The Sectarian Divide

Sailer, sects, and semantics: missing the trees for the forest

Steve Sailer’s recent article, The Protestant Roots of Wokeness, has ruffled quite a few feathers; and though a more-rigorous examination of the piece yielded a less-positive judgement than my initial gloss, I still think that the article is quite valuable. Many have pointed out that it attempts to deflect blame, especially from the usual suspects – and there is some element of this tendency present. Yet, I think the article an important spur to a discussion which too few are wont to have: a self-critical examination. We must needs recognize the flaws of “our own,” and tidy our own house, before we can prepare to make any meaningful socio-cultural changes.

I cannot be exempt; for, many who bear some of the same labels as I, are essentially traitors to their country. One example, which often draws fierce ire, is the stereotypal Catholic support for immigration; the claim being, that individuals who are (at least nominally) Catholic have contributed significantly to funding, lobbying for, and enacting massive replacement-immigration campaigns. This is absolutely the case, and plainly so; but for some reason, many Catholics are loath to admit it – the same reason for which Protestants are loath to admit that South America being so severely impoverished, and underdeveloped, has nothing to do with its Catholicity. This tendency results in low-IQ turd-chucking, and it prevents any genuine complaint from ever being addressed. Clearly, the Raj wouldn’t have much benefitted from an infusion of the Protestant ethos; nor have Switzerland or France been harmed by their Catholicity, if one wishes to dismiss Ireland and the Mediterranean for not being sufficiently Nordic, as I know many will.

Martin’s thread investigating the Christian charities providing immigration aid was one of the most important in recent memory; and it is unequivocally important, that Catholics must clean our own house. Yet: only Catholics drew flak for it, despite the significant Protestant contributions – but, on the other hand, it was mainly Catholics, who had independently become angry and defensive over the thread. Seemingly ignored was the gigantic contribution which Lutheran (and other assorted Protestant) charities make towards funding third-world immigration to America; primarily because it’s not a trope, as is “brown Catholics.”

However, the Protestant share in the third world continues to grow – and Protestant charities continue to march alongside Catholic charities to wholeheartedly support replacement immigration. Despite Martin Luther’s supposed responsibility for modern wokeism, characteristically-woke agendas continue to sweep through all of Europe, with no regard for sect. And so, while stupid — and, even worse: useless — polemics continue to proliferate, contributing nothing but petty sectarian squabbling; any actual issue, and any legitimate criticism, goes unheard and unaddressed. Clearly, the woke agenda has not proliferated in America solely because of America’s Protestant basis; and, equally clearly, South America is not impoverished, undeveloped, and crime-ridden due to its Catholicity.

And so, I praised Sailer’s article (and still do) because it raises a point which the laziness of self-aggrandizing polemicists has mostly ignored: White Christians — or rather, Whites who happen to be Christian — contributed significantly to the leftward bend which America took. Basically, every White civilization in the last 1,000 years has been Christian; and it is not only lazy, but robs White Europeans of their influence, to lay the responsibility for every massive event in White history at the feet of an outside group. Many people choose jews as the culprit; and though I do not advocate any violence, bigotry, or illegal action, I will not be arguing to disprove that claim, in this article. But whether one claims that White civilization was subverted and controlled by jews, or anyone else; it results in a fundamental dishonesty and self-emasculation. The Civil War did not start, due to anything other than the decisions of White Europeans; nor did British imperial goals, the Crusades, or even the so-called “rape of Africa,” conducted by a more-varied European coalition. The history of White Europeans is, for the (by far and away) largest part, a history of White Europeans – the good, and the… bad? are both ours. And America, as a country made by and for White Europeans, must be included in this general premise.

Sailer rightly pointed towards the so-called Great Awakenings as a source of the leftward bend which developed in America; and seemingly, very few people wish to discuss — or are even aware of — these “Awakenings.” These movements spread well beyond America; and when a British person refers to the “Evangelical Revival,” they are using the British-favored name for this same movement. The first Great Awakening was, perhaps, the most influential factor, of all those responsible for spreading abolitionist sentiment – and after this sentiment spread to British preachers, it reached towards the continental European churches. This “Awakening” was responsible for the spread of pietist trends among many of Europe’s reformed churches; it was this revival which lit the fire in John Wesley’s passion, and it was the incorporated pietism which hardened his abolitionism. Much of the motivation for the Great Awakening was the influx of black converts due to the slaver industry in America; in response to which, bleeding-heart pastors felt a deep longing for “equality.” The first Great Awakening — because, remember: there were many successors — was the beginning of the egalitarian sentiment in America. The culmination of Quaker abolitionism, Pilgrim focus on the future, and Puritan devotion; the notion of “equality” was born in the Protestant world.

