France in Decline. A Cautionary Tale for America.

From 1965 to 1968 I served in France for two and one-half years as a Mormon missionary.  Eighteen months of that period I lived in the Paris area.  Though I met many interesting and cordial French people, the French, by and large, were not interested in the LDS religious message.  Nor, were they interested in religion, in general, though most claimed to be nominally Catholic.  The Telegraph article linked here (How France became trapped in a spiral of chaos and decline (telegraph.co.uk)) describes the consequences for a country forgetting its cultural roots, of which religion is a key element. 

 

In 2016 I read "Beyond Radical Secularism" by Pierre Manent, France's foremost contemporary political philosopher.  Manent blames France's walking away from what he calls its "Christian mark" as contributing to French cultural decline. France's cultural problem is exacerbated by the increase in the Muslim population who want to retain their own ways and not be subsumed into the cultural permissiveness that has replaced France's "Christin mark."    The Catholic Church, Manent says, is inextricably linked to the development of French culture and its influence needs to be restored to secure French cultural survival.    I am reminded of Vladimir Putin's rationale for resisting cultural linkage with secular Europe.  Putin has noted that Russian culture suffered greatly when the communist state tried to eliminate God from the peoples' daily lives.  Putin, with many problems on his hands following from the communist period... alcoholism, population shrinkage... affirms that a strong Russian culture is like a double helix... where religion and the state work together to create that which can lead a people to identify with a common cultural theme.  It is that 'theme" which Manent claims is missing from France today.

 

In the same way that secular ideas damaged Russia, and now France, they represent a similar risk to America's cultural survival.  US Progressives seek a constant intervention of the state in the private sphere with regard to the body where heretofore Christian heritage had set certain boundaries.  Progressive successes to date have enabled gay marriage, and the rise of transhumanism, and transgenderism, practices which challenge the boundaries defined by nature.  Byproducts of progressive policy include a decline of family formation, a rise in crime and a weakened economy.  America needs to ensure its openness to religious traditions as a marker of cultural strength, or else, risk the cultural decline seen in France real time today.