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Signs for Our Times – Part IV: Apostolicity of the Church

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/04/24 at 7:00 AM

The fourth mark of the Church is Apostolicity.

The doctrine and the moral code of the Catholic Church is the same as that of the Twelve Apostles.

There is a large faction in the United States that has great respect for what is referred to as the Founding Fathers.  These were the men who had the vision and made the plans and set the principles for the United States. These are the men whom we consider to be the architects of the great political entity called the United States of America.  When problems arise, we look to their writings to seek solutions.

There is another faction that considers the Founding Fathers irrelevant to modern times because they had no concept of what the United States would be like today, and therefore, their eighteenth century ideas should not affect modern day problems.  They think that those living today should use their own skills to solve their own problems.  It is interesting to note that anything this group advocates almost always involves radical changes to American life as it once was.  In fact, the Founding Fathers would probably be dismayed at what has become of their concept of a weak federal government.

The Twelve Apostles are like the Founding Fathers of the United States.  The Apostles did not establish the Church but they were taught the basic creed and moral code directly by the Founder, Christ Himself.  Thus, if anyone really wants to know what Christ taught, there are no ones better able to tell than the Twelve Apostles.

The Bishops of the Catholic Church are the successors to the Apostles.  This is possible because every Bishop knows who consecrated him.  The line of bishops can be traced back to the first  bishops consecrated by the Twelve Apostles.

Christ, because He is divine, could have remained on earth and led the Church in person, but He chose not to. He set up the Apostles as the first bishops, teachers, and missionaries.  In a sense, the Church is still being taught by the Apostles through their successors in union with the Pope.

Since the Apostles received instructions directly from Christ, no other religious organization except the Catholic Church can claim to be apostolic.  Christ did not establish any other religion or church.  The message He wanted to convey comes in its completeness only through the Catholic Church.

The Twelve Apostles lived in a certain period of history.  Islam came much later.  Protestantism arose fifteen centuries too late.  Buddhism and Hinduism are much older than Christianity, but the truth of a religion is not determined by its antiquity, but by the circumstance of its founding.

Without Apostolic teaching as a fixed foundation, deviations in doctrine and morals will begin to creep in.  The source of authentic teaching eludes modern leaders of religious groups.  It is true that they may profess some apostolic teachings but certainly not all, and what they do teach, they are merely copying from the Catholic Church, whether they realize it or not.

Without Apostolic teaching as a guide, problems that arise are simply dealt with in terms of contemporary standards.  Protestantism now is dealing with women clergy and same-sex “marriage” and other contemporary problems, incorrectly, because they do not base themselves on Apostolic principles, and therefore, tend to “go with the flow” of contemporary culture.

Historically speaking, Christ the Lord set up a Church and it is incumbent on everyone to find Truth.  The human mind is attuned to truth.  We cannot function in a society that does not respect objective truth; it is not natural (although we are trying to do just that today with dire consequences).  To guide us, the Church offers four marks or signs, which when taken together point to the true Church of Christ.

The main advantage of membership in the true Church is not really membership, but it is the ability to have a relationship with the Living Christ who comes to us through that Church.  Many are members, but for one reason or another, do not know Christ and their membership is thereby diminished.  Christ is alive and comes to us readily and completely through the Catholic Church.  If you have read this four part series, you can determine for yourself that Christ did give you four clear signs: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

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Signs For Our Times – Part III: Catholicity of the Church

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/04/17 at 1:00 AM

The third  mark or sign of the true Church is CATHOLICITY.  “Catholic” written with a small “c” is a legitimate word, but it is rarely used except in reference to the Catholic Church.  The word itself means universal.  In modern times, universality is a much-coveted trait.  Credit card companies boast that their cards can be used anywhere in the world.  Cell phone companies tell you, that with their phones, you can reach anyone in the world.  The same boast is made for travelers checks.  Universality is then seen as a very positive attribute.

