“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.”
Since that quotation was first published in 2017 by G.Michael Hopf in Those Who Remain, it has become one of the most cited phrases in the conservative universe. I have done so myself repeatedly. This is because it perfectly captures the current decrepit state of Western civilization.
Much of what we call Western civilization comes from Europe. The most attractive thing about Europe is its history, or perhaps more accurately—the physical trappings of history.
From the Colosseum and Vatican in Rome to the Louvre and Notre Dame in France to the Heidelberg Castle and Cologne Cathedral in Germany, we simply cannot get enough.
Europe is filled with such monuments, most of which predate colonization of North America.
Many of what we call monuments are not actually monuments at all. Most are structures once built for a function, and created to either celebrate Christ or built by men inspired by
Christianity. Of course, Christianity—like everything conceived by man—is imperfect. Still in all, civilizations grounded in Christianity have produced the most freedom, technology, health, and prosperity; by the same token, as Western civilization drifts farther away from Christianity, the worse it becomes.
Consider that worldwide, the number one killer of human beings is now abortion. In 2024, 45 million babies were exterminated before they could even be born. That is triple the number of human beings who died in all of WWI. At the other end of the scale, Medical Assistance in Dying, or government assisted suicide, is the 5th leading cause of death in Canada. 1 in 20 Canadians now chooses self-murder. Both abortion and suicide offend God’s laws and are therefore anti-Christian.
However did we get here?
To rephrase a classic line from Churchill, ‘Christianity is the worst form of religion, except for all of the others.’ Christendom has accomplished much. It ended slavery worldwide. It brought us functional expressions of individual liberty and democratic institutions. It freed us from the farm and catapulted us into space. It has done much more, from the mundane to the magnificent, and driven prosperity across the globe.
Meanwhile, whether it is race hustlers, televangelists, or the anti-Western Marxist running the Vatican, Christianity has had more than its fair share of charlatans, hypocrites, and grifters. This is merely symptomatic of human existence. It is also where Hopf meets Voltaire, who famously said:
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
That is exactly what happened to Western culture. As Christian-powered prosperity has flourished in the West, the belief in Christ has collapsed, and many of those weak men Hopf describes have invented their own gods: communism, environmentalism, and victimization, usually all in concert. In order to solve these problems, we are demanded to worship the state and its all powerful, infallible leaders. Of course, the only reason they were afforded the luxury of defeating such fake demons at all is because of the very prosperity which the Christian world founded. Just as the Communist Manifesto was written by a despicable grifter who lived off the labour of others, today’s leftists argue that everyone has a “right” to healthcare, housing, and food, among other things. Unlike the rights enumerated in the Canadian Charter or the American Bill of Rights, however, all such things require someone else to work to provide them.
Today’s environmentalists can push for ‘green’ energy only because actually functional sources of energy exist to allow the green grift to continue. They can pretend their preferred energy sources are ‘green’ only because leftist governments and media ignore reality. Like leaders of other cults, they command their followers to disregard what is right in front of them. Whether it is child slaves in the Congo, trillions of wasted dollars, free equipment that pollutes and cannot be recycled, or infrastructure that does not provide the promised energy —nothing can move them off their green mantras.
The victim mindset has taken hold since leftists have no more understanding of human nature than do communist philosophers. Life is unfair. There always was and will be inequality. It matters not if it was the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty, the Soviet Union, or the West today. Inequality has ever existed, and different groups are disproportionately represented by various classes. No concept of equity or wealth re-distribution can ever eliminate that, or even alleviate it.
Western civilization offers all the opportunity to succeed and improve their lot. However, creating a victim narrative/grift is far easier than recognizing that reality and doing the hard work necessary to overcome challenges and succeed. These three ideologies can generally be encapsulated in the larger anti-Western, anti-white WOKE religion that has infected the left.
That is why the borders have been open, and tens of millions of invaders from the 3rd world have a flooded into the West.
Those entering the West have zero connection with or adherence to the mores and values of Christianity. In Europe, the invaders are nearly all Muslim. As the Christian culture erodes, those whose ancestors created the West are overwhelmed by invaders who do not appreciate or share the culture in the first place. This is obviously a recipe for disaster. Even famed atheist Richard Dawkins, who calls himself a ‘cultural Christian’, recognizes this:
“I call myself a cultural Christian, and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.”
