Herland Report: The Russian defense of Christianity: Let us take a closer look at the paradox that Russia is now the leading public defender of Christianity.
We do not hear much about it in the mainstream media, yet from being an atheist state, Russia now boasts more than 70 % of its population as Christians. The massive revival of traditional faith has happened within the scope of a few decades.
This implies a massive movement to return to the old, cultural greatness of the Orthodox Russian state before Lenin, which had its roots firmly planted in the Christian heritage.
While Christianity is scorned by the atheist Western elites, Russia is rising as the defender of Christianity world wide. What made the Russians tired of state sponsored atheism that they – en masse – left the atheist assumption?
Why do we hear so little about the massive Russian move towards traditional religion in the West?
The growing tendency to persecute Christians in the West worries many. Ironically, it is the Russian leaders who defend the values that once made the West such a great civilization, writes founder of The Herland Report, Hanne Nabintu Herland in her weekly column at the largest conservative news network in the world, World Net Daily.
The Christian contribution to historical Western Values
The Russian defense of Christianity: The atheists who define what is considered politically correct today, display a remarkable ignorance of history by blatantly mocking Christianity. Several of our most important values come precisely from the Judeo-Christianity heritage and its ethics.
Professor at Yale and Harvard, historian Robert R. Palmer and Joel Colton state in A History of the Modern World that Christian philosophy was revolutionary in that its definition of humanity was inclusive of all people, an altogether new view on the value of human life.
The early Christians worked to relieve suffering, help the poor and so on. They taught humility and that all men were brothers.
In Ennemis Publics, by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and one of France’s well-known authors, atheist Michel Houellebecq, they are convinced that we would never have human rights without the originally Jewish and later Christian hypothesis, the incredibly bold idea about the creation of man, formed in the likeness of God, and therefore also sanctified.
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Palmer states that it simply is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Christianity’s influence on the development of Western values.
It was Christianity that introduced the principle of equality, which unleashed the revolutionary idea that each man, regardless of class, gender, and race, has a unique value.
Even though this viewpoint would later be a secular idea and one of the cornerstones of secular society, there is no doubt about its religious origins. The famous German philosopher and atheist, Jürgen Habermas states in The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion that Christian theology in the Middle Ages and Spanish scholasticism as the origins of what we today call human rights.
Habermas also points out that modern moral philosophical and political theory pays a high price for excluding the very Christian ethics that in history has demonstrated the ability to motivate individuals to care for one another, to perform just actions.
In Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Pope Benedict XVI seems to concur, stating that after years of emphasis on scientific and technological progress alone, Western culture now suffers from a lack of emphasis on moral energy.
This is the greatest threat to contemporary culture. Without solidarity, individuals become destructive. Democracy itself depends on citizen solidarity to avoid becoming the tyranny of the mob.
Early Christianity came into existence, marked by revolution, and developed among the lower classes of society, with a radically new view of the poor.
This is symbolically well illustrated by Christ being born in a manger. The radical Jesus, went starkly against the political and religious elite associating himself freely with the feeble, the sick and – as the first feminist – broke the customs regarding how to engage with and validate women.
Christian ethics became the source of human rights and one of history’s most important contributors to the leveling of class differences. Socialism took several of its most famous values from the pool of Christian thought.
Yet today, this is almost completely forgotten knowledge as society turns to hedonism, corruption and deceit as the socially acceptable paths to success.
The idealized dignity of the worker, the willingness to fight for the rights of the common man and those with lower income not to be degraded by rich landowners, clearly reflect Christian attitudes. Respect for all, regardless of rank is a genuine Christian idea.
It is pointed out by Melanie Phillips in The World Turned Upside Down that both Berger, Hegel and Max Weber saw Judaism as the main victory of rationality and secularization over paganism.
The Russian Religious Awakening
The Russian defense of Christianity: In an interview after the meetings between the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis in Cuba, the Orthodox Russian Patriarch and leader of the Russian church stated in his defense of Christianity:
“I strongly believe that we should work together in order to save our society from de-Christianization – because, facing increasing atheistic pressure, which has become quite aggressive in some countries, Christians are being squeezed out of public life. Christians are under pressure. All this indicates that we are dealing with a dangerous, critical situation, with regard to Christian reality and Christian presence.”
