For years, I’ve been doing what might be called “deep analysis” about the decay of the Western Mind, an inseparable part of the decay of Western Civilization, that is—Western Christian Civilization. Along with this, at times inseparable from this, I’ve been doing “deeper analysis” of Creation and its relationship to the Creator. Much of what I’ve done has even been analysis and speculation about created being, from the point where God created the raw stuff of this Creation, of what is not Him. Maybe I’m overestimating my accomplishments, but I think I’ve created a new foundation and some of the superstructure for producing a new Christian understanding of Creation as a Creation, that is, a new understanding of created being in light of the few but very fundamental revealed truths of Christianity.
This is all fine. Building foundations and the scaffolding for new civilizations (or—unlikely—perhaps for a major addition and renovation to Western Christian Civilization) is necessary and a good work which serves God’s purposes, the major one being the formation of the Pilgrim Body of Christ, the Heavenly Community of Christ’s friends in a very tentative form in this mortal world.
But this isn’t a work which can be done in quite the way of constructing a new house or a new hospital building. The building of rooms and entire major sections must start and go on even as work continues on the foundation and superstructure.
I’d like to participate in a study center or a new school, mostly as a creative thinker and writer—I’d also like to return to writing novels for a while. Teaching? I’ll try. I failed miserably in a CCD class which was too large and filled with too many half-exhausted and uninterested students. Some of the young men and one or two young women were coming from sports practice or after-school jobs. It seemed from casual conversations that all of them placed a high priority on their TV and some on their Internet. As a result, they were exhausted and little disposed to learning this Catholic Christian stuff that was incompatible with their understanding of the world which came from evolutionary biology and history as taught in American public schools as well as from movies and other forms of entertainment. In particular, nighttime professional football and world series baseball games seemed to be greatly harming any efforts to educate American young people.
Anyway, I’d like to hear (commenting s/b working or email me loydf at loydfueston.com) if there are any others, as individuals or groups, who are thinking along these lines. I’d especially like to hear if anyone knows how to convince, as one example, Catholic or other Christian benefactors to put their skills and financial resources towards efforts which might actually rescue or rebuild Western Christian Civilization. I know that it’s very important for universities founded as Catholic or Christian of a different flavor to make runs at national championships in basketball and football and other sports but maybe good athletic programs or even refurbished cathedrals (St Patrick’s renovation cost a lot of money) are less important than understanding God’s Creation and trying to figure out where He wants us to heading? As things are going, it might not be long before St Patrick’s is torn down to put up a skyscraper for vulture investment firms. Or it might join the other Christian church buildings which have been converted into restaurants or night-clubs or the like.