“The Christian faith will do nothing for civilization if it is seen as useful.”
The Western world is clearly shaking apart. The rise of the Trump phenomenon, the fallout from the faux pandemic, and the exposure of the house of lies and corruption created by governments largely disinterested in their own populations have brought the West to a historical inflection point.
The international order upon which the West has existed since the close of the Second World War has become the shovel that will bury it. The only question is, what will replace it?
Will it be a technologically, managerially run tyranny of the soul and mind? Or will the West return to the roots of its origin, which fashioned the most dynamic, free, and prosperous civilization in history? Will it return to its founding ethos, which labored to bring the Judeo-Chrisitan concepts of human dignity, freedom, and justice into the affairs of men – or finish the process of abandoning them entirely?
Is there a “creative minority” that can lead it?
For decades now, many of us in our own silos have been sounding the alarm of the crash of faith, values, and the survival of human freedom. None, however, has done so with more clarity and acuity than the famous author, social critic, and scholar Os Guinness.
Over the years, I’ve reviewed many of his books and interviewed him – and at each turn, I’ve found inspiration and energy to keep in the battle of ideas myself. Reading Guinness is like filling your car with gas, except that here your brain is topped off with high-octane purpose.
Dr. Guinness was born in China to medical missionaries (he lost two brothers there) and witnessed the climatic terror of Mao’s revolution at the age of seven. Like some of our most astute observers of the American experiment, the Oxford-educated young man saw America, both its promise and problems, through a clear lens, undistorted by the cultural trappings of perception of those born here.
The second ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) conference – a Jordan Peterson-inspired affair brings together a unique aggregation of thinkers and views from around the western world, from a center-right spectrum – just ended in London.
Guinness presented a 15-minute speech to the 4,000 attendees, crystalizing the failure of “secular humanism,” which was originally based on reason, being transformed into the post-liberal and then illiberal neo-Marxism. The replacement of reason has failed, he said, and the resurgence of the Christian faith is now seen to be indispensable to rescue the West.
He then cautioned, “The Christian faith will do nothing for civilization if it is seen as useful.” It will require a “creative minority” who believe in the ultimate reality of the God of the Burning Bush and the Call of Galilee.
