Sunday, April 17, 2011

A Defense of the West

Self-flagellation is not dead. It is practiced today in the West, and in the church, with a diligence that would put a medieval flagellist to shame.

The flagellist of medieval times beat himself for sins he had committed. The Western flagellist of today beats himself for sins that someone else has committed.

And unlike the medieval flagellist - who no-doubt believed that others should beat themselves for their sins as well - the modern Western flagellist believes that he alone is guilty, and everyone else is innocent. Or, more correctly, he believes that his culture alone is guilty, and all other cultures are innocent.

Though he does not acknowledge it, the new Western flagellist beats himself because his culture kept records, while others did not. The Western flagellist beats himself because his culture was active while others were not.

Does it never occur to those of you who look into Western and church history and find nothing but fault that maybe we kept better records than most of the rest of the world? And that those records include our failures?

Does it never occur to you that a people or culture that actually does things is a culture that will make mistakes and commit sins? Rocks do not commit sins.

Do you who find a never-ending stream of faults with Western culture and the missionary enterprise find similar evils in any other culture? Or are those somehow sanctified because that is "their culture" or that is "how their faith is worked out?" Why the double-standard?

Do you have no capability of seeing the big picture? For all the sins of the West, for all the sins of the church and its missionary enterprise, do you really, truly, fail to see the amazing and overwhelmingly positive things that have come out of the last few hundred years of Western history and missionary endeavor?

You are insulters of noble, faithful and brave men and women who have gone before you! You tear down, you destroy, you find nothing but fault, and then you - those Christians among you - burst into tears that the church in the West is dying.

Foolish men! Why should anybody want to be part of the ugly faith that YOU have portrayed?

And you still don't understand.

The very criteria you appropriately apply to other cultures - that we should try to understand, that we should try to see the good - you abandon when it comes to your own culture.

Every other culture of the world gets a pass, but for your own culture you demand a perfection that nothing in human history or in your Bibles should lead you to expect.

You seem to think you need to adopt other people's sins because you haven't enough of your own, but let me assure you, flagellants, you have plenty of sins!

You want to flagellate yourselves? Then flagellate yourselves for painting a false and ugly picture of the West and of Christianity. Frederick the Great told his painter to paint him "warts and all." You go further; you just paint warts.

And flagellate yourselves for your double standard, for invariably accusing the West and excusing anybody and everybody else.

I'm sick of it. Go tell some other culture how evil the West is - perhaps you will find a receptive audience there.

No comments: