REUPLOAD: The Death of Christian Courage (Which No One Wants to Admit)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Very happy to be with you. I'm generally seen as the Islam guy and I talk about that big issue, but seeing that this is a Christian revival conference and the fact that Islam and Christianity, there's something of a symbiotic relationship going on, I have to actually talk about both because it's really all interrelated. And so what I'd like to start off with when I think of problems, what's the first things?

[00:00:23]What's the first premise at the problem?

[00:00:25]And I often think that many people don't really see it or don't talk about it. We tend to talk about symptoms. Islam itself in the West, in Europe, in the UK, I see it as a symptom. I don't see it as an inherent or innate problem and it's a symptom of essentially the weakening or the dying of Christianity in the West. So how did that happen? And one of the thoughts that's been percolating in my mind and I've been thinking about and talking about quite often is the idea that one of the problems with Christianity in the modern era is that it has in very many ways adopted a materialist paradigm, not unlike atheists and secularists. And by that, I don't mean materialistic as in covetous. I mean it in a more philosophical sense, a materialist paradigm in the sense that all that is real, let's say from an atheist point of view, all that is real is what? It's the material, right? It's the physical world. It's what I can see, feel, touch, and measure. And all this abstract talk about your morality and your religion and all this sort of thing is usually jettisoned and that's one of the problems, but I fear and I think and I see that much of Christianity in all of its manifestations in the modern era has adopted this worldview despite the theological veneer of what they say. So in other words, a Christian can of course express profound theological truisms, but at the same time, um it, you know, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. And what I'm seeing is so how is a Christian becoming a materialist paradigm in a philosophical sense? If I speak to a Christian, what is the greatest evil that you can engage in? I think a lot of people will say what a atheist would say, which is physical harm, okay? Physically harming someone and much worse, of course, killing someone.

[00:02:07]And I agree, of course, those are great evils. No one would argue that. But, unbeknownst to most Christians, that was actually more of a minor aspect of the message of Christianity, the entire ethos, the the morality that was created. And in short, before I elaborate, the problem with materialist Christianity, which in many ways has, like I said, permeated the worldview of all Christians, is that it perfectly comports with secularism and atheism.

[00:02:34]And that is why Christianity is still allowed to live side by side with a secular or even atheistic world um environment, because it also agrees all that we want to do is make sure no one's physically hurt, there's no violence.

[00:02:48]But, the question now becomes what happened to morality?

[00:02:52]That was a word that used to be pivotal and important and fundamental to something like Christianity.

[00:02:57]Where is what is there morality anymore?

[00:02:59]And I'm not talking, of course, about individual Christians. I'm sure there are many devout Christians still are in the world, but it's not something that is socially acknowledged or something much less that is socially pursued that we talk about. Okay, so and once one I think this is my realization when I think about it and how morality is not is not Western people and Christians will say they're moral, but again, it's through a materialist paradigm. And you know that by simply looking at what used to be the greatest sins and the greatest evils for a society, and all of them are to various degrees completely accepted for by Christians today. And all one has to do is look at the sexual mores of the West today, and very few Christians will even argue or or or talk about it or even dispute it. And they'd be, of course, scandalized to feel like they have to talk about it. But, if you look at historic Christianity, biblical Christianity, Christianity in all of its forms. Something like sexual mores, sexual sins, that was one of the pinnacles and the one of the most unquestioned aspects of Christianity.

[00:04:02]So, you see this is why why is it not being mentioned? Because, well, no one's hurting anyone. And so, that's what I mean. That's a perfect example of how a Christian adopts the materialist worldview. Now, there used to be something and um just to make it simple, you may have heard of I'm sure you have you have, of course, many Catholics, Anglicans of the seven deadly sins, which actually very much informed the worldview of Christians in the pre-modern era.

[00:04:29]And they are I often miss, but let's see. Uh wrath, greed, gluttony, envy, lust, um sloth.

[00:04:38]And I always miss one.

[00:04:41]Pride. Oh, yeah, the worst one.

[00:04:45]Yeah, I know. The root of them all.

[00:04:46]Yeah, you're right. Okay.

[00:04:48]So, think about those seven things now.

[00:04:51]Okay, that is what a Christian society thought about. Now, these are all metaphysical. They're not material.

[00:04:56]Okay, these were metaphysical principles. This is what Christianity was all about. Notice, killing is not one of the seven deadly sins. Why? Cuz it's a byproduct. Of course, it's evil and you shouldn't do it, but it wasn't seen as a root cause. Now, when I look at these the seven deadly sins, which were fundamental to a Christian society, Christian um to Christendom essentially for centuries up until actually quite recently.

