Bound in Love

In progressive belief, the salvation that comes through the radical reordering of the external world is brought about solely by human effort. This is in contrast to the Christian understanding that salvation is accomplished by the initiative in the power of God himself. Humans participate and can cooperate with God’s plan, but God is the primary mover of salvation. And salvation is worked out in God’s good time.

The progressive believer is promised salvation by seizing the means and the task of curing the world’s ills by energetic action. Since humanity has come of age, we are no longer children or slaves. We are no longer under the cruel necessity of enduring life’s hardships. The progressive is told that now is the time for the human race to rise up and grasp our destiny with our own hands. One can see how this kind of thinking can creep into Christianity, and has so often in our history. It is not easy to wait on God, especially when we think we can solve the problems ourselves.

salvation is effected through the application of a special knowledge or technique

The progressive method of accomplishing the reordering of the world is the application of a particular technical knowledge — gnosis — to the problems of existence. For progressive believers, “knowledge saves.” Whereas Christianity says that salvation is achieved by inner moral regeneration, progressivism says that the proper application of the proper technique is all that is needed to alter the world or our relationship to it and undo the evil that is alienating us.

The rise of science in the early modern period frequently reflected this neo-Gnostic attitude. Francis Bacon was an early scientist in the modern age, and his approach was for humans to pull knowledge from the natural world through the efforts of enterprising men. It is noteworthy that many of the same men who led this period of early scientific discovery, Isaac Newton for example, were as interested in magic in alchemy as the natural laws of physics. Both science and magic were studied as paths for gaining the hidden technical knowledge that would save the world. And over the decades, it became clear that natural science was stronger than magic and witchcraft.

The dramatic expansion of scientific progress in the last hundred and 50 years has given a dramatic boost to the progressive believers’ hope of salvation. Every year it seems that there is some important technological advance that promises a brighter material future. Many times, this advance is at the cost of breaking traditional moral constraints. That is one of modernity’s unacknowledged first principles: sometimes you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. In medicine, most stem cell research is done with stem cells taken from aborted children, and this is not considered a problem for Progressives.

The progressive religion is also prone to adopt a “silver bullet” mentality. It is typical of progressive programs for the betterment of the world that highly complex human problems are reduced to a single phenomenon that can be addressed and properly adjusted by the application of a particular technical solution. Progressive religion tends naturally to a world run by experts, those special people who possess the silver bullet. This simplistic approach has proven to work on limited problems such as servicing automobiles, but it has proven disastrous when applied to complex matters of human psychology, social relations, and the immortal soul’s quest for its eternal destiny.

a dualistic view of history

Progressive religion holds out a promise that the coming of a new age of freedom will decisively triumph over the past age of darkness and oppression. Christians understand that as long as humans suffer from the wound of sin, and as long as the world is under the influence of the devil, there can be no final victory over evil. Despite this knowledge, Christians are full of hope because the decisive battle against darkness has already been won by Christ. The totality of that victory will come in the general judgment, but Christians are already experiencing the beginnings of its fulfillment. Christians also understand that the daily struggle against evil are important elements of the time during which God is testing us and allowing us to demonstrate that we are worthy of our true home with him.

Progressive religion rejects this Christian attitude as negative and defeatist. Since the progressives deny the reality of the Fall, the only reasonable goal for believers is a world substantially freed from evil. What emerges in every progressive religious scheme is a dualistic view of two completely different ages. The old age is full of darkness and repression and injustice, and everything about it is bad. The new age will be light in harmony and justice and peace, and everything about it will be good. The break between the old age and the new age is necessarily violent and total, for the application of power even to the point of brutality is necessary to transform the age.

An important dogma of modern progressive faith is a claim that we are now living in a unique time called the “modern age”. The modern age is qualitatively a new era of history, in which traditional ways of thought and belief cannot be valid for our time because of the necessity of the historical process. There are no universally valid truths, whether moral or rational, that apply both to the age of oppression and the age of freedom. That means that traditional values should not be consulted as a guide. In general, they are reflective of the past oppressive age, and so they probably need to be repudiated. Under this belief, the traditional notion of dialogue — two rational minds interacting according to the dictates of logos — has no meaning because there’s no single rationality that spans the two ages. So progressive believers do not typically argue against traditional philosophies; they just label them as outdated and needing to be discarded. Dialogue is replaced by dialectic. Dialectic is the battle between two principles (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) rather than the conversation between two persons using a shared vocabulary.

