Reviving the West

Reviving the West/How to Save Western Civilization

Once again our culture is being invaded by barbarians and we need to defend it and revive it. How do we do it? This is nothing new. It’s happened before. Let’s learn from our history.

This is a dark time in the history of Western culture but we have had darker times. The darkest moment was probably about 900 A.D. The church was rotten to the core. The clergy lived godless, dissipated, immoral lives. You can imagine what the laity were like. Church attendance was miniscule. In addition, outside invaders were threatening the extermination of Christian civilization, such as it was. Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, Muslims on the southern frontier. All were powerful enemies seeking to obliterate what was left of Christendom. Then a miracle occurred. In 910 A.D. three young men, about college age, decided to live lives of complete devotion to Jesus Christ. Their names were Berno, Odo, and Wido. They lived in Aquitaine, what is now southern France. They went to a Duke William and asked him to give them a plot of land that would provide a living for them. They asked for the property with no strings attached—in other words they would not have to provide a certain number of mounted knights which was common with such a bequest. In exchange they told Duke William they would pray for his soul. He agreed. And so at a place called Cluny, Berno, Odo, and Wido sought to live out their lives in strict obedience to Christ. They sought to withdraw from the world. Instead they changed it. Soon other young men and women heard about what they were doing and they began to flock to Cluny. It wasn’t long before they had to start other monastic houses that would be under Cluny’s rule.  Eventually hundreds of Cluniac houses dotted the map of Europe. The church was revived and transformed. The result was that by 1300 Medieval Europe had emerged as the most advanced civilization in the history of the human race. It was economically the most well off. It was scientifically and technologically the most sophisticated.  They had produced the greatest architectural masterpieces in the history of mankind. Western culture began in Europe and became the most powerful in history. The darkness had been replaced by bright light. And it all started with three young men who wanted to do nothing but live in obedience to Jesus Christ. 

So, what steps do we take to reclaim and revive our civilization? Let me suggest three.

Step one: We need revival in each Christian heart. We have to determine, individually, to live in total obedience to Christ just like Berno, Odo, and Wido. That means speaking the truth no matter what the consequences. That means obeying God’s leading no matter what the consequences. Many years ago I knew a young Christian woman who attended a Christian meeting, listened to the speaker, and felt that God was leading her to raise a large family and she did; later she felt God leading her to adopt children of color, and she did. Still later she felt God telling her to homeschool her children when no one was doing that—and she did. I am not telling you to imitate her in every detail. I am pleading with you to listen to God like she did. And when He leads you to do something, do it. Seventy years ago A.W. Tozer said the great scandal of the church is the low level of Christian living. The great threat to our culture is not the Left-wing barbarians who are seeking to invade and destroy it. It is the Christians who do not crown Christ as Lord. When you do you become a tool in the hand of God to change the world.

Step two: We started out with the simplest unit, the individual. Let’s move up to the next unit. We need to build Christian families that are embassies of the Kingdom of God, powerful centers of Christian discipleship. Christian families need to raise powerful warriors for Christ who will shape the culture of the future. We need to have children. A specialist in population studies recently said that when you see a family with three children they are making a theological statement. With regard to the education of our children our number one priority is for our children to know and love Jesus Christ. Our number two priority is to have no other priorities.

Step three: We move up to the next unit, build local congregations, local churches, that are filled with spiritual power. Not just the maintenance of a veneer of Christian culture, but churches that are serious about bringing people into full commitment to Christ. The Christian church builds community better than any institution or group that has ever existed. A community is a civilization in microcosm. It pulsates with values that form a civilization. With enough local communities you have a culture-wide reach and then a worldwide reach. I was standing in front of a building at the university one time and a colleague, a psychology professor, came up to me. She said, “Phil, I understand you are a pastor.” I thought, uh-oh, here it comes. So I admitted I was a pastor. She said, “It must be wonderful to live in community.” Wow. She knew enough about the Christian church to know that we have community no one else has. I sensed in her loneliness and isolation that I don’t experience. If you have grown up in the Christian church you have never spent a day of your life without people caring about you. Sometimes you may think they care too much but as a Christian you are never alone. You are in the greatest and most powerful community that has ever existed and you build and transform culture like no one else ever has.

These three steps, individual revival, family renewal, and congregational transformation, may seem simple but they work. We know because we have watched them work in history over and over again. You can take steps to implement them today. Thanks for watching. May our God bless you this day in a mighty way.