[00:05:22]Not only are they not something that we talk about or something we condemn, they are in fact what we now celebrate and a bunch of our economy is based on it.

[00:05:32]And we call ourselves Christians and we live with it and we live in peace with this. And I find that very interesting.

[00:05:38]Pride. Pride, of course, is exalted.

[00:05:40]Pride, you know, there's Pride Month.

[00:05:42]Think about that. Uh lust, that's everywhere you look. It's it's it's promoted. it's it's glamorized. Envy, just think social media, okay?

[00:05:54]Gluttony, turn a TV on, everything's about, you know, putting images of food. Sloth. So, it's kind of amazing that to me these are the principal issues. These are the first things that were actually at the heart of a Christian order, and they've just been completely so jettisoned, and very few Christians even understand this. And that's the point. This is so subtle and so incremental that and the reason is, the best way I can put it is because Christians one way or the other over the decades and possibly centuries have just adopted a very materialist worldview, which is that yeah, we talk about the afterlife, we talk about sin, we talk about being saved, but in the end, when it comes to society, the old we begin and end with just not hurting people, okay?

[00:06:39]So, that's become the ultimate Christian virtue. And it is a virtue, I'm not arguing that, but I'm trying to say there was so much more above it, which actually gave meaning to life.

[00:06:49]Now, what happens when society, such as Western society, European society, jettisons what I'm talking about, which is essentially the metaphysical aspect of Christianity. You can actually call it the spiritual aspect, because the the physical or material aspect, what's the corollary to the metaphysical, the beyond the physical?

[00:07:10]Well, that's the spiritual.

[00:07:11]And I just think it's funny because a lot of Christians today, when they say the word spiritual, it means some sort of abstract fuzzy feeling. Actually, I think to be spiritual is to be engaged and to comprehend and try to exercise the metaphysical metaphysical aspects of Christianity, the things that are beyond the physical, that are not measurable, that deal with morals and ethics, and that sort of thing.

[00:07:34]Now, when all that is jettisoned, as it has been in recent generations, a vacuum is created, and that's I think where we are. And what does nature abhor? It abhors a vacuum. Enter Islam.

[00:07:46]Well, Islam of course is its own body of system. It's its own religion. It has its own teachings. You know, one can be very hostile to it or critical of it. And I'm of course associated with those views.

[00:07:59]But we have to be honest, it also brings a sort of traditional worldview. It knows what a woman is and it knows what a man is. It's not confused about that for example. And it has all sorts of things that were very traditional that Europeans and Christians would have agreed with historically. So I think that aspect be And it's confident. So now you have a vacuum in Europe or in the West in general because of the reasons I've I've outlined dealing with the um the sort of slow melting away of Christianity based on these philosophical or epistemological under underpinnings.

[00:08:31]Now you have Islam coming in and it may have all its problems and all but it's still it's very visceral, it's down-to-earth, and it does offer all of these things that are filling the vacuum. Okay? And this is why you find Western people who are turned off and find no resonance in modern secular liberal uh culture and they turn to something like Islam, which on the heart of it doesn't make any sense. I wager if those people actually had a true Christian upbringing or according to the way I'm trying to describe it, which is actually much more fused with a metaphysical understanding, they would not find Islam appealing. But that's what I mean. There's a vacuum now so that even something that is inherently inferior in as much as it offers something of a primordial conservative worldview that still resonates with all humans, then it becomes appealing.

[00:09:23]And then it's all especially in this country, it's coalescing in a very strange way. As you all know now that there's a new um blasphemy code or uh about Islam a new anti-Islamophobia or anti-Islam hostility thing.

[00:09:40]And of course, this is just this is that one more way to help Islam to become more empowered, more entrenched. You can't even criticize it. And I haven't looked as closely as I'd like to the wording, but it seems it's very fuzzy, intentionally so and vague, so that anything it says things like encouraging hostility or well, who's going to decide all that?

[00:10:02]And um all of this so the kind of Christianity that I'd like to see go away and I'd like to see it sort of bring back a more traditional form of Christianity that prevailed during Christendom.

[00:10:16]It well, what I call let's put it this way. I've tried to coin a word. I call it doormat Christianity and I think this is the modern form of Christianity whereby Christians are taught again in keeping with what I'm saying, this materialist idea to just be doormats, okay? Christianity begins and ends by you being a doormat. You're non-confrontational, you lay down, everyone walks all over you and then you get to pat yourself on the shoulder and say, "Hey, look, I'm virtuous. I'm good." It's also a way of make It's a way of make make turning of a vice, cowardice, into a virtue, I think.

[00:10:47]And that's why it's become very prevalent, what I call doormat Christianity. Doormat Christianity is not going to stand up against Islam and that's what we're seeing.

