The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: We are living in a spiritual Hiroshima
The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter
Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Here are a few key excerpts from this article. I encourage readers to check out Dr. Kreeft's website and buy his books and recordings at http://www.peterkreeft.com/home.htm
Dr. Peter Kreeft: "We are living in a spiritual Hiroshima"
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
By Notes By Joe Wemhoff - The Annual Parish Respect Life Coordinator Conference, Archdiocese of Chicago
How to Win the Culture War
Dr. Peter Kreeft (pronounced "kreft") is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He is an orthodox Roman Catholic, who has written over 45 books, and who contributes regularly to various Christian publications. Dr. Kreeft is one of the most eloquent voices for the Faith in America. This summary of Dr. Kreeft's remarks was prepared on March 9, 2008, by Joseph A. Wemhoff, from memory and from extensive notes taken during the talk. Dr. Kreeft has his own website at www.peterkreeft.com.
In the 1960s, the term "culture war" meant the conflict between the Establishment and the Counter Culture. Later, it came to mean the conflict between Science and the Humanities. The term became formalized with the publication of the book Culture Wars by James Hunter in the 1990s.
Pope John Paul II fueled the idea by drawing the distinction between the "Culture of Life" and the "Culture of Death." The term "Culture War" is simply a euphemism for the conflict between Christ and the Antichrist, with the stakes being the fate of the universe.
Sadly, today, the Antichrist controls all of the formal and informal means of education and information in America, including the media, news reporting, publishing, music, movies (Hollywood), etc. Today, pornography generates more revenue in America than any other industry except gambling.
This is not a new struggle-it has been going on since the Middle Ages. The Christian religion is now in decline, and the Antichrist is now winning, because he has convinced most people to bypass that simple word: reason. Most people today "feel;" they no longer "think."
We are living in a "spiritual Hiroshima." The Catholic Church is full of psychobabble. Our bishops have all the courage and behavior of rabbits. Since Vatican II, three-quarters of our nuns are gone. Sunday Mass attendance has declined from 75% to 25%. Belief in the Real Presence has dropped from nearly 100% to about 30%. The Catholic Church has lost the power to arrest the decline of our culture.
Properly said, ours is not a "Culture of Death," but a "Culture of Murder." There is the murder of marriage (divorce). There is the murder of the unborn (abortion). There is the murder of reason by militant feminists and by militant homosexuals. The cloning of humans promises to turn the "I am" of God into the "it is" of humanism. Science is promising eternal life by working to eliminate from humankind the "age and die" gene, which supposedly is not found in non-sexual species and in cancer cells.
Our words cannot defeat the Culture of Death, but God's words can.
Eucharistic adoration can conquer the Culture of Death.
Pope John Paul II spoke of a New Evangelization, which means not the preaching of new words, but the preaching God's timeless words to new generations of people. It's easy to be busy; it's far more difficult to be holy. We need to start by being holy. We need to join God's jihad.
There is a tendency today to substitute "spirituality" for "religion." In the Bible, the Tower of Babel represents "spirituality," while Noah's ark-with all its sights and smells and inconveniences-represents "religion." It is not easy being a Catholic.
Consider that only God, angels, and human beings are persons. God did not become angelic to redeem them, but He became man to redeem humankind.
Human life is sacred for three reasons:
1. Men and women are created in the image and likeness of God Himself. 2. Human life is linked to God's life. 3. Human beings are destined to share in eternal life with God.
As portrayed in the book Christ and the University, the Humanities are ground zero in the current Culture War, in the battle between Christ and the Antichrist. This is because college professors now have the power over young minds that priests and saints and kings once had.
The dark, black spot at the center of intellectual thought these past decades is a deconstructionism which says that truth is nothing more than "the hypocritical mask on the face of power." We are lead to believe that there is no objective truth, and that all is relative. It used to be that Science was the source of deconstructionist ideas, but, scientists must deal in facts, and facts tend to be real. Now the Humanities are the major source of deconstructionism.
The only two moments of peace in history are in Genesis (before history) and in the Apocalypse (after history). All of human history in between is full of war and of spirits thirsty for the blood of children.
Pro-choice people will not-indeed, cannot-listen to reason. Pro-choice people are insane and will not convert to reason-they will attempt to convert reason. Dr. Kreeft cited several cases. In one of his books-which, he bemoaned, are read only by pro-lifers-he made an airtight, logical argument that tolerating abortion is tantamount to tolerating infanticide. Confronted with this logic, pro-choicers said, yes, Dr. Kreeft, you just showed us how infanticide is now OK.
During World War II, I.G. Farben GmbH of Germany made Zyklon B, the gas used to kill so many in the gas chambers. Today, a French successor company to I.G. Farben makes the abortifacient RU-486. Either the face of evil has changed little, or the devil has a limited range of business contacts.
There are five aspects of the Culture War to be considered.
History of the Jihad
Since the Middle Ages, humanity has been on a slow, ever-ascending upward slope of becoming smarter, healthier, and more technologically advanced, while, at the same time, being on a slow, ever-descending slope of becoming weaker morally.
God's grace will save us, but on two conditions:
1. We ask for it, which means that we must value wisdom and holiness more than cleverness and worldly riches. 2. We believe that God will deliver (not to believe is to call God a liar).
These past centuries, mankind has fluctuated between the sins of despair and presumption. Despair is represented by Camus and other Existentialists. Presumption is exemplified by Rousseau, the Enlightenment, and by New Age ideas and practices.
We are entering an apocalyptic age, which might be described as Brave New World or as The Abolition of Man-each of which, ironically, is also the title of a book by Aldous Huxley and by C. S. Lewis, respectively. We should recall that the Bible predicts that the Great Tribulation of the end times will be so bad that no flesh would survive if God did not shorten the days.
In the First Millenium after Christ, the Church won the world. But then, she became fat and weak. The Second Millenium has belonged to the Antichrist. We are now in the Third Millenium, and the outcome these next thousand years is anything but clear.
We need to remember that this world is not our home; heaven is.
