Raymond Ibrahim, 6/24
“What was will be; what was done before will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.” So wrote the author of Ecclesiastes — and truer words have seldom been spoken.
Muslim hostility for Christian civilization is one obvious example of that truth: It has been part of an unwavering continuum that stretches back to the foundations of Islam in the seventh century.
But there are other contemporary enemies of Western civilization, and some of these also fit in a perfect continuum that goes back over a millennium, though their roots are not so easily discerned.
Take the so-called “Left,” which with every passing day exposes its anti-Christian animus. While only a few on that political spectrum openly identify as Satanists, more of them are increasingly showcasing the heathen impulse that animates them than ever before.
Burning Down the West
For example, in a May 2022 segment titled “This Is About Attacking Christianity,” Tucker Carlson correctly observed,
Undermining Christianity is the center project of the Left — because it stands in their way. As dozens of churches burned across Canada last summer, the country’s prime minster, Justin Trudeau, refused to condemn the fire bombings; he called them “understandable.” Then, the head of Canada’s ACLU effectively endorsed the fire bombings. “Burn it all down!” she wrote. And now we’re seeing it happen here, as we knew it would.
In fact, not a single day passes in Europe, North America, or Australia without several churches being attacked or going up in flames. (See here for up-to-date examples.) And while Muslims have historically claimed the lion’s share of church attacks, and continue doing so in Western nations with large Muslim populations, such as France, Italy, and Germany, “the Left” — pro-abortionists, feminists, Antifa, and alphabet people of all varieties — are increasingly giving them a run for their money.
Domestic Extremism
According to a February 2024 report by the Family Research Council, which has been “tracking acts of hostility against churches in the United States,”
Between January 2018 and November 2023, at least 915 acts of hostility occurred. The types of acts include vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more. In 2023, Family Research Council identified 436 incidents — more than double the number identified in 2022 and more than eight times the number identified in 2018. These findings suggest that hostility against U.S. churches is not only on the rise but also accelerating.
By way of examples, Cameron David Storer, a man claiming to be a woman, burned down a 117-year-old church building in response to “voices in her head.” And the day after the Kentucky House of Representatives passed a bill that would protect children from sexual mutilation — aka “gender-transitioning” — vandals spray-painted “TRANS PWR” on St. Joseph Catholic Church in Louisville.
After pointing out that “hostility against churches in the United States is widespread and growing,” the FRC’s Arielle Del Turco added that they point
to a larger spiritual battle and a growing climate of hostility toward Christianity. The motivations for some of these acts of vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, or other acts appear political while many more seem completely inexplicable. Yet, all of these incidents represent a deeply concerning trend…
Be that as it may; none of this is new, and is in fact rather reminiscent of what Europe experienced during its so-called “Dark Age.” If that era was dark, it was less due to benighted Christians and more due to constant and nonstop assaults by the direct ancestors of today’s vandals — Middle Eastern Muslims and European pagans — both of whom exhibited the same anti-Christian, anti-church virulence in which their descendants continue to revel.
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
Just as today’s Leftists and Muslims have little in common except their hate for and attacks on Christianity, so it was in the past: in whichever Christian nation Islam invaded or conquered (which included more than three-quarters of Christendom’s original territory), countless churches went up in flames (30,000 is the number under just one eleventh-century Egyptian caliph, Hakim bi-amr Allah). Similarly, after desecrating and torching monasteries and churches, pagan Vikings from Scandinavia would haul off countless Christian slaves from Britain, Frankia, and elsewhere to be sold on the Arab slave market, where white flesh fetched top dollar.
Indeed, it is “impossible to disconnect Islam from the Viking slave trade,” argues M.A. Khan, a former Muslim from India, “because the supply was absolutely meant for meeting [the] Islamic world’s unceasing demand for the prized white slaves” and for “white sex slaves.” Emmet Scott goes so far as to argue that “it was the caliphate’s demand for European slaves that called forth the Viking phenomenon in the first place.”
Today, the descendants of Europe’s pagan past, collectively known as “the Left,” have invited millions of Muslims into Europe, causing every form of crime — from “grooming” and rape to erasing Christianity from the culture across the continent, including through the destruction of churches and cathedrals — to skyrocket.
The only difference is that Muslims are recognizable for who and what they are, whereas “the Left,” by employing the language of “social justice,” still has much of the naïve West fooled about its true, pagan nature.
What remains to be seen is whether that which saved yesterday’s West from Muslim and pagan assaults — that is, strong, uncompromising men of conviction — remains in sufficient strength to save today’s West from the same perennial enemies.
The West’s Twin Enemies: Islam and Paganism