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The Attack on Christianity from the Right

The Attack on Christianity from the Right

Last updated on: February 26, 2018 at 5:55 am by Gene Veith

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The Attack on Christianity from the Right 2018-02-23T17:13:24-05:00 Gene Veith

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Most of us are familiar with the attacks of Christianity from the Left. There are also attacks on Christianity from the Right. You might be familiar with Ayn Rand’s libertarian critique, that Christianity undermines both individual freedom and free economics by undermining what she calls “the virtue of selfishness.” But the opposition to Christianity among certain extreme conservatives–including the so-called Alt.Right of today–goes even further.

The Left attacks Christianity in the name of humanism, accusing the faith of oppressing the marginalized and stifling human freedom. The Right attacks Christianity for being too humanistic, for liberating the marginalized and creating human freedom.

This is not just the contention that Christian teachings are not true or that Christian do not live up to their ideals. These are attacks against Christianity in its strengths: its ethic of love, the transcendence of God, the value of human life, the gift of salvation.

Matthew Rose writes about the attacks on Christianity from the hardest of the hard right–views that have a long history, for example in the thought of the Italian philosopher Julius Evola, pictured here–in an article for First Things entitled The Anti-Christian Alt.Right. Christians, conservatives, conservative Christians, and Christian conservatives need to be aware of these ideas and need to be on guard against them. Rose’s article goes into detail about their various critiques of Christianity and you would do well to read his article in its entirety. A sample:

The alt-right is anti-Christian. Not by implication or insinuation, but by confession. Its leading thinkers flaunt their rejection of Christianity and their desire to convert believers away from it. Greg Johnson, an influential theorist with a doctorate in philosophy from Catholic University of America, argues that “Christianity is one of the main causes of white decline” and a “necessary condition of white racial suicide.” Johnson edits a website that publishes footnoted essays on topics that range from H. P. Lovecraft to Martin Heidegger, where a common feature is its subject’s criticisms of Christian doctrine. “Like acid, Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood,” writes Gregory Hood, one of the website’s most talented essayists. It is “the essential religious step in paving the way for decadent modernity and its toxic creeds.”

Alt-right thinkers are overwhelmingly atheists, but their worldview is not rooted in the secular Enlightenment, nor is it irreligious. Far from it. Read deeply in their sources—and make no mistake, the alt-right has an intellectual tradition—and you will discover a movement that takes Christian thought and culture seriously. It is a conflicted tribute paid to their chief adversary. Against Christianity it makes two related charges. Beginning with the claim that Europe effectively created Christianity—not the other way around—it argues that Christian teachings have become socially and morally poisonous to the West. A major work of alt-right history opens with a widely echoed claim: “The introduction of Christianity has to count as the single greatest ideological catastrophe to ever strike Europe.”

[Keep reading. . .]

Much of this is variation of the attacks on Christianity that I write about in my book Modern Fascism.

Photo of Julius Evola by Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1889-1963) – Marc. Eemans, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47973589

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