In the Czech Republic today we celebrate the arrival of Christianity in 867. A few neopagans may be grumbling, but basically they are probably happy too. Our roots and our culture are Christian, whether we want them or not. Our landscape is full of chapels and statues, there is a little church in every village, and our language and our thinking are full of Christian patterns. Even those who know nothing about Christianity are somehow shaped by it.
Which does not mean at all that we should return to some historical religious form. It is a legitimate position in the discussion for someone to suggest that, but it is equally legitimate to respond that it is not possible. If the Czech lands are ever Christian again, it will be a different Christianity than the Christianity of the Middle Ages, and than the Christianity of the Reformation, and than the Christianity of the Baroque (which in our country took the utterly horrifying form of brutal, violent recatholization). Perhaps something like that is already being born. Who knows.
Which does not mean at all that we should return to some historical religious form.
What is a pity, though, is that this is still an area of such burning controversy for us. Conservative Catholics still dream of completing the Habsburg project of breeding a slave ethnicity. Liberals are mostly figuring out how to please the global overlords. Atheists are angry because they feel robbed by the huge wealth transfers to the Church. And it all leads to nothing but bickering.
Yet one would expect that Christianity would be the very topic where people would conciliatorily say “our dead are lying next to your dead, there is no need to continue fighting,” and where people do each other favors. But I think that would be asking too much.
