In the very early days of Christianity, there was the phenomenon of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers), people who sought the wilderness so as to avoid the various distractions of society, to try to better practise the gospel way of life. Later was the example of St. Benedict (5th century), who built a monastery at Monte Cassino (Italy) where the monks formed an alternative community, where those who were so committed would strive to live according to the same gospel values. A similar development was the beehive huts in Kerry, starting around the 6th century. All these groups wished to live a way of life inspired by the gospel, away from a society which was still largely “barbaric”. But for us now, the barbarians are no longer a threatening force outside the city gates. No, for some time now they have been among us, in the ascendency, and now hold positions of power, influence and control. It is time again to construct communities of true gospel-based values, to provide some light against the ever-encroaching darkness.
In another intriguingly similar connection to such “distancing”, there is increasingly the reality of alternative communities, very much distinct from the surrounding society. Such communities may always have existed, but in recent years they have become more necessary, due to various powerful trends in the culture. For example, in response to the more ludicrous exaggerations of political correctness (PC), and especially to the lunacy of much of the WOKE crusade, more and more parents are now home-schooling and setting up communities of like-minded nonconformists. Example: from 2019 to 2020, the applications for home schooling in Ireland increased more than threefold, from 617 to 1929.
Another instance was the creation in 2008 in Le Marche, Italy of the Scuola Libera G. K. Chesterton (libera = non-governmental). In this way, children can at least be partly sheltered from the stultifying effects of such messages as: a child’s gender is not settled at birth, but the child can decide its gender later on; mothers are now called “birthing parents”; pronouns are entirely malleable, you can decide if you are a “he” or a “she”, etc. These are some of the new realities being imposed on society by the WOKE crusade, and woe is the person who challenges them. One contemporary voice on this topic is Rod Dreher. Here is the view of Dreher about what Christians must do to resist the latest onslaught: they must lean on and strengthen their own faith and stand in solidarity with one another, forming groups and communities with shared values who can be a source of support.
The desert hermits of the early centuries, St. Benedict and his monks, and the families involved with the Scuola Libera G.K. Chesterton all sought separateness willingly, trying to avoid what they each saw as distracting or destructive trends in society. However, they were not forced to separate, they were not confined to ghettos. Voluntary separation and forced segregation are definitely not the same thing. They did what they did to try to safeguard something precious to them: for the hermits and the monks the treasure was trying to “live the gospel”, away from the distractions of ordinary civic life; for the parents of the Scuola, the pearl to be protected was simply the values of a decent education and the inculcation of a way of life not driven by the more-than-eccentric views of a tiny, yet powerful, minority (e.g., the WOKE movement). Their strategy was freely-chosen separation, not forced segregation.
Needless to say, there have been instances of imposed segregation in human history, all the result of poisoned policies and warped worldviews (e.g., that some races are “inferior” than others). The following examples could be multiplied: the Jews in their ghettos in the 1940s, murdered by the thousands; segregation in the southern States of the USA up until the mid-20th century; the apartheid regime in South Africa. All of these were cases of forced segregation, not freely-chose separation. And the results were disastrous.
During this latest pandemic, there have been many divisions or separations, as I described in an earlier article, e.g., between those who believe the whole government/NPHET storyline and those who question and doubt; between those who comply and those who defy, etc. Now a truly ominous separation is being created between those who have taken the vaccine and those who have resisted the shot.
Belonging to the “wrong” group now means more than merely being scowled at in the supermarket, or being criticised for not “playing your part for the good of all”. Now, similar to other very troubling historical periods, quite recent in European history, those who refuse the jab are being ostracised; literally being denied access to work, prevented from socialising, traveling, etc. – in other words being forcefully separated, against their wills.
But enforced segregation can only be endured for so long; eventually the strain will tell, people will no longer simply acquiesce, there will be some kind of reaction. Two recent examples are inspiring. Mahatma Gandhi: “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt”. Martin Luther King: “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”. Now perhaps neither Gandhi nor King were paragons of virtue in their private family lives, but most certainly, in the social strategies they both espoused, they were not noted for being belligerently bellicose or for whooping up war-mongering.
No, they were both staunch pacifists, committed to non-violent resistance: indeed, the momentum which both men inspired, ultimately proved to be tremendously powerful, shaking both empire and policies of segregation. In the face of a newly imposed segregation (vaccinated versus non-vaccinated), a newly imposed apartheid, there is an urgent need of another inspiring voice and creative response.