Shifting Sands and Stable Hope

Cultural Crisis and the Light of Christ

So much has changed, so many opinions altered, so many illusions undone, so many institutions exposed, so many alliances broken and made. The old certainties have shifted. So many people now say and do things they could not have imagined saying or doing before, both for good and for ill. And all in such a short space of time…

Does anyone else feel like the last half-decade feels longer than several decades put together?

So much has happened in the social and political and religious spheres, it's hard to believe it fits into less than half a decade. The consequences of all that has been crammed into these historic years will likely remain imprinted upon us for decades to come.

So much has changed. So many opinions altered. So many illusions undone. So many institutions exposed. So many alliances broken and forged. So many people moved to say or do things they previously could not have imagined saying or doing before. And all in such a short space of time. All experienced so fast, as if we’re sat on a train watching the world we knew speed past us.

Rarely do we have sufficient time to reflect and take stock because as soon as something has happened or been spoken about, there are already several other paradigm-changing things apparently demanding our immediate attention or interpretation.

If someone was in a coma for four years they would think they had woken up to a new world altogether, where so many of the previously reliable “certainties” have been substantively and irreparably undermined. Things just don’t work the way they used to anymore. You can try to ignore it, but the world—and the way people think and talk about it—is nonetheless changing the way it’s changing.

Historians will surely analyse this as a time which substantially shaped the course of the next half-century at least, one way or another. There are, of course, noted parallels between the digital revolution (and its effects on the socio-political world) and the impact of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution.

But it’s not merely an issue of technological innovation and access to information. It’s also a revolution in how people think and act (no doubt in part due to the way people’s minds have been shaped by the digital revolution). But unlike many modern political revolutions, the revolution of thought we are currently experiencing also involves people returning to older ideas which they did not know they were “allowed” to think about.

The Changing of the Ground

There is a creaking in the floorboards of what we thought we knew, of what we thought was not ok to say or do. The pull is in both directions. As the liberal elites become more progressively intoxicated with their empowered derangements, those who see the poverty of their thinking began to realise that even the ground on which they were holding firm was already indirectly “held” by the progressives.

Gradually and imperceptibly, we had already begun to contribute to the downfall and were heading in the same direction, albeit at a slower pace. We had already given away too much ground, and much of the ground we thought needed defending was already compromised as it was.

However you describe it—whether via the effects of the “red pill” movement or the reactions to the societal forest fire that is “Woke”—for many people it now feels impossible to go back to talking the way we did about socio-politics, theology, mission the way we did even half a decade ago. Things have changed.

It’s not that something has changed about the truth. It’s more that—as in the era of the Reformation—the sarcophagi which had encased the way the truth has been seen has begun to crack, revealing what some suspected might be underneath all along. People are rediscovering older paths, long covered over. The new pioneers are not necessarily those who forge anew, but simply those with the courage to walk the ways of their forebears.

I recently read some old txt messages from less than two years ago (!) and it feels like another mini-epoch, where people thought and spoke and did things very differently, so that if you said the same things to the same people now, they might not even comprehend them.

There are things about all these swift changes in thinking and action that are good, of course. Not all instability is bad, and it certainly produces clarity on issues that matter, and may inadvertently uncover things that have gone hidden for too long. But it also makes many of these newfound (or re-found) convictions less stable and rooted. This could cause even more problems in the future depending on how those convictions are stewarded.

If we do not return to true and time-tested foundations for determining the good, the true, and the beautiful, then the instability we presently see in the West (and by extension, the world beyond the West) things can and will get a lot worse than they currently are. At some point we may even find ourselves longing for our present situation by contrast with what will come.

A civilization that is embarrassed of its heritage, that cannot define a woman, that murders the unborn by the millions, that sees children as an environmental curse and subjects them to state indoctrination, that punishes the righteous and rewards the wicked, is not a civilization that will stand.

In the ensuing chaos of western decline, which everyone can see, there seem to be countless different “solutions” today. Many of them are ultimately hopeless, even if they see many of the problems correctly. There are also an increasing number of people who looking back to the foundations of Christendom, to “cultural Christianity”, to “Christian values”.

Broadly speaking, this is a good thing, even if we must remain wary of Christianity becoming co-opted into something merely “useful” for our own “civilizational” purposes. Christ is good for civilization, but only on his terms. He is Lord, not us. This is why, as much as we must aim our guns where the battle truly rages today (the ideological Left, in whose hands remains the real socio-cultural power which continues to indoctrinate millions), we must also keep an eye on the sheer rapidity of revolutionary thought coming from the darker fringes of the Further Right.

This is not yet the problem, but it is still a problem. And it will become even more of one if and when it becomes clear that the ever-radicalizable men in such spheres risk not only bypassing Christ in their efforts to win back the culture that was taken from them, but use a selective interpretation of Christian principles to rapidly advance their own agenda the same way the progressive Left has been doing for decades.

The point is not to demonise such people, but to show them their folly and call them back from ideological despair to the actual hope of genuine hope. We must reach them for Christ whilst we have the chance.

Prayers From the Chaos

We hope, pray, and preach that out of our present chaos, many will find their way not merely to a forgotten cultural heritage carved into the side of the rock, but to the rock itself. As Spurgeon famously said: “Oh blessed hurricane, that drives me to the rock of ages”. Those most animated by the decline of the West today must come to believe in Christ. They must not only appreciate the principles of his kingdom, but obey them, as Christ Himself taught us to (cf. Matt. 28:20).

As we have seen, even many who do not yet believe in Christ are starting to see the effects of a society that has rejected Christ’s kingdom. Such people are quietly hoping that if we are to see some kind of “dark age” again in the West, Christianity will shine again in its midst. And it will.

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.

(Isaiah 60:1-3)

Do not worry. Take courage. Be faithful. Stop pretending to follow Christ and actually follow Him. Submit yourself to His Word and allow yourself to be transformed by His light. When you do, Christ will shine through you ever more brightly in the midst of the present darkness.