Western democracy is in trouble. America, the world’s democratic flag-bearer, is increasingly confusing democracy with “freedom-without-responsibility,” and our Western civilisation is under siege. Dark forces are causing it to rot on the inside, and malevolent forces are attacking it from the outside. So, let’s take a look at what is happening, and how we should respond as Christians. 

You will have noticed that there is a lot of anxiety, anger and recriminations about at the moment. People are shouting into their own “sound shells” on social media, where anonymity can protect them from any moderation in their rants. They are like dogs peeing on lampposts – leaving their vitriol whilst not actually being present. 

Just think how beautiful life would be if we obeyed Jesus’ command to love our enemies!

Those who study leadership will be familiar with the life-cycle bell curve of an organisation. On the upward slope, there is optimism and certainty over core beliefs. On the downward slope, there is anxiety, recriminations and a loss of confidence in core beliefs. Significantly, the same symptoms occur with the rise and fall of civilisations. The English historian, Arnold Toynbee, has analysed this in his twelve volume A Study of History, which is an analysis of the rise and fall of the world’s civilisations. He concludes that civilisations don’t end because they are attacked from the outside, rather, they commit suicide by rotting from the inside.

So, are we rotting?

I think we are. The old certainties of morality and God have been trashed, and there is an increasing lack of civility – as can be seen on our social media platforms. This loss of civility is widespread. We now need rules to stop political staff having non-consensual sex in our parliament buildings! And we have to have signs on busses asking young people to give up their seats for the old and infirm.

The lack of civility, and the loss of God from public consciousness, have gone hand in hand. Even the ardent atheist, Richard Dawkins, is concerned about what will become of Western society without God. Of course, no one should believe in God just because they want a civil society; they should believe in God because it is true, i.e. it is a faith that is rational and experientially sound. But therein lies another problem: even the notion of truth has been trashed by our Western “would-be” social engineers. Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault et al. have helped to fuel a culture of resentment, rebellion and hedonism… and this has been taken up enthusiastically by our university’s social science departments – who have produced many of today’s media opinion leaders.

Between you and me, I am sorry to see the passing of civil debate and the rigorous pursuit of truth. There was a time (before “cancel culture”) when a lot more people thought it a good thing to be civil to those they disagreed with. They also used to understand the “rules” of civil debate – one of which was the obligation to debate your opponent’s best and most well attested argument. Today, people rarely move on from abuse… and if they do, they build an unjust, highly distorted “straw image” of their opponent, which they find easier to burn. 

So, what happens to a society without God? The history of God’s people in the Bible gives us a sobering clue. When they lost faith in God and lost their moral compass, it resulted in abuse of the poor by the rich, unbridled sexual licence, and brutal practices such as the sacrifice of children to false gods. The consequence of this was that God “gave them over” to the desires of their hearts (Psalm 81:12; Romans 1:21-32). In other words, God allowed them to crawl out from under his protection. For the ancient Jews, this usually meant being invaded by a foreign nation such as Assyria or Babylon.

The West has had the shadow of hardline Islam fall over it, and it now has China breathing down its neck. China has a different view of sexual morality than the “progressive” post-Christian West. China also has a desire to see wealth distributed more fairly in their nation, as some of the multi-billionaires have recently discovered. What if God allowed the Chinese to teach us the lessons we would not learn from him? What if he allowed us to learn it from a totalitarian regime that would exert total control and show no mercy… and have no time for our progressive Western views?

I do hope that it won’t be necessary.

There is hope, but the path to hope passes through the door of repentance (2 Chronicles 7:14). That’s the place to start.