Go Join The Discussion
Dan Gilgoff is trying to get some discussion going at his blog about this quote from Newt Gingrich:
I happen to favor traditional marriage and suspect in the long run we’ll go back to traditional marriage. I don’t believe we’re going to follow Europe down the road of a secularized, nonreligious society. If anything, I suspect that in the next 30 years Europe will become dramatically more religious because what it will find is that a secular society is stunningly sterile and has no natural base on which to organize civilization.
Please go join the discussion there. It would be bad form for us to co-opt it here, but I will make my comments in this forum.
First of all, it is a near certainty that Europe will become “dramatically more religious” in the next 30 years. The real question is “what religion?” and “why?” The answers I see are, “Islamic” and “demographic.” See here. Europe’s native birth rate is so low that they are importing Islamic workforces in droves. They will soon overwhelm the native population. This is one of the reasons that our efforts in the Middle East and the GWOT in general are so important. It probably is not a war we can ever win in the sense of defeating the enemy. But if we can apply enough pressure that Islam will reform in a sense similar to what happened to Christianity a few centuries ago, we can avoid global religious conflict.
Even if Europe were to return to Christianity in the Gingrich predicted fashion, it would be a bit of an ugly thing. That is not serious religious conversion – its societally-imposed and for reasons other than religious ones. It would be a pretty sterile religion too. Which means I am not at all certain how helpful it would be. Religion changes people, who become; therefore, better people – who in turn make a better society. Using religion as a tool to enforce social mores is the root of the rebellion that created our nation. People need to choose religion for personal reasons, or it turns ugly fast. Hence the state of Islam today, or Christianity a few centuries ago. (Oh, by the way, this paragraph is a clarion call to missionaries of all sorts.)
Finally, the nation can return to traditional marriage without returning to religion. That will probably happen. Same sex marriage is a recipe for societal decay with or without a religious component. Hence the reason every society in history regardless of religion or lack thereof rejected it. Even the devotedly secular communist regimes of recent times have rejected same sex marriage.
Now, go to Dan’s post and discuss.
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Chino Blanco on 20 Jun 2009 at 8:31 am #
Newt Gingrich is a recipe for societal decay.