Another interesting video from Dr. Stephen Turley. We came across Turley recently and find him interesting because his basic argument is that there is a worldwide turn to conservative values, traditionalism, and nationalism, in the US, Eastern Europe, the EU, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, South America - in fact, all continents, and that this change is being driven by the loosening of the liberal, globalist grip on information flow due to technology. You can see all his articles on RI here.
Turley is a theology, Greek, and rhetoric teacher in the booming classical education movement, which is predominantly conservative. He is a former Protestant from Connecticut who converted to Orthodoxy.
He hosts a rapidly growing YouTube broadcast about these trends from a conservative viewpoint.
Transcript:
The nation of Hungary has announced its official policy to stand with and protect persecuted Christians around the world.
Breitbart News had an excellent and very informative interview with the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto who outlined the top priorities for Hungarian foreign policy and financial assistance, and you will notice how radically different it sounds from the goals of globalist leaders.
Szijjarto argued that Hungary is first and foremost a Christian nation, and as such, it is going to prioritize helping persecuted Christians around the world. He of course is referencing particularly Middle East Christians who have been the victims of some of the most horrific violence imaginable, especially by ISIS.
By the way, ISIS has been so effectively neutralized, defeated and destroyed I am thankful to say. You know who has been responsible for that defeat and destruction of ISIS? It is the result of a joint effort between Russia and the United States. What do you know? Our media loves to talk about the great things that can happen when these two powers join together in a common purpose …
Szijjarto expressed his frustration with Brussels and the EU in that, whenever he has brought up the special responsibility that Europeans have to persecuted Christians in the Middle East and around the world, Eurocrats just look at him and basically say, Uh, no, we need to show that we are tolerant and that we do not favor any particular religion. Of course, in order to show how tolerant they are, they show favoritism to Muslims. Figure that one out!
Actually, there is a reason for why these Eurocrats show favoritism to Islam over Christianity. What we have to understand is that under globalization, I wish I could say that the problem is ONLY that these Eurocrats consider Islam every bit as valid as Christianity. I wish I could say that was the worst of it.
In one sense, that IS the case, globalists do in fact see Islam and Christianity has equally valid religious belief systems, since globalization by definition sees all religions as equally valid. There is no basis, no standard of evaluation within the rationale of globalization that can differentiate the legitimacy of one religion over against another. They are all equally valid expressions of sovereign individuals. Globalization relativizes all religions to the individual, as a matter of individual choice, and quite literally leaves it at that at least at one level.
However it gets even worse. At another level, globalization breeds political correctness. What globalization basically does is it eclipses localized customs, traditions, languages, and religions with a one-size-fits-all consumer-based value system.
So whereas different localities used to be characterized by different cultural symbols and practices, globalization comes in and starts getting rid of all of the unique identity markers of particular localities and replaces them with highly standardized, mechanized, franchises at both the economic and political levels, so that downtown Tokyo looks almost exactly the same as downtown Manhattan in Times Square; the same stores, same corporations, same fast food restaurants, same movies, and the like. …………….
What political correctness begins to do is it begins to view all those historic customs and traditions that globalism is replacing, as outdated, exclusionary, and unnecessarily intolerant.
Our traditions and customs often stand against things that our new consumer-based cultures think are perfectly natural and normal.
You see, political correctness begins to see our historic cultures and customs and traditions as discriminatory and intolerant and unjust; in other words, political correctness does not exclude against the dominant culture simply because a new set of globalizing economic processes has eclipsed it; as far as political correctness is concerned, the dominant culture is being excluded because it is racist, homophobic, bigoted, colonialist, or what have you.
Political correctness therefore takes the opportunity afforded to it by the economic eclipsing processes of globalism to in fact welcome into the public square or into the marketplace cultures, lifestyles, races, genders, sexual orientations, and YES RELIGIONS that are now considered to have been oppressed and disenfranchised by the dominant culture.
This turns into our new sense of justice; it is technically known as emancipatory politics, this notion that it is always good, always, to show favoritism to whatever minority group Western civilization has supposedly persecuted. And of course, in the West, that persecuted minority religiously speaking would be Muslims, certainly not Christians.
And so, in the name of being just in the politically correct sense, our elites are even more concerned with the rights and privileges of Muslims than they are with Christians. Or with immigrants than they are with citizens. Can anyone say Tommy Robinson?
This is what makes nations like Hungary and many others like Poland, Slovakia, nationalist Austria and Italy, and yes, indeed, Russia, so wonderful; in standing up for persecuted Christians in the Middle East, these nations are in fact rejecting this whole notion of political correctness. They are rejecting it out of hand in the name of solidarity and alliance with those who are an integral part of the religious traditions and customs that define our nations and common civilization.
Make no mistake, in standing FOR Christians, Hungary is standing AGAINST globalization and its politically correct redefinition of justice and equity.
Now one last thing here; we have looked at the Hungarian prime-minister Viktor Orban’s vision for a Christian democracy in detail in a past; Orban, in his speeches of late, has argued that Hungary is in the midst of building what he calls a ‘Christian democracy’ as over against the secular globalist vision of the EU; and we outlined four features of what a Christian democracy looks like as derived from Viktor Orban’s speeches.
The first feature was that church and state work together to protect a nation’s customs, culture, and tradition as they are rooted in a distinctively Christian vision of life; so we are not talking about a theocracy here; we are talking about church and state working together.
The second feature is stringent border security that protects the Christianity that is protecting the culture; so as we are seeing here with Hungary’s concern for persecuted minorities, they have actually expedited the ability of Christian refugees to come into Hungary. Hungary is not anti-immigrant per se, it is anti-immigration on globalist terms.
That is what the BBC always likes to leave out in its coverage of Hungary; so you can come into the nation as an immigrant no problem, but you have to affirm the Christian culture and institutions that are central to thier national identity; so border security is an essential feature of Christian Democracy.
The third feature is some form of economic nationalism that guards against the narcissistic consumerist values that can undermine a culture from within.
And the fourth feature involves placing a priority on the traditional family as the basis for a flourishing national future. We have seen how Hungary has been able to effectively reverse its population decline with the institution of pro-family measures.
Now we are seeing a fifth feature emerge, and that is what we might call a post-secular international relations feature, where Hungary, as a Christian democracy, will prioritize alliances with and financial aid to nations that share a common commitment to the traditional values, culture, and customs that undergird a distinctively Christian vision of life.
What is interesting here is that international relations, what is often referred to as IR, is a notoriously, absolutely notoriously secular enterprise. Religion is irrelevant in the various schools of international relations. However what we are seeing from the likes of Hungary is the emergence of a distinctively post-secular international relations, where a Christian nation is formally declaring alliance-priorities with other Christian groups around the world, in this case, in terms of protection and advocacy for persecuted Christians.
And so, Hungary just continues to show us what a new conservative age more and more looks like as it stands for nation, custom, and tradition in an increasingly post-secular, post-globalist world.