The Storm Outside

William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) was Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England, after World War I. He wrote op eds for the newspapers of the day. In them, he decried the Materialism that was eroding the traditional foundations of Western Civilization. As a result, he was called the "Gloomy Dean." T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), the famed American expatriate poet in England at the time, shared the same worldview as evidenced in his 1925 poem The Hollow Men. When asked why he remained in the Christian Church, given its faults, Inge made the following reply: The Christian Church is like a barn in which the animals make noises, bite each other, foul the air, etc. However, being inside the barn is far better than being in the storm that rages outside it. As I read about the travesty of "gay marriage" - an oxymoron - being imposed by judicial decree in America, I think of Inge's barn and the storm outside it.

The ferocity of the storm is increasing. One of the next travesties waiting in the wings, for instance, is special civil rifhts to mainline transgender cross-dressers. As a result, despite its human faults, e.g. the recent scandal of pedophile priests, the barn, the Christian Church, still remains our best refuge against the sicko storms in the society around it. Conservatives hold that good, healthy social order must rest on a basic moral order. Historically, like it or not, the Christian Church has provided this basic moral order that has supported a sane, healthy social order for America and the rest of Western Civilization. It is a shelter against the insane Materialistic storm that is pulling down healthy standards and seeking to mainline pathology and deviance, unhealthy behaviors that can only destroy what is left of our once-healthy social order. The monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) restated Inge's insight in his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain (1948). In it Merton explains why he became a monk. "When there is a storm outside, go inside." Yes, when the Materialistic storms rage outside, go inside Inge's "barn."
It - the Christian Church - continues to provide shelter against the insane Masterialistic storms around us. It always has; it always will. Inge knew. Merton knew. We know too. It is one of "The Permanent Things."