A DYING SUICIDAL CULTURE

As strange as it might seem, there are now “righteous” ways for nations to commit suicide. In “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam,” Douglas Murray attempts to explain the suicidal longings of Europe’s leaders:

• Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument. Those in power seem persuaded that it would not matter if the people and culture of Europe were lost to the world. Some have clearly decided to dissolve the people and elect another because, as a recent Swedish conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt put it, only ‘barbarism’ comes from countries like his whereas only good things come from outside.

How can we explain such a flight into the world of fantasy, especially in light of the fact that Western civilization is still rated as leading the world in justice and social welfare? Immigration to the West also affirms the continuing allure of the West.

However, Western elites now must try to justify their immigration policies that have placed their nations in growing jeopardy.

• All the time Europeans found ways to pretend this could work. By insisting, for instance, that such immigration was normal. Or that if integration did not happen with the first generation then it might happen with their children, grandchildren or another generation yet to come. Or that it didn’t matter whether people integrated or not. All the time we waved away the greater likelihood that it just wouldn’t work. (Murray)

It also seems that these elites have rejected the necessary cognitive armor to resist the mounting threats or to even acknowledge them:

• For religion had not only retreated in Western Europe. In its wake there arose a desire to demonstrate that in the twenty-first century Europe had a self-supporting structure of rights, laws and institutions which could exist even without the source [Christianity] that had arguably given them life. (Murray)

Killing religion is like killing desire. To kill desire depends upon having a desire to kill desire. To kill religion also depends upon an alternative set of “religious” beliefs. Besides, killing religion creates an intolerable vacuum, which demands that it be filled, and Europe has hastily filled this vacuum:

• In the place of religion came the ever-inflating language of ‘human rights’ (itself a concept of Christian origin). We left unresolved the question of whether or not our acquired rights were reliant on beliefs that the continent had ceased to hold or whether they existed of their own accord.

As an openly gay atheist, Murray’s respect for Europe’s formative values is both noteworthy and far-sighted. Europe’s attempt to retain certain Christian values without their Christian foundation is inevitably doomed. To illustrate, human rights apart from human exceptionalism simply cannot be sustained. Why should we experiment on animals, eat, or cage them, rather than on humans? What makes us more valued than animals? Only the Biblical faith, and not science, can answer this question.

Besides, human rights depend upon the belief in human equality. However, this too cannot be sustained without the Biblical revelation that we are all created in the likeness of God and therefore are endowed with transcendent value. In view of our many profound obvious differences, there is no way to sustain the belief in human equality from a secular perspective.

Likewise, there is no adequate way to sustain the objective moral superiority of one culture over another without religion. Without it, Hitler’s or Stalin’s genocidal cultures cannot be deemed any worse than traditional Western/Christian cultures.

Lacking any vision of its fading greatness Europe has lost the ability to integrate its immigrants:

• And while the movement of millions of people from other cultures into a strong and assertive culture might have worked, the movement of millions of people into a guilty, jaded and dying culture cannot. (Murray)

While the immigrants might esteem Europe’s material advantages, they do not esteem its self-indulgent and morally decadent influences and warn their children against them. Clearly, the “mea-culpa” guilt-ridden West admits that it has no superior vision of life to offer.

Where can such a vision be found? It cannot be found in valueless materialism and secularism. These can only offer potential materialistic benefits in the midst of their growing decay.

An objective vision can only come from Above. The Christian faith has already abundantly demonstrated that it can give many earthly blessings. However, its God can offer far more:

• Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16)

Despite the mounting problems, they still refuse to return and to walk in the way of the Lord.