The renewed interest in Christian heritage among young cultural figures shows that Western civilization’s foundations remain relevant—even in a secular age.
While Christianity has much to offer in both its orthodox and esoteric forms and is undoubtedly the foundation of the West, the most intellectual, open and progressive civilisation ever to have existed, I think the rekindled interest in it is less to do with its religious aspects and more to do with its cultural aspects.
If the West is to survive it desperately needs a standard around which to rally and the banner of Christianity in its historical context and spiritual offering offers a least as good a point of reference as any other that might be proffered.
Awesome essay! I have been praying for this and sharing it as a retired Lutheran Pastor (amongst other vocations). Thanks for your writing! I look forward to reading more.
Your last sentence is the best "living inheritance" is foundation for the future ..History was built one century at a time.. My India Parents were early 20th Century and I East African Born raised educated married Mom of 4 immigrated as wife- the second half till Y2K.
2001 My children and theirs began their sojourn a Century21 New Millennium
There is something unmistakably comical, and deeply pathetic, about the spectacle of modern reactionaries rummaging through the graveyard of medieval superstition in search of a moral compass.
We are asked by Delphine Chui, invoking the recently converted Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to swoon over the profound cultural renaissance allegedly taking place among the youth. And what is the supreme evidence marshaled for this great spiritual awakening? A Norwegian center-forward wearing a shiny cross necklace and buying an expensive old book. If the future of Western civilization rests on Erling Haaland’s choice of neckwear, then the barbarians are not merely at the gates; they have already taken the field, and the match is hopelessly lost.
To suggest that a generation exhausted by the banal, hyper-connected vacuity of TikTok will find its salvation in the dogma of the medieval church is not just bad history; it is intellectual suicide. Let us be entirely clear about what this "inheritance" actually entails. The "foundations" we are so blithely urged to recover were built on the burning of heretics, the subjugation of women, the brutal suppression of scientific inquiry, and an absolute, unyielding insistence on total intellectual conformity.
The author writes grandly of Christianity giving us our "moral language of human dignity and charity." This is standard-issue pious revisionism. The concepts of individual liberty, universal human rights, freedom of conscience, and rule of law were not granted by Christian dogma; they were dragged, screaming and bleeding, out of its iron grip during the Enlightenment. It was precisely when Europe began to discard the crushing authority of the Church that true progress, humanism, and scientific reason became possible. To credit the tormentor with the freedom of the liberated is a grotesque inversion of historical truth.
Consider the absurdities on offer:
The "Roots" Fallacy: It assumes that meaning and purpose can only be found by looking backward to an age of ignorance, rather than forward to reason, skepticism, and human solidarity.
The "Permanence" Delusion: It mistakes the rigid, frozen doctrines of antiquity for stability, ignoring that the only truly permanent feature of human progress is our willingness to question authority.
The "Cultural Nostalgia" Trap: It reduced high civilizational debate to aesthetic fetishism—gazing at stave churches and medieval manuscripts while conveniently ignoring the crushing tyranny that produced them.
That young people, suffocated by the endless, shallow algorithm of modern digital life, are searching for depth and anchor is entirely understandable. But to offer them the dust of the altar as a substitute for thought is a cruel bait-and-switch. Religion does not offer answers; it demands submission. It does not provide depth; it demands that you stop digging.
If Western civilization is indeed experiencing a crisis of identity, the cure will not be found by kneeling before the altars of our ancestors. It will be found, as it always has been, in the courage to think for ourselves—without the aid of holy books, cross necklaces, or the dead hand of tradition.
The irony is that you are extremely oversimplifying the depth of the implications of what you want to dismiss as 'kneeling before the altars of our ancestors'.
When you get truly lost, retracing your steps to find where you began to drift is the only way to get back on track.
Your bias isn't a valid argument. It's absolutely true that the West, succumbing to the 'Progressive' regression of dismissing objective truth and values has not only caused a loss of identity, it has also created a generation of narcissistic, self centered, myopic, indoctrinated, supposed 'analytical, critical thinkers' who absolutely cannot look beyond themselves...having dismissed the past and its objectivity.
Looking within, drawing from an empty cistern, will only result in even greater dysfunction and chaotic, scattered, purposeless , apathy, and hopelessness.
Acknowledging the recovery of objective, transcendent, Personal, absolutely Truth is necessary.
You don't want that because of the implications that it has concerning your illusion of autonomy.