The idea of universality applies to the Catholic Church in different ways.  The Catholic Church is universal or catholic because its founder, Jesus Christ, is universal in that, because He is God, He is everywhere.  There is nowhere in the world you can go where He is not.  Every other religious founder was subject to the limitations of space, place and time.  Christ is everywhere at once, and where Christ is, there is also the Catholic Church.

That the Church be a world-church was a direct command of its divine founder who told His apostles to preach the Gospel to all nations.  This she has done.  There is no place in the world where the term Catholic Church is not known.

The Catholic Church is catholic or universal in that it embraces all races and nationalities without favoring any of them.  All true Catholics the world over believe in the same doctrines and moral code because the Catholic Church does not have denominations or sects.  Practicing Catholics anywhere in the world would recognize the faith of a Catholic from another continent.  All Catholics consider themselves under the religious jurisdiction of the Pope and the local bishop.  Because of this, any particular parish is also a part of the universal church, rather than an independent entity.

Other churches cannot claim universality or catholicity because they do not have a missionary spirit from their beginning.  Buddhism makes no effort to win converts.  (Buddhism is not really a religion because it espouses no Deity.  It is really a philosophy that promotes a certain life-style or way of thinking about life.)  Protestantism is almost five hundred years old, but gave missionary activity no thought until the eighteen hundreds.  The vast majority of Protestant denominations are not large enough to support missionary activity.  Early Islam made converts by the sword.

Thus, only the Catholic Church has consistently, from its founding, set out to spread the good news of salvation to all people and places, thereby making it the only Church that has followed the mandate of the Founder.

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Signs For Our Times – Part II: Holiness of the Church

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/04/10 at 12:00 AM

The second mark of the Church or sign for our times is that of HOLINESS.  Holiness is a state of existence in which a person consciously endeavors to live in accordance with the perceived will of God because He is seen as far superior to man and to whom man owe’s obedience and worship.  This attitude may arise from the dictates of the Natural Moral Law embedded in the minds and hearts of all people by their Creator or the active participation in a religion that fosters holiness of life.

God in His goodness has given man through the Catholic Church a certain way to strive towards holiness because holiness of life is an essential of attaining salvation  which,  whether you believe it or not, is the ultimate goal of human life.  However, holiness of life can be rejected and contemporary society has done just that.  The capital sins are easily embraced and the Ten Commandments are flagrantly violated.  Holiness is not popular even among too many “Catholics”.  Holiness may be rejected, but it is still necessary and it will only be found fully in the Catholic Church.

The first aspect of the Church’s holiness is evident in its Founder.  It can be proven that Jesus Christ is a Divine Person in human form who came to save the human race (those who want to be saved) from the effects of its sins. The historical record shows without doubt that the Founder of the Catholic Church was God Himself.  He claimed to be God and proved it by doing things (miracles) that only God could do.

He even challenged His enemies to point out any moral deficiencies in His life and they could not.

Founders of other religions did not claim to be divine and in every case their lives did not suggest any notable degree of personal holiness.  For example, Mohammed, Martin Luther, the Buddha, and all the other lesser known founders.

Because He was God, Christ could endow the Church with the means to help its members acquire holiness in accordance with the individual’s free choice and acceptance of the graces given.  The means that set up by Christ are the seven Sacraments, which if used correctly, will enable the believer to make steady progress towards holiness.  No other religion, even many who call themselves Christians, have anything even remotely resembling the Catholic Sacraments, and therefore, if any of their members happen to be holy in God’s sight, it is in spite of their religion.

There are thirty thousand plus “Christian” denominations.  Some claim one, two, or three sacraments; none claim seven.  Without the Seven Sacraments, no church can claim to be the Church founded by Christ.

There will be those who say that they have the Bible and that is quite sufficient.  The problem is that the Bible as we know it came from the Catholic Church historically and did not appear as we know it until the end of the fourth century.  Only one apostle could possibly have read the New Testament (St. John).  Christ Himself did not tell the Apostles to write but to preach.  For the first centuries, Christians really did not have access to the Bible as we know it.  If the Bible had been meant to be an essential part of the true Church it would have been available from the  beginning.  The Catholic Church reveres the Bible and uses it, but does not claim it is the only means of knowing God’s will.

Holiness, by its very nature, suggests consistency and permanence.  This is  one of the reasons the Catholic Church is hated and ridiculed…it is consistent in its teachings. It does not bow to the whim of any contemporary culture. What was demanded by divine law centuries ago is still valid, and therefore, the Church refuses to join the cultural bandwagon which is clamoring for sin to be declared non-sin. Other groups that call themselves “Christian” readily and easily salute the contemporary cultural icons and are duly applauded for failure to be a consistent defender of God’s law. How many groups have embraced the homosexual demands  to be designated as  just another lifestyle with no negative moral implications? The Catholic Church does not do this, thus affirming her commitment to the idea of consistent standards of holiness. In another fifty years, the cultural elite will be demanding something else. The Church demands holiness.

There are three questions each person should ask himself:

1.  Where did I come from? (We came from God because parents only make our bodies, but it has to be God who creates our soul because human parents are incapable of creating an immortal soul.)

2.  Why am I here? (Merely to get the most out physical life and then die without any consequences?  No, to serve that God who created your soul and who will judge your performance.)

3. Where am I going?  (To a grave and nothing more?  We have a built-in sense of immortality (which means it is real) and we reach that state eventually, but how we spend it is up to us.)

(The above questions and answers are true whether you believe them or not.)

The Catholic Church alone has the complete truth regarding these questions and the best means to achieve the goals is through the holiness of the Church given through the Sacraments.  If you are a Catholic striving to lead a holy life, keep it up.  If you are a lapsed or an indifferent Catholic who picks and chooses what you will accept or do, you are telling God that you are right and He is wrong.  Rather risky!  If you are not a Catholic, pray for the grace to find God’s will.  If you find it is in the Catholic Church, embrace it and be grateful and live it to the fullest (as do most converts).

Next time we will look at another sign for our times, the Catholicity of the Church.

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Signs For Our Times – Part I: Unity of the Church

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/04/04 at 6:15 AM

The first mark of the true Church is UNITY in both doctrinal and moral teaching. All true Catholics believe the same basic doctrines and accept the Church’s moral code under the direction of the Pope and the bishops.  The liturgy of the Mass is the same everywhere. Unity does not mean sameness; unity refers to essentials.    Even the Eastern rite Churches, which participate in the full unity of the Church under the Pope, celebrate Mass with different ceremonies and languages while maintaining the essential parts of the Mass.

What makes the unbroken unity of the Church unique is that it cannot be explained on purely human terms.  No human organization can maintain its unity in essentials for two millennia.  It simply cannot be done without divine guidance and protection.  No other church or religion has maintained its original unity.  The Protestant world now has about thirty thousand denominations all claiming to be the true church and yet among them there are vast differences in doctrine and moral teaching.  Islam is divided into different allegiances.  Buddhism has divisions.  Judaism has divisions.  The Catholic Church has been threatened with division many times in its history by those who objected to some doctrine or aspect of a doctrine.  The two great divisions were the Great Western Schism of 1054 which gave rise to what are called the Orthodox Churches.  The other is the Protestant Reformation which affected Christian unity but did not destroy the essential unity of the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church did not change or alter any doctrine or moral teaching.

The basic reason for the unity of the Catholic Church is that Christ is what all true Catholics have in common.  Without Christ and all His teachings, there can be no true Church.  Remember that the founder of the Catholic Church is still alive whereas no other religion founder still lives.  We are not followers of a dead human, but a God-man who brought Himself back from the grave.  No other religion even claims such a miracle.

Another preserver of Church unity is the office of the Pope.  There are no democracies in the Bible.  And Christ Himself set up the office when He appointed Peter as chief of the Apostles.  This shows divine wisdom at work because divine authority placed in the hands of one person is better to maintain the status quo than a council with its potential dissensions and disagreements.  

