By Rod DREHER
Today was the big Pride Parade in Vienna. I’ve never seen a Pride parade. The most striking things were all the kids there, especially middle school and teenage girls, all decked out in their rainbow gear. Everybody seemed to be really into it, and having a good time.
It really was like a huge religious festival. A Christian friend with whom I walked through the city today said, “Imagine being a pagan in fourth century Rome, and seeing Christians gathering for a procession honoring the Virgin, or something. You might think it’s an odd thing, but let them have their parade, what does it hurt. Thirty years later, they’re tearing down your temples. Doesn’t this have the same feeling?”
Yes, it does. Can you imagine telling any previous generation that worshiped at St. Ruprecht’s, founded in the eighth century, and the oldest church in Vienna, that one day, a banner would fly from their tower celebrating a festival of sodomy? It happened today. The parish priest is — surprise! — a Jesuit.
The Pride festival is the most vivid expression of the repaganization of the West via the overturning of the Christian order. What my friend meant by his comment was a reference to Edward Watts’s great book The Final Pagan Generation, which I wrote about here a few years ago.
Watts writes about Roman pagan elites of the fourth century, who did not fully appreciate how radical the threat from Christians was to the pagan order that had ruled Rome since time immemorial. They assumed traditional paganism would last forever, but in fact, passion for and understanding of the old religion was exhausted by the time the new faith challenged it. The book is incredibly relevant to our time. Back then, I wrote of its lessons:
What are the lessons I draw from all this for Christians in our own time? Let’s stipulate that the world of 21st century Europe and North America is very different, in obvious ways, from that of fourth-century Rome. But there are parallels.
- Christianity today is like traditional religion of the fourth century. We are at the end of the Christian age, not at its beginning. Christianity back then had muscle. It is now decrepit, as a social force. The fact that we Christians believe that our faith is true can blind us to the fact that what is obvious to us is by no means obvious to others.
- It is not clear what the Roman pagans could have done to have slowed or stopped Christianity, but it is quite clear, in retrospect, that they did not take it seriously enough as a threat. This was a failure of imagination on their part. They assumed that the world would always be as it was, because it always had been.
- Worldly power matters. If Constantine had not converted, the future of Christianity in the West would have looked different.
- Yet worldly power is limited. Julian the Apostate failed miserably. You cannot legislate belief.
- Talented elites who form, and who are formed by, a counterculture, can have an outsized effect. Bishops and priests who saw their function as to serve the imperial system were not as inspiring to the young as those who rejected it, and its promises.
- The old ways of resisting anti-religious forces — fighting within the system — don’t work. This makes me doubtful about the strategy that people like me have generally adopted: fighting within liberalism for liberal goals, like religious liberty. The asymmetrical strategies of opponents, like LGBT rights groups, overwhelm us. But what can we do?
In the main, the story of the final pagan generation ought to be a severe warning to us complacent 21st century Christians. Ours is also a time of “storehouses full of gold coins, elaborate dinner parties honoring letter carriers, public orations before emperors, and ceremonies commemorating office-holders.” Christians are complicit in all of these. But the deeper shifts in the culture are clear for those with eyes to see. The old religion — Christianity — is fast fading. The young believe in a new religion of self-worship, hedonism, and materialism. The laws are not yet anti-Christian, but the broader culture is moving to push Christianity to the margins quickly. This is not likely to change. Christians need to prepare for this.
By “prepare for this,” I mean several things, all of which can be summed up with: Stop the complacency. Details:
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Stop thinking that it’s always going to be this way, and that anything short of radical action is sufficient. The mindset of older Christians may actually be a hindrance, because they don’t understand how radically different the world today is.
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Do not mistake the presence of Christian churches and symbols in public life for the true condition of Christianity in the hearts and minds of people. Remember, the pagan temples and statues of the gods remained long after paganism was a dead letter.
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Clean up our own churches. Stop tolerating corruption within the church — especially corruption that benefits the leadership class, at the expense of the church’s authority and integrity. Watts presents no evidence that pagan temples were corrupt. I bring this up simply to point out that Christians are in an existential fight, and cannot afford to have our own positions weakened by internal corruption.
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Train ourselves and our children to stand aside from the promises of the world, and to cultivate asceticism, like the elite Christians of the mid-fourth century did. Only then will we develop the heart and the mind to resist.
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Understand that we, like the final pagan generation, might think we are fighting for tolerance, but our opponents are fighting for victory. We have to change our tactics. We are bad at asymmetrical warfare. Frankly, like an old pagan of the fourth century, I would prefer to fight for tolerance — but that is not the fight that’s upon us.
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Neither abandon politics entirely, nor put too much faith in princes. Elites cultivated relationships within the imperial power structure, and served that power structure. But the real work of conversion happened among the people, through the labors and examples of saintly ascetics and charismatics.
How far has it gone? Fox News is now celebrating transitioning children:
(Thread) I have appeared on Fox News many times. I appreciate the platform they’ve given me. If what I’m about to say ruins that relationship, so be it. We have to call this evil lunacy out wherever we see it. Especially on our own side.
— Best selling LGBT children’s author Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 10, 2022
And here’s something that’s really gross, but the fact that it’s done at all by Woke Capitalism is telling. It’s a Pride Month promotion from a Los Angeles food delivery company, which has come up with a menu for “bottoms”: people who like to receive anal sex; the menu keeps them from being constipated and therefore having less back door fun:
You shouldn’t miss a good meal for a good time. That’s why this Pride, we’ve teamed up with @DrEvanGoldstein and @smartthrob to create the world’s first Bottom-Friendly Menu (yup, it’s real). #EatWithPridepic.twitter.com/03Fm8YJlAP
— @postmates (@Postmates) June 9, 2022
Give the US Armed Forces three years, and they will be distributing Pride Month MREs for bottoms, and Jesuit soup kitchens will be have special Pride Month menus for same. What a great and glorious civilization the post-Christian West is building! Somebody asked me at a gathering the other night if I had to write The Benedict Option over again, what would I change. I told him that even though I don’t believe that one can ever fully escape this crisis, I would take more seriously the idea of literally heading for the hills. The day is coming when churches that don’t fly the Pride banner to signify submission to the New Faith will be at risk of attack.
