4 ~ Friday, April 17, 1992 - North Shore News Losing faith in faith itself WHY IS our society tuday so chaotic and confused? Why is there so much despair, so much unhappiness? That’s easily answered. We've forgotten Jesus. Jaws drop. Derisive cries are heard. Snorts of disbelief. (Yes, plenty of those.) Has the guy gone mad, then? Or is it the drink? No, I'm as clear-eyed and ruthless as ever, thank you. And | rarely throw back a martini or manhattan before five, or even more rarely drink anything after seven. Mind you, in those two hours ! do my share of contributing to the national average. | always write sober, though not always soberly. I couldn't say whether raising a matter of ‘“‘religion”’ in a secular newspaper — even, or especially, on Good Friday — will make a little uneasy the publisher, Peter Speck, or the editor, Timothy Renshaw. In my experience both of thern are genuinely liberal defenders of freedom to express opinions, disagreeable or otherwise, and probably at some commercial cost. (Who knows? Maybe there is a devout atheist who, reading these words, will indignantly cancel his advertising. It has been observed that few of the religious are as in- tolerant of contrary opinion as the proponents of disbelief.) However, I grant that Messrs. Speck and Renshaw may draw the line at having a ‘‘religious’’ nut in the paper — and !’d underline here that I have no idea whatever of either’s faith or affiliations or lack of them. But let us proceed. You will first have alertly notic- ed that I have twice put the word “religious’’ in quotation marks. That is because I wrote the first two paragraphs of this piece not out of religious conviction or Lautens theological qualification — though over the years I’ve probably read rather more than the average reader the works of Thomas a Kempis, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, and others, and can even calmly describe the Graff- Wellhausen theory of ihe com- position of Pentateuch. This week I’ve been reading A Companion To the Summa — in effect, a ‘‘modern” rewriting of part of the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, generously sent to me by a reader, M.T.H. of Burnaby. But in terms of faith, I am im- poverished. Inadequate. Skeptical, indeed. And, put flatly, in my opinion not nearly a good enough person to belong tw any faith. (I am sometimes touched, sometimes amused, when readers conclude that because I am one of those ‘fanatic’? opponents of abortion, 1 must therefore be a NO Pr Purchase Tax eNO Conveying Fees °NOG.S.T. © 9% Financing tor 1 Year DON'T MISS OUT! 6100 DOWN Salts sentinel realty 925-9111 MLS. AMENITIES © Tennis court @ Work-out room Lounge © 88Q area * Secure bike storage **good"’ Catholic or a fundamen- talist Protestant. (Dear readers, 1 am too sinful, blasphemous and spiritually poor for that — to alter Groucho Marx a tite, I vouldn’t want to belong to any church that would allow me to be a member.) What I van say with confidence, however, is that the retreat of Christianity as the faith of Western culture has been a social and even an intellectual calamity. I belatedly add — should have said much earlier — that, to the extent that it too has declined, which is rather less than the Christian aspect of our society, I very much include Judaic. Among my biases is that I’m extremely pro-Semitic, if one can be such a thing. I take almost as personal grief and sheme the wretched record of most Christian churches in ac- quiescing in the hideous Nazi persecution and slaughter of the Jews, a disgrace which many Christians and others have tried to make up for in these days when we can take some comfort in the phrase ‘‘the Judeo-Christian ethic.’’ The decline of that ethic’s in- fluence on public policy has been, as I said, disastrous. It has been replaced by a “‘neutral’’ ethic, a secular ethic, a ‘situational’ ethic — which has turned out to be: no ethic at all. The religious ethic — The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and the miracles surrounding Moses and the prophets and Jesus having been dropped as dreadfully passe and, worse, oppressively monocultural — seemed at first to have been succeeded by a vague, Boy Scout-ish, Good Citizenship ethic, a sort of Christianity without Christ: bright, liberal, humane, practical in its goodness, and ringingly humanistic. This was the ethic that I was largely brought up in. It has failed spectacularly. Assured that man is the highest being, mankind behaved in- humanely and predictably lost self-respect. Assured that nothing mattered, that life itself was more that causeless and meaningless fluke, mankind created rap. And pointless violence. And boundiess greed. And demeaning por- nography. And rich athletes strik- 441 wouldnt want to belong to any church that would allow me to be a member, 99 Assured that there was no after-life, mankind behaved liter- ally as if there was no tomorrow. Assured that materialism was everything, mankind smashed everything, including the material. Assured that there was no **good”’ or ‘‘evil,’? mankind was free to “‘choose’’ -— as Camus said, if there is no God, then people are equally free to nurse the sick or to stoke the crematorial fires. They often chose badly, and at great cost. Assured that the priests and the ministers had nothing to offer but superstition, mankind went to its psychiatrists. Sager thanks MAYOR MARK Sager com- plimented West Vancouver municipal hall staff Monday night for their efforts in organizing a visit earlier that day from Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, who presented ing against rich owners. And any- thing, everything, to distract it from the all-pervasive emptiness around it. The faith never attained any- thing like a perfect world. It committed manifold sins itself. But it was never troubled by its errors and failures. It was never thoughtless. And its grace, its unremitting sharpness about the frailty of mankind, its unique sense of forgiveness and redemption — these were its great comforts. And it did more. It held back the bar- barian within us all. W. Van staff an official patent to the district. “It was the second time in West Vancouver history that we have had a visit from the Governor General,’’ said Sager. 110 WEST 4TH AT LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER. INTEREST RATES NOW LOW! BUY NOW - TURN YOUR RENT INTO EQUITY [Price | $122,000 | $149.00 _] Town Payment | 12.200 | 14.000 | [morgage Payment | _e21.00 | 1110.00 harbour views © Vertical blinds © 36 oz. carpet 983-2331 FEATURES ® Spectacular mountain and © Fridge. range, dishwasher © Track lighting © Floor to ceiting mirror closet doors © Underground secure parking Maintenance TOTAL Payment 1BEDROOM 2BEDROOM 3K FIRST “IME BUYERS OAC SALES OFFICE AND DISPLAY SUITES OPEN DAILY 1 TO 6 P.M. ‘MARKETED BY PROJECT fi MARKETMHG S25-1101