Some have questioned the absolute unity of the Catholic Church by citing dissension in the Church over the last fifty years.  Most dissenters questioned either established doctrine (ordination of women) or sought liturgical changes, and while they are vocal and have gained followers, they are not the custodians of doctrines and morals in the Church and thus do not affect the essentials of the Church.

Whenever an organization loses its essential unity, it can no longer function properly because of internal dissent.  Eventually it can no longer strive to attain its original goals.  It either goes out of business, or it changes its goals to something it might be able to achieve.  The Catholic Church has the same goals and the same means to the goals it always had, namely, the sanctification of those members who make the effort to become Christlike.

If you are a practicing member of the Catholic Church, rejoice in the great gift and live accordingly.  If you are not a Catholic, ponder the miracle of two thousand years of unity in the Catholic Church (after all, the twelve apostles would recognize the moral teaching of the contemporary Catholic Church).   Think of the certitude you could have in a Church established just for you.

Next week we will look at the Holiness of the Church.

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Signs For Our Times – Introduction

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/04/04 at 6:15 AM

(This is the first in a four-part series on what are usually termed the “marks” of the Church.  These are signs that one can use to find the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ.  Based on the Gospel narrative (which is objective history) these signs will apply only to the true Church and all four must be present to indicate the true Church.)

The unexpected resignation of one pope and the election of another has caused the world media to focus on the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church always seems to be big news that whets the appetite of the media far more than any other Church or religion.  But the media is selective in its coverage.  It likes to cover the external pageantry but has little use for anything of real substance such as doctrine and morals.

One important Catholic doctrine that I did not hear mentioned by the media is the doctrine that the Catholic Church is the one and only true Church.  Contemporary philosophy and attitudes which claim that there is no objective truth would not be the least amenable to such a discussion.

The doctrine of the one true Church is of eternal importance because, if the Catholic Church is the only true Church, then it means that all the others are not true to some degree, i.e. not completely true.  Since eternity looms before us all, it would seem only sensible and reasonable to find and join that one true Church.

Catholicism’s claim to being the only Church founded by the Divine Christ is not mere boasting or cheerleading; the claim can be proven rationally.  Then it behooves everyone who is aware of this truth to become a member of the only true Church because, if you are called by Divine grace to embrace the Catholic Church and you refuse to do so, your future may be bleak.

There are four marks or signs of the true Church based on Scripture, reason and history.  These signs have certain necessary characteristics; they are easily understood by the average mind and they are unchangeable so as to avoid confusion, dispute and instability.

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The Unpreached Sermon: “a layman thinking like a priest”. Part II

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/01/05 at 9:11 AM

Let me tell you what he and she has done to themselves:

1. You live in a world of make-belief.  God has commanded us to worship Him (third commandment), but you have decided that, for you, the command is optional.  We are are nothing compared to God and we simply do not have a choice or right to reject a divine command.  The Church has made it relatively easy to obey this directive by mandating Sunday Mass (two hours at most out of one hundred and sixty eight) yet, in your crass stupidity you have decided that you will worship Supreme Being according to your own whim.  That is unrealistic!

2. This makes you the unwisest of people.  The divinely-set goal for humans is to be united with God for all eternity.  You, by amassing mortal sin after mortal sin, have shown a total lack of wisdom.  (A wise person knows what is important and valuable and acts on it appropriately.)  At this rate, no matter what worldly success you achieve, you will be a total failure in spiritual matters and that is what really counts against you.  A truly wise person knows this.

3.  Your salvation (goal) is at risk every second of your life.  You don’t know when you will die, and if you die loaded with serious sin, you will have objectively chosen hell for yourself.  Death is not the exclusive activity of the elderly; many, many younger people die through sickness, accident, life-style and crime.  If you are young it is true that you will likely be alive a year from now, BUT, it is not guaranteed, and that’s the problem.  It is rather dumb to risk hell for whatever activity you have decided is more important than Sunday Mass.  “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul.”  Sometimes people will take risks for noble reasons such as to save lives, but to risk your soul for mere two hours a week is neither realistic nor wise.