Ah, the familiar, sonorously delivered sermon of the orthodox reactionary: when backed into an intellectual corner, accuse the skeptic of vanity, throw around the word "transcendent," and declare that any refusal to bend the knee to bronze-age metaphysics is merely a neurotic, selfish craving for "autonomy." It is an old, tired trick, but let us give Mr. Williams his due and inspect the sheer hollow bombast of his argument.
First, consider the staggering intellectual arrogance hidden inside his metaphor of "retracing our steps." We are told that society has "drifted," and that the only cure for our modern disorientation is to trudge backward into the fog of medieval dogma. But where, precisely, on this historical map does Mr. Williams propose we stop? Shall we retrace our steps to the pious, "objective" era of the Spanish Inquisition? To the "transcendent" certainty of burning witches at the stake? To the serene moral stability of feudal serfdom, when the Church assured every peasant that their misery was ordained by the Almighty? To call this regression a "recovery" is a triumph of semantic absurdity.
Notice, too, the breathtaking irony in his assault on modern youth. He decries a generation of "narcissistic, self-centered, myopic" souls, and what is his proposed cure? A theology that tells every individual that the creator of a hundred billion galaxies cares intimately about their personal sex life, their dietary habits, and whether they murmur the correct incantations before sleep. If you are searching for the ultimate expression of human narcissism, you will not find it on TikTok; you will find it in the cosmic conceit of religious dogma, which insists that the vast, indifferent universe was crafted explicitly as a stage for our moral drama.
Let us dismantle the central fictions of Mr. Williams' grievance:
The "Empty Cistern" Fallacy: He asserts that without divine diktat, humanity is drawing from an empty well. This is a profound slander against the human species. Science, literature, art, medicine, philosophy, human empathy—these are not "empty." They are the hard-won, magnificent triumphs of human beings relying on reason and solidarity rather than waiting for manna from heaven.
The "Objective Truth" Sleight of Hand: He smuggles in the word "Truth"—capitalized, naturally, to signal its supernatural pedigree—as if the conflicting, blood-drenched doctrines of competing holy books constitute a coherent, "objective" standard. Which divinely revealed "Truth" are we to adopt? The Protestant? The Catholic? The Sunni? The Shia? History shows that when men claim to possess absolute, transcendent truth, the inevitable result is not harmony, but holy war.
The "Illusion of Autonomy" Libel: To value intellectual freedom, secular reason, and individual liberty is not a childish demand for total self-indulgence. It is the mature acceptance of responsibility. It is the recognition that no heavenly father is coming to save us from climate change, nuclear annihilation, or our own cruelty; we must do the hard work ourselves.
Mr. Williams laments that critical thinkers "cannot look beyond themselves." On the contrary: it is precisely the secular, scientific worldview that forces us to look beyond ourselves—to gaze into the vastness of the cosmos, to accept our humble place in the evolutionary chain, and to recognize that our brief time together on this pale blue dot is all we have.
To trade that breathtaking, honest wonder for the suffocating security of an ancient creed—to mistake the cage of religious dogma for a sanctuary—is not a noble recovery of truth. It is a coward's retreat from the demands of maturity. If thinking for oneself is an "illusion," I will take it any day over the proud, kneeling servitude Mr. Williams mistakes for wisdom.
Very sad this. True faith does not make one demand submission and stop digging—it offers relationship with the Creator who made us and the incredible earth we inhabit —It is an invitation to dig into the wondrous miracle of what it means to be in covenant with that Creator, through the teachings of and living power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. There is an amazing gift awaiting those who dig into the truths of the Bible and seek to live by them. There is healing and purpose available and power to put down the forces of evil that continue to plague humanity. These Christian values and the living Christ that stands behind them have created human greatness. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will make himself known to you.
Ah, how gently the velvet glove covers the iron fist. Ms. Graber enters the fray with a voice dripping with sorrowful pity, offering a vision of faith that sounds less like a medieval magistrate and more like a warm, therapeutic hug. It is a classic move in the evangelical playbook: when the historical record of dogmatic cruelty becomes too hideous to defend, reframing the whole business as a cozy "relationship" with the Creator.
How charming. How comforting. And how thoroughly, magnificently evasive.
