Thought for the Day: State vs. Church

The note this morning in Loose Ends about the possible rising religious belief among the young sent me back to this passage from Angelo Codevilla’s indispensable book The Character of Nations:

Western regimes have gone out of their way to deny their peoples’ and polities’ kinship with Christianity—the drafters of the European Union’s constitution rejected references to it vehemently and repeatedly. In America, arguing that America is a Christian country endangers careers. Spiritual emptiness, the proposition that human life is qualitatively indistinguishable from animal life and hence meaningless, holds monopoly status in the schools. More important, acceptance of it is de rigueur for interacting with those who count. Moreover, Western regimes have tried to engender ersatz sentiments of reverence for “the planet,” and for their own status as priests of the culture of liberating meaninglessness. Though this culture is entrenched in regimes, and though it has diminished or suppressed the West’s Christianity, it has not engendered enthusiasm, even among its priests.

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