A History and Background of Morality, part II
The following is part two of my OP on morality and its role in Western civilization.
Moral religion is one of our greatest developments. Prior to the advent of Christianity, the concept of separation of religious and secular elites didn't even exist; religious leaders were political leaders, and political leaders were religious leaders. In more primitive times, this fusion of moral and political power wasn't so serious. But as the Romans developed administrative and military control techniques to new levels of sophistication, morality that only worked for the elites became a serious problem. Then as now, the ruling elites used all means at their disposal to control and oppress the ruled.
The problem I'm referring to is probably best illustrated by a more recent example, the Bolsheviks. When otherwise fawning liberals would gently chide the Bolsheviks over their horrific atrocities, Bolsheviks would scornfully dismiss their "bourgeoise morality". And if dear leader, who claimed the right to decide what is right and wrong, declared mass murder to be moral, who could disagree? Morality is always from argument from authority.
This same situation existed in pre-Christian Rome. The gladiatorial games were so pornographically awful that I don't dare describe them in this post; these horrors were considered proper entertainment for the entire family. What Christianity did was to give average, powerless Romans the moral basis to condemn the worst excesses of their leaders, particularly the imperative to worship these leaders as gods. This was seriously revolutionary, which is why Christians suffered all kinds of persecution.
It was Stalin who scornfully asked, "The Pope? How many divisions does he have?" Had Uncle Joe bothered to read history, he would have known that Christians took over Rome without firing a shot; no divisions were needed. While New Testament Christianity is thoroughly apolitical, and is thus not amenable to theocracy, it has always demanded the most exacting moral behavior. So, while Gibbon was wrong that Christianity caused the downfall of Rome, due to the apolitical nature of Christianity of that time, Christians did little to arrest Rome's fall. The process of Christianity's engagement in political affairs, the "Germanization" of Christianity, is brilliantly described in this book. This book describes the process whereby Christianity went from being an otherworldly religion concerned almost exclusively with matters soteriological and eschatological to being concerned with what constitutes a moral society and good government:
Rather than advocate for a theocracy in which Church and clergy became secular powers, the Church was architect of the old feudal system of mutual rights and obligations. Under this system, societies were divided into three estates with the Church and clergy being the first, monarchs and aristocrats comprising the second, and commoners comprising the third. While this system was in no way egalitarian, each estate had certain customary rights contingent upon locale, rights that were defended to the death. Under this system, the Church neither controlled the government nor was controlled by the government. It stood as an independent power center that frequently took the side of commoners in disputes with their rulers.
Though the tendency today is to look down on Feudalism as something retrograde, these people solved Marx's concerns about predatory elite behavior brilliantly. To limit predatory elite behavior, members of both the First and Second Estates in most locales had incomes limited to what their landed estates could provide. Aristocrats and clergy were explicitly forbidden in engaging in more lucrative pursuits such as manufacturing, commerce, and finance. These pursuits were limited to Jews first and commoners later. Because these pursuits were lucrative, and because money is power, ambitious commoners were on their way to seizing all meaningful power; this was how liberalism developed.
Another check of predatory elite power was that bugbear of liberals ever since, rule by divine right. According to this system, we occupied our station in life because God willed it. So, since there was almost no upward mobility, all groups had rights that were inviolable, which explains peasant revolts when rulers were daft enough to try. In particular, Luke 12:48 was the guiding principle for moral kingly behavior:
But he that knew not and did things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more.
Because the monarch did nothing to earn his exalted station, he had a moral and legal obligation to rule in the interests of the ruled called noblesse oblige. In contrast, being self-made, the liberal elites got where they are solely through their own efforts. Accordingly, they believe they owe nothing to anybody, and this is the standard for liberal rule; noblesse oblige is at best a dirty term.
Of course, history can be interpreted cynically too. If we do, we see that the big reason power wasn't centralized during Medieval times was because travel was arduous and dangerous with communication being almost nonexistent; it wasn't because they were inherently better people than us moderns. Many monarchs went their entire lives never having seen most of the lands they in theory ruled. Most of the real estate was actually ruled on behalf of the monarch by his aristocrats, called vassals, which formed a chain of command. But as technology slowly improved, allowing the Medieval ages to give way to the Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-reformation, it became obvious that the role of the First Estate was going to change. Church would either rule the government or government would rule the Church. They would not remain two separate power centers.
This was the standard to come out of the Reformation: Cuius regio, eius religio, which means basically that the king/ government chose the religion his kingdom would practice. In other words, the Reformation was about not so subtly shifting power over the Church to government. The agreement at Westphalia was that government would control the churches, which from the cynical perspective is what the Reformation was all about.
Of course, what the Reformation also did was to introduce a large measure of religious anarchy since one of the mantras of early Protestantism was that we were bound by our own consciences in religious matters; priestly intercession and guidance became irrelevant at best, and blasphemous at worst. Christians were free to read the Bible, and interpret Scripture as they chose. Naturally, this freedom gave way to dissenting Puritanism. Puritans wanted the opposite of what they ruling elites wanted; they wanted church controlling government—that fabled shining city on the hill.
Puritans ultimately failed. Monarchical power, which was giving way to liberal power, wanted government controlling the churches, which in large measure is just what happened with the introduction of national churches, which were government departments, funded by the government, and responsible for advancing government interests over Christianity. This is why some of the most venerable names in liberalism—including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Filmer, and Rousseau—had a very cynical view of Christianity. Because the Church had done so much good for so many people, the Church was held in high regard by average people. What these liberals wanted to do was to play bait and switch by substituting the government line for Christianity; it was all about control of hearts and minds.
The Puritans notwithstanding, dissent from churches preaching the government line started out slowly. For example, theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was a voice crying in the wilderness when he would spend his Sunday mornings drinking beer on the church steps to protest what he saw as empty religious formalism replacing true Christianity. It's hard to disagree with him.
Dissent quickly became popular though. With Christianity being controlled by the same people that controlled government, a religion that in actuality had nothing nice to say about money, power, or those who have these things soon began down the path of prosperity theology, starting with the Puritans. With their strong work ethic, Puritans soon began believing that poverty was caused by sin and that riches were a sign of God's blessing. The problem was that this "prosperity theology" became de rigueur in most churches; Franciscan vows of poverty were seen as "popery" and a quaint relic from the past. The working classes quickly became alienated, particularly from the mainline Protestant denominations.
In Europe at least, WWI was the coup de grace for the nationalized churches; Christ died in the trenches. In July 1914, government, including the churches, began cheerleading for war. Trusting their religious and secular leaders, most people joined in. When this war concluded very badly for both sides, the common people blamed government for this disaster, and the churches as part of government. This is a major reason why WWI oversaw the dismantling of four pre-modern empires in its wake.
Today, a trend few clergy have wanted to notice is that liberalism kills Christianity dead. The mainline Protestant Churches were the first to go; people flocked to Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity. Then, when the Catholic Church went from declaring liberalism to be a sin under Rerum Novarum to positively celebrating liberalism with Vatican II, Catholicism too began a downward trajectory. Now, the Evangelical sects too are on this road to suicide. Much of what Evangelical leaders are putting out today would be perfectly at home on the pages of Huffpo or other liberal publications.
Christianity came to life in ancient Rome as a champion of average people against predatory elite power. Christianity began dying when it switched sides. If Nietzsche is correct that churches have become sepulchers of a God that is dead, then a requiem aeternam isn't due to God. That requiem is what we owe ourselves for what we have lost. Civilization has been set back two thousand years. Average people no longer have any champions in the existing power structure.
—By Matthew Dunnyveg
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