But, of course: America, as an adolescent country, and first stretching its legs, had more pressing issues; namely, to build a country. So by the end of the 1740s, the revival movement had brought church infrastructure and community to much larger swathes of America, and stoked the fiery religious fervor in the hearts of the American people; but little else had changed. In the midst of country-building, America finds itself interrupted – it is at odds with the British Empire; and then it finds itself at war; and then it finds itself free, with boundless potential. After the Revolutionary War, the spread of socially “progressive” ideas resumed. And prefaced by events like the first sermon delivered by a black man in a White church (1784, Delaware), the second so-called “Great Awakening” begins, in response to the recently-dwindled religious passion in America. This revival saw not only a significant reemergence of abolitionist thought, but also suffragist notions; and so, the birth of the suffragette movement can be said, ultimately, to lie in the second Great Awakening (while its germination occurred in the first). Having been forced to read excerpts from Barbara Welter in the course of my education, I am far more familiar with her work than I care to be; but her conceptual history, in this area, is spot-on. The ideological genealogy of feminism in America begins in religious revivals. Bear with me through her choices of vocabulary.

At the same time [1800-1860] American religion, particularly American Protestantism, was changing rapidly and fundamentally. Although not overtly tied to the woman’s movement, these religious changes may have had more effect on the basic problems posed by women than anything which happened within the women’s organizations or in related reform groups. Because of the nature of the changes and the importance of their results to women’s role, American religion might be said to have been "feminized.”

…

In the period following the American Revolution, political and economic activities were critically important and therefore more "masculine,” that is, more competitive, more aggressive, more responsive to shows of force and strength. Religion, along with the family and popular taste, was not very important, and so became the property of the ladies. Thus it entered a process of change whereby it became more domesticated, more emotional, more soft and accommodating — in a word, more "feminine.”

…

At the same time American Protestantism changed in ways which made it more useful to American society, particularly to the women who increasingly made up the congregations of American churches. Feminization, then, can be defined and studied through its results — a more genteel, less rigid institution — and through its members — the increased prominence of women in religious organizations and the way in which new or revised religions catered to this membership.¹

Of particular note, is the argument that the shift in American Christianity was demographic in nature; and this is the key point. All of the ideologies which are being discussed are not, in fact, religious phenomena; and political identifications very rarely are, in any true or meaningful way. We, of course, well observe that nominally-Christian Americans have large populations in every sect, which are happy to identify with a political party first, and their religion secondarily; think of nearly any “United Methodist” congregation, and you will see what I mean. The egalitarianism which flourished in America near the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, ultimately, did so in a Protestant-supermajority America. This is not an indictment of Protestantism, but an uncomfortable fact which must be dealt with; this pain is the price of admittance for truth, and realistic, future-facing politic.

I have argued before — and still maintain — that religious unity (and consequently, fervor) is torn down by inculcating diversity, especially as through immigration; but this is, of course, not the only relevant factor. Egalitarianism took root in a Protestant-supermajority America; but what that actually means, is that a Protestant society had to provide an interpretation of sociological trends towards egalitarianism. Protestantism didn’t spawn egalitarian ideals, just as Catholicism didn’t spawn mass immigration; these are the results of a decaying social order, in which sociological motivations facilitate a kultur-coup. The decay of rigid social order into an equitized society is, of course, not a religious issue. This fact should be obvious, given that the natural progression of egalitarian ideologies — and especially their mutant modern counterparts — flagrantly flaunt their lack of fealty to their nominal religious affiliation. All of these issues are demographic; due to both racial and sex-based shifts in the population.

As I argued in my aforementioned piece — which I do recommend — diversity brings about the end of religious unity; and hence we are introduced to the stupid “30,000 denominations polemic.” There are, of course, not 30,000 different Protestant denominations, as some religious polemicists may indicate to you; there are 30,000-some-odd unaffiliated Protestant churches in America, which incidentally happen to be unconnected to each other (even those with whom they concord). However: there are, of course, many more sects under the umbrella of “Protestantism” than there are under other umbrella terms for Christianity. This diversity is pronounced, but is, for the most part, meaningful in name only. One may observe the entire spectrum of the current political climate, among the followers of any religion; and Christianity, even subdivided by sect, is no different. While one may observe the furthest reaches of zombie-like social-acceptanceism (which, ultimately, comprises wokeness) in “United Methodism,” one may also observe the fiery social regressionism of many fundamentalist Southern Baptists; and it is not unlikely that each pole exists within 10 miles of the other – and often less.

You may even find communist Pentecostals, no further away; though these are often more isolated – the reason being, that this is a demographic divide, as is the case with nearly all other large divergences. One must also note, that the same spectrum, with all of its arrays, exists in Catholicism; with the woke social “progressives,” and the fire-and-brimstone “traditional” Catholics who emphasize socially-regressive tenets beyond any others, due to their perceived relevance. One might find a congregant belonging to each of these affiliations, in the same parish; though more typically, separated by parish, and yet, still, no more than a few miles apart. There even exists the “liberation theology” communists; all of this ideological diversity is “in-house,” as Lemur puts it. But those Catholic communists will endure the same isolationism as Protestant communists, because: as always, it is a demographic issue. It’s all a demographic issue. This diverse array of beliefs is directly facilitated by sex-based, and especially racial, diversity. I will claim innocence for the Catholic faith with regard to responsibility for mass immigration; remember that the leftward social trends which facilitated the mass immigration waves of 1820, began far earlier. And yet, the massive immigration wave of many incidentally-Catholic individuals (primarily the Irish) contributed to the further erosion of WASP culture, which facilitated the Great Awakenings; and consequent egalitarianism. Do you see the deadly cycle?

