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The Narrative of Christianity


Image: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84478782/f181.item

It should be obvious that western civilization is declining; but it doesn't appear to be: everything is fiiiiine. It should be obvious that the way something declines is not random, but it isn't. Perhaps this is because we have flattened the understanding of sin: we like to think there are sinners and saved sinners. There are no saints, people who are further along the path of holiness than others. Thus, we think that society is always bad, always declining, and the particular sins are just the flavour of the month. This is false. Particular forms of decline do not occur randomly. The modern conception of homosexuality would *never* have occurred in the early medieval period. Playing the victim would *NEVER* have occurred in pitiless ancient Rome. And neither of these things would tend to be *salient* (meaning, they may occur, but would not capture the public imagination) in a rising culture (just think about the practical requirements: to become dominant, you need a high birth rate and a responsible populous, and so on). The problems that announce decline are those of the carnival, those of excess of passion and consumerism.


Perhaps we can't see the story because we don't believe that Christianity can encompass all of reality. Perhaps we think Christianity is limited to saving individuals, that its comments on the rest of the world are only of secondary importance. But if it is true that certain sins are only made possible by the outworking of particular historical patterns, as mentioned above, then it is also true that achieving virtue is possible if Christianity applies to more than the individual, that people are not atomised individuals, but are borne in and raised up by the culture that surrounds them, it limits their achievement of both vice and virtue. We have no faith in grand narratives. We had grand narratives in the modern period, about the greatness of the British empire, or the third Reich, or the superiority of Science to explain everything, or the power of secular managerialism to deal with COVID and Christians at various times gave their willing and enthusiastic assent to all of these grand narratives, tacking on Jesus as an afterthought, something not truly integral to those narratives of men and flesh. The fact that these narratives grip us shows us that we have no comparable grand mythic narrative of Christianity, as does Islam - which is why Islamic countries are resistant to the narratives of secularism. But this was not always so. The conquering of pagan Europe by Christianity was inspired by a narrative so all-encompassing that descriptions fail St Paul in his letters. Likewise, the Church gave rise to mystics, who also failed to fathom the depths of Christianity after a lifetime. And it wasn't Christian triumphalism in a rah rah rah sort of way: it was the triumphalism of the martyr, of St Boniface. It was a story that reached so high it transcended the problems of political nationalism, of scientific rationalism, of polytheism. Having set their eye on the highest goal, they were less susceptible to these chaotic waves of narrative fervor.


It's hard to change the path you're on. If you miss the freeway exit, it can be a long detour to get where you need to be. It's hard to change the course of society, especially when that society is dying. This is why these patterns were worshipped as gods: Venus was the goddess of sexual passion, one to which nearly all bow. Saturn was the god of plenty and harvest and the end of things, autumn being the signal of both: something like him is ascendant. And yet, in the rotting fruits of autumn, there are seeds preserved.


If we are looking at the death of something large about western culture, our job is to be seeds, to be arks.

Drawing on the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUQs5PxSi4s

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