[00:10:55]In fact, that kind of Christianity which is completely about just being passive, who do you think benefits from it most of all? It's probably the more of an enemy you are to Christianity, the more the prevalent form of doormat Christianity works and serves perfectly to empower the opposite forces.

[00:11:14]So, I think Christians need to recapture and reclaim a sense of morality and a sense of the metaphysical. These are the building blocks. Without these, I don't believe that let's say the Islam problem cannot necessarily be addressed in and of itself. You can't maintain a sort of this current culture which with all its confusions and sort of breakaway from Christianity and then be able to resist something like Islam. I think it's all very interconnected. If you go back and you can easily see this. Go back a century to the way Western Europeans and Westerners thought and Christians thought, you wouldn't have this Islam problem at all. Even if it existed, it would immediately be solved. So, I think there's a lot of paralysis going on amongst Christians because they just feel like like I said, uh the best they can do is to just be just what they've been taught and bred including like I said by forces that don't like Christianity. I saw a video um in the Super Bowl a couple years ago and as you know, Super Bowl commercials Super Bowl commercials tend to they're very prominent and they're very mainstream.

[00:12:20]And all it was was images of people washing people's feet.

[00:12:25]But for some reason, all the people who were washing the feet looked like white traditional Christian people. And all the people getting their feet washed were Well, one was a trans man, one was obviously a like it was like on a migrant border and it was an illegal migrant. One was a woman committing an abortion and or at an abortion center and people are protesting but another woman's washing her feet. And all and one was a criminal and a policeman was washing his feet.

[00:12:49]And then it ended up by saying Jesus didn't hate, he washed feet. And you can just see that kind of message, how it is completely geared to weakening Christianity by also but making you think you're being a good Christian.

[00:13:02]Because there's no balance. Of course Jesus washed feet, that's not my argument, but there is a balance. Jesus also hurled tables and made a court of whips and drove people and livestock out. So, there is a room I believe for Well, the Bible says so, righteous indignation that is at least funneled in a proper way.

[00:13:20]And all of that I guess is missing and inasmuch as people don't get that, I I a lot of this is futile and I'll end it by what I call the two swords theology.

[00:13:31]I just wrote a book that came out a few months ago. It's called the two swords of Christ, and it deals with the military orders and their battles with Islam, the the Templars and Hospitallers. But there's a second meaning to the title, and it's basically in Luke where Christ says, "If he doesn't have a garment, sell it and buy a sword." And the disciples say, "Lord, here are two swords." And he says, "That is enough." Now, of course, to modern day Christians, that means absolutely nothing. It doesn't mean anything about a real sword. But, of course, there's a long and deep tradition, pre-modern, especially medieval, understanding, which is the two swords. One is spiritual, which I think modern Christians still accept, spiritual warfare. But one is secular warfare, okay? And um that's that was the whole rationale for just war. That was the whole rationale for um the Crusades, which I'm sure a lot of people think are not what they really were. Um But so that kind of mentality, and again, it's not about physical, not necessarily literal. It's just about being bold and militant, at least vocally and in in your approach to what's happening. Because if you look back, you zoom out and see what's been going on, it's just been one incremental slow degrade. And no matter how many uh no matter what people are saying or doing or books or conferences, if you look at the scale, it goes down little It's like one step forward, three steps back. And that's how it's been going.

[00:14:48]So, I think in part with Christian revival and the Islam threat, Christians just need to again go to these first things and really recapture a sense of a morality that that is above and beyond just physical considerations.

[00:15:02]And once that is done, because like I said, it's all interconnected, the Islam question will become a lot easier to answer almost um instinctively and very natively. And that's it. Thank you.

[00:15:16]Raymond, we've seen a lot in the last couple of weeks over Ramadan of the real assertion of Islam in the public space.

[00:15:24]Do you think that it's legitimate for the state institutions to actively privilege Christianity and actually to restrain the public assertion of Islam?

[00:15:35]And what do you think is at stake if we don't do that?

[00:15:38]I think it's legitimate because that's what every single other country and civilization in the world does. They prioritize their own religion, their own culture, their own institutions. And that's considered normal and accepted.

[00:15:52]And you know, no Western country would criticize Saudi Arabia for the way they live, which is extremely draconian and doesn't even have room for anyone else.

[00:16:01]So, I definitely think every civilization has at least its own right to express fully its own Christian in this case Christian heritage. And any form even even forms of governments that are based on Christianity. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Now, of course, having invited so many Muslims, that does cause a problem. Um but at the same time, you could it could just be rectified by just having a Christian revival. And it's just straightforward. Again, this goes back to that doormat mentality where, you know, we have to hold back our religion to appease someone else when nobody else would do that and rightfully so because that's their way. This is their land.

