It is popular in some conservative circles to glorify the Confederacy. Many of us go through a phase in which we piously announce various bromides, such as “The real issue of the Civil War was State’s Rights, not slavery.” Or, “It was whether Americans had the right to leave the Union.” Lincoln is blamed for the war, which he is said to have orchestrated on behalf of Northern capitalists and bankers. In fact, that war was orchestrated by the South, whose leaders didn’t let the citizens of their own states have a vote on secession. As a result of that hypocrisy (“We, your leaders, are free to secede, but you are not free to vote on it.”), and the brutality of their slave-based economy, over half the people in many Southern States were against the war. Their lack of support was a great reason for Northern success.
Vanity also arises when discussing the failures of various systems of governments. Socialism, Capitalism, and Communism are universally condemned. Various half-witted systems like “Distributionism” are praised, though no one is quite sure what they are, how they will be implemented, or if they should be.
Catholic Fundamentalists believe that they have found an intellectual basis for The Church that’s been widely, if not intentionally, overlooked. There is no vanity involved in taking the position that “God can program energies and particles. He compiled them into bigger programs of systems and beings, and downloaded the interwoven sub-programs into The Creation Program, in which each of us human programs has been downloaded and lives until our souls leave our bodies and go to Judgment.
So, why are Catholic Fundamentalists not guilty of vanity while other conservatives may be? It’s because our view of God shows His overwhelming power to be so great that we cannot help but be humbled.
Is that sort of humility something of which we can be proud?