Consider the Christian understanding of the Bible. Christians understand that God makes all things new. We point to St. Paul in II Corinthians 5:17, where he says “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone; behold, the new is come.” Christians understand Christ’s coming as completion or perfection of God’s salvific plan. That means that the Old Covenant is not annihilated; rather it is fulfilled and completed by the New Covenant. The second century Gnostic heretic Marcion rejected the Old Testament entirely. He is an example of how the progressive religion insists that the old regime must be wiped out so that the new regime can provide salvation.

The necessity of a dualistic view leads progressives to illogical positions. The progressive view of the medieval period is that it was barbaric, ignorant, intolerant, and violent. Serious historians have known for generations that this view of the Middle Ages is nonsense, but the progressives have not adjusted their mindset. They need to believe in the darkness of the past in order to believe in the brightness of the future. On the other hand, the horrors of Soviet communism were ignored by progressive believers and even now are too often downplayed or swept under the rug. Since Soviet communism represents the bright new world, under the progressive dogma it cannot have any marks of darkness.

Whenever a progressive dogma collides with unfavorable scientific data, it is the data that gets ignored, suppressed, or shouted down, while the dogma is proclaimed as the ultimate reality.

two distinct kinds of humans

In the progressive religious scheme there are only two types of humans and they are in opposition to each other. There are those who have embraced the new age of freedom, and there are those still tied to the old age of oppression. Possession of the proper gnosis gives rise to the new type of person. Sometimes the special knowledge is esoteric and intentionally restricted to a few, and this was true of ancient Gnostic systems. Sometimes it is on offer for whoever might want, as in many modern progressive forms of faith, even though this broadly offered knowledge is presented as something restricted to the elite.

The division of the world into the enlightened and the unenlightened helps explain much of the lack of consistency shown by those under the influence of progressive religion in their behavior and attitudes toward the two opposed groups. Progressive belief will naturally deal with those embracing the age of freedom in one way and will treat those claiming to be age of oppression in a very different way.

It might be described as revolutionaries versus reactionaries, as the tolerant versus the haters, as the feminists versus the sexist, as the egalitarians versus the racist, or the greens versus the climate deniers. But it is almost always a stark contrast; it is always black or white and never gray.

It is important to see these categories are not the result of careful observation of data; they are doctrines taken on faith. Aggressive believers assume that they are themselves not fallen and they are morally superior to their opponents. This belief is not based on a careful examination of contrasting lives but is a religious doctrine it is held apart from any evidence. It is an article of progressive faith that they are on the “right side of history”, and that those who resist the doctrines of their faith are necessarily dark and bad. Progressive believers therefore believe they are nice and their opponents are nasty. Progressives are the peace lovers, the friendly people, the generous and reasonable ones. If the data happens to show anything to the contrary it will do nothing to alter the viewpoint. It has to be true because it is an article of progressive faith.

This binary view corresponds to and borrows from the Christian division of the world into the ultimately saved in the ultimately damned. But in the Christian understanding, good and evil cannot be mapped decisively into discrete groups of people but is an intensely personal and individual distinction that is found in the heart of every human and is found inside the church and outside the church. Furthermore, the division of the human race into the saved and the damned will not definitively happen until the end of time, and the division is a job reserved exclusively to God. Until that time, Christians must operate in the gray area of knowing of heaven, and hoping for heaven, and striving for heaven, while not being 100% sure they deserve heaven.

Progressive religion, on the other hand, claims to be able to divide the human race between the good and the evil here and now. And it places the authority to make these judgments in the hands of themselves, who are the enlightened humans. Since progressive religion denies the existence of evil spirits, it is from time to time necessary to demonize whole segments of the human race so that they can be marginalized and, if necessary, eradicated for the health and salvation of the world.

Given all of this we can see why it is all important for progressive believers to identify themselves and others as members of this new enlightened humanity. Modes of dress, manners of speech, uses of symbols, the books we read in the news sources we use, bumper stickers and yard signs, and even opinions about otherwise trivial matters all take on an importance entirely out of proportion to the intrinsic significance. Communities of like-minded believers are sought out and protected. Much of the tendency toward what is sometimes characterized as virtue signaling arises due to the understandable need among progressive believers to identify themselves with the saved and to separate themselves from the damned. Progressive religious enclaves tend to be highly monocultural and homogenous (think of certain urban neighborhoods or almost any university faculty”. These tightly monitored communities resist contact with nonbelievers, and they run them out when they find them.

revolution is the process by which salvation is achieved

It is necessary to annihilate the structures of oppression in order to achieve the new age of freedom, according to progressive belief. The complete overturning of existing society is not a truly Christian view. Remember how Christians were taught to be good citizens even in the pagan Roman empire where they found themselves. Christianity has always sought reform, which is the more gradual process of realigning the patterns of personal and social life to perennial moral and spiritual realities. While this can be unsettling, it tends to purify and re-enliven rather than destroy.

