During the summer of 1918, Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West appeared in Germany. In two hefty volumes, the author set forth an analogy between biology and civilizational history. As plants and animals are born, mature, and eventually die, so too do civilizations. Spengler was convinced that Western civilization would soon die, just as the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Roman civilizations had reached their end. As evidence of the West’s imminent demise, the author pointed to the disintegration of authority, lust for power, material gluttony, and the coddling of youth.
Meanwhile, more than a century has passed. Although Spengler’s prediction was premature – given that Western civilization still shows signs of life – the present condition of Western culture is cause for grave concern. Our societies are riddled with wars and rumors of wars, breakdown of the family unit, environmental concerns, chronic social upheaval, widespread unemployment, spikes in crime and addiction, and more. None of these problems are new, yet never before has our civilization confronted so many problems simultaneously, each mutually reinforcing the others.
Western societies realize the situation is cause for deep concern. Some have tried to manage the problem politically by delegating the diagnostic and prescriptive tasks to specialists — bureaucrats, social scientists, economists, and others. Others, recognizing the need to search for a single root cause, have laid the blame on some wrong “structure” in our society, such as Capitalism, and argued that Western problems would disappear if only we had the wisdom and courage to overthrow the current structure and replace it with a better one. Instead of reform, they seek to foster revolution.
Yet, while it is imperative to address isolated problems within society and to look for corruption in the structure of our society, it is foolish to conclude that these are primarily or solely to blame while we, the human agents, are little at fault. We must evaluate the deeper currents in Western life, evaluating the religio-ideological motives that fundamentally direct our societies and their cultural institutions.
Upon evaluating the course of Western civilization in the years since Spengler’s prediction, it seems the deepest and most widespread religious malady is what can be called the “humanitarian religion” of Western society. A bastardization of the Christian faith, it can be summarized in the following way: humankind is the measure of all things; peace and unity are the natural condition of humanity; the fragmentation of humanity into nation-states and religions is the root cause of evil; and the abolition of strong forms of religion and the nation-state will usher humanity into a new era of unity and peace.[1]
Writing mid-twentieth-century, Hungarian moral and political philosopher Aurel Kolnai (1900-1973) identified humanitarian religion as the West’s dominant secular religion, a perverse imitation of Christianity that hijacks elements of Christianity but strips them of their transcendent moorings. Just as Communism had, in Hungary’s backyard, transformed charity for the poor into hatred for capitalist society and contempt for human rights, so Humanitarianism in other European nations had coopted Christian teachings about human nature and sin and placed them within an immanent frame. Kolnai’s concern is that Humanitarianism impairs moral cognition by blaming evil on social origins and systemically corrupted institutions, and predicted that Christian positions on marriage, divorce, sexuality, and abortion would soon be seen as unintelligible and even reprehensible.[2]
What Kolnai predicted has now come true. The relegation of evil to the systemic level without acknowledging its rootage in the human heart has led to a revolutionary impulse to overthrow regnant systems, institutions, and religions. Once old norms and institutions – regarding gender, sex, marriage, the economy, the laws of warfare, or whatever – are overthrown, humanity can take a great leap forward toward its natural state of unity and peace.
From where does this humanitarian and revolutionary impulse come? On the one hand, it’s as old as the Garden of Eden in its tendency to shift blame, play the victim, and re-engineer life on its own terms. On the other hand, the specific shape of the lie can be traced directly to nineteenth-century Europe – not to Karl Marx but to his senior counterpart, Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Unbeknownst to itself, the West is beholden to the vision arising from Comte’s positivist yearnings for a “religion of humanity.”
In his magnum opus, System of Positive Polity, in a chapter entitled “The Religion of Humanity,” the positivist Comte suggests Western societies replace the love of God with a love for Humanity.[3] Throughout his writings, he repeatedly appeals to Christian concepts such as spirituality, charity, and faith but strips them of their transcendent frame of reference. Rejecting Christian teaching on original sin and human depravity, he argues that utopia can be achieved within the immanent frame by abolishing the root causes of evil — strong forms of religion and the nation-state. Somewhat amusingly, he tried to transform his vision for a humanitarian religion into concrete form, replete with feasts, rites, congregations, and a liturgical calendar. Unamusingly, Comte, in a way, saw himself as replacing Christ as the savior of a new humanity.
