I have just re-read four novels by American Jewish author Chaim Potok: The Chosen and The Promise, and My  Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev. Over the course of the past few years I also have read other, non-fiction, books and articles about Jews and Judaism, and in the process my views have shifted:

The more I read about the subject the more I am convinced that the typical evangelical Christian reading of the religion of the Older Testament, as a religion whose followers try to earn their salvation by works, rather than relying on God’s mercy and grace, is nonsense.

Of course there are nominal believers in Judaism, just as in all Christian traditions; of course there are legalists and others who think that they are good enough to earn their salvation, just as there are Christians like that; of course there are groups within Judaism who have abandoned faith in a God who acts in this world and who have reduced their religion to ethical principles—just like we have in Christianity as well.

But faithful, Torah-observant Jews know that they depend on God’s mercy, not on their own goodness—that’s the point of Pesach and Yom Kippur and all the other feasts, to remind them to depend on God who has shown Himself to be faithful before, time and time again throughout Israel’s history. They view their obedience to the commandments of Torah not as an annoying burden but as a joy — hence the feast of Simchat Torah, the joy of the Torah, at the end of the reading cycle.

Of course Christians lament that most Jews do not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. But it is high time that we as Christians recognize our own part in that, our own collective culpability in that regard. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 11 that he regards it as his — and thus by extension our — responsibility to provoke the Jews to jealousy as they observe God’s life in the followers of Jesus. In this we have spectacularly failed. Instead, throughout 2000+ years of church history we have excelled at provoking the Jews to anger, to revulsion, turning Jesus’ name into a curse word among them.

And even those among us who support Israel all too often do so not from a love of Israel as God’s chosen people, as the apple of His eye, but from rather utilitarian eschatological calculation.

Anyway, my reading, most recently the novels by Chaim Potok, has caused me to re-evaluate my attitude towards Jews, Judaism, and Israel. While I do not embrace any sort of “two covenants” theology (one covenant for the Jews, another for the rest of us) I can well imagine a merciful, gracious God taking into account how the behaviour of many of those who claim the name of Christ has made it difficult for Jews to recognize Jesus as their Messiah.

Why I consider even a merely insinuated comparison of conservative Christians and Islamist fundamentalists to be scandalous

A few days ago this Facebook post was shared, without comment, by an Austrian Christian leader:

“Women can work but not be leaders” (Taliban). Now where have I come across that before?

My criticism of this was dismissed by this leader as “more than exaggerated”, and others agreeed with him or even denied that it constituted such a comparison. Someone else said that my criticism/protest suggested that the comparison was apt. Only one commenter agreed with me and said that he thought the comparison inappropriate.

I have since deleted my crititcal comment because I am not really interested in conducting a public debate with this brother; however, since I suspect that with the Taliban take-over in Afghanistan there will be more of these comparisons I would like to lay out why I consider these inappropriate.

I want to first of all express my appreciation for those who admitted that this post was aimed at conservative Christians; I think that it is rather dishonest to deny this.

Then I would like to point out that it is not at all my intention to defend the one or the other side in this debate of the role of women in the church; my own position on this is not at all fully or finally developed; more on this later.

It is also clear that “the world” which is, after all, critical of Christianity will draw such comparisons and will associate conservative Christians with Islamist extremists; after all, that is why the term “fundamentalist”, which originally was the self-designation of Christians who wanted to hold on to the fundamental  truths of the faith, has by now become a derogatory term used for all sorts of extremists, from radical environmentalists to Islamist terrorists like ISIS, Al Kaeda, or the Taliban.

What really bothered me about this post and the comments that followed was first of all the fact that these came from Christians, and in the case of the post itself from a Christian who is active in a number of ecumenical initiatives which maintain that Christians from different traditions, who hold to very different theological positions, should nevertheless deal with each other respectfully. To suggest this comparison is not dealing respectfully.

After all, the position of conservative Christian churches who restrict women from holding leadership positions is based on their understanding of Scripture; specifically on their understanding of the words of the Apostle Paul, for example in the first epistle to Timothy, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (1 Timothy 2:12 ESV). One may or may not share this understanding, but one should never lose sight of the fact that the people in these conservative churches are Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ, for whom Christ died. This is why Paul’s words in Romans 14 came to mind, where he says, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4 ESV).