4.  You have cut yourself off from God.  (If you have unconfessed mortal sin today, do not come up for Holy Communion because that would be a sacrilege which is a worse sin than skipping Mass.)  The only grace you can legitimately pray for is the grace of repentance through Confession.  While you live, Christ can forgive a million mortal sins, if repentant.  After death, there is no mercy available, only judgment.  The game is over and you have either won or lost.

5. Your spiritual life has probably been further ruined because failure to attend Mass regularly is often the result of other habitual sins that make Mass attendance seem useless.  Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say that no one left the Church because he sat down and examined its doctrine and found them to be false.  It can’t be done.  The underlying reason, he said, was habits of serious sin such as marital infidelity, alcoholism, drugs, pornography, etc…

If you are in this very negative situation, my words are spoken in persona Christ.  He may be offering you that grace of repentance because He knows you do not have long to live.  Or you may actually feel a terrible burden combined with fear of the future.  If Christ is speaking and calling you today, don’t be dumb and ignore it because the Bible tells us that He will loose patience with stubborn sinner who consistently ignore His grace and they become spiritually hard-hearted.

Christmas is a great day for family and feast but I will be here after Mass today to hear Confessions and forgive you in the name of Christ for as long as anyone wishes to come.   This would be your greatest Christmas gift.

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The Unpreached Sermon: “a layman thinking like a priest”. Part I

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/01/05 at 12:00 AM

My dear friends in Christ,

Christmas is spiritual joy because it is the beginning of our redemption. God the Son has taken on a human form so as to represent humanity in the process of atonement. Yet, because He remains God, His future sacrifice on Good Friday will be acceptable to God the Father.  Without Christmas and Good Friday, no one, regardless of how well he has lived on earth, could ever get into heaven.  Without Christ original sin would condemn us all to hell.  Something to be grateful for to say the least.

The next part of this sermon some of you might not like.  Let me preface it by stating that when a man is ordained a priest (assuming the correct understanding, motives and intentions) he become an alter Christus (another Christ).  In his spiritual ministry he acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ).  Thus in every Mass and Sacrament, it is Christ Himself in operation through His duly ordained priest.  Now I am speaking in persona Christi because I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of you.

Christmas is also a time of sadness. When I look out and see the extra crowd of people  at the Mass, I know that many of you are either Christmas-Easter “Catholics” or you are intermittent and casual Mass attenders.

(In all my years of attending Christmas and Easter Masses, I have never heard the slightest reference to the lapsed Catholics sitting right in front of the priest.  I wonder if Christ Himself would have ignored the loss sheep.)

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Consequences, part I

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2012/12/07 at 7:14 AM

People like to speculate.  They like to imagine what life would be like under different circumstances.  ” What if I won an eight figure lottery?”  “What would it be like to vacation in Tahiti?” “What would it be like to ride in a space ship?” Some have even wondered what life would be like without God.  Ah! We do not have to speculate about this; we are living in reality.  The Western World (which used to be called Christendom) has, in effect, rejected and/or ignored God.  The movers and shakers have declared themselves to be God by their actions or omissions.  The problem is that humans, according to divine plan, cannot reject or ignore God without bringing on themselves calamitous consequences.

The first consequence is the loss of the idea of truth in intellectual and spiritual areas.  God is the source and standard of truth.  When we reject or ignore divine truth, we are left with human opinion which is only as reliable as the facts and the intellect of the opiner.  Thus we end up living in a chaos of non-truths, half-truths, distorted truths, bias truths and other errors.  The very concept of objective truth is not even considered.  This is American society today…awash in opinions based on nothing but subjective ideas which one may or may not follow according to one’s own likes and dislikes.  Divine truth is certain truth; human “truth” replacing it is always grossly deficient.  Divine truth is a permanent and stable guide.  Human truth has no foundation beyond the human mind and can and does change with the culture.  No human truth is sure or lasting.  What is called true today may be declared false tomorrow and vice versa.