[00:16:42]This is how they want to live. So, I don't think the Brits should have any compunction about resuscitating or resurrecting their Christian civilization irrespective of who lives around them. This whole conference is based on the premise that we're moving into a post-liberal age, but some of the things that some of you have talked about and the way you've addressed these issues seems to me to be very much fitting within the liberal paradigm. So, you says you talked about the sort of ickiness of pre-liberal solutions like deportations and the idea that we want to make it okay and restore the liberal neutrality of it's okay to be a Christian, okay to think about our history and our past in a positive light rather than saying, "No, we are the English, we are Christian, and this is what we think in a not in a non-liberal, non-neutral sense. So, we're we're talking about you know, we don't want a post-liberal world here, but we're still operating within the paradigm of liberalism. Raymond? Yeah, I actually agree. That's obviously it's a divergence of opinion, but I'm inclined to agree with you in that this is kind of what I was trying to say that Christianity has sort of been co-opted by secular liberalism and it's kind of coincided with it because there are similarities. The entire Christian message of you know, love, peace, tolerance, turning the other cheek, but to a certain degree we have to realize it's now being weaponized against Christianity. And that's the whole point. There needs to be a balance. You know, it's not it's not just the doormat variety. There's also room for the whip and cords analogy, which means there's also time when Christians need to get serious and get their hands dirty as it were in this sense. So, I'm in agreement with you and therefore I protest that you're associating me with your remarks.

[00:18:36]And I rather agree with with Raymond. My only point about deportations is that they they may be necessary and they are not the sole policy policy response to the de-Christianization and moral relativism of modern Britain.

[00:18:51]And without wanting to sound too um controversial, are we not being terribly arrogant thinking that somehow we, rather than God, can change the mood in this country?

[00:19:02]The one thing I haven't heard someone say is all the movements of the spirits have come from the edges. Wesley and you know, when we had famously had revival, it's actually about listening to God and asking him how we should move rather than us having all these theories about how what's going to happen next. I don't know how that looks like in the Anglican Communion, but I would suggest that all of us in the Communion of Saints would be doing well to really listen to God's call and actually if we did that might happen again, that revival.

[00:19:40]I sympathize very much with what you say, but you know, I'm reminded of the old adage God helps those who help themselves. And so on the one hand it's also very vague and it sounds pious and it's very appealing and I'm not against it, but it also that kind of thinking can lead to a lot of social paralysis which I think has been going on actually for quite many decades.

[00:20:01]So I I think it's a symbiotic relationship as it always is with God.

[00:20:04]Okay, you know, maybe you of course God starts and initiates, but you have to work with him. So I'm all for listening to God, but I also don't think that should not become a sort of uh uh call to just being in inactive and you know, paralyzed and just waiting for God to take care of everything. In fact, I think that's the idea that to a certain degree has led us to where we are. Any final remarks? Final thoughts um I just I just always because I like to see things from a long historical perspective and it's ironic I find that the Western civilization Western world is super powerful today. Let's say compared to Islam especially since that's the main topic. You know, militarily, economically, politically, technologically. At no time in history is it being more terrorized than by Islam than today. Um you have to remember in the medieval era Islam was the behemoth and Europe was the embattled tiny bastion of Christendom.

[00:20:59]And they they managed to prevail. They fought tooth and nail often times and they articulated it through Christian doctrine through as I mentioned two swords theology and just war theology.

[00:21:10]So, really when you look and think about it, it's a lot of this and what you're seeing is completely self-made, self-done. It's initiated internally.

[00:21:17]It's not because of external forces.

[00:21:19]Because how can how can a society be at its pinnacle, again, materially, militarily, economically and be so terrorized by by all intents and purposes one of the weakest groups of people? Islam is inherently weak today compared to the West. They come as migrants, cap in hand, and then next thing you know, the country's being taken over and they have blasphemy laws and the native people and the Christians feel like they have to accommodate them. So, that's pretty perverse development and I think again, it's important to keep in mind that it's 100% internal. These are not external forces that have created this and that is what we're talking about, of course, the internal change that has led to this, I believe and I think we're all to various degrees saying, has to do with the shrinkage or truncation of Christendom.

[00:22:06]Well, I think to to summarize, a lot is at stake, the truth is at stake, everything is at stake and we're not going to succeed except by God's grace.

[00:22:13]So, thank you very much to our speakers and thank you all for your contributions.

[00:22:18]Bring back the flame.

[00:22:22]Bring back the flame.

[00:22:25]Bring back the fire and the righteousness.