I don\u2019t agree with everything in this. However, the point of the Intramuralist has never been to all agree; in fact, whoever assumes that unity only comes when everyone all agrees \u2014 or, colloquially, “all agree with me,\u201d so-to-speak \u2014 most likely has a false sense of unity. We see that a lot these days. We also see a lot of angry people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve never associated angry people with being happier or healthier \u2014 in fact, quite the opposite. But where do we learn to surrender anger? To embrace goodness, kindness, and justice? \u2026humility, compassion and more? I can think of nothing better, timeless and noncontradictory than Judeo-Christian values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we have a problem. We are increasingly forgoing the wisdom of said values. We are more untethered to religion and faith and Christianity than ever before. The \u201cnones\u201d are growing \u2014 not those cute, respected women in homogenous habits, but rather, those who don\u2019t identify with any faith in particular. It\u2019s as if it\u2019s become ok for those once accepted values to matter less. It\u2019s as if we think we can learn virtue elsewhere. It\u2019s also as if politics has become our religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hear from the words of author and a contributing writer at The Atlantic,<\/em> Shadi Hamid, in an insightful piece from March of this year. Remember I don\u2019t share all of his entire opinion. We also learn from those opinions we fail to share\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe United States had long been a holdout among Western democracies, uniquely and perhaps even suspiciously devout. From 1937 to 1998, church membership remained relatively constant, hovering at about 70 percent. Then something happened. Over the past two decades, that number has dropped to less than 50 percent, the sharpest recorded decline in American history\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But if secularists hoped that declining religiosity would make for more rational politics, drained of faith\u2019s inflaming passions, they are likely disappointed. As Christianity\u2019s hold, in particular, has weakened, ideological intensity and fragmentation have risen. American faith, it turns out, is as fervent as ever; it\u2019s just that what was once religious belief has now been channeled into political belief. Political debates over what America is supposed to mean have taken on the character of theological disputations. This is what religion without religion looks like\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Religion is an organized system or a pursuit to which someone ascribes supreme importance. Hence, one can be religious absent any reputable, proven faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hamid offers further, undoubtedly divisive but poignant examples\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026 On the left, the \u2018woke\u2019 take religious notions such as original sin, atonement, ritual, and excommunication and repurpose them for secular ends. Adherents of wokeism see themselves as challenging the long-dominant narrative that emphasized the exceptionalism of the nation\u2019s founding. Whereas religion sees the promised land as being above, in God\u2019s kingdom, the utopian left sees it as being ahead, in the realization of a just society here on Earth. After Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September, droves of mourners gathered outside the Supreme Court\u2014some kneeling, some holding candles\u2014as though they were at the Western Wall.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the right, adherents of a Trump-centric ethno-nationalism still drape themselves in some of the trappings of organized religion, but the result is a movement that often looks like a tent revival stripped of Christian witness. Donald Trump\u2019s boisterous rallies were more focused on blood and soil than on the son of God. Trump himself played both savior and martyr, and it is easy to marvel at the hold that a man so imperfect can have on his soldiers\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The hard place we\u2019re in, as Hamid \u2014 not a Christian \u2014 suggests, is that \u201cChristianity was always intertwined with America\u2019s self-definition. Without it, Americans\u2014conservatives and liberals alike\u2014no longer have a common culture upon which to fall back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn\u2019t just fall back upon that common culture; we also practiced and learned to rely upon it. We not only learned but knew <\/em>that kindness, goodness, peace, patience, justice, self-control, and respect for our brother\/sister\/neighbor \u2014 whoever they are \u2014<\/em> are good. <\/em>They are values to be vigorously sought after and held in high esteem. This is thus perhaps the only means capable of unifying us now. Politics pales woefully in comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hence, let us continue to seek humility over any pride \u2014 potentially veiled as anger, remembering what will always be wisest to fall back upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t agree with everything in this. However, the point of the Intramuralist has never been to all agree; in fact, whoever assumes that unity only comes when everyone all agrees \u2014 or, colloquially, “all agree with me,\u201d so-to-speak \u2014 most likely has a false sense of unity. We see that a lot these days. … <\/p>\n