Let us unpack this warm blanket of sentimentality and look at what lies beneath. Ms. Graber assures us that "true faith" does not demand submission or stop one from digging, but rather invites us to explore the "wondrous miracle" of a divine covenant. Yet, observe the immediate, inescapable trap built into this invitation: you are permitted to "dig," provided you only unearth what the Bible has already approved. You are encouraged to seek "truth," so long as that truth leads you straight to the feet of Jesus Christ. This is not genuine exploration; it is a guided tour of a pre-approved ideological museum where the exit doors are welded shut. Real inquiry requires the freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads—even if it leads away from the altar.
Consider the remarkable assertions slipped so casually into her pious prose:
We are told that "Christian values and the living Christ... have created human greatness." What a spectacular slap in the face to the ancient Greeks who gave us democracy and philosophy, the early Islamic scholars who preserved mathematics and medicine, the Asian civilizations that flourished for millennia without the New Testament, and the legions of secular scientists, freethinkers, and humanists who built the modern world. To claim a monopoly on human greatness for one’s own tribe is not humility; it is parochial hubris masquerading as piety.
Ms. Graber speaks of the divine power to vanquish the "forces of evil that continue to plague humanity." One wonders where this power was during the Black Death, the Holocaust, or the centuries of transatlantic slavery—institutions, mind you, that were enthusiastically justified by countless pious believers using the very scriptures she urges us to read. If the "living Christ" stands behind these values, the historical record of His intervention is dangerously spotty.
"My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will make himself known to you." Ah, the ultimate pious passive-aggression. It is the polite believer's way of saying: You are merely blind, my dear friend, but I shall pray for your poor, ignorant soul. It allows the faithful to feel spiritually superior while appearing entirely benevolent.
Ms. Graber offers "healing and purpose" wrapped in the language of love. But a gilded cage is still a cage. The moment you question the nature of this "covenant," the moment you point out the glaring contradictions in scripture, or the moment you refuse to bend your conscience to ancient dogmas, the gentle offer of "relationship" reveals its true terms: conform or be lost.
I do not doubt Ms. Graber’s sincerity; sincerity is the easiest thing in the world to fake and even easier to suffer from. But sincerity is no substitute for truth. I prefer the bracing, cold air of reality—with all its terrifying uncertainties, its unanswerable questions, and its glorious, unscripted freedom—to the warm, suffocating nursery of supernatural wishful thinking.
Keep your prayers, Ms. Graber. I will keep my reason.
While Christianity has much to offer in both its orthodox and esoteric forms and is undoubtedly the foundation of the West, the most intellectual, open and progressive civilisation ever to have existed, I think the rekindled interest in it is less to do with its religious aspects and more to do with its cultural aspects.
If the West is to survive it desperately needs a standard around which to rally and the banner of Christianity in its historical context and spiritual offering offers a least as good a point of reference as any other that might be proffered.
Awesome essay! I have been praying for this and sharing it as a retired Lutheran Pastor (amongst other vocations). Thanks for your writing! I look forward to reading more.
Your last sentence is the best "living inheritance" is foundation for the future ..History was built one century at a time.. My India Parents were early 20th Century and I East African Born raised educated married Mom of 4 immigrated as wife- the second half till Y2K.
2001 My children and theirs began their sojourn a Century21 New Millennium
There is something unmistakably comical, and deeply pathetic, about the spectacle of modern reactionaries rummaging through the graveyard of medieval superstition in search of a moral compass.
We are asked by Delphine Chui, invoking the recently converted Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to swoon over the profound cultural renaissance allegedly taking place among the youth. And what is the supreme evidence marshaled for this great spiritual awakening? A Norwegian center-forward wearing a shiny cross necklace and buying an expensive old book. If the future of Western civilization rests on Erling Haaland’s choice of neckwear, then the barbarians are not merely at the gates; they have already taken the field, and the match is hopelessly lost.
To suggest that a generation exhausted by the banal, hyper-connected vacuity of TikTok will find its salvation in the dogma of the medieval church is not just bad history; it is intellectual suicide. Let us be entirely clear about what this "inheritance" actually entails. The "foundations" we are so blithely urged to recover were built on the burning of heretics, the subjugation of women, the brutal suppression of scientific inquiry, and an absolute, unyielding insistence on total intellectual conformity.
The author writes grandly of Christianity giving us our "moral language of human dignity and charity." This is standard-issue pious revisionism. The concepts of individual liberty, universal human rights, freedom of conscience, and rule of law were not granted by Christian dogma; they were dragged, screaming and bleeding, out of its iron grip during the Enlightenment. It was precisely when Europe began to discard the crushing authority of the Church that true progress, humanism, and scientific reason became possible. To credit the tormentor with the freedom of the liberated is a grotesque inversion of historical truth.
