I am re-blogging this, my first contribution to the Josias, because Leo Strauss has been on my mind as of late, and the central point seems more pertinent now than when I first wrote it.
The Myth of Christianism?
Ben Mann, a frequent contributor to the website Catholic Exchange, penned a piece back in December 2013 entitled “The End of Christianism.” In it, Mann leans on the French Catholic theorist Remi Brague to decry Christianism, “an ideology focused on accomplishing a cultural program,” which is somehow distinguishable from mere “faith in Christ.” This leads Mann to detect an irony, namely that “Christianism can’t achieve its goal: believers only transform culture when, in a sense, they forget about that and simply serve the Lord.” What’s unclear is what this “sense” means to Mann or even how a self-conscious project of Christian cultural transformation could ever unfold without faith that Jesus is the Christ. Does Mann (or Brague) suppose that there is now an extant socio-cultural movement, ostensibly Christian, which, at its core, is not? Granted, in the context of modern American political realities, there have been plenty of politicians—even an entire political party—which were once given over to speaking in a Christian vernacular in order to achieve electoral ends. And certainly the last several centuries have furnished more than a few “enlightened” thinkers who defended the Christian patrimony on primarily instrumental grounds. But both camps have been exposed for what they truly are, which leads me to wonder where exactly is “Christianism” today?
Another Note on Latinizations
Note: Although I plan to continue posting primarily on the theme of integralism, there are several sketches sitting in my “Draft” folder — most dealing with liturgy and history — that I want to complete and post as well. This is one of them.
Some time ago I issued a post entitled “A Note on Latinizations,” which, not surprisingly, was met with a mixed reception. In the year since it was written I have had some time to rethink the matter in the light of both ritual integrity and the fraught history of the Greek Catholic Church in Galicia. A particularly illuminating article on these (and other) matters is John-Paul Himka’s “The Greek Catholic Church and Nation-Building in Galicia, 1772-1918,” 8 Harvard Ukrainian Studies 426 (1984). In it, Himka explores the singular role the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) played in creating a Galician (and by extension Ukrainian) national identity, one which owed more than a small debt to the so-called Josephine Enlightenment in Austria. Without opening the door too widely on that complicated period in European history, Himka offers a brief but informative analysis of how national and ritual identity clashed during the 19th Century for “Greek Catholic[s] [who] had an Orthodox face, Roman Catholic citizenship and . . . an enlightened Austrian soul” (pg. 438).
A Note on Pahman and Liberalism
I assure you: the new theme of Opus Publicum is not Dylan Pahman. However, when one man is wrong about so much and so often, it’s difficult not to say something. Following up on his misguided and ill-reasoned attack on Pope Francis, Pahman now turns his sights to the so-called Benedict Option and those who support it. While I harbor my own reservations concerning the “Options” phenomenon, I do believe their various proponents have their instincts in the right place, at least as far as rejecting late-style liberalism is concerned. Pahman, an Actonite to the core, disagrees. Liberalism isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the alternative, or so Pahman believes. The case he makes for this rickety conclusion is anything but convincing.