On Christmas Day 800 A.D., a very interesting event took place – and one of great importance to Western history. On this day, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish King Charlemagne Imperator Romanorum, or Emperor of Rome. Charlemagne had saved the pope’s life the year before, as the Roman pontiff was set upon while on his way to a holy procession by a rival faction who believed the leader of the Western church should come from the nobility, which Leo III did not.
This act would have broad implications for Europe – and by extension, Western Christendom. By uniting the most powerful political figure on the continent with the soundest, most comprehensive moral and spiritual philosophy in world history (Christianity), a heretofore impossible unity was preserved, resolve was galvanized, and strategy was made apparent against the two biggest threats to the future progress of Europe: Islam and polytheism.
I’ve pondered for a while now how history unfolds in cycles, how the more things change, the more they stay the same, how similar the challenges faced in our own time are to those of the Carolingian era. Of course, the rise of Islam is plain to see, though I grant that the two eras of polytheism might at first appear to be less than a 1:1 ratio.
While it’s true that the pagan gods of the Saxons, Lombards, Bavarians and Carinthians of Charlemagne’s time had more ritualized observances, the polytheistic gods of our own day are no less numerous, nor less demanding. More of the Eastern variety, they are the “follow-your-heart,” “god-is-within-you” types that drive the commercialization of our culture, keep our souls empty, and weaken our resolve.
The difference isn’t in the challenges, but in the response to them.
Contrary to the focused, proactive approach to these opponents in 800 A.D., the leaders of our own time have simply not been up to the challenge. They themselves are both victims and proponents of polytheism, and doubtless wouldn’t call it polytheism at all. Instead, they would term it “finding yourself,” “living your best life,” or something else Oprah-like and vapid. As for Islam, they declare it rather than confront it. To them, it is not a destructive force bent on cultural dominance – as its opponents realized in the eighth and ninth centuries – but an oppressed and misunderstood group needing assimilation and a sip of the sterile spiritual waters of the modern-day West.
Thus, rather than a unified front and steely resolve, our leaders have chosen a psychological self-delusion, perhaps ironically only possible in the current philosophical moment.
When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Christianization of Europe followed, countering a previously feared Turkish onslaught. This set the stage for the advances in art, literature, philosophy, technology, law, etc. that followed in the Middle Ages. Without Charlemagne, the crowning achievement of Western art and architecture – the Gothic cathedral – would not have been possible.
I’m not calling for forced conversions or a new military crusade. I am calling for resolve, for the courage to believe in ourselves and our own history, to choose one thing over another, and to decide ultimately that the West is worth saving. Charlemagne had the audacity to look his opponents in the eye and make these difficult judgments; the question is, do we?
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
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