THE BATTERED BRIDE

Alexis de Tocqueville, French statesman, historian, lapsed Catholic, and social philosopher, wrote Democracy in America (1835). It has been described as "the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written."

•    In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the [good] manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.... Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate.

•    I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

After decades of systematic deconstruction of Christianity and the Church, these words have become unacceptable. Instead, today the Church and Tocqueville’s America has become buried by heaps of contempt. Consequently, those who are seeking answers and relief from their sorrows are turning instead to secularism and even witchcraft, dead ends that have never been able to offer hope or any tangible solutions. Nor have they built hospitals, universities, or havens for the broken.

Instead, it has been the Church alone which has built the West. However, to utter such a sentiment, despite how obvious it is, can cost one’s career.

Western self-hatred has also been termed pathological. Pope Benedict XVI wrote about this perplexing masochistic phenomenon. He notes how Western culture, en masse, has turned against itself and its Christian heritage:

•    This case illustrates a peculiar western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost all capacity for self-love. All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure…Multiculturalism, which is so constantly and passionately promoted, can sometimes amount to an abandonment and denial, a flight from one’s own heritage. (Quoted by Jean Bethke Elshtain, First Things, March, 2009, 36)

Pathological? Perhaps it is more illuminating to understand it as virtue-signaling. Lacking the assurance that God loves us (Romans 5:8-10), our worth now depends on our accomplishments and social approval. Dag Hammarskjold, a late Secretary General of the UN, observed:

•    God does not die in the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond reason. (Markings)

Death is the never-ending quest for self-acceptance. According to the Deist Ben Franklin, we even need God for a moral society:

•    If men are wicked with religion, what would they be without it? (Oz Guinness, The Journey, 119)

The benefits of the assurance of Christ’s love extend to our most intimate relationships, as former atheist, Patrick Glynn, reports:

•    A 1978 study found that church attendance predicted marital satisfaction better than any other single variable. Couples in long-lasting marriages who were surveyed in another study listed religion as one of the most important “prescriptions” of a happy marriage. (God: The Evidence, 64)

For most Christians, such observations are as predictable as night following day. We have long seen how the Lord and His wisdom salvage our relationships. Glynn also relates religious belief to better physical and emotional benefits:

•    Religious belief is one of the most consistent correlates of overall mental health and happiness. Study after study has shown a powerful relationship between religious belief and practice, on the one hand, and healthy behaviors with regard to such problems as suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, depression, even, perhaps surprisingly, levels of sexual satisfaction in marriage, on the other” (Glynn, 61).

I can also attest to this. My life in Christ had freed me from my narcissistic self-delusions (John 8:31-32), enabling me to face and to accept myself, and to navigate in an otherwise threatening world.

In contrast to this, the atheist experience is admittedly dismal, although it might commence with a sense of freedom from guilt and constraints. Jean-Paul Sartre confessed that, “Atheism is a cruel, long-term business.” Bertrand Russell described his atheistic religion in this manner:

•    The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain… Brief and powerless is mean’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way. (Why I am not a Christian)

H.J. Blackham, a former director of the British Humanist Association, wrote:

•    The most drastic objection to humanism is that it is too bad to be true. The world is one vast tomb if humans are ephemeral and human life itself is doomed to ultimate extinction… There is no end to hiding from the ultimate end of life, which is death. But it does not avail. On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. (Oz Guinness, 106)

Has Christianity deluded us? Atheists claim that a belief in God is a matter of gross self-delusion. However, delusion is strongly associated with costs and not benefits. If we are deluded or simply mistaken about which roads to take to get to our destination, our trip will be more costly. Why then, if Christians are deluded, do they derive unmistakable benefits from their “delusion?”

Is it possible to flourish through distorted thinking? Delusions put us out-of-touch with reality, especially a “delusion” that lies at the foundation of our entire lives. Instead of assisting us to constructively manage our jobs, relationships, home, and even driving a car – and all of these endeavors require accurate feedback – delusions about a God should interfere with any prospect of a positive adjustment. Instead, we flourish even amid hardships.

Just consider riding your bicycle blindfolded. You would soon crash incurring great costs. Closer to home, consider someone who navigates life with rose colored glasses. He might think that all women secretly love him, and this will give him a high, at least for the short run. Consequently, he might not take “no” for an answer. I knew such a man who was arrested repeatedly for harassment because of this cognitive distortion.

Cognitive distortions inevitably exact a price. What if we believed that we were treating others with care when we really weren’t. Eventually, they lose their friends or become victim to Stalinist purges.

Distorted thinking comes with an unforgiving price-tag. In All in the Playing, Shirley MacLaine confidently explained her distorted faith:

•    I went on to express my feeling of total responsibility and power for all events that occur in the world because the world is happening only in my reality. And human beings feeling pain, terror, depression, panic, and so forth, were really only aspects of pain, terror, depression, panic, and so on, in me!

How would such distorted thinking affect her relationships? Wikipedia concluded its posting on MacLaine this way:

•    In 2015, she sparked criticism for her comments on Jews, Christians, and Stephen Hawking. In particular she claimed that victims of the Nazi Holocaust were experiencing the results of their own karma and suggested that Hawking subconsciously caused himself to develop ALS as a means to focus better on physics.

Understandably, her thinking created relational problems, among other things. Why then do those who believe in a “heavenly Christian sky-daddy” – an all-encompassing “delusion” – make positive adjustments, while others do not? How is it that the Christian West had once been the model for the other religions of the world?

Perhaps instead, Christians are onto something real. But how? By a Book written two thousand years ago? How would following the Bible written by “camel-drivers,” enable us to successfully navigate life? It would be like expecting a buggy-whip to help us drive our Audi.

It is a great pity that Westerners have battered the Source of their well-being in favor of their immediate pleasure and the drugs that now sustain them.