The corresponding consequence is the loss of the ability to think logically and rationally.  Without objective truth as a guide, conclusions drawn may be invalid. We fail to see the logical, but inevitable results of poor thinking.  The pro-abortion philosophy is based supposedly on women’s health, but in reality it means freedom from an inconvenience.  In the future, what other “inconvenient” might some want to get rid off?  The elderly? (already in the works by Obamacare).  The chronically ill?  The retarded?  The homosexual community is pushing for same-sex “marriage” under the guise of equality and civil rights.  Once the law declares that marriage is not solely between a man and a woman, then logically you can “marry” anyone or anything.  Illogical thinking leads to bad judgments, errors, mistakes, failure, etc.  These negative effects will remain until corrected or forever if they cannot be corrected.

We also lose wisdom.  Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is related to it.  Wisdom is the understanding, evaluation,  appreciation and implenentation  of values based on knowledge.  In other words, wisdom is knowing what is important, and this is impossible without truth and right thinking.  The psalmist tells us that awe of God is the beginning of wisdom.  How can those who have no relationship to God ever find real wisdom?  The wise person knows and acts upon what is truly important in life.  We cannot solve our societal problems because defective thinking prevents it.  Problems can be solved only by dealing with the cause.  Yet, the bureaucrats of public education seem to think that the answer to all their problems is more money.  But money is not the cause of education problems; therefore, more and more money is spent with little or no effect.  (The real cause lies in the false philosophies which are used to “guide” the public schools.)  Politicians also think that more money will solve anything, yet, it rarely does.  There are rules of right thinking and they must be followed or the results will be defective.  Right thinking is not accidental.

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Consequences, part II

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2012/12/07 at 7:11 AM

Another victim of the godless society is morality.  Traditional, rational, effective morality is replaced with contemporary cultural morality under the banner of freedom.  But only fools think freedom means doing whatever you wish.  Rational people know that true freedom lies in restraint.  An orchestra is free to play Mozart’s “Requiem”, but only if the musicians restrict themselves to Mozart’s score.  Otherwise, the “music” would be nothing but a noisy cacophony.  In our society, restraint is not very popular; instant gratification seems to be the watchword.  And the results?  An epidemic of sexually-transmitted diseases.   (According to government statistics), illegitimate births in the 40% range, insatiable appetite for illegal drugs, etc.  Read your newspaper for a week and add up the departures from traditional morality.  The bottom line is that a society without a rational moral law simply cannot ultimately survive.  Whether we believe it or not, God has put into humans a natural sense of morality i.e. what is right and what is wrong, and when it is rejected moral chaos follows and we are living in it (this does not mean that every person is immoral merely that temper of the times).

A further loss is the loss of objective goodness.  Humans and angels are the only creatures with free will by which they can make choices for good or evil.  The will is designed by the Creator to seek what is good (even a criminal thinks his crimes are good for him at least for the moment.)  Thus, a distortion can arise in the concept of what is good and what is evil.  The prophet Isaiah warned against declaring the good to be evil and the evil to be good.  Ex. Bible reading in schools, Nativity scenes at Christmas are now considered evil by some while same-sex “marriage” (a raging contradiction) is now in some circles considered good, as is abortion, euthanasia, sexual license.  Since objective evil is usually more attractive than moral good, evil becomes more and more acceptable within the society.  In the 2012 elections voters in three states approved same-sex “marriage” which is contrary to truth, reason and goodness because we have treated civil rights as a quasi religion, and in this case “civil rights” trumped divine law.  When a society no longer labels evil as evil, a kind of social insanity develops.   When evil is thought to be good, and good to be evil, we no longer have a longer functioning society.

Can we escape the consequences of many decades of bad idea, philosophies, and attitudes?  Societal decline is a very gradual erosion, and those living during the decline, especially if they are helping to precipitate it, do not notice it day by day or even year by year.  Then too, decline is not a popular subject.  To admit decline means we must admit faults, and to admit faults suggests some kind of repentance.  History is not kind to declining societies; it tells us that no declining society has ever reversed course.  Is there a solution?  Yes…becoming wise and realizing that one’s most important relationship is the one with God,  (as He really is not as we think He ought to be).  If you have a valid relationship, the day of your death will be the most important day of your life.  If you have no true relationship with God, the day of your death will be your worse day.  As Christ said: “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul?”  In other words, time is short; eternity is long…very, very long.

