The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics without God.

I just finished reading George Weigel's short book on the Europe problem. He considers it our problem, too, of course. Not just because of Iraq, but because of the trends which are completing there that are continuing here.

Europe has eighteen countries who are not replacing their population (2.1 children per woman); the demographic replacement rates are really startlingly low: 1.2 to 1.7. Why? Weigel believes that aggressive European secularism has left them bored about the future, uninvested in seeing it come to pass. They have no sense of self anymore. Each international political event shows this clearly, as they select away from any self-determination or hard choices, deferring to the Hague and the international tribunals to find a "truth" which they no longer believe exists. Since WWII it is obvious that they have not been able to identify "evil" in obvious places: they refused to criticize the Soviet states and were therefore shocked at the democratic reforms that came from Catholic-led solidarity, unexpectedly, to them, filled with intellectual and spiritual vigor which Europeans find distasteful.

Weigel's title comes from the construction of a huge, opulescent cube that has become the symbol of new Europe (La Arche). It is the boast of the architects that Notre Dame Cathedral can fit inside it. Weigel believes that this is a symbol of the intent, recently expressed in the process of creating a constitution, to revise history. The document is over four times longer than the U.S. Constitution. It presents European history without Christianity quite deliberately. It was and is the intention of the founders of unified Europe to erase Christianity from history, and in their constitutional rationale for the "values" of European culture, they have been successful. According to the approved constitution, Christianity added nothing to Europe and was not responsible for any aspect of the growth or extension of Eurpoean ideals into the world. Hmmm.

I also read a critique of Episcopal-Protestant mainline theology in a journal called First Things which was quite thought-provoking. The author, a seminary professor at Neo's old seminary who had spent ten years enmeshed in African-Anglican growth through spiritual strength, identifies a "common" new gospel which now dominates American churches, strangely avoiding crucial and essential elements of Christian doctrine by substituting radical tolerance and a bland "God is love" mono-theme. The parts de-emphasized by omission are "sin", atonement, redemption, God's wrath and retributive justice, and biblical authority.

Finally, I attended a family reunion in San Luis Obispo, California. Forty-two of my relatives from as far away as Lebanon and all over California came. The Condon/Deveney clan got along very well. I will have stories.