Globalism: Canceling the Fourth Commandment

The family is the bulwark of society. 'Parenthood—the realm of the fourth commandment—is the final pin. When it falls, Satan has scored a strike and everything is over except the crying.'

From Catholic Stand

By Jerome German

With the Beijing Winter Olympics behind us, I have had the occasion to reflect on Chinese traditional culture and its nemesis, Marxism. In a previous article, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Justifiable Confuciaphobia” I lamented the unlikelihood of China’s sincerity in its newfound interest in reigniting Chinese culture with its creation, worldwide, of Confucius Institutes. Like all communists’ uprisings, China was not an uprising of disgruntled peasants, it was the work of professors, college students, and dull thugs mad with Marxist/Maoist ideology. Their rabid methodology? Cancel culture.

The research and thought required for writing that article provided me with a backdrop to the current situation of culture worldwide, and thinking about what we have lost and continue to lose, I began to contemplate the deep synergy between the natural law tradition (of which Confucius is certainly a part) and the deposit of faith, a contemplation that invariably brings one to the foot of Mount Sinai.

When the teachers of the law asked Jesus which of the commandments was the greatest, it seems certain to me that they were expecting him to choose from among those commandments etched in stone by the finger of God on Sinai. Instead, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy and Leviticus,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

This exchange has always left me wondering about the intentions of the questioning rabbis and their relative sincerity but has also left me wondering about the relative primacy of commands within the ten commandments. Were the rabbis sincere in wanting to know of any hierarchy therein, and, if not sincere, and Christ had proclaimed one, would they have used it against him somehow, or were they seeking a way to downplay certain kinds of sins?

And if the latter is the case, how about us? In our times, have we seen a tendency to downplay certain kinds of sins? Seriously, you’d have to be in a coma not to notice how the sixth and ninth commandments have been downplayed by modernity. You may have even heard priests teach that Christ did not dwell on the “soft sins”—the sins of the flesh—but more on the sins of the spirit; the implication often seems to be that the sins of the flesh are of relatively small consequence and that undo, judgmental focus on them is the beginning of Puritanism. Perhaps. However, it must be remembered that the sins of the flesh enjoyed no cultural sanction in Christ’ day, at least, certainly not among the Jews. He addressed the times; that is, he addressed the deep corruption among leaders who maintained a pretense of religiosity.

Because there is a method to hell’s madness, I mean to demonstrate that there is another of the commandments which, far more than just being downplayed, is outright disdained by many, for which downplaying the sixth and ninth is just a prelude.

Much in the way that the Book of Genesis is pure genius in its introduction of a Creator who is a metaphysical necessity—”I am who am”—the God who, more than the simple Creator of existence, is existence itself, so too the Ten Commandments is not some haphazard cluster of collected mores, but a work of genius both in its content and in its super-coherent presentation.

It starts, rightly so, with the primacy of the Creator as existence itself: I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me. In turn, the dependence of our existence upon him suggests the superabundance of his goodness, and so we also have the admonition to avoid, for our own sake, using his name in a profane or trivial manner. In the third commandment, we see a little more cultural/religious specificity as we have the command to recognize the Mosaic covenantal nature of worship and rest on the seventh day.

The fifth through tenth commandments form a beautiful summation of all that is best in the world’s natural law traditions. Three of them—the fifth, sixth, and ninth—deal with sex, violence, life, and death. The seventh and tenth deal with property and the lust for it, and the eighth, with truthfulness. A common summation of natural law is that it deals with life, liberty, and property. And indeed, liberty and truth belong in the same category because “The truth will set you free.”

What remains to be considered is the fourth commandment, which lies conspicuously between metaphysical necessity and natural law. Brilliantly, it is the combination of both.

Honor thy father and mother.

Its place in the biblical list is not random. As adopted sons of God, he is our father. And as the Trinity is a community of persons, comparison to the family is unavoidable. In this sense, the fourth commandment echoes the first three commandments and, in the process, elevates the marital state to a reflection of the Trinity. In this elevated state, sacramental marriage is enhanced with graces that support adherence to the natural law commands of the decalogue.

