John Kuhn Bleimaier
When we witness the demise of western culture, we must be careful to note that this has absolutely nothing to do with any decline of Christianity. The Way, the Truth and the Light which was revealed to us by Jesus Christ our Savior is once and for all, for all peoples. It is the foundation of the true church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Cultures have come and gone. Jesus’ Word shall never pass away.
Since the dawn of the Common Era more than two thousand years ago, various sovereignties, principalities and societies have risen and fallen. The Roman Empire was overrun by the barbarians. Byzantium was decimated by the hordes of Islam. The Third Rome, as represented by the Romanoff empire, was trampled by communism. In our day we witness the final collapse of western culture. It is interesting to analyze the ponderings of Oswald Spengler who wrote his seminal text, The Decline of the West, more than a century ago, back in 1918. Spengler opined that every civilization is inherently cyclical, experiencing ascendance, preponderance and an inevitable decline. He examined all the historic epochs from ancient Egypt to his contemporary western civilization. I am not convinced that Spengler’s theory is ironclad. However, I must agree that he correctly diagnosed the twilight of the West, as we knew it.
Western civilization was deeply influenced by Christianity. But its decline does not presage any retreat of Christianity. Rome, Byzantium and the Romanoff Empire, which styled itself the Third Rome, all faded from the historical stage. Yet the relevance and unassailable strength of Christian doctrine remain inviolate. While these great cultural phenomena were influenced by Christ’s teaching, they were not embodiments of Christianity and all fell well short of the ideals which Jesus revealed to humankind. Had these Christian influenced cultures more closely aligned themselves with the unerring dictates of Scripture, would they have withstood the test of time? This is a question which is not for us to contemplate. We know from Divine revelation that human existence is destined to undergo tribulation and that only the Second Coming of our Lord will usher in eternal peace.
It is our duty to spread the Gospel and to pursue good works in our own lives as a categorical imperative. Our predecessor believers did their part in the past. We must espouse Christ’s work in the present and the future, whatever the name or characteristics of the next predominant culture may be. Even if the years ahead bring repression of Christians, we know that our sufferings on account of our fidelity to our Lord will result in our glorification with Him. Romans 8:17. Christianity is not a culture but it is the Way, the Truth and the Light. Our victory has been won. The kingdom is ours forever.
From a historical perspective, I would like to chronicle the demise of western culture for future students. I would date the high watermark of this late civilization as taking place in 1899 with the establishment of the predecessor of the International Court of Justice at the Hague in the Netherlands. At the time when western sovereign states dominated the globe, it was decided to create a tribunal to ensure that all international controversies would be settled in a peaceful manner by an international court applying Christian principles. Interestingly, the concept of an arbitral court to settle disagreements between sovereigns was promulgated by Nicholas II, the Russian tsar. The idea of the world court won near total approval. If the component societies of western culture had utilized the Hague Court in 1914 when the great powers teetered on the brink of entry into the First World War, this culture may have been longer lived.
I date the decline of the west from Christmas Eve in 1914. On the night before celebrating the nativity of our Lord, the World War I soldiers on both sides of the front lines spontaneously began to fraternize and to sing Christmas carols in their respective languages. Without premeditation, the common soldiers gave expression to the peaceful message of their Lord and Savior. One of the world’s greatest tragedies occurred the day after the holiday when the general staffs, monarchs and ministers, ordered the resumption of hostilities. The guns were only destined to grow silent four years later, after running up millions of casualties and having destroyed any confidence in the inherent virtue of the western culture.
Without the four years of carnage in the second decade of the 20th Century there would have been no marxist state established in Russia and no nazi movement in Germany. The age of brutal ideology was the product of popular disillusionment with the various ancien regimes of Europe after the conclusion of the First World War. It is important to note that the anti-Christian and neo-pagan components of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany respectively, were not central components of the ideologies from the perspective of the common man and woman. The satanic elements of these dictatorships held sway among the small intellectual elites and the party leaderships. Thus, the precipitous downward slide of western culture did not represent a failure of Christianity but a catastrophe of predominant cliques of the various western societies.
For various reasons, the retreat of western culture was more gradual in the United States. Perhaps this was due to relative geographic isolation and to the less poignant suffering of American civilian populations during a century of violence. I would also like to credit the prevalence of believing, church-going Christians in the American democracy prior to the dawn of the 21st Century. However, the end of western culture on our side of the Atlantic is now complete. In 2006 US President Barak Housain Obama stated unequivocally that the United States was not a Christian country. The veracity of this pontification is established by the fact that it barely caused a ripple of protest across these fifty American states.
As we bid farewell to the first quarter of the 21st Century I recognize as proof of the end of western culture in the English-speaking community that both the mayors of London and New York City are Muslims. It is not a manifestation of religious bigotry to recognize that Islam is incompatible with the tenets of erstwhile western culture. The teachings of Mohamed extol violence, require the degrading subjugation of women and eradicate freedom of conscience. When the leadership of a society are beholden to the Muslim faith the underpinnings of western culture have collapsed. The positions of authority held by Muslims in London and New York are merely symptoms of the decline of western culture. They are not even the most important manifestations of the fatal fait accompli. Western culture could never have countenanced the celebration of sodomy or the solemnization of same sex bonds of matrimony. A casual sampling of mass media and entertainment in Europe and America today illustrate the dominant position of a mindset which is diametrically opposed to all the fundamental assumptions which underlay western culture.
I was born and bred in the milieu of western culture. I personally mourn the passing of a way of life with which I felt very comfortable. But I also recognize the shortcomings of my native social environment. As stated earlier the utter failure of western culture to prevent or to stop the various malaise of the last century predestined its eclipse. My emotions are akin to those experienced by a person upon the death of a beloved yet fundamentally flawed relative. I bid a sentimental adieu.
First and foremost, we must never lose sight of the fact that the Way, the Truth and the Light are preeminent because they come from God and they are independent of any cultural association, past present or future. When Rome fell to the barbarians Christianity did not become superannuated. Our Lord’s teachings survived and even prevailed, supplanting paganism in the hearts of many erstwhile barbarians. When Greece and the Balkans were conquered by Muslim hordes the vast majority of believers did not waiver and continued to worship the Lord for centuries before emancipation from the Islamic yoke. The Bolshevik revolution desecrated churches and martyred clergy by the tens of thousands in Russia. Yet, when the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of its inherent and fundamental flaws, millions began to worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit openly, as soon as it became possible.
God alone knows what the future holds for us and it is He who establishes the eschatological timetable. In the years ahead, will Christians be able to freely worship despite the prevalence of an unwelcoming environment? Alternatively, will we be forced to seek refuge in catacombs and suffer humiliation, torture and execution in the “synagogues” of a new successor culture? I do not presume to have an inkling of the answers. I, for one, will content myself to pray that God will give me the strength never to betray Him, despite the personal consequences.
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