A few weeks after Friedrich Nietzsche bragged to an admirer that he had completed a ruthless attack on our Lord, he collapsed, had convulsions, shouted like a madman, and never recovered his faculties again. It was the autumn of 1888. He was 44 years old, his books had just begun to be noticed, and he lived for a decade longer, empty-eyed, silent, and entirely unaware of the fame that was about to engulf him.
Was his tragic end divine punishment for his sacrilege? My devout Catholic wife begs to differ. Our Lord is not a vengeful one, she insists. That’s the only thing wrong with him, I answer her. Although Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 had started the anti-God ball rolling, Nietzsche’s nervous breakdown and anti-Christian profanities had an enormous effect because the genius/madman was a man of faith. Both his father and grandfather were Lutheran pastors, and young Nietzsche was so pious he was nicknamed the little pastor. Yet it was the Hellenes of ancient times who drew the little pastor away from Christianity and onto the Hellenistic world of Homer and Olympian Gods. Schopenhauer and Wagner followed and soon the little pastor was into German myths, excessive masturbation (according to Wagner), and madness. The great religious and classical scholar Taki believes that if Herr Nietzsche had kept faith with the poor carpenter’s Bethlehem family instead of going Greek he would have remained sane.
As a sinner but a devout Christian I need to reassert to you that the heart of faith is mystery. God is not an object, and is beyond our knowing, as is Jesus Christ. I was brought up to fear God, but as I grew older I learned to love Him as much as I love Jesus. The Virgin Mary, her son, and God for me are one and the same, and to hell with theologians who split them up along with their infinities. Is my faith tied up with some vague promise of an afterlife? To be perfectly honest, the answer to that question is maybe, although I don’t count on it too much. One thing I don’t do is pray for things I desire. It’s called manipulation, and the Almighty does not do manipulation.
One reason that I am certain most intellectuals will go to hell is their bizarre claims against the virgin birth of Christ, a theology they deem naive and meant for those who see sexuality as sinful. As in most instances, the eggheads get it completely wrong. The pure, untouched body represents virtue and innocence, not a Kardashian-like overused and overexposed figure. The reason violence is on the rise everywhere is the downgrading of Christianity by our so-called elite, whose company will one day soon represent the new hell. No more fires and circles of hell, just the nearness of Dorsey, Zuckerberg, and their ilk.
