Holy War! The Rise and Fall of the American Theocracy: 2039-2079 (Part 4)
By Nathaniel Lane Stewart, M. A.
The Unique Phenomenon of the American Theocratic Republic (Part 4)
(Note: This post marks Part 4 in a series on the history of the American Theocracy, a work supposedly published in A. D. 2195, when much of the world was governed by the Covenant of Religious Detente, a series of accords proposed by Pope John Paul III in A. D. 2121 and agreed to by leaders of Christendom, Islam and Judaism ten years later. The author of this book, Professor Nathaniel Stewart, taught at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia during the middle of the twenty-second century, one of the few universities still left in the North American continent which was devastated by war from the 2040’s to the 2070’s. This section continues his second observation regarding the historical significance of the American Theocracy-the unique historical and philosophical world which contributed its existence. For the previous section of this part, see the link below. Parts 1 and 2 can also be read on this blog.)
Thus, what was this unusual convergence of ideas that occurred in the early decades of the twenty-first century (which was the result of the philosophical revolutions of both Modernity and Post-modernity) and would lay the ground work for the institution of the American Theocratic Republic in 2065?
The answer to that question can be readily found by discerning the pan-centennial flow of western philosophy from the rise and spread of Modernity, its slow morphing into Post-modernity, and the eventual collapse of Western philosophy as a whole by the 2040’s. It is beyond the scope of this essay to provide a complete survey of these systems of thought and their impact upon the history of the world (10). However, such an examination is not required in order to answer our query. A simple understanding of each proposition as it moved from age to age will provide us with a more than sufficient answer to this question. But first, let us outline the eras of the history of Philosophy as well as that of religion before explaining each position:
1. The Protestant ‘hiccup’ of the Christian Church (1517-1650)
2. The Age of Modernity (1650-1950)
3. The Era of Post-Modernity (1950-2040)
4. The Great Collapse (2040-2065)
5. The American Theocratic Republic (2065-2079)
One of the most important observations that needs to be noted is that the Age of Modernity, the Era of Post-modernity, the Great Collapse and the American Theocratic Republic can all find their origins in what historians now refer to as the ‘Protestant hiccup’ of the Christian church. Again, it is beyond our purpose to examine these inter-historical connections (11), but we note this fact for one reason: While most of the Theocratic apologists were rather anti-Protestant in the traditional and historic sense, they were hardly loyal churchmen as was demonstrated by President L. Carter McPherson’s purge of the ‘Old Order Catholics’ in 2069 from the party apparatus (12). So in one sense, the American Theocracy was the final gasp of a degenerate and dying semi-Protestantism. But on this point, we digress. The two key questions we must ask are 1. How did the Protestant version of Christendom give birth the Age of Modernity, and given this fact, 2. Why was the Age of Modernity so long (1650-1950)?
The answer to the first question is actually discovered in the answer to the second question, so we shall answer the latter one first.
The Age of Modernity roughly spans the years A. D. 1650-1950. It’s length must be credited to the fact that in 5,300 years of philosophical and religious speculation (including all Pre-Christian thought), Modernity was the oddest and perhaps most irrational school of thought ever (13). The reason is thus:
While the Modern rejected the spiritual principle, definitions, propositions and general principles of Christendom (both Protestant and Catholic forms), its school of thought maintained in outward form the basic principles of knowledge, structure, order, rational thought, applications and ethics of Christendom, and particularly that of Protestant Christendom. So that while many Moderns were anti-Christian in thought, they were nonetheless, quite Christian in knowledge, forms, traditions, and practices. And herein is the greatest irrationality of the Modern. In form, he was Christian while in spirit he was not. It was this paradox that gave Modernity its length as well as laying seeds that would ultimately produce a cancer that will kill it entirely.
The three distinct phases of Modernity express well how Modernity was shaped by Christianity even as it rejected its basic principles:
Early Modernity (1650-1800)
High Modernity (German Higher Critical Thought; also known as the German Era of Modernity) (1800-1900)
Late Modernity (or Dialectic Materialism, or Secular Modernity) (1900-1950)
To Be Continued. . .
(10) Professor M. C. J. Hopkins, IV, Ph. D., D. D., held the Chair of Historical Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, England, and wrote a very fine work outlining the course of the Modern and Post-modern Philosophies. His work, while highly devoted to the worship of the Holy Catholic Church, is nonetheless a true work of scholarship and provides a helpful survey in this topic. It is entitled: The Historical, Existential, and Catastrophic Consequences of Collective Unbelief: An Historical Survey and Interpretative Examination of the causes and course of Protestant Sectarian and Rational Absurdities upon the history of the Catholic Church, 1500-2131. (And this is the abbreviated title. Sadly, Professor Hopkins was never known for his brevity.)
(11) Besides Professor Hopkins’ work, see the essay, An Examination of the Parallel and Contrasting Strains with Modern and Orthodox Protestantism, 1850-2070, by Charles L. Fields, M. A., Professor of History and Philosophy, New York Ecclesiastic University, A. D. 2161.
(12) See Volume II, Part 2, Chapter 15, of this work for the historical background of the ‘purge.’ While many scholars of the church in our time claim the purge by President McPherson was purely religious in nature, the facts appear to indicate his actions were a combination of both religious ideology and political convenience. After the National Referendum for McPherson as Supreme President of the Theocratic Republic in A. D. 2068, many Old Catholics aligned themselves with the last remnants of the Neo-Libertarians (who had subsumed all other opposition groups, including the American Gay Party) and both groups were still hoping to overthrow the Theocratic government some time between A. D. 2069 and 2070. Recent documents have provided evidence that the Old Order Catholics had exchanged secret letters with officials at the Vatican who had promised the support of papacy in the overthrow of the American Theocratic regime. However, these same documents show that while some church leaders favored intervention in the American political crisis, the majority did not, primarily due to the fact that much of Europe was still under Russian domination and the papacy was trying to balance both cooperation with the Russian Imperial Federation and the underground movements fighting against this occupation. Thus, support from the Papacy for an overthrow of the American theocracy was never forthcoming, and many Old Order Catholics were either killed or imprisoned in camps during the second Neo-Nullification crisis in A. D. 2071. Those who survived were liberated by the armies of the Eastern Alliance in A. D. 2077-2079.
(13) See Professor Stewart’s work, The Death of the State: How the German Epistemological Matrix Destroyed the Protestant Commonwealth, Chapter 5 for a concise explanation of the irrationality of Modernity.
smcope 