”Radical” has the basic meaning of “uproot”. – “Mark 4:16-17 KJV […] when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; 17 And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, […]”
I realized that during that time of my life my obsession was in obliterating myself in subjugation to the idea of salvation. My mantras of the time were to "lose my life for Christ" and to "pick up my cross and follow Him." And this tendency to destroy the self in this manner can be found amongst radicals of almost all political and religious ideologies -- you certainly show how leftist and Islamist radicals do it. [/] Radicalism is a universal phenomenon that can be fueled by almost any ideology. And sometimes these radicalisms stumble upon common objectives. [My emphasis]
From a Front Page Mag .com article, FrontPage Interview, more below:
Taking up your cross and following Jesus is, in the context of the gospels, a call to the “so great salvation” later made available through the blood sacrifice of the Son of God. Interpreting these passages as a mere call to self sacrifice has led many astray.
I report and link. You decide. - J:)
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. - 2nd Corinthians 2:14
From a Front Page Mag .com article, FrontPage Interview
(David Swindle interviewed by Jamie Glazov):
FP: What books have influenced you and made you reconsider your radical past?
Swindle: The first book which showed me how I might take conservatism seriously and eventually begin to develop my own variation of the philosophy was Andrew Sullivan's The Conservative Soul. I read it while I was still a leftist but Sullivan's description of "a conservatism of doubt" really struck a chord with the passionate agnostic in me. (Even if movement conservatives are still pissed at Sullivan for x, y, and z they simply must read his book. It's wonderful.)
This understanding of conservatism set me up for David[ Horowitz]'s work. Having read almost all of them now my favorite is still The Politics of Bad Faith. David articulates a compelling case for understanding the Left as a religious movement. It's an idea that just rings so true. Uncivil Wars, with its exciting, unifying vision of the American Idea is also one of his books whose praises I can't sing loud enough.
On the subject of the intersection of religious and political faiths, though, your recent book, United In Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror really sent my mind exploring over the ideological terrain I'd explored -- but surely not in the way you would have guessed. Because the radicalism it forced me to reflect on was not the leftist radicalism of my college years but the Christian radicalism of my junior high and high school years. My deep agnosticism didn't emerge from nowhere. From 1995 up through about 2000 the driving pursuit in my life wasn't political but religious. I was a zealous Evangelical Christian on an intense mission to try and convert as many people as possible so they could escape the fires of hell. Your book made me reflect on this time of my life primarily because of what you wrote about in your chapter "Cravings for Death," what I reflected on in my FrontPage essay.
I realized that during that time of my life my obsession was in obliterating myself in subjugation to the idea of salvation. My mantras of the time were to "lose my life for Christ" and to "pick up my cross and follow Him." And this tendency to destroy the self in this manner can be found amongst radicals of almost all political and religious ideologies -- you certainly show how leftist and Islamist radicals do it.
Radicalism is a universal phenomenon that can be fueled by almost any ideology. And sometimes these radicalisms stumble upon common objectives. That's why you find the "Unholy Alliance" which David first wrote about and which you elaborated on in your own book. Having made these connections I've become intensely interested in what I refer to as "the radical spirit" and the attempt to figure out how those of us possessed of it can channel it into more productive directions than the radicals you and David have been so good at critiquing.
FP: Are you still a Christian? Tell us how your spiritual journey has evolved during your political transition.
Swindle: It depends on who we let define what it means to be a Christian. If one must believe in things like the Virgin Birth, the talking snake, and the inerrancy of the Bible then I'm not a Christian. But if we define "Christian" more broadly as I do, and we understand Christianity as a love for the ideas and example of Christ, then I'm very much still a Christian. I still read the Bible, consider its teaching, and seek to emulate Christ's call to live a life of absolute love for humanity. I want to internalize the spirit and metaphors of Christianity while discarding its archaic, and often downright destructive dogmas. (I hold this exact same attitude about the Left by the way. "Progressive dreams pursued through conservative means" remains one of my mantras.)
During my leftist college days I often drifted into exploring mystical and occult ideas. I explored the writings of Aleister Crowley and the variant of chaos magic advocated by comics author Grant Morrison. And I still find the magical metaphor to be a useful, intriguing way of looking at the world.
More recently, though, I've been strongly influenced by George[ Wolfe]'s Inter-Faith spirituality. […] This spiritual approach has seemed to fit so well that my wife April and I chose to have George marry us in an Inter-Faith wedding ceremony which was held on May 16. I find this spiritual outlook fits with my agnostic tendency and lines up pretty well with M. Scott Peck's fourth stage of spiritual growth -- a model for understanding spirituality that I find accurate and useful. [My ellipses and emphasis]
