Where We're Headed
I'm on the run this morning, but I'd like to recommend two articles I've just read.
In a comment yesterday I maintained that the Russia Hoax isn't about financial corruption primarily. That is always a component, of course, when the Left is involved in something, but it really does come down to ideology. Compare these two article and see if you see how they hang together.
The first is by Rod Dreher (NeverTrumper): Seminary Confidential . It's basically a long email from a student at an elite Protestant seminary in which the student describes the state of intellectuality there. In brief, it's "social justice with a thin veneer of Jesus." It's much more detailed, and well worth reading.
The second is by Thomas Lifson, describing Antifa's activities in Portland: Left wing thuggery: The battle lines are being drawn in Portland, OR . Here there's no veneer of Jesus, but I think it hangs together. For example ...
The student writes regarding the Marxist form of "Christianity", a "new religion" "with a thin veneer of Jesus":
This represents the instrumentalization of Christianity to social justice ends. Routinely, the discussion of Christianity’s value comes down to “can Christianity help liberate me and others who share my identity from oppressors?” Christianity is not good because it is true; Christianity is adopted if it is useful.
Lifson writes:
My impression is that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is heavily staffed with left wingers who see African-Americans and sexual minorities as the only legitimate objects of their protection. They need to be tasked with protecting the rights of all Americans, and if they refuse, they need to be replaced. It’s time to focus on an urgent need to ensure peaceful politics before the streets get even bloodier.
Antifa is part of an interstate conspiracy to deny civil rights to conservatives. Thanks to the civil rights movement, there are established procedures for dealing with such malign groups. It’s time to start using those tools.
Do you see how Antifa activisim flows from the "theology" (really, ideology) that the student is being indoctrinated with at this seminary? Is it such a stretch to justify violence as the legitimate expression of the grievances of the oppressed--as defined by the Left?
And of course the same is true at all universities, and of course law schools. The indoctrinated graduates of those law schools now largely populate the FBI and the DoJ--and not just the Civil Rights Division. But I point to the seminary because religious institutions still retain some vestiges of social prestige and influence in the post-Christian West. Nor am I pointing only at Protestants or liberal Judaism. For Catholics, just look at the documents relating to the Amazon Synod, upcoming in October, to see the same thing.
The student is concerned that ordinary people will find themselves deprived of the intellectual means of expressing their opposition to these movements, which have coopted traditionally Christian and Liberal terminology for very different purposes.
That constitutes a crisis, of which the Russia Hoax is one, albeit important, expression.