I’m fond of pointing out that Progressivism is no longer–if it ever was–a political ideology, and is in fact a fanatical Death Cult which manifests as a heresy and mockery of Christianity.
Some have asked exactly what the Death Cult’s relationship to Christianity is and how it broke off from the Church like a tumor whose cancerous growth continued after it was excised. Kind of like the antagonist from the Stephen King-George Romero movie The Dark Half, the Death Cult is Christianity’s undead evil twin.
Like all heresies, Liberalism–the foundational creed of Progressivism–starts with an orthodox teaching. In this case, that teaching is each man’s creation in the image and likeness of God.
The Liberal takes the doctrine of man’s creation in the imago Dei and pushes it to an extreme. Not only, says the Liberal, do all people have great dignity due to the fact that they bear God’s image, they all have equal dignity. Stripped of any logical limits, the Liberal compounds his error by embracing the absurd notion that all people are equal in all ways.
This error is egalitarianism, Liberalism’s inseparable companion.
The problem is that God is not egalitarian. Men derive their value from Him, but that value is not equal, much less infinite.
Note to binary thinkers mired in egalitarianism: the self-evident observation that all people are not equal is not to deny that they all have great value. We are all commanded to love our neighbor, not just as ourselves, but as Christ has loved us. Sinning against the least of God’s children is a sin because it does violence to the divine image he bears.
Note, though, that God repeatedly and clearly affirms that there is such a thing as the least of His children. So much for equality.
God likes hierarchies. He also likes every place in every hierarchy to be filled. Taking its lead from Him, the nature of which He is God abhors a vacuum. Just look at the periodic table.
No two people are entirely equal in ability or even holiness. I don’t care how much you give to the poor or how many prayers you say, you’re not as holy as the Blessed Theotokos.
Egalitarianism finds itself in direct contradiction to this truth–and thus THE Truth, so the egalitarian project must systematically attempt to destroy truth in order to resolve the paradox. But that’s impossible, so we wind up with men dominating in female sports.
Nor are sporting events the only casualties. Since accepting any limits on equality or self-indulgence would necessarily destroy egalitarianism and Liberalism, they are both totalitarian. Anyone who would gainsay them must be destroyed. This is why Progressivism is a Death Cult.
The engine of Progressivism, as a wise man said, is violent magical thinking.
And because heresies err in what they deny–that being the sovereign goodness of God in this instance–only reasserting Christian orthodoxy can correct these unbalanced errors and restore sanity.