Christianity built the modern world, and for all of its imperfections, its achievements vastly outstrip its human failings. There is simply no other religion, political philosophy, or human framework that has brought more freedom and prosperity to more people than Christianity.
As Christianity collapses throughout the West, civilization will necessarily follow. We already see it. From economic liberty to freedom of speech and everything in between, the religious fictions embodied in anti-western and anti-white globalism are sowing social and economic ruin for the West.
As we enter 2025 with glimmer of hope on the horizon, we would do well to remember that while a Christian West may be imperfect, it is far superior to anything else yet conceived. If the West fails to resurrect and respect Christianity and the society it produced, then it will find itself reverting to the mean of human history—one characterized by scarcity, violence, and tyranny. A life which the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously described as “nasty, brutish, and short”. Ironically, having been driven to create it by a sort of ‘liberation fever’, weak men rarely thrive in such a ruthless environment.
The liberation fever that triggered the French and Russian revolutions evolved into an epidemic turning many churches into centres for the conversion of worshipers into adherents of a world infected by Marxism. This Christ-denying creed invaded even the Rock—the Apostle Peter—chosen by Christ to be the foundation for his Church. It is now, however, being run by a hierarchy at odds with the Gospel.
Many faithful Christians wonder why the present Pontiff is so derelict in his duty to proclaim and promote the teachings of Jesus Christ, so desperately needed in today’s morally crumbling world. Was the Pope, like many other pastors, lured by ‘Liberation Theology’ into abandoning his own faith? Did he not notice that Christianity and Marxism are incompatible, so that their peaceful merger is impossible? Did he fail to see the critical difference in each of their core principles? Was he, like many church leaders, duped but the big lie that Marxism and Christianity are somehow equivalent? Such mindless heresy persists at the Vatican, whose hierarchy acts as though the mission of the church is to liberate Christians from Christendom.
Essentially, ‘liberation theology’ teaches that there is no such thing as sin. We are therefore good with God when we follow the state, as if we are following God, and support whatever ‘makes a difference’—whatever that means in our morally confused world. But Christ never said give all to Caesar; He instead taught us to reserve the principal portion of ourselves for God. Beneath its rhetorical mantle, the ‘updated gospel’ is a roadmap to a world run by weak, Godless men. The kind that Hopf describes as creating hard times. Those at the WEF are fine examples. Or Justin Trudeau. Leaders that would trash the world, including most of its inhabitants, to hold on to power. The projected subhuman, unnatural, God-free world of such men is a product of profound ignorance regarding both reality and humanity. This coincides with a hatred of God and His Creation. Whatever their ‘better world’ might be called, its real name should be ‘Hell on Earth’. In the immortal words of Sun Tzu:
The dawn of such a world would be good news to the morally and mentally brainwashed, which could indeed make people love such a manufactured paradise—the way that the stubbornly defiant Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984 came to love Big Brother—after his free will was at last broken and his mind indoctrinated.
How did the maneuvering for such a dystopian world get so far as it has today? That is too big a question for this commentary; but I can say that it began with unintended consequences of the Enlightenment. It was unenlightened intellectuals and activists who turned the spirit of the Enlightenment into an instrument for rebellion against all forms of authority. They stoked a fever of liberation from tyranny—real or imagined—true or false. The result was inevitable: fellow humans turned murderously upon each other, as tragically demonstrated during the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. The French Revolution deposed an absolute monarch only to crown Napoleon Emperor ten short years later. The Russian Revolution murdered the Czar and his entire family, only to be ruled for ensuing decades by the malevolent despot, Stalin.
Killing and destruction in the name of the Enlightenment or in the cause of progress smells too strongly of the demonic to be tolerated in civilized society. This ‘liberation fever’ persists, it seems, among today’s leftists. A hint of it is found in the obsession among many of them with a culture of death. Even liberals hanging out on the right to escape vilification by leftists attack Christian conservatives who might impose moral restraints upon their cherished liberties—labeling them the “Woke Right”.
