Not because it can't, but because the vast majority of Westerners don't want it to. Let's go a step further - the vast majority of people who identify as Christians don't want it to either. That's difficult to accept, but an honest assessment of our current circumstances make all of this evidently clear, as least as far as I'm concerned.
I've written several blog posts about Western Civilization and Christianity in which I argued that without the latter, the former would soon collapse. When I wrote those posts here and here, I never could have anticipated that the real potential for collapse would arrive so quickly - but here it is.
Of course, I am not the only blogger in the universe who has made this connection; Bruce Charlton and William Wildblood have been practically screaming it from rooftops for years. But barely anyone has listened. Even now, their voices and the other scattered voices of sanity go unacknowledged. Why? Very simple. Most people in the West are not interested in saving their civilization, let alone their souls. That's really what it comes down to in the end.
That's not despair on my part - merely the cold acceptance of fact. For months people in the West - and the rest of the world - were subjected to an outright psychological and spiritual terror campaign via the birdemic virus. Though I didn't expect anything of the sort, a small part of me did hope and pray that people in general, and people in the West in particular, might emerge from the lockdown with some semblance of a spiritual awakening. Instead of spiritual awakening we got what some wags on the net have referred to as the 'awokening.'
The West has never been more spiritually dead than it is now - and I sense it is going to become even 'deader' in the coming weeks and months.
So, Christianity cannot save the West if the West does not want it to. It's that elementary. Nevertheless, Christianity can save individuals and small groups if we allow it to. I must stress that by Christianity here I am referring to following the promise of Jesus, not membership in one of our many, all too many hideously corrupt churches. If you happen to belong to one of the handful of uncorrupted churches or some SSPX order or some hidden Orthodox monastery on a mountain somewhere, good on you. As for the rest of us, we're pretty much on our own.
Except we're not - on our own, I mean. First and foremost, we have Christ. Nothing else is really required, but we do also have each other. Though we may not all know each other and may never meet, we are all connected in brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ. This brotherhood and sisterhood is what Western Civilization ought to be; but it isn't. And it hasn't been for a while.
All the same, each one of us who follows Christ is microcosm of a greater civilization than Western Civilization ever was or could ever be. This civilization reveals the personal God to the world. This civilization not only believes in life everlasting, but orders all of mortal life around it. This civilization honors the sanctity of individual and aligns itself with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. This civilization is creative. This civilization is Divine Love.
As long as each of us remains in Truth, as long as each of refuses to live by lies, and as long as each of puts our faith, hope, and love in Christ, this great civilization - this macrocosm which is THE macrocosm - will continue to exist, both here and in life everlasting, even as the formerly great civilization that refuses to save itself continues crumbling all around us.
I've written several blog posts about Western Civilization and Christianity in which I argued that without the latter, the former would soon collapse. When I wrote those posts here and here, I never could have anticipated that the real potential for collapse would arrive so quickly - but here it is.
Of course, I am not the only blogger in the universe who has made this connection; Bruce Charlton and William Wildblood have been practically screaming it from rooftops for years. But barely anyone has listened. Even now, their voices and the other scattered voices of sanity go unacknowledged. Why? Very simple. Most people in the West are not interested in saving their civilization, let alone their souls. That's really what it comes down to in the end.
That's not despair on my part - merely the cold acceptance of fact. For months people in the West - and the rest of the world - were subjected to an outright psychological and spiritual terror campaign via the birdemic virus. Though I didn't expect anything of the sort, a small part of me did hope and pray that people in general, and people in the West in particular, might emerge from the lockdown with some semblance of a spiritual awakening. Instead of spiritual awakening we got what some wags on the net have referred to as the 'awokening.'
The West has never been more spiritually dead than it is now - and I sense it is going to become even 'deader' in the coming weeks and months.
So, Christianity cannot save the West if the West does not want it to. It's that elementary. Nevertheless, Christianity can save individuals and small groups if we allow it to. I must stress that by Christianity here I am referring to following the promise of Jesus, not membership in one of our many, all too many hideously corrupt churches. If you happen to belong to one of the handful of uncorrupted churches or some SSPX order or some hidden Orthodox monastery on a mountain somewhere, good on you. As for the rest of us, we're pretty much on our own.
Except we're not - on our own, I mean. First and foremost, we have Christ. Nothing else is really required, but we do also have each other. Though we may not all know each other and may never meet, we are all connected in brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ. This brotherhood and sisterhood is what Western Civilization ought to be; but it isn't. And it hasn't been for a while.
All the same, each one of us who follows Christ is microcosm of a greater civilization than Western Civilization ever was or could ever be. This civilization reveals the personal God to the world. This civilization not only believes in life everlasting, but orders all of mortal life around it. This civilization honors the sanctity of individual and aligns itself with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. This civilization is creative. This civilization is Divine Love.
As long as each of us remains in Truth, as long as each of refuses to live by lies, and as long as each of puts our faith, hope, and love in Christ, this great civilization - this macrocosm which is THE macrocosm - will continue to exist, both here and in life everlasting, even as the formerly great civilization that refuses to save itself continues crumbling all around us.
RSS Feed
