A Post-Christian World
Pushing back against this Liberal post-Englightenment, post-Christian society
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
We are living in a post-Christian world. Christophobia is on the increase at home and abroad. The latest data from Open Doors shows that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. Not only that, there’s a growing intolerance towards Christians in the West.
Why might that be? I would suggest it is because Christians have remained quiet for too long – society has forgotten Christ’s teachings.
People often assume that the Church has changed her teachings and adapted to secular norms. Of course, we cannot change our teachings; we must not deviate from Christ’s message, his Good News. But it is easy to see how people may believe we can and have. We have not changed teachings; we have stopped teaching. The Church no longer engages in the crucial conversations around abortion, sexuality, marriage, sin, repentance, forgiveness, and, most significantly, salvation!
There is a discussion within the Church of England, referred to as Living in Love and Faith, essentially debating the Church’s stance on sex and marriage. As a result, ten bishops came out this month supporting gay marriage. Not a single bishop spoke out in defence of traditional Christian teaching on marriage. Not one ‘defender of the faith’ within the CofE defended her doctrine. It seems the liberal progressive bishops would undo 2,000 years of Christian teaching and 4-6,000 years of Jewish teaching that marriage in a Judeo-Christian context is monogamous and heterosexual.
I recently wrote a piece and produced a monologue on the topic of Christian marriage and encountered possibly the most immense backlash I’ve ever received. I have said some controversial things in my time, but I did not consider this among them. It is as if many people didn’t expect a Christian cleric to speak from a Christian perceptive.
There are options in a secular context for civil marriage and civil partnerships. So this is not a matter of equality or ‘human rights’. This is purely a matter of doctrine. According to the Word of God, sex outside of marriage is a sin, and homosexual sex is a sin. My detractors are often quick to respond along the lines of, “you can’t say that it is a sin, it’s legal!”. This shows an apparent confusion as to what sin means. The law of the land does not define sin; God’s law defines sin. He gave us his commandments and taught us that fornication and adultery are sins. Sin is separation from God. We all commit acts that separate us from God, for we are all sinners. Sin is not a dirty word or an insult. It is a description of an act we should try our very best to avoid.
That said, we should be compassionate towards LGBT people just as we would be compassionate towards single heterosexual people who fall prey to sin in the form of fornication. I am not suggesting the Church should not be welcoming or inclusive for the slightest moment. All are welcome to be changed through an encounter with Christ. To all those who would say, “Jesus would love you as you are.” I say no. Jesus loves us, but he told us to repent! Christ spent time with sinners, but it is the sinners who went away changed, not Christ. To the people Christ met in the Bible, he said, “Go and sin no more.”
Further expanding on the topic of sex/marriage, we come to the issue of abortion. Abortion has become somewhat of a dividing factor in US politics but less so in the UK. Liberals have persuaded Christians that it is possible to be both a Christian and in favour of abortion. That is a lie. All human life is sacred; we are called to defend that truth and protect children from harm. There is no greater evil.“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” those are Christ’s words. They’re not welcoming or inclusive, and they’re certainly not nice.
The commandment is clear: "Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17).
The problem is we conceded too much ground. Many of these problems were exacerbated by the sexual revolution. In the 1960s, sex became a commodity. Sex became about short-term pleasure and selfish carnal wants/needs. The Christian stance has always been that sex is a beautiful thing that happens between two married people for the purposes of procreation and union. Once sex became a commodity in the eyes of the general populace, a solution to the consequences of sex was required. When, in fact, if one doesn’t sleep with people one doesn’t want to start a family with, the vast majority of abortions would become unnecessary.
On this serious topic, it is important to recognise cases of abuse and instances of rape and incest should be dealt with harshly under the law. But that is not the reason for most abortions. Abortion rates are rising in the West. In the UK, there are over 200,000 abortions every year; there have been 10,000,000 abortions since the legislation came into play in 1967. Ten million potential lives lost due primarily to convenience.
Marriage rates are falling, too, now at around 200,000 a year, a similar number to abortions. As a society, we are ending as many families as we are starting.
Matt Goodwin shared IFS report findings this week showing that “Among British children born in 1958 9% experienced their parents breaking up by age 16. Among children born in 1970 it was 21%. Among children born in 2001-02 it is 43%.”
