There is concern among many in the West that foreign invaders will, and are even now, overrunning the several nations of Europe. Much ink and blood has been spilled in the debate to determine the nature and constitution of the invasion, i.e. whether it is principally ideological, or demographic, or economical (not to mention the related fight over whether said invasion exists at all).
Obviously, and like, so obviously I'm not even going to make an argument for it here, the radish of the problem is that men and churches have forgotten Jesus. Any other causes for Western weakness or heathen victory can be traced back to that. The solution to everything in Creation is simply Jesus. When men bow the knee to the great Prince of the Kingdom of God, it is not prosperity that is guaranteed, but the right. And right is something we are not.
It is the purpose of this post to lay out two practical steps to follow for the West to find itself, restore its virility, and have a place in the world. There are many things about the West that are wonderful. A lifetime of books could begin to list them. Of making books there is no end, but to earthly kingdoms there are. We should all remember that it's okay if the West sets. Yet I am sympathetic to the sentimental attachment we Western Christians have to our civilizational home. There are many things worth fighting for in this world, and the West, while not the highest, is one.
Consider Asturias. Consider Castille and Leon. Consider that centuries before the Spanish began precipitously to commit cultural suicide (an event inaugurated by the popularity of Don Quixote, a century before the rest of the West joined in with the Enlightenment), the romano-gothic kings of the north of Spain were able to begin reconquering the lost Christian kingdoms of Iberia.
Distance and mountains had briefly protected these kingdoms from the onslaught of Islam (an onslaught it was, overwhelming and fast). The Battle of Covadonga gave them time to take a breath. Then two things happened in these kingdoms. The men of these lands had a butt-load of babies, then got on their horses and rode to war.
Here then, briefly stated for your consideration, O men of the West, are the two steps for Reconquista:
1. Mount your wives.
2. Mount your steeds.
And it's in this order, too, by the way. There's a reason the Bible commands that a man stay home and not go to war for a year after marrying. That's the order of business. First, make babies. Then, make war. First, make your army. Then, go out in the vanguard while that army prepares itself.
To mount your steed does not necessarily involve getting on a horse or picking up an assault rifle. It is sufficient for us to know who we are, and why we are here, and to do it.
Which immediately abstracts us from the problem of the West at merely civilizational level and takes us into the cosmic. Because really, a Christian knows who he is, and why, and what he must do. And he must proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever. If the Church forgot the West and rose right now to proclaim the Gospel, the West would be saved by incidence. If we were to wait for three hundred years to do the same, perhaps the West would be dead, but the Gospel would still be proclaimed.
Of course it's possible to have children and go to war without the Gospel. It's been done so many times throughout history. But the Christian does it through faith, because the Gospel brings death to life. We are surrounded by desert and death, but that means nothing to us. We have children as an act of faith. We fight for the world as an act of faith.
There is much more I'd like to say on this topic, but I'll leave off with a final note. This whole death to life thing? Yeah. That's how Gospel life and history works. Jesus dies for us. Husbands die for wives. Christians die for each other. It is possible that the most beautiful thing that could happen would be for the West to die. Who know what beauties may come? And meanwhile, the task for Christians in all corners remains the same: to Gospel with strength.
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