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Rest in Pieces By J. Reagan

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2012/11/30 at 9:11 AM

George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher, said that those who do not learn from the lessons of history will be condemned to repeat it. This means that, if we fail to determine why people and events went wrong, they will go wrong again under similar circumstances. It appears that people do not seem to learn the lessons of history because they repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Historians tell us that world has seen about twenty-one civilizations, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Byzantium, Persia, Babylon  etc. The contemporary civilization is called “Western Civilization”. (It used to be called “Christian Civilization” and before the Enlightenment the term Europe was not used.  It was Christendom.)  All these civilizations are gone (except our own).

Sometimes the names remain, such as Greece or Rome; the former now a minor player in the world; the latter reduced to a city.  For others, the site remains, but the name passes into disuse such as the empires that preceded Iraq. All of these past civilizations had one thing in common; they all committed suicide and all in much the same way.  Not one of them, once decline had begun, ever reversed it and saved it self.

Let’s look at one of these fallen empires and see what the lessons of history tell us.  Rome was once the dominant empire and controlled the territory around the Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere.  The British historian, Arnold Toynbee, cites five reasons for the fall of Rome that can be applied to other fallen societies as well.

1. The loss of religion and morality whose influence diminished more and more as the decline advanced.

2. Severe damage to the family structure through divorce, infanticide and approved homosexuality.

3. Inordinate demands for more and more sports and entertainment.

4. Excessive taxation to pay for increasing military needs and to pay for public entertainments.

5. The constant influx of the neighboring peoples, often called the “Barbarian Invasions”. (“Barbarian” here does not refer to table manners, but simply to “foreigners”.)

By 476 A.D. the Western Roman Empire had officially collapsed.   How does it happen that a whole society can seem to blindly march to its own demise?

The following are some suggested reasons:

1. People traveling a downward path become inured to what is really happening.  Decline does not happen overnight; it is gradual.  Each downward step is seen in isolation rather than a part of an ongoing pattern of loss.

2. Those who are “enjoying” the causes of decline resist unsettling thoughts. They don’t want to stop the party and hear about possible dangers. Before the Flood, people laughed and sneered at Noah for his “folly”.  There are always voices of warning, but they are ignored as out of touch, irrelevant, fanatics  etc.

3. People become complacent in the presence of contradictions;  moral opposites are considered quite acceptable.  Ex. the release of Barabbas and the condemnation of the innocent Christ.  The idea that tax money solves all problems even when money has nothing to do with the cause of the problem. Refusing to profile those who might be terrorists because they might get upset.

4.  Eventually, the society loses its ability to think and react rationally, and, therefore, cannot seem to solve it problems because it has substituted emotion, impulse, demagoguery, name-calling, labeling  etc. in the place of reasoned discussion. This is not a pretty picture, but it is reality. It is history. Western Civilization is on the slippery slope to oblivion.

Can we apply Toynbee to the U.S.A.? Without doubt. The whole world is now in what is probably the biggest mess since the beginning of written history. For the second time, Western Civilization is faced with an onslaught by Islam.

I personally think there is no way to save ourselves except by falling on our societal knees in repentance and asking forgiveness of the much-offended God.  God has been banished from the seats of power and culture in this country. (There is not a single word about God or religion in the Constitution of the European Union.) I have heard no leader anywhere mention the importance of religion…except, of course, the Muslim leaders.

Will history repeat itself once again? It doesn’t matter. As Christians, we are very temporary residents of this planet. It is not a lasting or final home. We can certainly pray for a good outcome to the present cultural conflict. If we are true Christians, even now, we can psychologically rest in peace regardless of what events bring for good or bad.

The rest of society, having ignored is Creator-God will eventually rest in pieces.