing doses of socialism.
Use government regulations as an indispensable method of social control.
Disproportionately enforce harsh laws in support of politically-correct precepts.
Replacing the Fifth Commandment:
Promote unrestricted abortion as a human right.
Conceal the immoral scientific experimentation that advances useful medical products and procedures.
Celebrate almost every form of obscenity in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Redefine science with often-dubious statistics and obey health bureaucrats without question.
Wildly expand the definition of “racism” that silences all humor but uses racial and gender profiles for employment (particularly in the military).
Outlaw gun ownership, rely on the federal police state to impose elitist views on prominent dissenters, and redefine terrorism to include political opponents.
Follow the Hollywood bellweather for all foreign interventions.
Consider a Congressional declaration of war as a completely irrelevant World War II relic.
Replacing the Sixth and Ninth Commandments:
Marginalize matrimony by expanding the definition of marriage.
Claim oppressed minority status even as the laws succumb to every LGBTQ demand.
Celebrate almost every form of obscenity in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Replacing the Seventh and Tenth Commandments:
Dismiss those who question the scientific basis of man-made “climate change” or refuse some vaccines on moral grounds as science deniers.
Expect taxpayers to fund so-called charities such as PBS and Planned Parenthood, and expect well-funded government agencies to accomplish the works of charity.
Replacing the Eighth Commandment:
Redefine the meaning of words, apply the law unequally, and use lies as the rhetorical weapon of choice.
Cancel or de-platform opposing views.
Label any statement that contradicts the narrative as a “conspiracy theory.”
These elements form the totalitarian tapestry – or the forest — of the secular, politically-correct civilization. The components entirely misrepresent, distort, and replace the fading culture and eclipse the Ten Commandments. Distracted by the trees, we cannot see the forest. Many of us have become unwitting cultural cogs, blindly doing our part to keep the bureaucratic engines humming. This Christian critique of our civilization even determines whether our nation has a right to send its sons (and daughters) into battle to defend the country. A cancerous culture threatens our national survival.
We must ask and consider: Why has their effete understanding of civilization gained so much traction?
But we also must return to Christian basics for the self-evaluation. And ask ourselves: Do we know the Ten Commandments? And do our children and grandchildren know them? Asking with sincerity, do the newly created cardinals know the Ten Commandments? Is there a resolve to abide by them to the shedding of blood (hence the red hat)? If not, they and we are part of the problem, and our children are sheep for the slaughter.
Jesus is the sword advancing a Christian civilization. The Ten Commandments form His order of battle. “Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest” (Dt. 6:6-77, NAB).