Consider the absurdities on offer:
The "Roots" Fallacy: It assumes that meaning and purpose can only be found by looking backward to an age of ignorance, rather than forward to reason, skepticism, and human solidarity.
The "Permanence" Delusion: It mistakes the rigid, frozen doctrines of antiquity for stability, ignoring that the only truly permanent feature of human progress is our willingness to question authority.
The "Cultural Nostalgia" Trap: It reduced high civilizational debate to aesthetic fetishism—gazing at stave churches and medieval manuscripts while conveniently ignoring the crushing tyranny that produced them.
That young people, suffocated by the endless, shallow algorithm of modern digital life, are searching for depth and anchor is entirely understandable. But to offer them the dust of the altar as a substitute for thought is a cruel bait-and-switch. Religion does not offer answers; it demands submission. It does not provide depth; it demands that you stop digging.
If Western civilization is indeed experiencing a crisis of identity, the cure will not be found by kneeling before the altars of our ancestors. It will be found, as it always has been, in the courage to think for ourselves—without the aid of holy books, cross necklaces, or the dead hand of tradition.
The irony is that you are extremely oversimplifying the depth of the implications of what you want to dismiss as 'kneeling before the altars of our ancestors'.
When you get truly lost, retracing your steps to find where you began to drift is the only way to get back on track.
Your bias isn't a valid argument. It's absolutely true that the West, succumbing to the 'Progressive' regression of dismissing objective truth and values has not only caused a loss of identity, it has also created a generation of narcissistic, self centered, myopic, indoctrinated, supposed 'analytical, critical thinkers' who absolutely cannot look beyond themselves...having dismissed the past and its objectivity.
Looking within, drawing from an empty cistern, will only result in even greater dysfunction and chaotic, scattered, purposeless , apathy, and hopelessness.
Acknowledging the recovery of objective, transcendent, Personal, absolutely Truth is necessary.
You don't want that because of the implications that it has concerning your illusion of autonomy.
Ah, the familiar, sonorously delivered sermon of the orthodox reactionary: when backed into an intellectual corner, accuse the skeptic of vanity, throw around the word "transcendent," and declare that any refusal to bend the knee to bronze-age metaphysics is merely a neurotic, selfish craving for "autonomy." It is an old, tired trick, but let us give Mr. Williams his due and inspect the sheer hollow bombast of his argument.
First, consider the staggering intellectual arrogance hidden inside his metaphor of "retracing our steps." We are told that society has "drifted," and that the only cure for our modern disorientation is to trudge backward into the fog of medieval dogma. But where, precisely, on this historical map does Mr. Williams propose we stop? Shall we retrace our steps to the pious, "objective" era of the Spanish Inquisition? To the "transcendent" certainty of burning witches at the stake? To the serene moral stability of feudal serfdom, when the Church assured every peasant that their misery was ordained by the Almighty? To call this regression a "recovery" is a triumph of semantic absurdity.
Notice, too, the breathtaking irony in his assault on modern youth. He decries a generation of "narcissistic, self-centered, myopic" souls, and what is his proposed cure? A theology that tells every individual that the creator of a hundred billion galaxies cares intimately about their personal sex life, their dietary habits, and whether they murmur the correct incantations before sleep. If you are searching for the ultimate expression of human narcissism, you will not find it on TikTok; you will find it in the cosmic conceit of religious dogma, which insists that the vast, indifferent universe was crafted explicitly as a stage for our moral drama.
Let us dismantle the central fictions of Mr. Williams' grievance:
The "Empty Cistern" Fallacy: He asserts that without divine diktat, humanity is drawing from an empty well. This is a profound slander against the human species. Science, literature, art, medicine, philosophy, human empathy—these are not "empty." They are the hard-won, magnificent triumphs of human beings relying on reason and solidarity rather than waiting for manna from heaven.
The "Objective Truth" Sleight of Hand: He smuggles in the word "Truth"—capitalized, naturally, to signal its supernatural pedigree—as if the conflicting, blood-drenched doctrines of competing holy books constitute a coherent, "objective" standard. Which divinely revealed "Truth" are we to adopt? The Protestant? The Catholic? The Sunni? The Shia? History shows that when men claim to possess absolute, transcendent truth, the inevitable result is not harmony, but holy war.
