Another interesting video from Dr. Stephen Turley.
We came across Turley recently and find him interesting because
his basic argument is that there is a worldwide turn to conservative values,
traditionalism, and nationalism, in the US, Eastern Europe, the EU, Russia, the
Middle East, Africa, South America - in fact, all continents, and that
this change is being driven by the loosening of the liberal, globalist grip on
information flow due to technology. You can see all his articles on
RI here.
Turley is a theology, Greek, and rhetoric teacher in the
booming classical education movement,
which is predominantly conservative. He is a former Protestant from Connecticut
who converted to Orthodoxy.
He hosts a rapidly growing YouTube broadcast about
these trends from a conservative viewpoint.
Transcript:
The nation of Hungary has announced its official policy to stand
with and protect persecuted Christians around the world.
Breitbart News had an excellent and very informative interview
with the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto who outlined the
top priorities for Hungarian foreign policy and financial assistance, and you
will notice how radically different it sounds from the goals of globalist
leaders.
Szijjarto argued that Hungary is first and foremost a Christian
nation, and as such, it is going to prioritize helping persecuted Christians
around the world. He of course is referencing particularly Middle East
Christians who have been the victims of some of the most horrific violence
imaginable, especially by ISIS.
By the way, ISIS has been so effectively neutralized, defeated
and destroyed I am thankful to say. You know who has been responsible for that
defeat and destruction of ISIS? It is the result of a joint effort between
Russia and the United States. What do you know? Our media loves to talk about
the great things that can happen when these two powers join together in a
common purpose …
Szijjarto expressed his frustration with Brussels and the EU in
that, whenever he has brought up the special responsibility that Europeans have
to persecuted Christians in the Middle East and around the world, Eurocrats
just look at him and basically say, Uh, no, we need to show that we are
tolerant and that we do not favor any particular religion. Of course, in order
to show how tolerant they are, they show favoritism to Muslims. Figure that one
out!
Actually, there is a reason for why these Eurocrats show
favoritism to Islam over Christianity. What we have to understand is that under
globalization, I wish I could say that the problem is ONLY that these Eurocrats
consider Islam every bit as valid as Christianity. I wish I could say that was
the worst of it.
In one sense, that IS the case, globalists do in fact see Islam
and Christianity has equally valid religious belief systems, since
globalization by definition sees all religions as equally valid. There is no basis,
no standard of evaluation within the rationale of globalization that can
differentiate the legitimacy of one religion over against another. They are all
equally valid expressions of sovereign individuals. Globalization relativizes
all religions to the individual, as a matter of individual choice, and quite
literally leaves it at that at least at one level.
However it gets even worse. At another level, globalization
breeds political correctness. What globalization basically does is it eclipses
localized customs, traditions, languages, and religions with a
one-size-fits-all consumer-based value system.
So whereas different localities used to be characterized by
different cultural symbols and practices, globalization comes in and starts
getting rid of all of the unique identity markers of particular localities and
replaces them with highly standardized, mechanized, franchises at both the
economic and political levels, so that downtown Tokyo looks almost exactly the
same as downtown Manhattan in Times Square; the same stores, same corporations,
same fast food restaurants, same movies, and the like. …………….
What political correctness begins to do is it begins to view all
those historic customs and traditions that globalism is replacing, as outdated,
exclusionary, and unnecessarily intolerant.
Our traditions and customs often stand against things that our
new consumer-based cultures think are perfectly natural and normal.
You see, political correctness begins to see our historic
cultures and customs and traditions as discriminatory and intolerant and
unjust; in other words, political correctness does not exclude against the
dominant culture simply because a new set of globalizing economic processes has
eclipsed it; as far as political correctness is concerned, the dominant culture
is being excluded because it is racist, homophobic, bigoted, colonialist, or
what have you.
Political correctness therefore takes the opportunity afforded
to it by the economic eclipsing processes of globalism to in fact welcome into
the public square or into the marketplace cultures, lifestyles, races, genders,
sexual orientations, and YES RELIGIONS that are now considered to have been
oppressed and disenfranchised by the dominant culture.
This turns into our new sense of justice; it is technically
known as emancipatory politics, this notion that it is always good, always, to
show favoritism to whatever minority group Western civilization has supposedly
persecuted. And of course, in the West, that persecuted minority religiously
speaking would be Muslims, certainly not Christians.
And so, in the name of being just in the politically correct
sense, our elites are even more concerned with the rights and privileges of
Muslims than they are with Christians. Or with immigrants than they are with
citizens. Can anyone say Tommy Robinson?
This is what makes nations like Hungary and many others like
Poland, Slovakia, nationalist Austria and Italy, and yes, indeed, Russia, so
wonderful; in standing up for persecuted Christians in the Middle East, these
nations are in fact rejecting this whole notion of political correctness. They
are rejecting it out of hand in the name of solidarity and alliance with those
who are an integral part of the religious traditions and customs that define
our nations and common civilization.
Make no mistake, in standing FOR Christians, Hungary is standing
AGAINST globalization and its politically correct redefinition of justice and
equity.
Now one last thing here; we have looked at the Hungarian
prime-minister Viktor Orban’s vision for a Christian democracy in detail in a
past; Orban, in his speeches of late, has argued that Hungary is in the midst
of building what he calls a ‘Christian democracy’ as over against the secular
globalist vision of the EU; and we outlined four features of what a Christian
democracy looks like as derived from Viktor Orban’s speeches.
The first feature was that church and state work together to
protect a nation’s customs, culture, and tradition as they are rooted in a
distinctively Christian vision of life; so we are not talking about a theocracy
here; we are talking about church and state working together.
The second feature is stringent border security that protects
the Christianity that is protecting the culture; so as we are seeing here with
Hungary’s concern for persecuted minorities, they have actually expedited the
ability of Christian refugees to come into Hungary. Hungary is not
anti-immigrant per se, it is anti-immigration on globalist terms.
That is what the BBC always likes to leave out in its coverage
of Hungary; so you can come into the nation as an immigrant no problem, but you
have to affirm the Christian culture and institutions that are central to their
national identity; so border security is an essential feature of Christian
Democracy.
The third feature is some form of economic nationalism that
guards against the narcissistic consumerist values that can undermine a culture
from within.
And the fourth feature involves placing a priority on the
traditional family as the basis for a flourishing national future. We have seen
how Hungary has been able to effectively reverse its population decline with
the institution of pro-family measures.
Now we are seeing a fifth feature emerge, and that is what we
might call a post-secular international relations feature, where Hungary, as a
Christian democracy, will prioritize alliances with and financial aid to
nations that share a common commitment to the traditional values, culture, and
customs that undergird a distinctively Christian vision of life.
What is interesting here is that international relations, what
is often referred to as IR, is a notoriously, absolutely notoriously secular
enterprise. Religion is irrelevant in the various schools of international
relations. However what we are seeing from the likes of Hungary is the
emergence of a distinctively post-secular international relations, where a
Christian nation is formally declaring alliance-priorities with other Christian
groups around the world, in this case, in terms of protection and advocacy for
persecuted Christians.
And so, Hungary just continues to show us what a new
conservative age more and more looks like as it stands for nation, custom, and
tradition in an increasingly post-secular, post-globalist world.