Hippolytus.

Why is it that modern neo-liberals, who reject developed traditional dogma and liturgy and embrace the agendas of feminism, multiculturalism and lesgayism, are so fascinated by the liturgy [Hippolytus & the so-called Unitary Festival of Easter] and the arrangements of the pre-Constantinian church and also even by some of the content of the Bible itself?

To answer this difficult question involves stating several major cultural factors as background:

• 1) Modern thought embraces a radically nominalist and atomized view of reality as an infinite number of autonomous parts whose relations are neither inherent nor divinely ordered, but entirely the product of human reason, will power and effort. This outlook was powerfully shaped by the advent of assembly-line production methods, mass-produced interchangeable parts, and (planned) obsolescence essential to the rise of the factory system in Western industrialization over the last two centuries.

• 2) This view was also powerfully shaped by the negative and destructive dimensions of scholastic and then rationalist Protestantism -- its embrace of nominalism and accompanying rationalism that denied fundamental mystical and mysterious aspects of divine order (e.g., the actual and effective bestowal of grace in the other sacraments). Instead, it established human cognition and physical perception as normative standards and thus increasingly made "man the measure of all things." (Thus, for example, we now witness modern Evangelicals and Fundamentalists accept without question the Gospel miracles but deny sacramental mysteries, because the first can be seen but the second cannot -- the latter therefore being dismissed as superstition contrary to reason.

• 3) Reason, redefined as sheer power of ratiocination (note again the influence of scientific and technological progress) rather than submission of the intellect and will to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition (the latter being the collective wisdom of reason in understanding of Scripture, received and transmitted unaltered from the apostles and their anointed successors onward), inevitably usurps the role of the latter two and assumes a critical posture toward them (hence modern critical "scholarship").

• 4) A further influence of modern scientific experimental methods and technological innovation is utilitarianism and pragmatism. Experience becomes the judge of reason. The early nineteenth century Romantic revolt against the Enlightenment merely compounded the problem by exalting "experience" as subjective imagination and emotional/perceptual states and alternately glorifying either the individual rebel and "great man," or mythical collective entities (whether a Hegelian Zeitgeist, the alienated Marxist proletariat, or racialist theories of Pan-Slavism and ultimately Nazism).

• 5) The upshot of all this is two-fold. On the one hand, human reason/will believes that it can order society, nature -- indeed, all reality -- to suit its needs and desires, and then re-order it also by the same power. Anything from the past that does not suit this purpose can be ignored, discarded, ridiculed, or destroyed. This fulfills the rationalist end of the modern cultural agenda. At the same time, the accompanying exercise of will and appeal to subjective human autonomy as the exertion of the said reason/will fulfills the Romantic side of the agenda. The latest destructive fusion of these two trends is deconstructionism, which melds a corrosive hyper-rationalist critical method (the "hermeneutics of suspicion") with the assertion that all relations are arbitrary expression of struggles by opposing interest groups with concealed agendas (the "will to power").

• 6) It may be noted that the increasing corruption of the concept of democracy in America has drawn on both these strands. The original version, propounded by the Founding Fathers, explicitly stated time and again that the foundation of reason had to be moral virtue; that no people lacking in moral virtue was capable of proper self-government; that such virtue rested on recognition of a divinely ordained, objective natural order; and that all corresponding rights and responsibilities were contingent upon these prior points.

• 7) The right relation of reason and virtue has since been inverted. Human ratiocination is now made the basis for determining on pragmatic, utilitarian grounds of subjective fulfillment what is moral, and rights have been made unilateral, absolute, and disassociated from obligations. Modern democracy views social and moral reality as without a fixed order -- a machine with interchangeable and disposable parts that can be assembled, fine-tuned, re-arranged or discarded in order to produce the desired products. In the heritage of this corrupted version of democracy, from the rationalist side come the appeals to egalitarianism, pragmatism and utilitarianism; from the romantic side come those to individualism and subjectivism.

• 8) How does all of this relate to the questions? It would seem to suggest that there should be no interest in pre-Nicene liturgies or in Scripture, which could both be viewed entirely as disposable relics or obsolete parts of the past. It may be suggested, however, that like the aspects of modern culture cited above, the preservation of Scripture and pre-Nicene models also draws upon the dual rationalist- romanticist heritage of modernity.

