One of the  strangest intellectual disconnects I see in the modern world is how those on the Left have taken to describing themselves as “progressive.”  What does it mean to make progress? An online definition is given as:  “Progress definition:  a movement toward a goal or to a further or higher stage: the progress of a student toward a degree. ”  When one thinks of the word “progress” or speaks about “making progress,” the common idea is that of a betterment of one’s state in life or the conditions in a society.

Listening to the disjointed ramblings of those who call themselves progressives, one would think that the last thousand years of human development have been that of a murky swamp belching forth hideous creatures from which their Leftist theories will now deliver us, finally ushering in mankind’s long-desired Utopian Age. In the course of achieving this goal, there is one institution which stands out as the major target to be destroyed: the Church. Christianity must go, according to Progressive thought, because it is a stronghold of intellectual fascism and moral turpitude. 

Such thinking is a direct result of the overthrow of classical education in this country. Only someone historically illiterate could think that the advent of the Christian faith was a regression into barbarianism. The exact opposite is true.  The Roman Empire and the surrounding pagan nations which constantly warred against the empire were places of deep injustice and moral violence.

An ordered procession of senators, toga-clad and stately, is a powerful and enduring image of Ancient Rome. It tells us much about how the Romans saw themselves: as civilised and virtuous citizens. Above all it embodies dignitas – a peculiar Roman concept which has no direct English translation, but was used to refer to a state of being determined by an individual’s dignity, merit, honour, self-control and public respect. To justify crossing the Rubicon river and marching on Rome, Julius Caesar famously said that dignitas meant more to him than life itself.

Given the calm ideology of dignitas, you might imagine that Ancient Rome was a tolerant and pleasant place to live. The truth, however, couldn’t be any further from it: Rome was a city riven by intolerance and violence, a breeding ground for class hatred, racial animosity, religious intolerance and sexual exploitation. So while the Romans may have thought of themselves as civilized, many aspects of their society would be unacceptable in the modern world today. [1]

Women, children, and slaves were property. A man might freely rape both his wife and children and suffer no repercussions from the act, for they were his property. Slaves could be beaten and even killed with impunity. The Roman Empire was divided into two classes which would never meet: the rich and the poor. This behavior is not exclusive to that empire. We see today in a number of non-Christian countries the same thing. It may not be politically correct to say this, but in Muslim countries, the same experience of life exists: women are chattel to be seen but not heard from. They have no rights. A woman can be raped by a man and then put to death while her rapist goes free. In India there is a strict caste system which locks you into poverty for the rest of your life if you are one of the “untouchables.” Religious bigotry and violence abound.

It was Christianity which opposed the injustice and sexual exploitation of the Roman Empire and the pagan lands to which it went. While not perfect in its application, and sometimes abused by men who were more motivated by the desire for wealth and power than following Christ, the teachings of Christ changed the world as it had been known. Every advance in justice, human rights, and freedom we enjoy in the United States comes from an application of those principles. It is odd therefore to hear the claims of young revolutionaries that the destruction of Christianity will bring in a more advanced and civilized society. Watching their behavior, one can only expect that just the opposite will happen. They have not even a rudimentary understanding of history, the struggles of peoples and nations, and even the recent failed experiment in Soviet Russia in which almost 100 million people perished in the name of “progress” and “freedom.”

What would constitute true progress in the human experience? In the Orthodox faith, it is theosis, that is, becoming like God. St. Athanasius said “God became man so that man might become god.” To understand God properly is to understand the goal of our lives – God is love. Any behavior therefore which degrades another person, which acts out of hatred, which uses another for the satiation of lust, which promotes violence, is not progress in theosis. It is not becoming what we were created to be. It is a regression, not progress. The more atrocious the behavior becomes, the more we regress into a likeness of the violent and exploitative world of pre-Christianity.

Those addicted to sexual immorality cannot see this. For the last half century we have seen a devolving into the most bestial of behaviors in the name of freedom. I wish that I could say that the half-naked, twerking eleven year old girls on Netflix’s “Cuties” broadcast would be the final debauchery, the absolute bottom of this sickness into which we as a society have descended, but an overview of history convinces me otherwise. [2] There was a recent article (which I did not read) with the heading, “Human flesh tastes much like meat with some differences.” Is this the noble end to which we are progressing in our enlightenment? Women are used as sexual objects by pornographers, often at the point of a gun, to act out the most degraded acts one can imagine in order to satiate the lust of those who will view. Now children. Now the hint of cannibalism in social media. Pedophilia is being more and more promoted on various social media. I ask you – is this progress?

It is to those who are enslaved to their passions. The Christian faith rightly outlawed and punished public acts of such vile indecency. With the destruction of the moral voice of the Church by the expose of clerics molesting altar boys, we head into a dark time for humanity. The Left infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950’s. Communists with no faith at all were sent to seminaries to be ordained and then eat away at the moral foundations of the Church like termites. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Who would listen to the teachings of a Church which has tolerated the rape of children? Strip away the teachings of the Church and what you have left is a moral free-for-all in which every man determines for himself what is moral and just. Politics becomes not an exercise of law for the good of the many, but rather a demonstration of strength in numbers. Thus, if a group of the sexually degenerate can take control of the reigns of power, they will enact as law tolerance for their behavior, no matter how abusive it becomes.

What has happened in this milieu is that disparate groups have rallied around a single commonality: you let me molest children and I will allow you to teach in school that young boys can become young girls. You let me bugger young boys and I will let you legalize pedophilia. Oh, and here’s a chap who wishes to eat human flesh. Let’s all get together and vote for politicians who will allow these things. That way we get what each one of us wants.

Parents who object to the teaching of transgenderism, realizing the harm it can do to impressionable young boys and girls, are ordered to shut up and called bigots and worse. The freedom to raise one’s children in a morality you have chosen is usurped by the demand of the sexually perverse to have their vice declared and taught as normal. How long before children are taken from families to be forced into sexual acts? You think I joke? Fifty years ago when I was a child, the things we see being done today under the guise of “progress” and “freedom” were unimaginable. Now they have become common.

This is the progressive country that the Leftists envision. You have no right to tell another person that what they are doing is morally objectionable. Politicians pander to the demands of the sexually immoral in order to garner votes and keep their cushy jobs. They publicly claim that allowing such behavior is “social justice” and to oppose it “racist” and “bigoted.” Somehow, there is no voice of opposition. That half of the country would vote for a candidate who declares it a “right” to kill a baby up to the moment of birth shows the level of moral insanity to which we have fallen.

I think that we as a country have conveniently forgotten how bad man can be without the restraint of God’s moral law and its application to the human heart by the Holy Spirit. As “progressivism” regresses back to the paganism of the Roman Empire, I fear we are not long before finding this out.

I would not be surprised to see before long the Roman arena brought back with crowds cheering for blood sport from those of us who will not go along with the degeneracy of the sexual mob.

[1]https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/violence-rebellion-and-sexual-exploitation-the-darker-side-of-ancient-rome/

[2] In a strangely perverse statement, the maker of the film has said that she made “Cuties” as a statement against the sexualization of young girls and the social mores which contribute to that. My response would be that you do not do pornography to object to pornography. She could have done the same thing by making a movie extolling proper use of sexuality in a Christian context. The Christian faith is explicit in teaching the proper use of sexuality – one man, one woman, for one marriage for one lifetime. But Christianity and subjection to God is the absolute last thing that those who worship sex wish to submit to.