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The Russian defense of Christianity: Patriarch Kirill is among those who seem deeply worried about the growing Christophobia in Europe.
He repeatedly highlights that the rise of euthanasia and self-killing, the cult of sensual pleasures, the rise of non-Christian values and the development of a sense of permissiveness is a serious step away from the original values of Europe, according to Pravmir.
When did we last hear the archbishop of Canterbury speak like that? Or the leading bishops in the Protestant Churches? When do they publicly demonstrate the defense of Christianity?
Where are they, where are they hiding to avoid the public limelight? Are they afraid of persecution?
And if so, how can they profess to be followers of Christ? To be persecuted, spoken ill of, hated and scorned was one of his promises to those who follow Christ.
And Christians are uncomfortable in many Western countries today as the progressive, liberal atheism dominates the mainstream media and the public sphere.
The progressive hatred towards traditional values made the ideology allergic to all things Conservative. Majority views were to be quenched – as we have seen the progressive ideologist, Herbert Marcuse, state: The need to discriminate against and diminish the role of the Conservatives and other unwanted groups was a must in order to radicalize the West.
Repression of majority views has become the trademark of the New repressive Left. Thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, the father of the student revolution in the 1960’s, speaks openly in A critique of pure tolerance about the need to oppress the views of the majority population in order to succeed in revolutionizing the culture.
Marcuse’s illiberal words reveal the authoritarian New Left pursuit, stating that repressing the worldview of the majority is necessary in order to achieve the desired goal: To change the value system.
And so they have. Today we live in a society where the traditional family is demonized, the man is demonized, Christianity is demonized and European history is demonized.
The Russian-Orthodox bishop, Metropolit Hilarion has stated a strikingly valid point in his defense of Christianity, as cited by Observatory of Intolerance Against Christians:
“We often hear about antisemitism and Islamophobia, and very little is said about Christianophobia, which is gaining strength in many European countries.”
The Modern Russian defense of Christianity
The defense of Christianity: Many would be amazed, reading these words. It is indeed, to a Westerner, surprising to see that a country such as Russia, which before used to be an atheist state, now is leading the fight for the Christian faith internationally.
And yes, we hear remarkably little about this in the mainstream media, which does not exactly come across as supportive of the Western Christian heritage, the very values that once made us a world-leading civilization.
It illustrates quite well that some of the information given to the public through the mainstream media is not exactly balanced.
We hardly ever hear about Russia’s defense of Christianity, in fact, it is hard to find any positive comments about this large nation at all.
Yet, it is noticeable that six companies now own over 90% of the American media, according to Business Insider. It is, so to speak, in the hands of the few to paint foreign countries are either good or bad.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Reports have commented on recent attacks on Christian communities in Europe and have highlighted the necessity to address the problem of intolerance against Christians with a specific focus on hate crimes.
According to the International Society for Human Rights, 80% of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians.
The Pew Forum states that between 2006 and 2010, Christians faced some form of discrimination in 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth – constituting an unreported catastrophe of our time.
Furthermore, one hundred years ago, 80% of the world’s Christians lived in the West, while today the number has dropped to around 40%, according to Freedom Outpost.
The defense of Christianity: The speech of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, held at the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, 2015, stands out as a relevant illustration.
Lavrov is among the non-Western leaders who voices, on a regular basis, concern about the aggressive secularism in the West and the persecution of Christians, as morality and traditional national, cultural and religious identity is eroding in Europe.
At the Council, he noted that: “Christianity is the world’s largest religion in terms of both the number of its supporters and its worldwide presence.
After all, every country has at least one Christian community… I also have to mention the problems experienced by Christians in a number of Western European states, where for some reason it has become politically incorrect to identify oneself as a Christian, and where people are even starting to become uncomfortable with Christian values that form the foundation of the European civilization.”
History may explain part of the reason for this new Russian approach. After the fall of the Soviet Union, most Russians were weary of the anti-traditionalist, atheist Communist society that they felt had limited them for so long.
This is what many Westerners do not understand, that a people who for so long have been under the atheist Communist boot, do hope for new freedoms.
Many welcomed the freedom of religion and today, around 70% of the Russian people are Orthodox Christians. This implies massive movement within society to return to the old, cultural greatness of the Orthodox Russian state.