The second reason I consider this comparison so inappropriate is the fact that the Taliban and other Islamist extremists not only limit women’s access to leadership roles but suppress and oppress them in a multitude of other ways, threatening them with forced marriage, physical violence, and even death. By making this comparison one inevitably associates conservative Christians with all these forms of oppression.

Of course the same is true when one tries to associate the rejection of lived-out homosexuality by conservative Christians with the persecution of homosexual people by Islamist extremists, as when ISIS in Irak murdered them by throwing them off tall buildings. Christians have indeed in the past failed to treat homosexual people with respect; but to simply point out that the Bible considers lived-out homosexuality as contrary to the created order is no-where near on a par with violent persecution.

Now, as far as my personal position on these issues:

I have not come to a definitive view on the question of women and leadership in the church. I find the Roman Catholic rejection of women priests more logically consistent than the rejection of women preachers in an Evangelical context[1]; the question of women in church leadership is a lot less clear in my view. However, I find the manner and tone, in which this conflict is handled on both sides of the issue extremely destructive, both in the Roman Catholic church and in the Evangelical movement. Unfortunately the Protestant Churches in Germany and Austria[2], as well as the main Anglican Churches in the UK[3] and North America [4], provide prime examples of what conservative Evangelicals have always said: that the acceptance of women clergy goes hand in hand with the abandonment of biblical Christianity in all sorts of other ways, and that once some tenet of the faith is made optional, it won’t be long before it is abandoned completely.

I believe that this whole debate rests, ultimately, on a major misunderstanding: that a person in a leadership position is somehow better or more valuable than everybody else. This is a very unbiblical idea; Scripture tells us that whoever wants to be a leader should first of all be a servant of all (Matthew 20:26-28); it also tells us that one should not strive for leadership positions (James 3:1)
 
It is my considered view that women who insist on wanting to be pastors or leaders in a church where the official position or leadership does not allow this, instead of either submitting to the existing policy and leadership or else finding another church are just as destructive as conservative Christians who use all sorts of political agitation to try and change the policy of a church which permits female pastors and leaders, or as Christians of either persuasion who publicly condemn each other and each other’s churches.

After all, it isn’t as if this only applied to women. The majority of men are not leaders, either. And men who for whatever reason are not called to leadership positions in the church also have to live with it; no-one who is not called to a leadership position by a church can insist on his or her calling to this position.

In this context I am reminded of something that was repeatedly stressed in the church we attended in Texas: that only a limited numbe of men are called by the church to be elders, but that there are others, both men and women, who function as leaders, by virtue of their exemplary life and the wise counsel they give others. We can all aspire to be such leaders.
 
I have sat through several years of delegates’ conferences[5]  where a particular sister persistently strove to be recognized as a pastor; I have also sat through several years of church assemblies[6] where a particular brother tried in vain to be elected to the elder board of his church; in neither case did these increasingly desparate efforts make for peace or glorify God.

And on the subject of homosexuality:

Scripture is pretty clear that sex has its place only with the marriage of one man to one woman. I have more respect for homosexual people who acknowledge this and clearly admit that they are unable or unwilling to follow Scripture in this, than for people who deny this fact.

This biblical verdict excludes all sorts of things, such as pre- and extra-marital sex between men and women, as well as all sex between men or between women. It also excludes same-sex marriage. Thus, if a church claims to follow the Bible as the basis of its faith and practice, then these things are not acceptable in the church. However, the state is not the church; in most cases today it is a secular state governed democratically, and it can regulate things differently. As an evangelical Christian I don’t really have too much of a problem if the secular state wants to authorize same-sex marriage, as long as it doesn’t demand that churches recognize such relationships as marriages and even bless them. I also believe that homosexual people, just as all people, are created in the image of God and as such deserve to be treated with respect, and it really isn’t my business how people outside the church lead their lives. Within the church it is the church’s business to regulate these things in accordance with the Word of God, and a state which claims to grant freedom of religion should not really interfere.

In both of these areas Christians should be open and stand for their convictions, and it is o.k. to criticise those whose convictions differ, as long as this criticism  is expressed respectfully: it is the lack of respect which I found offensive and disappointing about the referenced Facebook post.

