172 Chapter 13
WHY IT WAS WORTHWHILE
The proof of this, continues the New Class, is in the pudding.
When we members of the New Class treat Catholicism as irrelevant,
when we treat it as if it belonged in a non-existent middle box,
knowledge advances, misery is decreased, wealth is increased, the
blind see, the lame walk, and the sick are cured. The New Class quotes
this scripture to Catholics:
You will know them by their fruits.
1
1. Matthew 7:16 RSV
The New Class sees 'believers' as simple hypocrites. Believers love
the fruits provided by the New Class's conscious and deliberate
rejection of the middle box, and avail themselves of every last one of
those fruits.
The New Class contends that the believer simply pretends for his
convenience that the New Class rejection of the middle box had
nothing to do with the production of its good fruits. The believer
pretends for his convenience that these wonderful fruits produced by
the activity of the New Class just magically appeared, that they just
dropped out of the sky. The believer can not explain why war,
violence, and every perversion imaginable long pre-dated the birth of
the New Class, and yet the blind could not see, the lame could not
walk, the sick could not be cured, until men began to embrace New
Class 'ungodliness,' the 'modern scientific' stance, conscious and
deliberate rejection of Mr. Minsky's middle box.
The believer (continues the New Class), unwilling to give up his
"cheerfulness and mental peace," continues to lie to himself, continues
to 'believe,' in 'free will,' in the Catholic faith, etc., and, for every
minute that the believer does so, he plays no part in helping the blind
to see, the lame to walk, and the sick to be cured. For every minute that
he does so, he is a leech on the backs of the brave, the honest, the
truthful people -- the unbelievers -- who actually are making the world
a better place.
The New Class therefore feels completely justified to say to all
'believers': We are the good tree that bears good fruit, and you are not.
Thus, the final and gravest implication of the central New Class
charge is that 'belief,' perhaps especially in its Western apotheosis,
Roman Catholicism, is actively antagonistic to the activity of the New
Class, and the New Class is actively antagonistic to the activity of
'belief,' because 'belief' is a rejection of the real, plainly the work of the
Tempter, the Evil One. `Belief,' and perhaps particularly its
apotheosis, Roman Catholicism, is for the New Class, provably the
Anti-Christ, provably the destroyer and perverter of the good.
Since its unbelief produces
wondrous fruit that even the believer
calls good, the New Class feels
justified in calling 'belief' the work of
the devil, a rejection of the real.
The New Class -- not being stupid -- attaches all manner of other
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.