On Redeeming Conservatism
We take seriously Russell Kirk's (also T. S. Eliot) advice to find imaginative ways to renew our proscriptive freedoms and our inherited moral and constitutional order. Kirk thought the culture can be renewed only if the religion (cult) is renewed. This is a central concern of the Theoevolutionary Church (TC), although our “renewal” is a Revitalized Conservatism which Kirk would probably find too radical. Evolution is not an impersonal force of destiny or history, it is guided by the Spirit and the Soul, ultimately leading to God.
We do not want the conservative legacy to seem like a burden to this age, as it now does. We understand that Conservatism is a foundation, not a burden. We describe the balance between “Order and Evolution” rather than “Order and Freedom.” “Ordered Evolution” is the term we use.
A Future Less Fearful
The Theoevolutionary Church cannot be described as merely converting our religious belief into an instrument of social transformation, as secularizing religion has done, or was trying to do before it simply gave up on religion; we affirm the sacred nature of evolution which grounds our religious belief.
The doom and gloom of Conservatism at the prospect of the future, harkening up Orwell's “1984” and Huxley's “Brave New World” need not be such doom and gloom. To read the great modern Conservative writers, with their brilliant descriptions of the death wish of modern life, has tended to lead to stagnant traditionalism, rather than ordered evolution. Young people are not attracted to stagnation.
Ordered Evolution is the Conservative/futurist balance which can make the future less fearful. Our hope is that even in the “depths of calamity” (Kirk) on the ruins of Western Civilization a foundation can be laid for a greatness going into the future.
We cannot entirely foresee the future, historical determinism can be undone by evolution. But future evolution need not be severed from the order if the Conservatism of human nature—now affirmed by sociobiology-- is the ground of future evolution, as it is in TC. The Involutionary Inward Path of Traditional Religion is the anchoring structure of the Evolutionary Outward Path, as we proceed with Ordered Conservative Evolution.
We take seriously Russell Kirk's (also T. S. Eliot) advice to find imaginative ways to renew our proscriptive freedoms and our inherited moral and constitutional order. Kirk thought the culture can be renewed only if the religion (cult) is renewed. This is a central concern of the Theoevolutionary Church (TC), although our “renewal” is a Revitalized Conservatism which Kirk would probably find too radical. Evolution is not an impersonal force of destiny or history, it is guided by the Spirit and the Soul, ultimately leading to God.
We do not want the conservative legacy to seem like a burden to this age, as it now does. We understand that Conservatism is a foundation, not a burden. We describe the balance between “Order and Evolution” rather than “Order and Freedom.” “Ordered Evolution” is the term we use.
A Future Less Fearful
The Theoevolutionary Church cannot be described as merely converting our religious belief into an instrument of social transformation, as secularizing religion has done, or was trying to do before it simply gave up on religion; we affirm the sacred nature of evolution which grounds our religious belief.
The doom and gloom of Conservatism at the prospect of the future, harkening up Orwell's “1984” and Huxley's “Brave New World” need not be such doom and gloom. To read the great modern Conservative writers, with their brilliant descriptions of the death wish of modern life, has tended to lead to stagnant traditionalism, rather than ordered evolution. Young people are not attracted to stagnation.
Ordered Evolution is the Conservative/futurist balance which can make the future less fearful. Our hope is that even in the “depths of calamity” (Kirk) on the ruins of Western Civilization a foundation can be laid for a greatness going into the future.
We cannot entirely foresee the future, historical determinism can be undone by evolution. But future evolution need not be severed from the order if the Conservatism of human nature—now affirmed by sociobiology-- is the ground of future evolution, as it is in TC. The Involutionary Inward Path of Traditional Religion is the anchoring structure of the Evolutionary Outward Path, as we proceed with Ordered Conservative Evolution.
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