1. This is because the Roman Catholic understanding of the priest as acting, in the Eucharist, in persona Christi, i.e. in the person of Christ, and Christ clearly was male; this argument does not hold for the office and act of preaching[↩]
2. Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Evangelische Kirche in Österreich – the united Lutheran and Reformed “mainline” churches in these countries[↩]
3. Church of England, Church of Wales, Scottish Episcopal Church, Church of Ireland – the member churches of the Anglican Communion in the UK and Eire[↩]
4. The Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada – the member churches of the Anglican Communion in the US and Canada[↩]
5. part of the annual convention of the Austrian Baptist Union[↩]
6. the “Annual General Meeting” of an Austrian Baptist church where major decisions are made and the leadership is elected, all by majority vote[↩]

Having grown up in a fairly traditional Roman Catholic family, by the time I reached my mid-teens I was no longer really interested in God and church. Then I met a group of young people to whom God seemed to be a living reality, and after spending some time with them I decided to follow Jesus myself.

After a few very formative months in England I came back to Vienna during the summer of 1972 and found my way to an evangelical church in the process of formation. This church later became known as the Tulpengasse or TUGA church, and was the subject of a book by Canadian Mennonite author Margaret Epp. Some of the people I got to know there are still more or less close friends today, such as Johannes Fichtenbauer, who today is a Roman Catholic deacon; others have already passed away, such as the church’s founding pastor and his wife, Canadian Mennonite Brethren missionaries Abe and Irene Neufeld; many others I have lost touch with after moving on, for a variety of reasons, to other churches both in Austria and abroad.

Today, the TUGA church is part of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Austria, and thus also part of the state-recognized Free Churches in Austria.

A few weeks ago the TUGA church moved from their longtime facilty in Tulpengasse in Vienna’s 8th district, to the novum venue in Wiedner Hauptstrasse 146, in Vienna’s 5th district, known as Margareten. Consequently they changed their name to Stadtlicht – Freikirche Margareten, i.e. Light For The City – Free Church Margareten.

The Stadtlicht church shares its space with the bi-lingual reformed New City Wien church, which also recently moved to the novum location from their old premises on the other side of Wiedner Hauptstraße, a few hundred meters towards the city center. My connection to New City Wien is the fact that my son Stephen and his wife are pretty intensively involved in this church, and that for this reason I have frequently attended their Sunday morning service in the past.

novum Wiedner Hauptstraße is a part of novum locations, a company started and owned by Christians which owns and operates multiple dual-use facilities across Austria: these are typically used by evangelical churches on the weekend, and rented out as conference and seminar facilities during the week. This business model is not without problems, and the co-existence of the two types of users  is not always friction-free, but it has made available affordable meeting spaces to evangelical churches who would otherwise have a hard time affording their own space.

Stadtlicht have their Sunday service in the morning, and New City Wien have theirs in the afternoon. Because of the restrictions imposed due to the Covid pandemic both churches are live streaming their services on YouTube, permitting me to follow both services despite my health-induced mobility challenges.

Here are the links to their respective YouTube channels, where the livestreams can be found each Sunday, as well with videos of past sermons:

• Stadtlicht / TUGA, Sunday 10:30 a.m
• New City Wien, Sunday 4:00 p.m.

My prayer and wish for these two churches is that together they can be an even brighter light and can even more effectively seek the welfare of the city whom their names reference (Jeremiah 29:7).

There are two things in this story which are not without pain to me:

On the one hand the fact that some of those I got to know and respect in the TUGA church (and of course also in various other churches since then) have somehow and for a variety of reasons drifted  away from biblical Christianity, towards some other ideology or philosophy. While I do not feel called or qualified to speculate on the eternal fate of other people (I am much to busy to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling — Philippians 2:12),  when I hear about someone’s passing, and the report is cloaked in the unbiblical language of New Age or other eastern esoteric religion, then, while I commit this person to the boundless love, mercy and grace of God, I cannot help but have some slight doubt as to their fate.

And on the other hand there is the sad fact that it was apparently not possible to preserve the Tulpengasse venue as a space for Christian ministry, and so an important piece of Vienna’s evangelical history is lost forever.

These “Twelve Rules for Promoting Harmony among Church Members” are taken from a “Manual for the Members of the Second Presbyterian Church” of Charleston, SC, from 1838. They previously appeared in a similar manual for a Presbyterian church in Petersburg, VA, in 1833. They are variously credited to Thomas Smyth (b. 1878, d.1873), pastor of the Charleston church, and William Plumer (b. 1802, d.1880), pastor of the Petersburg church. The facsimile is taken from the “Complete Works” of Thomas Smyth.

