Europe is the faith, the faith is Europe. When Roman Paganism died, the Roman Empire in the west died. Julian the apostate tried to revive paganism, got an undead religion. My commenters tell me Christianity survives as a mustard seed, but to me, it looks like a dead parrot.

I wish Christianity could be revived, I hope it can be revived, but am not all that optimistic.

European Christianity was the official state religion, which is sort of odd because Europe was never really one state, even when there was a functioning Holy Roman Emperor and Holy Roman Empire. It has been said that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. But this is not true. It was not Roman, and not an empire, but it was holy. The Emperor, the Empire, and the state was subject to the Church in those matters where it is proper for the Church to command, and the Church was subject to the state in those matters where it is proper for the state to command. (With the usual frequent disagreements as to what is Caesar’s and what is God’s)

When the Empire faded, the Church inevitably and inexorably got drawn into earthly politics, backing one state against another, which led to the Church of England, the protestant reformation, and the sack of Rome, and eventually the bloody religious wars of the early seventeenth century. These terrible wars were resolved by the peace of Westphalia. The King gets to set his state’s religion, and other states are not supposed to interfere, though, of course, they did.

The peace of Westphalia in effect said “forget about universalism, leads to too much bloodshed”

The rise of Progressivism was the return of the holy universalist state Church, and led to the terrible wars of the twentieth century. These wars ended when one superpower became supreme, ruling in the not quite imperial style of the Holy Roman Empire, not quite an empire, but an empire nonetheless, and imposed its faith on all of Europe, and almost all of the world – but now that superpower is fading, while progressivism is more holy and more universalist than ever.

To cut the long story short, today progressivism is the state religion, and Christianity is effectively suppressed. My commenters assure me that a mustard seed remains, but I just don’t see it. Recently existent Christianity enforced patriarchal durable monogamy, with divorce being damn near impossible. The wife got a permanent obligation to honor and obey, the husband got a permanent obligation to love and cherish. And, apart from some tolerance for polygyny in early Christianity, Christianity has always been this way, until now. The New Testament, and the communion of the Saints, are quite clear on the topic.

The earthly church is a fictive kin of God, God and Church being a reflection of husband and family, (Ephesians 5:22-33) making all Christians in a church fictive kin, a tribe. Marriage is the sacrament that everyone has the power to make, the sacrament that priests could never take away from the congregation, and which links families to the congregation and to God, since the husband and wife rely on God and the congregation for social enforcement of the deal. If you end marriage as it used to be known, you end Christianity, and if you end Christianity, you end Europe. Durable Patriarchal marriage is not just one doctrine among many, it is a keystone part of the functioning of Christianity, hence the joke “Hatched, matched, and dispatched”.

For 1900 years, from the beginning of Christianity, to second wave feminism in the nineteen sixties, men removed their hats on entering church, and women covered their heads in church and on the way to and from church. For 1900 years women had their hair long. (1 Corinthians:11)

And now they don’t, and no one seems to notice that there is anything wrong with this. But don’t you feel just a little bit uneasy when you face a fertile age woman with a pixie cut? Something is wrong, something is off, something is odd, unpleasant, and disturbing, but you are not allowed to notice it.

Today’s Christians, including the supposed reactionaries like Dalrock, Bruce Charlton, and Zippy will tell you it was just a cultural thing, just Paul foolishly mistaking the fashions of his day for the universal laws of God. Which is not much different from saying that when Paul prohibited men having sex with males, he was just mistaking the fashions of his day for the universal laws of God. Similarly, Ephesians 5. Bruce Charlton will tell you that Ephesians 5 is just a metaphor, about the relationship between God and man, but not about the relationship between husband and wife. Dalrock will tell you he totally supports Ephesians 5, except he does not, and Zippy would rather not go there.

You cannot have Christianity without patriarchy, and if you are not entirely comfortable with patriarchy maybe you should be worshiping the Goddess.

In short, the Christian right, like the Republicans, are just progressives who are a bit behind the times. You may say that a short haircut on a girl is not like a man sodomizing a boy, and it is not, but if a fertile age woman wears a pixie cut, chances are she has been taking it up the ass from Mister Very Wrong, and she will forever feel in her heart that Mister Very Wrong was way more manly than you are.