The Reformation Legacy

Secular society quickly reverts to paganism - with no sense of ultimate purpose, people feel pointless, life becomes superficial and self-absorbed. When we cease looking upwards and onwards and outwards stretching out into infinity to the greatest good imaginable (and unimaginable), we look inward and listen only to what our hungry senses ask for. A life lived sating these sensory pleasures becomes increasingly ensnared, enslaved and commanded by them.

A post-Christian culture buys the lie that we are doomed to live a wholly material and temporary existence. Selves become fleeting bit parts in an endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Our culture increasingly embraces deconstructionism, denial of reality, relativism, drug taking, nihilism, hedonism, temporal pleasure rather than lasting joy. Such pleasures cannot last because the more they are fed the more ingrained those hungers become. Thus people cultivate - nurture - their weaknesses and they grow ever stronger until they take over the whole person. Even if they do not take over the person's whole life immediately, they will take over as much of it as they can and will strive to extend their grip at all times.

I had a conversation today with someone who likes to smoke dope because he says it relaxes him. He does not realise that 10 spliffs are evil and that makes one spliff evil too. Such things are truly evil because they make the smoker immerse in themselves and forget others.

I have known many marijuana smokers in my time. Some were and I'm sure many still are are drug dealers - that is how they spend their time, paying for and feeding their habit. That is their whole existence. Quite a few are now dead, whether because they took a lethal cocktail of drugs or were murdered by other drug users. Some went to prison for murder. Many have settled into addiction to harder drugs such as the white powders, or sunk into alcoholism and habitual dope smoking. Even one spliff is evil (yes I genuinely use that word in an informed and considered way) because it makes the smoker immerse inwards into their own sensory gratification and that is the start of big problems. It leads to neurosis and even psychosis. The biggest mistake people make is thinking they can flirt with dark things and win. Pride invested in that myth can only grow into ever greater levels of prideful self-centredness.

Darkness is bigger, more intelligent more adaptable and more deceitful than any individual can know. The more a person allows their head to be filled with the pretension that they can handle their weakness, the more ensnared by its hold they become as they grow oblivious to its power. And thus the drug user says "I could stop any time I like." But they never do, until they turn their life around and stop completely. The only solution is to focus outwards - on the greatest good of all. Don't settle for anything less. We can all achieve ever greater levels of benevolence and goodness, but not while we fool ourselves into thinking that a little of what we fancy never does us any harm. It already has done us harm by making us believe that lie. We fool ourselves into saying things like "you've got to die of something" or "everything is harmful" or "in moderation, everything is OK".

These statements are factually inaccurate. All you have to do is think about it.

A healthy diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables is better for you than a diet of junk food. The times you lapse and eat junk food does not do your body good - it only harms it. Ten grease-ball burgers bad, one grease-ball burger bad.

Ten cigarettes are bad, but having just one is bad too. Having just one cigarette could potentially kill you or someone you make breathe in your smoke. The poisons it contains will certainly harm your health - they can do nothing else. There is no such thing as a healthy cigarette.

Medical opinion is a little divided on small amounts of alcohol, but the truth is that those small amounts that are said to beneficial are only said to be so because something in wine can help counteract cholesterol. Drinking is not getting to the root of the problem - lowering your cholesterol intake would be. And the low levels are much lower than most people who drink do drink. Getting drunk is decidedly unhealthy.

There is no such thing as "a healthy line of speed" or "heroin in healthy moderation". I personally don't believe in alcohol in moderation either: it is far too habit-forming and character changing. It clouds judgement. Anyone who has ever done something silly or something they have later regretted while drunk knows this. I know of several murders that have taken place because someone had sexual relations with someone they shouldn't have while they were both under the influence of drink and / or drugs. And then the drink and drug fueled boyfriend has murdered her or him or both - I know of each such instance...

Don't buy the lie that to be a so-called "free spirit" is a good thing. All too often people who fancy themselves to be "free spirits" are really just slaves to their temporal pleasures. There are more useful things to be and usefulness to the greater good is why we are here.

I truly believe that the Reformation began a major cultural decline.

From Calvin through Darwin through Marx through Freud... our actions have been said to be predetermined by God, by biology, by the state, by our upbringing...

These determinist, defeatist philosophies go against the reality of free will and personal responsibility. We are told that we are not responsible for our actions. We kid ourselves that the responsibility lies elsewhere. (Thanks to Fr. George Rutler for pointing this out.)

I know full well how hard lives can be, but the truth is universal. How we deal with whatever it is that life throws at us is down to us. We should not allow ourselves to get hysterical or emotional when we hear these words. Yes of course some people never get a chance, but we cannot allow that to blind us to the fact that the rest of us have at least some degree of control over our destinies and are able to make a great many choices. Most people reading this are in pretty fortunate circumstances considering the quality of life of all peoples and animals in all nations. So many good things that our modern culture takes for granted are the fruits of Catholic Christendom.

Let's pledge to make good choices. Let's strive to make each action as benevolent as possible, for goodness own sake.

Put down that spliff. Put down that rebellious record. Push aside the politics of scapegating and hatred. Say "no" to the new controversial philosophy. Put that shocking book back on its shelf. Don't be disaffected, don't be daring, Just be Good.

Try to remember what that means - it has almost become a dirty word. But goodness can only be a dirty word in a dirty world.