John Ray at Dissecting Leftism kindly responded to my Post about the effect of poor Christian behavior on the stature and credibility of Christianity, and poses a question:
North Western Winds notes my comments on the often un-Christian behavior of Christians and says that such behavior does not reflect on Christianity. I wonder would he argue that the vicious behavior of Communists does not reflect on Communism? But I in any case agree that the teachings of Christ are in no way damaged by those who do not follow them. I think Communists ARE following their teachings -- particularly if Lenin is taken as the teacher.The terrible behavior of Communists in Russia and elsewhere does reflect on their creed in a very bad way. My short answer invites a second question, namely why am I treating these creeds differently? And that requires a longer answer. The Russian Communists made many claims about the nature of the world and their creed. They said that there was no God, that the Church is a fraud used to control people and that Communism was a "science." It follows that if Communism is based on science, then you ought to be able to measure its results in many ways - the output of Communist countries vs. free states, the number of people trying to leave vs. those trying to gain entry, the existence of mass graves, and so on. The claims are empirical in nature and therefore testable and refutable. The Catholic church makes no empirical claims to improving people's behavior. The position the church takes, as I understand it, is that we can expect a great deal of failure from mankind, because we are fallen. When we see Christians stumble, it actually reinforces the Church's position. This stumbling, which could be anything from lying to mass murder, is a great source of suffering and pain in the world. The Church offers no cure for this condition in this life, but insists that we bear it as best we can - retaliation and retribution are to be avoided if at all possible. This is a great benefit when it is followed up on (defensive wars are permitted). Instead, we are asked to reflect on our pains and therefore our fallen nature. It should humble us against the kind of utopian scheming, both small and large, that John and I abhor. The issue here is the nature of proof. Scientific claims invite proofs that are measurable, but are all things measurable? Some people argue that all claims must be measurable to be valid. This is a common point of view today. It is also circular reasoning; how is anyone to prove such a claim? It raises science to a religious level. Another example is Protestants claiming the Bible is the sole source of Christianity. The problem is the nowhere does the Bible actually say that. The empiricists and the Protestants claim their axioms are rooted in something solid when they are in fact, matters of introspection and "faith." This alone does not make them invalid. Such leaps of faith are the only way to break out circular loop. It is difficult to define, let alone measure the fruit of such creeds. And yet we do need to evaluate them. How? Moderns dislike to admit there is such a problem. Post moderns say there is no way out and the universe is a mad house anyway. The Catholic takes a middle position. The problem exits. There may be something to evaluate, but it may not lend itself to entirely to measurement. Take, for example, the church's claim that there are "converging lines" pointing to the existence of God, but in the end it is a mystery and we take the final measure of our proof from introspection or "faith." Mysteries like this can't be proven, but denying them leads to serious problems- such as the circularity I have mentioned. I can't absolutely prove Christianity is good for you, but I can talk about the epistemological problems denying it causes one to face. That much can be considered logical, perhaps empirical. But conviction can only come from within; each in his own time, each in his own way. I'll end with a quote from Jean-Baptiste-Henri Dominique Lacordaire, a Catholic priest who saw in Christianity the bedrock of a free people:
“So long as this spirit [of French revolutionary leftism] exists,” Lacordaire argued the year of his death, “liberalism will be vanquished by an oppressive democracy or by unbridled autocracy, and this is why the union of liberty and Christianity is the sole possible salvation of the future. Christianity alone can give liberty its real nature, and liberty alone can give Christianity the means of influence necessary to it.” Thus, the state must also cease its control of education, the press, and labor in order to allow Christianity to effectively flourish in those arenas.
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