• 9) On the rationalist side, there is the pragmatic and utilitarian value of "recycling" and salvaging items from the past. Because the rationalist present sees itself as having superseded the past and its errors and inadequacies, it also sees itself as literally REDEEMING the past, by (patronizingly) making use of such aspects of the past as it deems valuable. This embodies the practice that historian Herbert Butterfield famously dubbed "the Whig interpretation of history." Since history cannot be eradicated, it is interpreted according to a theory of progress toward the present. The practice of history thus becomes a utilitarian means for the present to ratify its own technological, intellectual and moral superiority, by rummaging through the past, ripping out of context those aspects of it that can be made to appear to lead to the superior present, and discarding or condemning everything else. The past is not considered to have any integrity or value of its own; it is viewed only in terms of what is useful in it for the present.

• 10) On the romanticist side, there is the appeal to a mythic collective Zeitgeist and corporateness that the utilization of an outward garb of pseudo-traditionalism can provide. The divinely created, intrinsic human need for corporate identity and mutual relation cannot be negated or evaded, only distorted -- thus community and not anarchy replaces communion. Again, the past is not treated as having any integrity; instead an outward appearance is used as an empty form into which can be poured modern content. Selective utilization of the past provide a synthetic rather than genuine pedigree of precedence and superficial veneer of tradition, which also provides a necessary emotional comfort level -- something which formal ceremonial and ritual also fulfill.

• 11) Thus the use of Scripture and Hippolytus by modern neo-liberals (and others) is also a product of the dual rationalist-romanticist heritage of modernity. On the rationalist side, there is the selective recycling of suitable fragments of the past for present ends. On the romanticist side, it artificially fulfills the need for corporate identity and relation. As forms emptied of their actual historical integrity and contents, they can fulfill the pragmatic and utilitarian needs for subjective individual and corporate self-expression.

• 12) Thus both Scripture and ancient liturgies are treated as collections of mechanical parts, to be used, assembled, arranged, and discarded according to modern needs to constitute modern technological devices for spiritual self-realization. (Point 1 above.)

• 13) Neither Scripture nor the ancient 3rd Cent. liturgies are considered to have any mystical dimension, but are measured by modern human cognition and perception.(Point 2 above.)

• 14) Modern ratiocination is a critical standard of evaluation and judgment over Scripture and ancient liturgies; the latter are not received wisdom to which reason should submit itself for guidance and correction. (Point 3 above.)

• 15) Utilitarianism, pragmatism, and the need for adaptable vehicles for individual and corporate self-expression and self-fulfillment determine the use of Scripture and ancient liturgies. (Point 4 above.)

• 16) Scripture and liturgies can be re-ordered and re-shaped at will to suit modern needs without regard to their inherent integrity. (Point 5 above.)

• 17) There is no recognition, or even a denial, that an eternal, divinely established foundation of moral virtue is necessary for right discernment and use of Scripture and liturgies. (Point 6 above). Instead, "morality" is determined according to societal desires, and Scripture and liturgies ransacked and utilized insofar as they are serviceable to that end. (Point 7 above.)

• 18) Scripture and ancient liturgies are utilized and judged according to the "Whig interpretation of history" practice -- since they cannot be eradicated or denied immediately from consciousness altogether, they must be selectively ransacked and adapted to justify the present. (Point 9 above.)

• 19) The use of Scripture and ancient liturgies, in a pragmatic and utilitarian fashion, also artificially fulfills the inherent needs for relation and order by providing venues for expression and realization of community rather than life in communion. (Point 10 above.)

• 20) As for the particular fascination with Hippolytus, it probably has to do with the desire to subvert the orthodox creeds as standards for Scriptural interpretation and belief by going "behind" the creeds to something before them, so that one cannot be bound by them, but in a way that can allow a pretense of "faithfulness" to tradition -- in the academic sense of (pretended) fidelity through scholarly analysis. It provides a respectable veneer or Trojan horse for deconstructionist activities by power-seeking interest groups, because the liturgical forms are seized upon but divested of their genuine contents and historical-theological integrity. It also caters to the modern fascination with Gnosticism, which preceded the formulation of the creeds. (I.e., by going back to before the creeds were formulated, the Gnosticism they ruled out can be pretended to be part of "authentic" patristic Christianity, which the academics pretend had its pristine simplicity corrupted by the imposition of creeds as secularized Greek philosophical reconstructions of faith.)

• 21) Finally, the fascination with early liturgies is also part of the strategy of the ecumenical movement. Since it is generally assumed that all divisions arise from disagreements, and disagreements arise from differences in belief, the way to end division is either to find a way back to something that predates the formulations of specific points of difference as much as possible (the primitive liturgies being much less specific in theological content than later ones), and also to make people so confused that they cannot make proper distinctions (and since the creeds make such distinctions, they must be circumvented). And since the Creeds cannot be ditched yet, they are translated in such a way as to cause them to agree with the religion that is being "seen" in the pre-Nicene Church.