Presbyterian churches trace their origins, via Scotland, to the Swiss Reformers, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, and are thus part of the Reformed tradition of Protestant churches; as is true of most Protestant traditions there are now both more conservative and more liberal Presbyterian denominations.

These “Twelve Rules” are, of course, not specifically Presbyterian, but would contribute to peace and harmony in all churches, parishes, and communities, regardless of denomination.

Twelve Rules for Promoting Harmony
among Church Members

1. 1. To remember that we are all subject to failings and infirmities, of one kind or another.” — Matt 7:1-5; Rom 2:21-23.
   2. To bear with and not magnify each other’s infirmities.” — Gal 6:1.
   3. To pray one for another in our social meetings, and particularly in private.” — James 5:16.
   4. To avoid going from house to house, for the purpose of hearing news, and interfering with other people’s business.” — Lev 19:16.
   5. Always to turn a deaf ear to any slanderous report, and to allow no charge to be brought against any person until well founded and proved.” — Prov 25:23.
   6. If a member be in fault, to tell him of it in private, before it is mentioned to others.” — Matt 18:15.
   7. To watch against shyness of each other, and put the best construction on any action that has the appearance of opposition or resentment.” — Prov 10:12.
   8. To observe the just rule of Solomon, that is, to leave off contention before it be meddled with.” — Prov 17:14.
   9. If a member has offended, to consider how glorious, how God-like it is to forgive, and how unlike a Christian it is to revenge.” — Eph 4:2.
   10. To remember that it is always a grand artifice of the Devil, to promote distance and animosity among members of Churches, and we should, therefore, watch against everything that furthers his the Devil’s end.” — James 3:16.
   11. To consider how much more good we can do in the world at large, and in the Church in particular when we are all united in love, than we could do when acting alone, and indulging a contrary spirit.” — John 13:35.
   12. Lastly, to consider the express injunction of Scripture, and the beautiful example of Christ, as to these important things.” — Eph 4:32; 1 Pet 2:21; John 13:5,35.

The facsimile page is taken from a Facebook post by Log College Press but should be in the public domain because of its age.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:2)

Don & Nancy Prokop came to Austria as Vineyard missionaries, and together with Dave & Lisa Boyd the planted and nurtured the Vienna Vinyard. Their children Amy, Alyssa, and Matthew grew up near Vienna and attended Vienna Christian School (now International Christian School of Vienna). In recent years Don Prokop is part of the Mercy House of Prayer in Vienna, as well as part of the intercession team for the Austrian Roundtable, a grassroots Christian reconciliation initiative.

Their three children are married, Amy in California, Alyssa in Germany, and Matthew here in Austria.

In April of 2020 Alyssa’s husband David Kogler found her unresponsive in her bed. She was rushed to the hospital, and the initial diagnosis was an unspecified infection which had gone septic and caused swelling on the brain (cerebral edema). Alyssa almost died, and a short time later doctors diagnosed a rare condition: Addison’s Disease or hypocortisolism.

All of this has left Alyssa in a minimally conscious state, unable to walk, talk, care for herself or feed herself. At 46, the once vibrant caring wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend to many, a talented singer, has been silenced.

Because of Covid restrictions, initially visits were severely restricted; in fact, Alyssa’s children saw their mother for the first time in a full year in April 2021.

Since last summer Alyssa has been in a nursing home; she needs round the clock care and intensive therapies to hopefully regain some of her abilities. All this is expensive; in God’s providence much of it is covered by insurance and government aid. Nevertheless, Alyssa’s husband David faces a monthly shortfall of $1800 (€1500).

This is why Alyssa’s sister Amy has started a GoFundMe campaign to financially support Alyssa and her family.

In the spirit of “bearing one another’s burdens” I ask all my readers to consider participating, according to their means and abilities.

Let’s get this out of the way first: I am so sorry for the Trump reference in the title of this post—it does not refer to the former POTUS but is a quote from one of the articles I refer to in this post.

In an opinion column in today’s Daily Telegraph (unfortunately behind a pay wall for many) spiked columnist Ella Whelan comments on The Twitter mauling of Joe Rogan in the wake of the US comedian and podcast host suggesting that «the trajectory of “woke” culture is such that eventually “straight, white men won’t be able to talk”».

Her article illustrates and confirms something American theologian Voddie Baucham said in a recent interview (text summary / video) with Church Leadership Magazine and in his book, Fault Lines.

