This will be talking out loud on paper; maybe someone can break in and restore something of a conversational sanity. I'm utterly unsure where to begin and end and it all goes around in circles for me.
Morality has been historically splintered from praxis, praxis still employs shreds of the morality behind it, and ultimately we have to work with what we have. As an example: capitalism is the historical fruit of a number of various interweaving ideologies and beliefs (a number of which are literally theologically heretical and - as heresy tends to go - dangerous to society), and now capitalism has become something of an historical concrete and branched into all its various ideologies and historical realities that have anchored and branched into others; and we have a drug-addict of a society that is tearing itself apart at the seams (this is true even on an 'a-theological' level, as if there is such a thing, in that we are most unhappy to watch jobs being outsourced and large corporations/government taking drug-addict life of its own, etc.). And so on in countless other examples of the same. We seem to be turning to the environment and human rights as the last bit of solid ground for agreement and action, the last clump of sand we can actually hold in our hands and salvage. Can our contemporary Western, 'First-world' culture be salvaged from its confusion and nominalism? -Or is it propre to rend our robes and allow the destruction to run its full course - that is, is that the Father's judgment and balm?
Foreign policy, military force overseas, Bush vs. Obama, 'bring the troops back', 'finish the job', etc. - I would argue what America did in World War II, speaking on the whole as a cause, was noble and right. Beyond that, I heartily agree that modern, secular communism was and has been a horrible reality, but I'm still very unsure even at that point what America's role is in the world; I guess you ride whatever horse will carry the day over the evil of our time etc. However, in our developing foreign policy since then, we have become the policemen of the world. Is it really America's 'job' to have military bases throughout the world? Which came first, the chicken or the egg - the Middle Eastern hatred for the United States or the United States' active involvement in the Middle East? Are we waging these wars because the Church is no longer offering something of a historical framework for crusades? In writing all this (thinking it through), I'm tending to think that America's foreign policy in the Cold War in the specifics of funding 'proxy wars' were horribly wrong and ultimately judgment-bearing decisions.
It's a cat's cradle, every strand interweaving with another. Pull one, and three or four more are tangled; untangle the three or four, and you're back where you began. In recent centuries arose again the pagan storyline of the world being an essentially violent place (where the basic essence of existence is self-preservation, and the only way for peace is to threaten enough potential violence). Consider ancient Rome and the Greek city-states and their mottos, and then look at our city-states and proverbs. We've bought the line and abandoned the narrative of Christianity, which did/does not overlook violence/evil (and doesn't even condemn violence that seeks to proprely defend that which is worth defending) but does describe the central essence of Being as the Trinity - a creative, inclusive harmony. 'Say that to the terrorists.' Well, that's my point. We've already denounced the Crusades as horrible mistakes and smirked wryly at Constantine's 'Christian empire', but in the meantime we have historically chopped off a bit of this and lopped off a bit of that and reforged the pagan world. In the beginning, the Crusades - however you may feel about them, what they were, and ultimately what they developed into - could be seen as an attempt to order warfare. We have a new order of warfare, which is capitalism and paganism: get as much as you can, and do whatever is in your best interests.
I often wonder what the 'Greats' would say about our present societies, and of course this goes far beyond this one isolated shard of a glimpse into this subject. St. Augustine (who I've been reading lately) would probably - in fact, judging by his writing, I'm certain he would - say that when our time of trial finally befalls us, it is because God is (at the least) purging us of our evil. Honestly, perhaps it could be said any number of ways, if anything is really going on in the first place. We have chosen the criteria and existentially invented a world via language/linguistics that has now handed us the present situation. We have unleashed a tiger. Or so on.
At one point, there existed something of a unified while diverse melody and harmonisation among Christian theology, Greek philosophy, and (of course) a resulting Sacramental praxis - humanity harmonising into a trinity subsisting within the source of Being: the Trinity. As with the Trinity within which it subsisted, this human trinity had something of an utter stability to it (centred in authority, doctrinal vision, a unified vision of life) as well as something of beautiful change (a 'budding' or 'blossoming' outward into new forms, expressions, and ideas in the romance of it all). Additionally, there existed something of the clumsy fumbling and stumbling of humanity in weakness, folly, fallenness, and/or finitude. Regarding that last part: yes, of course, I do understand that this was hardly a perfectly realised human harmony or 'trinity' ('perfect' being in the Greek sense of ideal/flawless perfection), but that is the nature of this process of historic perfection - the gestation/fermentation of the Holy Spirit into/through the landscapes of humanity, a temporal journey by temporal beings, through the Church's society of humans and society's Church. The history of music or the vision of the Renaissance (to say nothing of the patient sweat to secretly bear civilisation through the Dark Ages) are examples and ripe testaments to the harmonic vision. Having barely glimpsed the depths of the Church, I don't so much think this harmony has 'left us' so much as we have historically left it.
God is working in history to bring all things to His ends; I just don't know how He is planning to do this. How will we participate? Can Western civilisation be salvaged? Will the Church embody Christ in Her next grave only to once again reveal His glorious Resurrection in a participatory type? Centuries ago, missionaries from a little island evangelised Europe again. But I have so many questions and would love to know all the answers before this test of time. We can pray, however, and it seems that we're all going to play our tiny parts one way or another, so it's best to commit to the task.
-Rick