Lamentably, many Christians have yielded the high ground to neo-Marxists—whatever their updated gospel may be—a plateau where Christianity and morality are unwelcome. The wiles and deceptions of neo-Marxists of whatever brand have effectively drawn people into their ranks. Since the true Gospel stands in the way of Godless rule, the tactic was to offer worshipers a sinless, no-fault, feel-good version of the Gospel that helps purge their minds and hearts of the Word of God, inclining them to the Left. Reduced to its essentials, the message of the new gospel is simply that there is no way that we can offend God. Be rid of guilt and repentance, and forget all that stuff about the Ten Commandments.
What then about that message written on the heart by our Creator?
Well, if it must be read, then do it with a mind and a will in step with ‘the times’. There must be no veering from the path of progress laid out for us by the new prophets, known today as ‘experts’. And so the ‘progressive’ church is no longer the one founded by Christ upon his Rock, Peter. Its pews, once filled with people seeking strength and communion with God, have been emptied and then re-occupied by people with false notions of Christianity that reveal only ignorance. The general idea is that whatever we do is fine, so long as we believe that we are doing good, when we are just blindly following the rules of the state and trying to ‘make a difference’. If that is what it means to be a Christian, then why bother attending church, reading Scripture, or praying? Never mind coming to the Cross or giving your life to Christ.
Why such a profound ignorance about what it means to be a Christian?
I shall not go into the confusing role in the matter played by Pope Francis. I will simply point out that it is precisely Christianity’s concept of free will that permits schemers to skip its mandate of justice to humanity and to do anything they please. After all, is it not part of the order of Creation to be ‘liberated’ to do whatever is possible, even if it means leaving hell’s gate open wide? As Pope John Paul II once put it so aptly:
“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
In their zeal to improve and remake the world, religious leaders who see no difference between the Kingdom of God and the Dominion of Man have succeeded in making everything worse. For they have been dismantling—whether knowingly or unwittingly—the very spiritual foundation of human life. Conforming the eternal Word of God to the temporal Word of Man mocks what Christ calls for in the Lord’s Prayer:
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as it is in Heaven.”
That requires submitting ourselves to “the Truth, the Way, and the Life” (John 14:6). Only then can we be truly liberated. Bible-based, orthodox, historical Christianity is suddenly so countercultural today. There is shrinking common ground between progressives and Christians.
Christmas and Easter are the two great Christian holidays, celebrating the birth of our Savior and his resurrection, respectively. We can venture into local stores and restaurants to be greeted enthusiastically with cries of “Merry Christmas”, or at least the bland secular salutation—Happy Holidays! Still, progressives are aghast at the birth of an exalted child in the humble circumstances of an animal shed with a bed made from a feeding trough.
Progressives misplace their faith in science, so long as it is consistent with their own political science. They are at war with nature, humanity, and God. Christians believe in the supernatural and the natural; the latter comprising the goodness, beauty, and truth of God’s artistic creation, science, rationality, morality, and critical thinking. The Bible teaches that God created the world and everything in it, and that in the beginning at least, it was good.
Progressives think that mankind is basically good, that education and re-education can perfect us with politically correct ideology. Turning a blind eye to the obvious metaphysical presence of evil all around us (pick a school shooter or terrorist bombing), progressives empathize with criminals for the sake of social justice.
Martin Luther once warned of the unholy trinity of the devil, the world, and our own intrinsically sinful natures. Only God can change our hearts to goodness. With this understanding, Christians support criminal justice and have empathy for victims of crime. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky captures this Zeitgeist in the observation that
“If God is dead, then all things are permissible.”
Believing this to be true, progressives conclude that life itself is meaningless. This imparts urgency in the here and now with attendant striving to create a Utopian society. Conversely, Christians know that the meaning of life exists in our relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. There is this temporal life, the Shakespearean “mortal coil”, and then there is the next life—the transcendent, the eternal. The declaration is that “His Truth endures to all generations”. Christians cherish the fruit of the Spirit, which is “love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Progressives vainly seek the fruit, while shunning the Spirit.
Our post-modern culture embraces the caricature of Christians as pacifists, as wimps.
We are expected to never push back, to never defend doctrines, and to be unquestioningly inclusive. The progressive philosopher John Lennon begs us to “imagine all the people, living life in peace”. But Jesus protests:
“Do you think that I came here to give peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division…I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
This flies in the face of the WOKE concept of inclusion, but achieves perfect diversity.