Progressive faith views the idea of revolution differently. They view it positively. Revolution is salvific: it is the act of overthrowing and annihilating the oppressive structures of the current evil order and setting the stage for an entirely new and liberated order that will save the world. This belief is not supported by the data, of course. Neo-Gnostic revolutions have generally left things in far worse shape than they were before. The French Jacobins were determined to destroy old institutions, and they were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of their fellow Frenchman in the process. The progressive religions known as communism, Marxism, and Nazism caused the deaths of upwards of 100 million people in the 20th century, always in pursuit of an earthly heaven.

The emergence of the cancel culture is an example of the necessity of suppressing any narrative that is connected to the evil old order. This program of willful systematic amnesia begins with artifacts — knocking down statues, controlling the use of language — but it almost always moves to eliminating living humans. The logic of tearing down statues and erasing words is the same as the impetus behind the French revolutionary reign of terror, the Soviet Gulag, Chinese cultural Revolution, and the Nazi death camps.

Gradualist methods often arise among progressive believers in a humane attempt to soften the violent edges of revolution. These believers are not actually opposed to the more violent revolutionaries, they just want to do this dirty work at a slower pace. The radical revolutionaries are seen as the real believers. A sense of ideological inferiority experienced by those who prefer a gradual process to a more decisive and often violent action can be detected in the reluctance shown by advocates of peaceful revolution to condemn violent revolutionaries. They seem to be secretly in sympathy with their bloodier comrades.

Progressivism is highly evangelistic, but it prefers a different approach to the one taken by Christianity. The preferred strategy is to foment anger. Most people are not easily moved to engage in conflict, but conflict is the only means by which progressive salvation can arrive. In order to overcome this reluctance, the most effective way has been shown to be to get them mad. Sometimes this process is called raising their consciousness. Anger or rage will beget the destruction that will lead to all good things.

the necessary failure of modern religion

The progressive revolution always ultimately fails, because progressive belief is founded on a radical departure from reality. In an interesting paradox, the more complete the revolution seems to succeed, the more complete will be its failure.

Progressive religion is most attractive and most potent before the hoped-for revolution has occurred or while it is still happening. Progressive leaders can point to obvious and egregious evils in the existing world, and they can instill a hope of overcoming those evils in the future. The greatest blow to progressive faith occurs when the revolution succeeds. Progressive believers then take hold of the power they have sought to usher in the new age, but due to the impossibility of making good on their promises the hope for paradise never arrives.

Students of the 20th century will remember that the Soviet workers’ paradise issued grand five-year plans with great frequency because those plans were never able to achieve what they promised. Rather than abandon the Progressive religion, the Soviets rolled out a new five-year plan and promised another utopia.

When the Revolution Invariably Fails

Since Progressivism is a false religion, it will ultimately fail to deliver on its promise of a beautiful new world after the revolution. When this happens, a crisis occurs in the Progressive mind.

First Stage: Ignore the grim consequences

Evidence of failure is shouted down or ignored. The claim is made that the revolution has not gone far enough. An alternative claim is that counter-revolutionaries are betraying the cause. Or they will claim it has been successful and everyone is happy. Anyone who dares to point out the revolution’s failure is targeted and marginalized, sometimes even put away. Admission of the failure of the revolution is the first step to abandoning the faith of Progressivism.

Second Stage: Dismal reality can no longer be denied

At a certain point a second stage in the crisis is reached, when the revolution in question is increasingly discredited. The utopian propaganda is overcome by the human suffering that results from the revolution.

The first response is simple disillusionment. Many come to the conclusion that there is no way out of the human predicament, and they lapse into some mode of coping: pursuing pleasure, distracting themselves with media or work or substance abuse, and even suicide. If the dissolution takes a philosophic form that expresses itself in the form of nihilism — the conviction that existence has no meaning. Remember the path from the French Revolution and then disillusionment at its failure and then the philosopher Nietzsche.

The second response is more common among progressive believers. They maintain a structure of belief but claim that the instance has somehow been done incorrectly. Few progressives today will defend the Soviet experience or the Nazi experience, but many will say that was not authentic socialism. While they maintain their belief and progressivism, the manifestation is sometimes surprising: the youthful revolutionaries who were at the Woodstock musical Festival in the late 1960s effortlessly transformed themselves into the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley.

Third response is the most helpful from a Christian point of view. Some acknowledging the failure of the revolution can seriously reevaluate the underlying structure of progressive belief and make a decision to find a new way to move forward. If that reevaluation includes repentance from pride and a willingness to seek help from God, there is an opening for a Christian renewal. There was a Christian renewal in France after the failure of the French Revolution. There was a Western Christian renewal after the two world wars in the 20th century.