The "Illusion of Autonomy" Libel: To value intellectual freedom, secular reason, and individual liberty is not a childish demand for total self-indulgence. It is the mature acceptance of responsibility. It is the recognition that no heavenly father is coming to save us from climate change, nuclear annihilation, or our own cruelty; we must do the hard work ourselves.
Mr. Williams laments that critical thinkers "cannot look beyond themselves." On the contrary: it is precisely the secular, scientific worldview that forces us to look beyond ourselves—to gaze into the vastness of the cosmos, to accept our humble place in the evolutionary chain, and to recognize that our brief time together on this pale blue dot is all we have.
To trade that breathtaking, honest wonder for the suffocating security of an ancient creed—to mistake the cage of religious dogma for a sanctuary—is not a noble recovery of truth. It is a coward's retreat from the demands of maturity. If thinking for oneself is an "illusion," I will take it any day over the proud, kneeling servitude Mr. Williams mistakes for wisdom.
Very sad this. True faith does not make one demand submission and stop digging—it offers relationship with the Creator who made us and the incredible earth we inhabit —It is an invitation to dig into the wondrous miracle of what it means to be in covenant with that Creator, through the teachings of and living power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. There is an amazing gift awaiting those who dig into the truths of the Bible and seek to live by them. There is healing and purpose available and power to put down the forces of evil that continue to plague humanity. These Christian values and the living Christ that stands behind them have created human greatness. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will make himself known to you.
Ah, how gently the velvet glove covers the iron fist. Ms. Graber enters the fray with a voice dripping with sorrowful pity, offering a vision of faith that sounds less like a medieval magistrate and more like a warm, therapeutic hug. It is a classic move in the evangelical playbook: when the historical record of dogmatic cruelty becomes too hideous to defend, reframing the whole business as a cozy "relationship" with the Creator.
How charming. How comforting. And how thoroughly, magnificently evasive.
Let us unpack this warm blanket of sentimentality and look at what lies beneath. Ms. Graber assures us that "true faith" does not demand submission or stop one from digging, but rather invites us to explore the "wondrous miracle" of a divine covenant. Yet, observe the immediate, inescapable trap built into this invitation: you are permitted to "dig," provided you only unearth what the Bible has already approved. You are encouraged to seek "truth," so long as that truth leads you straight to the feet of Jesus Christ. This is not genuine exploration; it is a guided tour of a pre-approved ideological museum where the exit doors are welded shut. Real inquiry requires the freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads—even if it leads away from the altar.
Consider the remarkable assertions slipped so casually into her pious prose:
We are told that "Christian values and the living Christ... have created human greatness." What a spectacular slap in the face to the ancient Greeks who gave us democracy and philosophy, the early Islamic scholars who preserved mathematics and medicine, the Asian civilizations that flourished for millennia without the New Testament, and the legions of secular scientists, freethinkers, and humanists who built the modern world. To claim a monopoly on human greatness for one’s own tribe is not humility; it is parochial hubris masquerading as piety.
Ms. Graber speaks of the divine power to vanquish the "forces of evil that continue to plague humanity." One wonders where this power was during the Black Death, the Holocaust, or the centuries of transatlantic slavery—institutions, mind you, that were enthusiastically justified by countless pious believers using the very scriptures she urges us to read. If the "living Christ" stands behind these values, the historical record of His intervention is dangerously spotty.
"My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will make himself known to you." Ah, the ultimate pious passive-aggression. It is the polite believer's way of saying: You are merely blind, my dear friend, but I shall pray for your poor, ignorant soul. It allows the faithful to feel spiritually superior while appearing entirely benevolent.
Ms. Graber offers "healing and purpose" wrapped in the language of love. But a gilded cage is still a cage. The moment you question the nature of this "covenant," the moment you point out the glaring contradictions in scripture, or the moment you refuse to bend your conscience to ancient dogmas, the gentle offer of "relationship" reveals its true terms: conform or be lost.
I do not doubt Ms. Graber’s sincerity; sincerity is the easiest thing in the world to fake and even easier to suffer from. But sincerity is no substitute for truth. I prefer the bracing, cold air of reality—with all its terrifying uncertainties, its unanswerable questions, and its glorious, unscripted freedom—to the warm, suffocating nursery of supernatural wishful thinking.
Keep your prayers, Ms. Graber. I will keep my reason.