What, generally speaking, is to be done?

The additional Trifkovic articles linked by Will S. (9/09, 3:10 AM) are indeed extremely important. This man Trifkovic has a soul. To show the calibre of his thinking, here are excerpts, if I may, from, respectively, the two articles:

“By ‘common heritage’ we mean the underlying unity of the Eastern and Western wings of the Christian civilization long split by the tragedy of the Great Schism, and now threatened by the rot of disbelief, Christophobic norms and functional nihilism rampant throughout the Western world, but still one. […] That the heritage needs defending is obvious. The present technological, military, and financial might of the Western world are a mere façade. They conceal an underlying moral and spiritual weakness that may yet undermine the entire edifice. The symptoms of that malaise start with the loss of religious impulse, manifest in the fact that, in todays Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany, more people pray in mosques on Fridays than in churches on Sundays. Unbelief and unconventional sects that are ‘Christian’ in name only are on the rise in America. The loss of a sense of place and history experienced by millions of Westerners goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of the European Union, a transnational hyper-state in Europe, and the quest for global dominance by the political duopoly in the United States. Both share the same distaste for traditional societies and cultures. Globalism destroys the remnants of the old order, and causes drastic demographic change within the West. Europe is dying. North Americans of European descent are reproducing below replacement levels and, within a decade, will start the precipitous decline that has already taken place in Europe. By allowing vast Third World immigrant subcultures to emerge within their societies, the Western nations have permitted the emergence of an alternative social and political structure, of which Islamic terrorism is but one consequence. In both America and Europe, multiculturalism has ensured that Western nations have lost the capacity to define and defend themselves vis-à-vis other civilizations. Muslims, in particular, have profited. […T]he price of the emerging post-modern global empire is the obliteration of the ethnic identity of peoples, their special color and uniqueness, [and] the loss of diversity of social evolution that goes side by side with the diminishing diversity of nature. At home the ultimate price of empire is the death of the very people and civilization of the society that is cajoled onto the self-destructive path of imperial over-reach. […] The alternative is enlightened nationalism, consistent with Christianity. […A]nti-Christian beliefs and assumptions of the elites are at odds with the majority of the people in every traditionally Christian country in Europe and America. But this majority is embattled. It is being steadily and deliberately whittled away by the continuing onslaught on ‘conventional morality’ in schools and the media, and by the attack on the demographic structure of our societies by immigration. [Emphasis added.] The problem is compounded by an ongoing betrayal from within the Christian camp, and the conquest of many churches by Marxists, sexual perverts, and radical feminists. […] Instead of being thrown to the lions, [traditionalist Christians] may be subjected—by some judicial mechanism dictated by bureaucrats to mandatory ‘sexual diversity orientation sessions,’ or feminist-led pro-abortionist ‘right-to-choose education workshops,’ after which the refusal to recant could lead to ‘therapy’ and forced medication. […] Is a political theory of Christian resistance possible? Perhaps […]. To regain the war-ravaged remnants of ‘Christendom,’ its embattled majority of manipulated citizens needs help to become conscious of the power that it still possesses […].”

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“It is in disease and looming death that Europe (as we know it) and America (as we know her) most tellingly certify that they […] share the same chromosomes, that they belong to one culture and constitute one civilization. The same traits of terminal decrepitude are present in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Canada, and the United States, including both the primary cause which is the loss of religious faith and a number of secondary ones. These include their ruling elites hostility toward all forms of solidarity or coherence of the majority population based on common ancestry and traditional culture; the loss of a sense of place and history; rapid demographic decline probably irreversible and unparalleled in history that goes hand in hand with rampant Third World immigration; the collapse of private and public manners and morals; the imposition of ‘diversity,’ ‘multiculturalism,’ and ‘sensitivity’ by despotic means; and the demonization and criminalization of any opposition to any of the above [emphasis added; here is your leftist/Wall-Street iron boot heel that certain left-liberal posters at Turnabout have tried to deny exists]”

When I read a few of the comments in this thread touching on stark doctrinal criticisms the three main kinds of Christian level at each other, and then saw this comment by Will S. (today, 3:47 AM): “I’m really not interested in getting into a Protestantism vs. Catholicism debate at present; […],” I thought of the following “welcome to readers” message on the Touchstone web-site’s homepage:

“Touchstone is a Christian journal, conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content, with editors and readers from each of the three great divisions of Christendom—Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. The mission of the journal and its publisher, the Fellowship of St. James, is to provide a place where Christians of various backgrounds can speak with one another on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and summarized in the ancient creeds of the Church.”

If we Christians expend our energies making harsh mutual criticisms among our three main branches don’t we risk diverting our attention from the bigger task of facing the leftist threat, sapping strength put to better use fighting that war? Touchstone manages to be “a place where Christians of various backgrounds can speak with one another on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith.”

Incidentally, speaking of the Touchstone web-site, it looks like a first-rate outfit. I browsed it for the first time recently when an entry in its web-log was linked in a Turnabout entry. That was such a great little essay on an instance of supposed “expertise” (an essay which inspired the motto I’ve been appending to the ends of my posts lately) that I browsed the site a bit further and the next two log entries I read were this one, on falling birthrates and what governments could do about them if they wanted, and this, on the absolutely poisonous influence the left has had on male-female relationships in today’s society. I especially liked that this last entry was written by a woman (“Kristi Herman”)—women all too often fall for women’s-lib nonsense, so it’s always nice to see them debunking it for a change (men “get it”; it’s always nice to see women “getting it” too, because I think they “get it,” in this particular regard, way less often than men do … sorry girls, but I fear it’s true—and a great irony, too, since women’s lib, which of course harms both men and women, harms women much more).

Touchstone’s blog, linked under “Mere Comments” at the top of its home page, makes for excellent browsing.

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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.