Mysticism and Genocide [completed]
Political philosopher Eric Voegelin wrote in his book The New Science of Politics: “From the Gnostic mysticism of the two worlds emerges the pattern of the universal wars that has come to dominate the twentieth century” (151). Central to the immanentist vision which Voegelin criticises is a strong faith in and regard for the basic “goodness” of mankind. This optimistic view does not regard the Christian truths of original sin or what the Reformed writers would characterize as “total depravity,” meaning that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, man is, as Augustine formulated, non posse non peccare, “not able not to sin,” and is only restrained by the grace of God from committing all the evil that he desires to do. Progressivism maintains an evolutionary and behaviorist view of man, which, absent any theological foundations, proposes that man is becoming more and more tolerant and civilized, and, quite frankly, is even now upon the brink of complete enlightenment. But facing honestly the tragedies of the twentieth century would destroy the basis for such assumptions, and would even cast aspersions upon the Progressive ideals which underlay the politics of the era. Maintaining a Progressive world-view becomes an exercise in denial. Once they cannot ignore a situation any longer, progressives meet news of each new descent into depravity with utter amazement, as if it had been an unexpected and unprecedented departure from a state of natural felicity. They then proceed to censure and scold the offenders. But, as Voegelin points out, even then they are reluctant to do anything of substance.
“Gnostic societies and their leaders will recognize dangers to their existence when they develop, but such dangers will not be met by appropriate actions in the world of reality. They will rather be met by magic operations in the dream world, such as disapproval, moral condemnation, declarations of intention, resolutions, appeals to the opinion of mankind, branding of enemies as aggressors, outlawing of war, propaganda for world peace and world government, etc.” (170).
The bulk of modern international politics is just such “dream-world” operations, and this is the reason that it is so ineffective. It may seem a radical redefinition of paradigms to relegate most of modern diplomacy to the field of fantasy, but when we place the current era within a broader historical context, such accusations become more plausible. For instance, while Progressive U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt followed his motto, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” most twentieth-century Progressives eschew the “stick” and attempt to shout down their enemies on the diplomatic field without referring even to the threat of military intervention. As a result, “rogue regimes” are often given years to perpetrate crimes against humanity. Intervention, if and when it occurs, is inevitably more difficult and more dangerous, and is often strenuously opposed by immanentist intellectuals. This type of situation displays what Voegelin called “…the self-defeating character of Gnostic politics, that is, the oddity of continuous warfare in a time when every political society, through its representatives, professes its ardent desire for peace” (171). Writing before Korea and Vietnam and many other international conflicts had happened as a result of Socialist aggression and Progressive vacillation, Voegelin finds these fantasies even in the postwar actions of the Allies that left Europe and China vulnerable to Communist takeover:
“These policies were pursued as a matter of principle, on the basis of Gnostic dream assumptions about the nature of man, about a mysterious evolution of mankind toward peace and world order, about the possibility of establishing an international order in the abstract without relation to the structure of the field of existential forces, about armies being the cause of war and not the forces and constellations which build them and set them into motion, etc. . . . Gnostic politics, thus, is self-defeating in so far as its disregard for the structure of reality leads to continuous warfare” (172-73).
Paradoxically, it appears as if the only tradition that will ever produce any sort of effective peace, is also the one that promises its followers perpetual warfare; that is, the anti-gnostic Christian tradition. Christ told his followers that until His final return, there would always be conflict, and many times the world would be in direct opposition to them. There was no promise of a perfect state which they could advance through political or military action. “In the world you will have tribulation,” He said, “but take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 ESV). We see that the nature of this overcoming is not manifested within the political realm; but God has made His kingdom instead within the hearts of men. Christ promises no perfect political society in this world. We read His words in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:5-14).
We see that the Kingdom of Christ on earth is a kingdom within men’s souls, not in the political realm. We are to eschew those “false Christs” who lead many astray into foolish thinking, promising the advent of a perfect society. We are indeed to understand present evils, such as wars, famines, disease, and natural catastrophe, not as showing the immanence of some kind of parousia, but as flatly characteristic of the age between Christ’s assumption and His final return. All our Lord’s predictions in the passage quoted are not a checklist for His return, but a description of how the age will be.
It remains for us, then, to strive for a peace which will be far from the imagined Eschaton of immanentists–whether they envision the enlightened reign of the Millennium, or the universal “submission” of Islam. It is a rule of different nations and different forms of government appropriate to different cultures, but united in a sense of political realism and a proper understanding of the nature of man which lends itself to effective and fitting policies. It does not seek to bring about perfection, though it opposes wrongdoing and encourages the good. It recognizes that until the Second Coming which no man may bring about, the world will always be under the curse, and that only on the final day will sin and death be destroyed, and this sin-stained creation be replaced by the New Jerusalem of God.
Voegelin opines that “Whatever share of responsibility for the present plight may be laid on the doorsteps of progressivists and idealists, the most formidable source of imminent danger seems to be the activists” (173). Certainly in the short-term, the “activists,” that is those who are attempting to force the eschaton through violent means, are the more immediate danger to peace. But in the long-term, the peaceful immanentist Progressives are just as much a danger to their democratic societies, because they lack the resolve to oppose the “activists,” and so they lay their societies in the path of plunder and destruction. Indeed, the Europe Voegelin characterizes as being more “Gnostic” than the United States, has been capitulating to radical immanentist Islam in recent years much more rapidly than the United States, which retains a subtle but persistent tradition of Conservative thought. In recent years, this has expressed itself through the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” a strong, realistic approach to confronting the threat of radical Islamic immanentists. What makes Bush’s interventions humorous is the way he and other neoconservative apologists justify the war with the rhetoric of “democracy.” “Democracy,” vaguely defined, is the Ideal State of the progressives and idealists Voegelin criticizes. The myth is that if Democracy can once be established in a country, that the country will then be on the fast track to peace and prosperity. In reality, democracy is a very tenuous system, one that only functions in a state with strong prior beliefs in the rule of law, and a Christian respect for the value of the individual. One must not expect it to function at all in countries that for so long have been ruled by the will of the strongest faction; countries where followers of different religious tradition have declared military crusades against each other for years, and where corruption is a way of life. But this is a subject for another time. For application, consider how this immanentist “gnosticism” perpetuates the current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The “radical Islamists” who run the nation of Sudan and who currently have power over the northern (Arab) region, subscribe to an ideology which sees religious dissent as tantamount to political treason. For this reason, the animists and Christians of (black) southern Sudan are persecuted. Meanwhile, the Progressive immantists of the international community, expressed most tangibly perhaps by the United Nations, wants to help but is tangled up in their bureaucratic sense of fairness and non-interference. Whereas, if they had their thinking straight, they would realize that the fundamental rights of man to which they subscribe, render the Sudanese government no government at all because of its dereliction of those rights. Also in the “canon” of Progressive belief is the idea that we have, or will soon progress to the point where war will no longer be necessary. This means that any resort to coercion will be seen as a step backwards. Unfortunately, this reluctance only aggravates the situation, as we see now in Darfur.
Perhaps the “Save Darfur” campaign, even if it does little to galvanize the United Nations, will stunt the growth of Progressivism among the young people of our country. If only we could get them to read Voegelin…
