Christianity is being attacked in the West. Why won’t our church leaders admit it?

Christian citizens have made hugely positive contributions to society.

Over centuries, the understanding that earthly authorities have been instituted by God, and their powers should be used to restrain evil (Romans 13), has transformed Western culture. Christians have understood our primary identity is as citizens of heaven - Christians can never give uncritical allegiance to any state, or government, since our first loyalty is to the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless we have, over the centuries, worked for the common good of all. A vast range of civic virtues and institutions have been established - to the great benefit of all.

Until now. 

This was recently noted by the US Vice-President JD Vance who gave an historic speech to European leaders in which he berated them for abandoning the values which give rise to Western culture. He listed a litany of human rights and civil liberties abuses by governments against their own citizens. Citing the cancellation of a presidential election in Romania (of which the candidate has since been arrested), and the EU Commission agitating to shut down social media posts deemed “hateful”, Vance slated governments for urging citizens “to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thoughtcrime in Britain and across Europe,” saying that, “Free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”

Identifying the UK’s banning of prayer around abortion clinics as being particularly grievous, Vance was roundly criticised by the mainstream media for suggesting that the Scottish government was planning to criminalise “even private prayer within their own homes.” However, the recent statement by the author of the Scottish “buffer zones” law Gillian Mackay MSP that the crime of praying within a home “depends on who’s passing the window”, confirms that Vance was right.

Identifying the ideological “threat from within” as existential for Western culture, Vance implored the gathered leaders to consider afresh the values which once defined their civilisation, values which are predominantly sourced from the Bible.

In my new book Seismos: Christian Citizenship in a Post-Christian West, I map how Christianity has been slowly but surely evicted from its central civic role to become a minority at the margins once more.

Although most of our fellow citizens continue to enjoy the fruits of Christianity, they neglect or even despise the roots of the fruits. They want the good stuff such as compassion, justice, trust, stability, security, equality and social cohesion. But not the God stuff, such as morality, accountability and self-sacrifice. However, you cannot have the former without the latter, at least not in the benign forms we have become accustomed to.

The former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks described this grand shift as ‘Cultural Climate Change’ – a wholesale rejection of Christianity in favour of, well anything except Christianity. And nature abhors a vacuum. In the spiritual and moral void brought by secularism, as citizenries are infected by intolerant ideologies and colonised by foreign ‘gods’, the social conditions described by Paul in Romans 1 are re-emerging. God and truth (which are synonymous) rejected, idolatry galore (think consumerism), folly celebrated (think universities losing their faculties – literally), and marriage and monogamy eclipsed by promiscuity (via a corruption of sexual identity – with the definitions of gender and age now up for grabs).

Although most of our fellow citizens continue to enjoy the fruits of Christianity, they neglect or even despise the roots of the fruits

While the culture that Paul describes in Romans 1 was pre-Christian, the one we see today is post-Christian. Which means that the new regime is not only particularly hostile to the old regime (us), it has also – as historian Tom Holland has well-chronicled – assumed much of our evangelistic zeal, albeit without any redemptive qualities or inclination. Ergo, the ‘Great Awokening.’ Whereas, religion has excommunication and ecclesial authority, secularism has cancel culture, hate speech, and thought crimes. And all without the capacity of forgiveness or restitution – because secularism is inescapably undemocratic, illiberal and authoritarian – a “totalising creed.” In this brave new world, to express or even hold biblical morals, or to posit a biblical anthropology (what it means to be human) is to be heretical, even criminal. This secular hegemony – beyond which a Christian worldview is illegitimate – is perpetuated by individuals and institutions who have been captured by a form of leftist pietism.

Consider the experience of Kristie Higgs, who lost her job in a school for privately expressing concerns about what was being taught; or Felix Ngole, who – for the same ‘thought crime’ – was expelled from his university course; or David Campanale, the Christian journalist prevented – because of his faith – from being selected to stand for parliament by his party. The list goes on.

Consider also the experiences of Rev Bernard Randall – sacked and prosecuted under terror laws for graciously suggesting that a biblical view of sexuality is of value; and Dr Aaron Edwards, the Theology Lecturer, sacked by his Bible college and threatened with a counter-terrorism referral, for the same secular blasphemy. The complicity of Christian organisations in these persecutions (and that is what they are), and the ‘silence of the lambs’ or notable reluctance of Christian leaders to speak up is a prime example of what I identify as submission to the new social orthodoxy.

Granted, some Christians have expressed outrage at what is happening, but nearly not enough. Some have been in denial – a refusal to acknowledge that the game has changed. In the US, leaders such as Andy Stanley, Preston Sprinkle, Matt Chandler, Russell Moore, David French, and Beth Moore have taken every opportunity to downplay the scale and significance of what Os Guinness correctly identified at the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) event as “Our civilisational moment.”

The truth is that business as usual is no longer an option, and for those who have the courage to face facts about our new civil status and who understand that ‘the only way out is through’ – meaning that we are in this cultural storm for the long run, decades and centuries – there is a double cause for hope.

By living as a minority at the margins normal Christianity is again becoming a revolutionary movement

First, Christians in the West now have renewed opportunities to speak, act and live distinctively and subversively. As the wheels continue to come off for secularism, and as its societal traumas increase, those who are grounded and confident in their faith, who have peace amid the storm, and who (accepting the cost of discipleship) refuse to yield on what is true and good – these will be powerful and counter-cultural witnesses for Christ. To be sure, discrimination and vilification will come, and legal and cultural resistance will be necessary. But by living in the power and purity of the gospel – as a minority at the margins – normal Christianity is once again becoming a revolutionary movement.

Second, given the toxic impracticalities of secularism, for those Christians with a more strategic vision, who can think and plan trans-generationally, there is a brighter future beyond this storm. Culture is a big, messy and slow thing, and secularism is a distinctly self-absorbed and short-sighted ideology. Consequently, by investing in church and public leadership to have a bigger vision and to pursue what Eugene Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction”, Christians can certainly weather the seismos storm of Christian citizenship in a post-Christian West.