America’s Great Awakenings laid a foundation for social “progressivism;” which — while distinct from modern wokeism — enabled a platform for social decay, which we see reach its zenith today. However: the attempt to analyze decay — already recognized as such — by creating an ideological genealogy of such rot, is a necessarily flawed endeavor. The modern woke agenda, and even historical leftism, cannot be tied to Protestantism as a fundamental belief set, any more than a cancer can be tied to the healthy, intact nature of a well-functioning cell. Moreover, it cannot be truly tied to the early progressive movements in America; it is, first and foremost, a mutant aberration with no organic genealogy. It is, of course, largely influenced by communist propaganda and ideals; injected artificially into the American cultural consciousness.

Despite this, the paths upon which wokeness walks, were paved by the early “progressive” movements in America. Martin takes issue with Sailer’s piece for one primary reason above all else: that it is poor, as a conceptual history; and I agree fully. I have placed “progressive” in quotes specifically for this reason; which is, that progressivism, as understood through a historical lens, actually did not stem from the Great Awakenings; but rather from a desire to staunch their sociological impact from flowing. The most common response, on the Right, with regard to Sailer’s piece, has been to point out that modern “progressivism” is as much an aberration — a subversion of a decay — to historical progressivism, as the woke agenda is to historical egalitarianism. The progressivism of the 1920s advocated “social progress;” and they did not refer to the progressively-more-far-fetched “liberation” of “minorities;” they referred to racial hygiene through eugenics, for the sake of uplifting social development. They treated social progress in the way that we may, today, treat technological progress; a refinement and a honing of (primarily racial) health and potential.

I am far more forgiving of Sailer, for this sin, because his overall point is correct: the movement which is now commonly-known as “progressivism,” in the modern social-climate, spawned in the midst of America’s Protestant revivals. Though Sailer’s use of the term does not match accurately with a semantically-precise and rigorously-defined conceptual history, it does comport with the ways in which people use the terms. Sailer, for all his faults, provides valuable information to Right Wing discussions, and has done for over a decade-and-a-half; and he knows his audience well. He is aware that those with a semantically-sound understanding of conceptual history will still grasp his argument; and that it is easily-parsable when diffused to those without such a rigorous set of definitions. But this brings me to a much more important, and much further-reaching point: that none of this discussion can be had without having to present a sacrificial lamb, and to dance around guilts and praises, and to chant excursive spells of absolution – because of the pointless, mindless, and stupid sectarianism which the Right has allowed to fester.

Many Protestants on the Far Right don’t wish to perform any real politicking; they wish to fling shit at Catholics, and develop a polemical stance with no benefit or utility, for a conflict which they have no real stake in – for, I suspect, many of these people care very little for “religion;” seemingly looking down their noses at the mere thought. Many Catholics on the Far Right are just as guilty, and perhaps even moreso; for, Protestants at least feel some sort of need — or have done historically — to protect their honor against the ressentiment of Ellis Islanders. But the last, truly-religious war in Europe, ended almost 400 years ago; and even its sectarian influence is arguably — nay, almost certainly — secondary to the political motivations involved. There has never been a religiously-derived conflict on American soil; nor has America ever engaged in a war on such grounds. Even the second Ku Klux Klan viewed Catholicism as a primarily racial category; and prosecuted its extinction insofar as it comported to demographic categories. It’s not as though I am silly enough, nor dishonestly motivated to such a degree, as to claim that the British Empire’s prosperity came about due to its easing of anti-Catholic penal laws; but let us remember that, during its height, the might of Imperial Britannia felt no need for a systematic persecution of its Catholic citizens. The Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, which generated an awe-worthy economic, industrial, and military powerhouse, such as the world has rarely (or never) seen, recognized its strength in a united Christian populace; free of such petty, sectarian squabbling.

The division of the White, American Right into petty and stupid sectarian identifications — which are comprised primarily, not of feverish religious zeal, but of contrived, and hardly-felt, religious prejudice — is injurious to all, and beneficial to none – bar those enemies whose threat is existential to both. I said before, and now iterate once more: it’s all a demographic issue. The resources wasted on this quarelling only ensure a further safety for those demographics actually creating a threat; and they threaten, not on an ideological or religious axis, but a demographic one. Do not allow yourself, in your pride, and in your hubris, to damage the unity; the strength; the momentum; and, most importantly of all, paramount and yet so-dismissed, the efficiency of the Right Wing. The arrogance which fuels the engine of contemptible, stupid, pointless, petty, sectarian bickering is that which tolls the deathknell of one’s countrymen, religious compatriots, and kinsmen.

Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity.

1. Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions, ps. 83-84