There is no racial, cultural, or political criterion to salvation. Continuing their 200 hundred year infatuation with racism, progressives endorse racist, hateful, divisive Critical Race Theory. CRT posits that there is no atonement for something called white privilege, but only ceaseless oblation and apologies. Canadians are all too familiar with these from our current Prime Minister, who apologies for everything but the many atrocities he has committed against his own people. Against this, the Apostle Paul taught:
“He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”
Embracing Christian teaching, which is fundamentally opposed to CRT ideology, Martin Luther King Jr. shared:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Re-definition of narrative is one of the latest progressive actions celebrating LGBT immorality. Thinking children to be little animals, there is now a progressive inclination to groom them for sexual exploitation. The word “pedophile” is actually being legislated out of existence, in favour of the clinical term “MAP” or ‘minor attracted person’. In opposition, science, statistics, and the Bible indicate that LGBT aberrance is unnatural, abnormal, and immoral. Proscriptions against immoral sexual behaviours are extant because God has said “I do not change.” Having created man and woman in His own image, God ordained the sanctity of marriage for the natural, normal, moral conduct of men and women. Knowing that children are made in the image of God, Christians are called to protect childhood innocence.
In its original tenets, Black Lives Matter (now better known as Big Luxury Mansions) aims to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” Disregarding consequences, an intact nuclear family is disparaged as white supremacy. There is no belief that children have the right to be raised in a family with both a father and a mother. In the progressive family structure, there is equality between partners, without a head of the family.
This is the abhorrent leftist conception of “family”. Against this, the Bible teaches that God ordained the nuclear family headed by the father as the first governmental structure.
Christian families have thrived for two millennia, yet progressives consider this family structure to be something bizarre and oppressive.
Considering it just another form of birth control facilitating licentious sexual activity, progressives support killing infants, even after birth. It has been posited that abortion could be driven by narcissism. Abortion impacts blacks, Hispanics, and the poor at much higher relative rates. Conversely, Christians have learned the truth in poetry of the sanctity of life:
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Slavery, including human-trafficking, has become commonplace. Some cultures still condone slavery. However, Western civilization has evolved from trafficking in slaves to using slaves to abolish slavery. This led to moral repugnance at the very idea of slavery. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, the concept of slavery was so repulsive that translations from Hebrew or Greek manuscripts substituted the word ‘servant’ for ‘slave’.
This is because Christians know:
“You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”
For this debt, Christians are slaves to our Sovereign Lord. The Lord is sovereign over mind, body, and soul. The relationship is even richer between a Christian and Christ. In belief, and though the Holy Spirit, we consider Jesus the Shepherd of our Souls and the atoning sacrifice sufficient for salvation. Not only this, but Jesus teaches that he is our friend, too; and being adopted as God’s children through faith in Jesus, He is our brother, and we are joint heirs with him in His Kingdom.
Progressives insanely believe in some synthesis of socialism and totalitarianism. CRT posited that virtues and skills such as punctuality, planning, hard work, objectivity, rationality, causality, and quantification constitute a work ethic proving systemic racism and white supremacy. An ever-expanding welfare state is promoted. Christians instead favour capitalism with individual liberty. Capitalism rewards creativity and innovation. Christians have a strong work ethic because we are to work as if for the Lord. This perspective has been described variously as the Protestant or Catholic work ethic. Against the welfare state, the Bible teaches
“If anyone is not willing to work, then he should not eat.”
This does not preclude charity for those in need, because the Bible elsewhere teaches
“Let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Progressives espouse values such as diversity (quotas), equity (wealth redistribution), and inclusion (excepting white male conservatives). They detest Christian virtues such as courage, compassion, persistence, diligence, patience, honesty, and integrity. Progressives even say that none of these ought to be taught to our children.
It is a core Christian belief that God has granted us freedoms which governments must respect and protect. Progressives tell us to do what we are told by bureaucrats, technocrats, political masters, and information gatekeepers like Google and Facebook. The worldviews of Christians and progressives are thus worlds apart, struggling for dominance within Western civilization. We Christians must finish the race by staying engaged in the future and waging the good fight by enabling virtuous government, being faithful to the two Great Commandments, praying for non-believers, and trusting in the sovereign of God.
For those awakened by God’s Grace, for those who have ears that hear and eyes to see, may God’s peace rest upon you so that you enjoy Good Tidings of Great Joy.
