There Is No Western Civilization Without Christianity

For the past two weeks, the news has been filled with stories and videos of riots across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The unrest is in response to the murders of three little girls who were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift dance party in Southport, England, on July 29. The accused is a young man whose family emigrated to the U.K. from Rwanda. Although the suspect is a British citizen, Britons took to the streets in angry and violent protests about the massive amount of immigration successive governments have allowed to take place.

Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the protests "far-right thuggery," and virtually every single media outlet has smeared all protesters as "far-right" bigots and racists. This ignores legitimate concerns of the native British population. Ever-larger percentages of Great Britain's residents are not native-born. Forty percent of London's population was not born in Great Britain, and 54% have parents who were born elsewhere. Sixty-three percent of immigrants to Great Britain now come from non-EU countries, and many arrive from countries with religious beliefs and cultural practices that are not only different from those of Great Britain but actively hostile to them.

In a Nov. 2023 interview with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, bestselling author Douglas Murray decried the West's absurd hostility to its own history and culture. He cited the recent election of former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf as an example:

"[Yousaf] had himself photographed on his first day in office with a group of other Muslims doing the Islamic prayers in the first minister's office, bending to Mecca. If Kate Forbes (Yousaf's opponent) had become leader and promptly posted a photograph of her and some others taking Holy Communion, I think there would have been an uproar. So why would that have been the case, but no uproar for Humza Yousaf doing the Islamic prayer in the office? Because we want everybody to have religious freedom except ourselves. We want to praise every tradition apart from our own. And we want to promote every belief system other than the one that got us here. That is madness."

The attitude Murray describes is pervasive not only in the United Kingdom but throughout Europe (with notable exceptions like Poland and Hungary) and the United States.

It should not shock anyone that Western civilization is under attack. Christianity -- one of the pillars of Western civilization -- has been attacked for decades, its role in contemporary Western society continually eroded.

This is societal suicide. There is no Western civilization without Christianity.

The West is being overrun because it has grown soft and complacent, disdainful of religion (at least, of Judeo-Christianity), arrogant and egotistical in its belief that either there is no God, or that man's reason -- often phrased as "science" -- should supplant faith. In fact, it's a relatively modern notion that science and religious faith are at odds; both Judaism and Christianity (as well as other religious traditions) have produced some of the greatest scientists in human history.

More to the point, however, the nihilistic absurdities we have witnessed in just the past few years demonstrate that there is neither science nor rationality separate and apart from God. Science, properly done, is supposed to be about the pursuit of truth. But without God as the ultimate source of truth, men soon come to believe that the truth is whatever they say it is, then demand that others agree.

In other words, they try to make themselves God.

Thus were we told demonstrably, scientifically false statements about COVID-19 and ordered to believe them: about the origins of the virus, the necessity of masking, social distancing and lockdowns, the efficacy of ivermectin and other drugs, and the safety of mRNA "vaccines." Thus, too, are we continually told demonstrably, scientifically false statements as part of the current transgender activism and ordered to believe them: that men can become women, and women can become men, with chemical and surgical interventions, and that young children have the maturity to understand and consent to medical alteration of their bodies that leaves them scarred and often infertile.

Because so many Westerners think themselves "above" nonsense like religion, they pay insufficient attention to those whose religious and political beliefs are about conquest, destruction, enslavement and murder. They casually and happily promote ideologies and policies that undermine the family, threaten the safety of children, attack masculinity, collapse the educational system and weaken society. By way of example, none of the West's enemies will care about our armed forces' alleged "inclusiveness," the number of transgender officers, or the widespread use of sexually confused pronouns, except to see them as further proof of weakness to be exploited.

Too many of those who read the Bible do not distinguish between punishment and consequence. God advises us to do X and to avoid Y, and we ignore His admonitions at our peril; not because He will "punish" us if we disregard His precepts, but because He is warning us that we will destroy ourselves or leave ourselves vulnerable to being destroyed. The laws of human behavior and societal flourishing are as immutable as gravity. You can tell yourself you're God and throw yourself off a building, but you will still go splat when you hit the ground.

Christianity has been responsible for the creation and expansion of Western civilization: its artistic, literary, architectural, educational, political, social, cultural, technological achievements, and the unprecedented liberty and prosperity that have been enjoyed by so much of the world's population over the past 2,000 years. Even the flaws, excesses or abuses committed in the name of Christianity have been able to be remedied not by its elimination but by appeals to its fundamental principles.

Those pushing to further reduce Christianity's influence on Western civilization -- or eliminate Western civilization itself -- will soon find that what takes its place is not a secular utopia of multicultural respect and scientific rationality but a bloody morass of sectarian conflict, widespread ignorance, routine violence and subjugation of the weak by those in power.

In other words, the status quo before Christianity.

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To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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