The implications do not stop there. The commands to worship and honor the Creator, and in turn, our fathers and mothers, are reflected in the commands given concerning respect for others. In Exodus 22:28 we read, “You shall not revile God, or to curse a leader among your people.” For proof of how seriously this was taken, we witness the angst of St. Paul when he discovers that the man he has been violently reproving is the high priest:

…the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near him to strike him on the mouth. At this Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting there to judge me according to the law, and yet in violation of the law you order me to be struck?” Those standing nearby said, “Do you dare to insult God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not realize, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a leader of your people.’” (Acts 23:2)

How foreign this all seems to us for whom cursing those we’ve elected to office is, it would often seem, a scratch that needs to be itched—a knee-jerk reaction. Respect for those who occupy public positions emanates from the fourth commandment. Jesus, who was mostly silent in Pilate’s presence, but certainly not disrespectful of the man, told him, “You would have no power over me whatsoever were it not granted to you by my Father in heaven.”

There certainly is a point where it becomes impossible to respect the tyranny unleashed on us, regardless of the position of the person. Therefore, perhaps the greatest sin against the fourth commandment is to disrespect that position as if the concept of God-given authority itself were evil. If we reflect for a moment on the sin of Adam and Eve, we will clearly see that theirs was a sin against their Father—a sin against the fourth in that series of commandments that would someday be etched in stone.

The war against parenthood is not a war against persons, it is a war against their position as stand-ins for our heavenly parentage, the Trinity.

If you would destroy a society, a civilization, you would first undermine sexual mores, which, when accomplished would undermine marriage and, in turn, parenthood. Parenthood—the realm of the fourth commandment—is the final pin. When it falls, Satan has scored a strike and everything is over except the crying.

Why would that be so? When the fourth commandment goes, patriotism goes. Patriotism is hated by those who hate patriarchy. Both words are, of course, rooted in pater, the Latin for father. When the fourth commandment falls, tradition no longer exists. All religions become religions of the mood. I almost wrote “of the national mood”, but without the fourth commandment, nations cease to exist.

That is the essence of globalism. As long as families exist, nations will exist. When families lose their sovereignty, nations lose their sovereignty. When Donald Trump described himself as a “nationalist”, he meant that he supported national sovereignty. His detractors, of course, did as their Marxist moorings demanded; they abused the term by equating it with autocracy and fascism.

Globalism cannot be achieved as long as the fourth commandment holds weight. As every other mode of totalitarianism has demanded, parents must be placed under suspicion and reduced to breeding machines whose breeding is controlled by the state. And as sinister biotechnology advances unabated, it may not be long before that service is no longer required.

Family is the primordial instance of subsidiarity: the antithesis of globalism. Subsidiarity is a foundational Catholic principle and, as such, its destruction is Satan’s go-to for wreaking deep havoc. The kind of globalism that is unfolding in our times, like every form of totalitarianism before it, is satanic in nature. Oh, I’m not saying that everyone who would count themselves among its ranks is an open Satan worshipper. Many of us, unwittingly or otherwise, serve Satan, at least, from time to time, and most globalists would probably even deny his existence. But their goals and means nonetheless serve demonic ends.

Smaller is better. Small governments make mistakes, mistakes that are small because the government is small and local. Parents make mistakes, but in so doing do not destroy entire civilizations in one fell swoop. The family is the smallest form of government. It is a tiny kingdom; preferably, a microcosmic Christendom—yes, the home is a castle. Setting aside Hillary Clinton’s abuse of the phrase, “It takes a village”—by which she means an oxymoronic global village—the proper functioning of the family fares better in a small, tight community setting, one wherein the mores, the patriarchy, and the nation are preserved, honored, promoted, and enjoyed among families and friends. Towns, parishes—name them what you will—their only legitimate reason to exist is to serve the family.

In a previous article “School Boards Seek F.B.I. Protection…From Parents” I lamented the sinister nature of the Prussian style education system now used nearly worldwide, a system that, in many respects, was originally designed to break down the bond between parent and child and foster mindless obedience to the state; a system that is inarguably succeeding in doing just that and is directly opposed to the fourth commandment.

Some of you may have had the pleasure of seeing a 2018 movie, Crazy Rich Asians. I think of it now because a large part of the comic setup in the movie is precipitated by a backdrop of deep Asian family tradition. No patriarchy, except heavenly patriarchy, is perfect, and the imperfections of Asian patriarchy are abundant and contribute to the laughs, and yet they are not nullified to any great extent. Besides, without tradition—without benchmarks in social interaction—humor becomes trite and lifeless.

International peace, the abundant joy of the family of God, and eternal salvation are intimately tied to each other, and all depend deeply on the return of adherence to that pivotal fourth commandment.