Nearly two centuries later, most Europeans and an increasing number of Americans have begun to buy into Comte’s vision, blaming strong forms of religion and the nation-state as the cause of war and evil.[4] Thus, Comte’s vision to replace the nation-state with a borderless international “community” and Christianity with secular Humanitarianism found significant traction. The humanitarian proposal is hard to refuse because it presupposes that humans are fundamentally good and promises we can achieve unity and peace if we only eschew the religious and national commitments that have caused society’s ills. The Christian proposal is hard to accept because it affirms that evil resides in the human heart, that wars will never cease, and that there will be no great leap forward for humanity until Christ returns.
Yet, although the Christian proposal is a hard pill for society to swallow, it is the surest remedy for the maladies of our age. Foremost among the Christian emphases are four: the location of evil, the instrument for change, the primacy of charity, and the virtues of the nation.
The Location of Evil
To reject humanitarian religion’s near-exclusive emphasis on structural “sin” and systemic corruption is not to reject this exercise as a whole. The Bible itself is, in part, an exercise in critical theory, unmasking as it does the root idols and ideologies that bring corruption and misdirection to societies. Likewise, church history is replete with examples of Christians who expose the idolatrous “deep structures” of secular society; Augustine’s City of God is perhaps the earliest and most successful example, exposing Rome’s quest for “justice” as a mask for its lust for power and its philosophy and religion as hopelessly inadequate.
Yet, our recognition of structural evil must be paired with our recognition that evil arises from the human heart and, thus, that the overthrow of human systems or structures will never eventuate in the abolition of war or other evils. As Eric Voegelin noted repeatedly, we cannot “change” the world. The world is fallen and will be until Christ returns. We can work to install the best regimes, work for decency, and aim for justice, but we will never take a great leap forward anthropologically. The two realities — individual responsibility and systemic corruption — must be held in proper tension if we will expose the full spiritual and political dimensions of social evils.
The Instrument for Change
Closely related to the question of evil’s location is that of the proper instrument for social, cultural, and political change. Secular religions and political movements tend inexorably toward revolution as the instrument for change. If individuals aren’t riven by depravity or saved by grace, and if evil is therefore located in systems and structures, the solution is revolution. But “change via revolution” contradicts the deepest currents of Christian theology. God’s response to sin is reformational rather than revolutionary. In response to the first couple’s sin, God didn’t overthrow creation order and embark on a new project, instead offering grace that restores nature and reforms individuals and institutions.
This was one of the concerns registered by nineteenth-century Dutch historian Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and Revolution as he responded to the secular progressive impulse emanating from the French Revolution.[5] With the stated aim of helping society take a great leap forward, the French revolutionaries sought to overthrow God, revelation, and transcendent morality and wielded a false anthropology that blames institutions, rather than persons, for the origin of evil. Ultimately, as all social revolutions do, the French Revolution eventuated in widespread bloodshed and manifold unforeseen negative consequences.
As Groen did in his day, we must do for our own era, foregrounding the consequences of sidelining God, revelation, and transcendent morality, and the desire to overthrow strong forms of religion and the nation-state. We must persuade our neighbors that the moral order should be framed in relation to creation order, political authority should be understood as something ordained by God, law and justice should be rooted in an objective moral order funded by God, and truth should be understood as something objective and rooted in God’s revelation of himself. If our societies do not retrieve these underpinnings, we will experience the consequences of this form of unbelief that is antithetical not only to Christianity but to creation order as well.