Here is the section from Ella Whelan’s column in the Telegraph:

According to some Black Lives Matter activists, white people need to “sit down” and stop talking about race. Feminists have long argued that men need to “lean out” or “shut up” and listen to women when it comes to issues relating to women. Transgender activists claim that any non-trans person deviating from the repetition of their “trans women are women” mantra must be a bigot, and therefore should be silenced. Teenage climate activists tell us we should be quiet and “listen to the science” rather than debating the best way to tackle environmental challenges.

In a recent online debate on intimacy during lockdown, I was told I couldn’t possibly comment on the benefits of dating apps for sexual exploration because I am married. In almost all aspects of contemporary politics, lived experience has trumped open debate, meaning that unless you fit into whichever identity or experience is being discussed, your views are deemed less valid.

In the interview in Church Leadership Magazine, Dr. Baucham discusses Critical Race Theory (CRT) which underpins the current social justice movement. He says it isn’t just a pseudo-religion but is rather its own religious movement. It has all the trappings of religion, a point which even atheists have made. The movement has its own cosmology, its own saints, its own liturgy, and its own law.

And here is the section where it meshes perfectly with what Ella Whelan says in her column:

What we have in our culture is not an objective truth, but we have a cultural hegemony that is designed for the purpose of oppression. Because of this we have to look at other ways of knowing. This is where narrative becomes very important, story telling becomes important, it’s one of the central tenets of Critical Race Theory. So in Critical Race Theory, if you want to know the truth when it comes to race and racism, you have to elevate black voices, you have to listen to the voice of the marginalized. And this is what people are talking about in church today, right: We have to listen to black voices, we have to elevate the voice of the marginalized. Well, in Critical Race Theory we do this because that’s the way you know truth—not through knowing God, not through knowing God’s Words, but through listening to the voices and the experiences of  the people who we determine to be marginalized.

So, even when we talk about having the conversation—and people will say, “You’re just trying to shut down The Conversation About Racism!”—that’s rooted in principles of Critical Race Theory, that’s saying that storytelling is the way we find knowledge and not through pursuing objective truth.

Since narrative, story telling, are the ways to find true knowledge, when folks tell their story they must be believed, their story must be taken at face value, however much it flies in the face of your own experience, of objective—even scientific—knowledge, or revealed truth.

But because it is only the narrative and the stories of the oppressed and marginalized, whether it be people of color, women, or those who identify with “alternative sexualities”, only their stories are worth listening to, and others, especially privileged white males, need to shut up rather than contribute their own experiences or opinions.

And finally, even those who belong to the oppressed and marginalized groups are only welcome to tell their stories and experiences if they fit into the grans narrative of Critical Race Theory. A black man, like Dr. Baucham, who tells a different story is dismissed as having “internalized racism.”

This edict, that all who are not fully supportive of the narratives and stories considered authentic voices of the oppressed need to be silenced, is at the root of what has come to be called the “cancel culture”, with the “de-platforming” of speakers who represent contrary views.

One of my own observations, and which all this bears out, is that it is typically those who call for tolerance and even affirmation of their own views and positions end up most intolerant of other views and positions. Even Christians are guilty of this: demanding freedom of religion for Christians in places like Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, etc., while at the same time discriminating against followers of visibly foreign religions in our own countries. It seems to be part of our sinful human nature.

The Anglican Diocese of Sydney, predominantly low church and Evangelical, has just elected a new archbishop after the retirement of Glenn Davies in March of this year. The new archbishop is Kanishka Raffel, dean of St. Andrews Cathedral in Sydney, born in London to Sri Lankan parents and a convert from Buddhism.

In an article for the Religion & Ethics Portal of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dr. Michael P. Jensen, Rector at St. Mark’s in Darling Point, examines the challenges facing the Sydney Diocese and Archbishop-elect Raffel, and while some aspects of the article are specific to SydneyAnglicans, much of it is challenging food for though for Evangelical churches everywhere.

A speaker at the election synod compared Sydney Anglicans with the Ever Given, the oil tanker stuck in the Suez canal recently. The author takes up this image and describes four temptations facing an organization stuck in this way.  All four seem applicable to almost any Evangelical church in the societal and cultural climate we find ourselves in, across most of the “Western” world, but the first one especially resonated with me:

The temptation to appoint a “crash-through” leader.

