FAITH: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

by Buffalo Jenkins

For those of us on the alternative or far right, there is a divisive hurdle we must address soberly: the crisis of faith.

It must be examined from all perspectives, in a broad-minded way that can be applied functionally, absorbing as many different groups and opinions as possible, while creating a broad acceptance for any ideology that is ethnically fortifying.

To begin with, we must own that the religion issue is a three part question.

Atheists amongst us will say we do not need faith at all. The currently faithful will hold fast to their Christian tradition, while the pagans will say we need something new (inspired by the old). Then there are agnostics like myself who have passed from a youthful Christianity, through a 'raving atheist' stage, to a mature realization that religion is a unifying, societal necessity.

I personally now represent a bizarre mishmash, religiously speaking. I adore the pagan beliefs and myths, and would aspire to a pagan morality, but will never be completely free of my Catholic upbringing, which must be acknowledged as my moral root. I am at the same time sympathetic with certain aspects of atheism, such as the truth at all costs aspect. For me, at this moment, all three of these worldviews exist at once, within the grand mystery, which is all and none of them and infinitely more inexplicable.

In truth, the very existence of our lives and the universe suggest perhaps a hidden underlying meaning or purpose. While religion can sometimes be a dangerously absorbing, irrational belief, it is also a cultural bedrock. The needed moral codes are laid out, or they are interpreted from a natural feeling derived from what some would call “God.” Men’s and women’s roles are codified according to their biological strengths and imperatives, and the details of how we should live are devised and thus evolve. Indeed this question of how we should live should always follow our basic natural instincts, where possible encouraging the broadly good, or the long-term good, and discouraging the broadly bad.

Though a great many of us can exist and strive for strength and self-determination as a spiritual pursuit without following a specific religion, it seems a much easier, faster and more effective to be born with and die believing a specific regional religion as traditional keystone to meaning. This remains a truth, for a healthy individual or society, regardless of the objective “truth” of a given religious doctrine. If you take God from the common man he creates a thousand new gods in His place.

If we can then agree, even those of us who have discarded religion, that is seems a strange necessity, and if so, then the larger and most immediately troubling question remains.

Which faith we should follow?

Firstly there are the last remnants of a living faith, being the various forms of Christianity, which is perhaps currently best exemplified (in terms of strength of self-determination and resistance to post modernism) in the forms of Orthodoxy and traditional Catholicism. Whether we can redirect Christian faith through some kind of funnel into one specific strain seems dubious, and it is likely that should it see a revitalization, all the variations of Christianity that currently exist would continue with perhaps some new amalgamations thrown in.

The idea of reigniting Paganism is very appealing for several reasons. However, it must be admitted that a truly Pagan outlook is something quite alien to the modern perspective. It can involve quite a different morality in relation to sex for instance, or compassion towards others, and the core seems elusive to modern minds. Think of a people that would congregate on a weekend to watch convicts get eaten alive by bears and lions, or leave exposed babies on a hillside! There is a certain strength there, but also a quality quite bizarre, even appalling. I must say I find pagan art much more interesting than Christian art, and the myths enthralling (while the Bible’s stories largely bore me). However, how serious will these youthful white Neo-Pagans feel about their new religion as things get more desperate and dystopian? I doubt, in their current embodiment, that they have the same courage as a believing Christian. For now, anyway.

Atheists I cannot begrudge (providing they are not annoying atheists) as I have experienced their dismay. Losing faith and embracing hard reality was an initial step to breaking my ‘programming’ and shirking liberalism. Still, overly scornful atheists must at least learn the importance of religion as a cultural bond, and not mock their comrades. Alternatively one should not be shouted down or disavowed for observing the purely rational view, even materialistic view, providing it is tempered with this understanding.

So, what is the way forward? How to find a way to unite Neo-Pagansim, Christianity, and atheism?

What I recommend, for a start, would be that faith is encouraged but that its specifics not be made too much of a focus. We ought to encourage corps of people belonging to each faith, united under their own banners (the cross, the triskele, the sun wheel, and… well, whatever it is atheists use) to march alongside each other, each focusing on individual strengths, each with mutual respect.

There are excellent fighters, scholars, patriots and idealists in all three corners that we can and must not do without. Once cultural Marxism eats itself alive, the main existential problem facing our tribe will be the uniting of these three faiths in a kind of truce, at least until we have defeated our enemies. Forward, diversely believing tribesmen! Forward, to victory!