The Virtues of the Nation
An exploration of Scripture and history reveals that God intends for human beings to have communities that are located between the local and global, with religious communities and nations being prominent among them. Scripture and history everywhere presuppose and affirm the existence of nations as communities that mediate between the individual and the vast corpus of global humanity. Not only is the nation’s existence affirmed in this time between the times, but certain nationally distinct cultural realities will carry over into the new heavens and earth.[6]
Thus, in response to many Europeans and an increasing number of American progressives who yearn for humanity to progress inexorably toward unification through a vague, global humanitarian sentiment, we must resist and demur. Neither the West nor other civilizations can function healthily as loosely defined and endlessly malleable body networks for commerce and communication, which is to say, multicultural bazaars.[7] We will deteriorate further if we continue to conceive our societies as composed of individual consumers who have individual rights and should be governed only by anemic multi-national conglomerates (e.g., the European Union) or a global community of governance (e.g., the United Nations). This humanitarian-religious view of the nation must be rejected. “There has never been, and there is not now, and there will never be a world without borders.”[8] Human division cannot be overcome by commerce and communication.[9]
The Virtues of Strong Religion
The eradication of strong forms of religion is impossible, and the suppression of strong religion yields a manifoldly negative return. Both history and Scripture make clear that human beings are worshippers at heart, inexorably drawn to ascribe ultimacy to and organize our lives around an
Object of supreme affection. Thus, if we eradicate strong forms of traditional religion en toto, we will end up with pseudo-religions wrapped around the idols of sex, money, power, and so on.
Indeed, modern political ideologies function as pseudo-religions wrapped around their chosen idols, replacing traditional religion in significant ways. As David T. Koyzis has demonstrated, modern political ideologies tend to ascribe ultimacy to some aspect of the created order, focusing on their chosen idol to “save” society by eradicating the “evils” that threaten their idol and beckoning “We the People” to embrace these ideologies as social saviors. Classical liberalism and libertarianism ascribe ultimacy to individual autonomy; nationalism to the primacy of the nation or a titular ethnic group within the nation; socialism to the revolutionary fostering of material equality; progressivism to revolutionary social change; and conservatism to the preservation of cultural heritage. Indeed, modern ideologies are systems of thought wrapped around idols; having absolutized an aspect of the created order rather than ascribing ultimacy to God, they organize society and culture around their idol, thus corrupting and misdirecting the whole socio-cultural fabric.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the West’s self-destructive trajectory of Spengler’s day has worsened during ensuing years. Promising unity and peace through the abolition of strong forms of religion and the nation-state, today’s humanitarian religious impulse and its revolutionary aspirations have captivated the imagination of many in the West. However, as history has shown, attempts to engineer utopia through revolutionary upheaval have often led to unintended consequences and further strife. Moreover, by displacing traditional moral frameworks and neglecting the inherent brokenness of human nature, the humanitarian impulse risks undermining the very foundations of civilization. Thus we must renew the Christian proposal, which offers a sobering yet hopeful alternative. By affirming the reality of evil and the need for individual and societal redemption, Christianity provides a framework for addressing the root causes of societal malaise while fostering genuine reconciliation and renewal. Emphasizing the importance of moral responsibility, the preservation of cultural heritage, and the virtues of strong religious faith, Christianity offers a path forward that transcends the fleeting promises of secular ideologies.
Dr Bruce Ashford is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.
[1] Daniel J. Mahoney, The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity (New York: Encounter Books, 2018).
[2] Aurel Kolnai, “The Humanitarian Versus the Religious Attitude,” The Thomist 7:4 (1944): 429-57.
[3] Auguste Comte, “Conclusion: The Religion of Humanity,” in Gertrud Lenzer, ed., Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings (London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 381-89.
[4] Among the contemporary thinkers who draw such a connection are Pierre Manent, Daniel Mahoney, Rémi Brague, Mary Ann Glendon, Roger Scruton and Paul Seaton.
[5] Groen van Prinsterer, Unbelief and Revolution (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).
[6] Richard Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
[7] Pierre Manent, “Democracy without Nations?” Journal of Democracy 8:2 (1997): 97-102.
[8] Pierre Manent, Beyond Radical Secularism: How France and the Christian West Should Respond to the Islamic Challenge, trans. Ralph Hancock. (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2016), 36.
[9] Pierre Manent, Democracy without Nations? The Fate of Self-Government in Europe (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007), 27-46. This is not to say that commerce and communication cannot be helpful in reforming injustices. It is to say that they cannot be relied on to eliminate the effects of depravity.