There is a pattern developing here between marriage, sex and abortion. All of these problems are detrimental to our way of life. Our society is dying. Birth rates are also at record lows amongst Brits. Immigration numbers are around double that of British births. Foreign-born babies are at record highs. There’s no politically correct way to say this: Moslems are outbreeding us. We are on the way to becoming a majority Islamic country. Islam and Atheism already outnumber Christianity in the census data of the general population of the UK. We must ask ourselves, what kind of country do we want to be?
Christianity is important, even to the secular world. Under Christian values, we defend freedom of religion and freedom of expression. We cannot have an entirely secular state; it’s not possible. Nature fills a void. As Aristotle put it, “nature abhors a vacuum.” It is evident by the growing numbers, in terms of immigration and birth rates, that Islam will take over the space left by Christianity. Liberals might suggest that is a good thing, but I do not. Unlike Christianity, Islam does not encourage freedom of religion or freedom of expression. To the liberals who say that’s Islamophobic, I say show me one country anywhere in the world where Islam is the predominant faith and Christians are not persecuted. They cannot. Islam is incompatible with Western values. Western values were built on the Christian faith, and if we want the West to survive, we must re-find our Christian roots and promote the faith unashamedly.
We see these problems arising in education, and if we want to turn things around, that would be an excellent place to start. We have given so much ground to Liberals. A so-called Conservative government has successfully promoted an anti-Christian agenda in schools with the new RSE curriculum. Relation and Sexual Education devolves Sex Education down from Secondary to Primary schools. I addressed this topic in more depth in my recent Heresies documentary, but they are essentially teaching fluidity in sexuality, multiple (more than 2) genders, and the changing of one’s sex from that ‘assigned’ at birth. Fundamental progressive liberal ideologies are being taught as uncontested facts. It gets worse still, 5year-olds are being taught how to stimulate their private parts. This is evil. We have done away with safeguarding and the concept of age-appropriateness.
In academia, we see the same problem; we have yet again given ground to the Liberals. Free Speech is now frowned upon as a tool to enable ‘hate speech’. It used to be that the Left would defend Free Speech; now it’s seen as a fringe Right-wing objective. Instead, we must protect peoples’ feelings at all costs. Liberals thought the Enlightenment would provide a framework to replace Christianity. However, it didn’t last. The pursuit of false virtue has replaced the pursuit of knowledge. Liberty and toleration are no longer central values. We are living in a post-Enlightenment age.
At the Cambridge Union last week, I took part in a debate on reparations, “This house would pay reparations” Students were observantly and reportedly physically uncomfortable with hearing the opposition argument. It is as if instead of turning up to listen to a debate, they were seeking affirmation of their pre-conceived narrative, and any disruption to that should be silenced. The opposition side consisted of myself, Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, and Cambridge student Henry. Instead of arguing for the opposition, Henry made a wet statement and began his speech by conceding all ground to the proposition. At the time, I said to Rafe this was a smart move. He knew if he genuinely made an intellectual argument for the opposition, he would have to face the woke lynch mob. Cambridge Union debates were once seen as an opportunity to exercise one’s oratory ability, practice debating skills and stretch one’s mind in an academic thought experiment. No more. One student even made a speech from the floor proclaiming, “We are Cambridge students, so we probably don’t need a history lesson.” Not one student in the 500+ capacity chamber motioned to favour the opposition. Much like the bishops in the Church, the ordinary/orthodox was silenced by the hostile heterodox.
We have to push back against this Liberal post-Englightenment, post-Christian society. We do that by being stronger, standing up, and speaking the truth. We are called to disciple the nations. As Christians, we cannot sit back and watch the world implode as secularism and Islam gain footholds on our great nation and the wider world around us.
We have a duty and an obligation to be truthful. To follow Christ, as he is the truth, the way, and the life.
It is rather shocking to encounter so much truth, in the absence of apology. It takes real courage to take a stand like this. We need more people like Rev. Calvin Robinson. Rise up, men of God. Please.
For someone who has never been a man of faith, more and more I find myself coming round to the idea that the degeneration of Western civilisation can be traced back to our detachment from our religious roots and the lessons therein.
Do you recommend my paying a visit to my local church? My greatest concern is that the institution appears, like so many others, to have been completely captured by the secular religion we call “progressivism”.