Free Republic

“If there is no God, everything is permitted”, wrote Dostoyevsky. Yet he underestimated the despotic potential of godless modernity. It imposes its own taboos, and they may well be more numerous than those imposed by Christendom. They certainly are different because their purpose is. Judaeo-Christianity saw man as sinful but capable of becoming better. Both its prescriptions and proscriptions were issued to signpost the road to self-improvement in this world and salvation in the next. The original commandments were chiselled in stone literally, the later ones figuratively, but there was no room left for misinterpretation in either case. Modernity sees...

One has to admit that Donald isn’t everybody’s idea of a pious Presbyterian. Though he still maintains some loose connection with his parents’ confession, his behaviour is, how shall I put it, more Playboy than Presbyterian. And yet he won over Christians by a wide margin: 52 per cent of all Catholics, 58 per cent of all Protestants and 82 per cent of all evangelicals voted for him. The Catholic vote is particularly notable. After all, some 40 per cent of US Catholics are Hispanics, and, putting it mildly, Trump didn’t go out of his way to endear himself to...