This s a look at the book Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America by David Horowitz. Over and above what I think is a good explanation of what has caused the great division in United States politics he uses Catholics in at least 3 cases as examples: first how the basis of the lefts philosophy is actually a rehashing of the Catholic heresy call Pelagianism second for a reflection of the catholic soul in a famous scientist and third of unwarranted Catholic persecution in today’s world. It is a well footnoted book which, I think, clearly exposes the left’s contempt for Christianity and how to move their agenda forward they must utterly destroy it. I will comment and read a series of quotes which should give you a flavor of the book and hopefully influence you to obtain (through a library, a friend owning a copy or purchase) and read a copy. It is a short (only 172 pages) deep dive into the underpinnings that are driving our next elections which pits the ideals of the supposed “civilized” 44th president (and at the publishing of this blog the 46th president) against the media painted “uncivilized” 45th president and show the important points at which they differ. It explains how the left vilifies its opposition and its opposition is seen by the left’s adherents as bad or evil. Why many evangelicals and Catholics elected the 45th president despite the fact that “he was thrice married, not particularly religious and often vulgar and carrying some unsavory sexual baggage” is summed up succinctly by supporters when they say “My support for Trump has never been based upon shared values; it is based upon shared concerns.” That include free speech, secure borders, pro-business and pro-military though anti-sending-our-children-into-harms-way for stupid reasons, as reflected by more defense stuff and reduced troop presences in the middle east.
The book begins with the tying the roots of the war between the left and Christianity to the New Atheists like Christopher Hitchen famous for his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
in contrast to what he saw as a superstitious con game of religious belief, Christopher envisioned a “scientific progress, un-constricted by religious manacles.” In this utopia, scientific progress would make possible “the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, [which] can now at last be attempted on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse.
The famous Catholic mathematician Blaise Pascal shows the Christian and more precisely the Catholic counterpoint to Hitchens. In Pascal’s own words:
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the space which I fill, and even can see engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here?
The books author goes on to say:
These questions that only a religious faith can attempt ot answer. There is no science of the why of our existence, no scientific counsel or solace for our human longings, loneliness, and fear. Without a God to make sense of our existence, Pascal wrote, human life is intolerable. . . To resolve this dilemma, Pascal devised his famous “wager” which, simply stated, is tat since we cannot know whether there is a God or not, it is better to wager that there is one rather than that there is not. . . “Faith” he said, “is God felt by the heart.”
The author cites the politics of his family being, in a word, progressive and states:
When Soviet Communism collapsed in 1991, progressives didn’t give up their illusions. Instead they changed the name of their utopian dream. Today they no longer call their earthly redemption “Communism.” They call it “social justice.” Like Communism, social justice is an impossible future in which the inequalities and oppressions that have afflicted human beings for millennia will miraculously vanish and social harmony will rule. The French socialist Auguste Comte called his faith “the religion of humanity,” to distinguish it from the religion of God. . .
[his parents] would have been appalled to hear their beliefs described as “religious.” But their politics were cut from the same cloth as a famous Christian heresy called Pelagianism. . .
In the language of his faith, Pelagius believed that sins were acts against human nature. Therefore, he believed, if enough Christians resisted the temptations of this world and followed the path of righteousness, they could create an earthly paradise – and they could achieve this paradise without help from God. The Pelagian heresy is no different from the progressive notion that if human beings can be made to pursue lives that are politically correct, they can bring about a world of social justice.
Pelagius’s view of human benevolence contradicted the church doctrine that sin is an integral part of human nature. The Church called this doctrine “original sin,” the idea that all human beings share in Adam’s sin and are prone to evil, which makes redemption impossible without God. Adam and Eve were born in paradise but forfeited their good fortune because they wanted to know evil. If you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the serpent told “you shall be as Gods.” Seduced by this temptation, they defied God’s commandment and ate the forbidden fruit.
Their sin was the inevitable result of the free will that was their birthright. Free will gives each individual the power to do good – or evil. Free will makes us the authors of our own choices, our own sins, our own fates – not other people, not classes or races or genders. A corollary of this view is that the potential for evil is present in every individual down through the generations. Because human beings are rebellious and prone to temptation and evil, they will corrupt every effort of redemption, Therefore, there can be no path to an earthly paradise without divine intervention.
The chief proponent of this doctrine was St. Augustine who condemned Pelagius as a heretic and cast him out of the community of faith.
Whether or not God exists, whether or not the biblical account is true, the doctrine of original sin is an accurate diagnosis of the human condition.
In contrast to the progressive mission of saying “society,” the goal of Christian belief is saving individual souls. Christians see the imperfections and sufferings of the world as the results of acts by individuals who have failed to do good or have chosen to do evil.
The social redeemers, on the other hand, do not see individuals as agents of their own destinies. They see them as products of “social forces,” as objects of class, race, gender, and religious oppressions.
The social redeemers view the Christian concern for the salvation of individual souls as counterrevolutionary, a cause of social oppression. To them, religious believers are obstacles on the path to the future – and must be removed.
That is why progressives have declared war on religious liberty, which is America’s founding principle. And that is why they seek to silence and suppress its defenders.
What the Obama administration tried to do to the little sisters of the poor is emblematic of how the progressives have tried to ruthlessly crush religion liberty where ever they can. This is a quote on the subject from the book.
“What is at stake here ultimately,” explained the Catholic scholar George Weigel, “is whether civil society will survive, and whether voluntary institutions of voluntary associations ranging from the traditional family to multimillion member organizations like the Catholic Church to small businesses will be allowed to function if they imitate the government, only if they imitate the state.” In other words, what was at stake was whether America would remain a democracy or move in the direction of a totalitarian state.
As a Catholic organization, the little Sisters could not comply with the Obamacare mandate to provide abortion-inducing drugs and contraceptives to the elderly women they served.
Because the Little Sisters were themselves celibate and served elderly women, the Obama administration’s position was obviously ludicrous. It was vindictive from the outset. But even when their motives were exposed, Obama’s agents refused to relent. Imposing their views on others was so important to the radicals, as the essence of the plan to fundamentally transform America, that they forced the Little Sisters to undergo years of costly legal battles to defend the religious freedom that is plainly guaranteed by the First Amendment.
It wasn’t until 2016, when the case reached the Supreme Court, that the Little Sister finally won their First Amendment religious liberty. By a unanimous vote the justices struck down the Obama administration’s case, so weak were its legal foundations.
Under the cloak of “social justice,” the government radicals were determined to prove that their mandates must be obeyed. Not even the First Amendment could be allowed to stand in the way of fundamentally transforming America.
This book also has a section on how the LGBTQ and abortion agenda has been pushed on America as well as a section on Obama and a section on why the religious right supports what is seemingly such a flawed candidate in Trump was selected to be their champion. Their reason for selection of Trump is summarized in the follow quote:
Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, explained this phenomenon succinctly: “My support for Trump has never been based upon shared values; it is based upon concerns.”
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 