About Face or Else

Originally published in The Way on October 11, 1941.

A French writer, back in 1905, saw the beginning of his country's disintegration, which was brought so forcibly to the world's attention early in World War number Two. Speaking of the certain effects which the persecution of religion would bring about, he said:

“Of all the signs of our national decadence, none is more striking or more afflicting than this monstrous irreligion of the State, raised among us to a principle of law and a maxim of government. It is the contradiction of all our past. A people which forgets itself to the point of abdicating its strongest, its most essential national tradition, which makes its laws and its policy consist in being entirely separated from religion, is a people depraved and degenerated.”

Christopher Dawson, the noted English scholar, well says:

“Either religion must come back into public or the political ideologies will replace religion as has occurred in the totalitarian state.”

Be what may, we cannot deny that religion and progress of a nation and people cannot be divorced one from the other.

We, in this country want to progress. We want to safeguard our democracy, yet so many of us are blind towards purely political order in the United States.

Mr. Dawson believes that the only way to prevent a state from becoming wholly political is “to bring religion back into the public life.” A state wholly political is almost surely bound to become totalitarian, and is surely bound to become materialistic.

Theoretically, a large percentage of the population in this country is governed by Christian ideals, but many of these people are Christians in name only. In practice the number of those governed by the ideals of God, by spiritual and moral sense, is becoming smaller and smaller. These people have always been in the minority and today this minority is dwindling. At the present time it practically has no influence. Most of us are far more politically conscious than we are religiously. We have altogether divorced religion from our political life and in the choice of our political leader, never take into consideration the religious faith and moral sense of the same.

We have witnessed the downfall of governments. We have read of more. We have seen the decline of democracy and must admit that much of this was due to the disregard of God and His Principle. Evidently the moment people begin to disregard the very idea of a religious basis for society, or for a stable government, they become victims of an un-Christian and anti-Christian ideology, which today are promoted by powerful forces.

We must make an about face or else — well, or else be prepared to lose all that is so dear to us in this country.