The author writes,

Anxious people want superhero leaders who will fix everything. They dream of the alpha individual who just crashes through the barriers to change and growth, firing and hiring at will. We want the guy who will build the wall and make us great again. (Sound familiar?) The church is no different. We yearn for a radical change agent. And yet, the problem with the crash-through leader is … well, the crash. They will likely prove polarising and destructive.

To me, the problem with this temptation is that it ignores the truth that the primary change agent in the church, more radical than any human leader, is the Holy Spirit.

Another quote from the article which struck me is this, in the author’s outline of the tasks facing the new archbishop:

But there must also be a courageous and prophetic engagement with post-Christian culture. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth once said that sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The Bible gives us eyes to see what is really in the newspaper. But it is also the case that news may help us to see better what is in the Bible. The mistake that many American evangelicals have made is to imagine that political and cultural means are the way to pursue or to defend the kingdom of God — mostly in alignment with the political right. That is a fool’s errand. It leads to an idolatry of political power, as was seen the Trump’s presidency. It shows no faith in the ultimate Lordship of Jesus, who is the church’s only Lord.

But neither should the church simply follow the spirit of the age. Its calling is not to provide a chaplaincy to contemporary narcissism. It finds laughable talk of “getting with the times” or “history being on our side”. It does not pursue relevance, as if that were anything worthwhile. It outlasted Rome: it will surely outlast Atlassian.

I have highlighted the sentence which made this stand out to me, and I hasten to add that this is not a uniquely American problem, although American Evangelical support for President Trump made it very visible. This problem rears its head every time Christians look to politics to enforce Christian morality on a secular society, and especially when they prioritize one point of Christian morality over everything else. There is, for example, a tendency to make the question of abortion or the whole gender and alternative sexualities question a priority over the treatment of refugees and immigrants, something I have observed both in the American situation during the past few years and in my own country of Austria.

I like the conclusion that Dr. Jensen comes to after talking about the four temptations:

The answer must surely be that the church of Jesus Christ needs to be more authentically what it actually is. Christians in Sydney — be they Anglican or not — need to be more Christian. The calling of the church of Jesus Christ is to be more like him. It is called upon to worship God, and to live life together that reflects his character, whatever the circumstances.

And this, of course, applies to Christians, of every stripe, not just in Sydney or Australia, but everywhere: here in Austria, in England, in America, and wherever the Church is found.

Allister Heath writes in The Daily Telegraph (May 13, 2021),

«What is wrong with France, a wonderful country relentlessly let down by its politicians? There is an unmistakable whiff of panic in the Parisian air, a growing sense among sections of the ruling class that France, riven by culture wars, its economy and society in never-ending decline, its housing estates in the banlieues permanently on the brink, is nearing a tipping point.

For all the sneers, Boris Johnson’s latest electoral triumph did not go unnoticed. What, the more far-sighted intellos ask themselves, will be France’s equivalent of Brexit, if, or rather when, it finally comes? Will it be another 1961 (a failed putsch), 1968 (hard-Left student insurrection), 1981 (communists in government), 1789 (proper revolution) or, hopefully, something milder, more constructive? 

The gilets jaunes two years ago were a false alarm, but how will the rage of la France profonde manifest itself next time? Emmanuel Macron has admitted that “Leave” would win a vote on Frexit, though nobody will want to risk one. It’s a great shame: France, the country in which I grew up, needs a cathartic reset like Brexit, a political earthquake that is neither hard-Left nor hard-Right but which finally empowers the culturally conservative majority.»

Here are my non-expert thoughts on this:

The problem is that, increasingly, even the “moderate left” view themselves as the elite, superior to cultural conservatives whom they view as “hard-Right”[1]. Therefore they will not easily countenance anything that empowers these “deplorables“, to use Hillary Clinton‘s deplorable diction. This is true not just in France but all over the West.

It will be interesting to see how things continue in the UK. As much as I regret Brexit, it seems to have brought about or at least started just such a “reset”. But while these larger countries (Britain, France, even Germany) might go through a Brexit or Frexit or Gexit without too much damage to their economies, for all the EU’s shortcomings leaving it, or its complete break-up, would have disastrous consequences for smaller countries and even Italy or Spain. Among other things it would mean the total domination of our economies by the US and China, without any counterbalance.

1. for example when they insist on the reality and immutability of biological sex, marriage only between a man and a woman, or the protection of unborn life[↩]