OUR CIVILIZATIONAL MOMENT: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds

By Os Guinness

Kildare  190pp  $16.25

Reviewed by David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

March 13, 2025

The world is fast approaching the climax of one of the great turning points in history, writes Os Guinness, a leading American social critic and committed Anglican Christian.

After nearly two millennia of existence and half a millennium of unprecedented dominance, Western civilization is on the wane and the shadows it casts are lengthening, he writes.

In this magisterial book, Guinness notes that the most vehement and radical enemies assaulting the West are from within.

The root of the decline lies not just in the philosophical, ethical, cultural, economic, and technological but the deepest cause of all—the deteriorating condition of the roots of the animating force that once made the West the civilization it has been lies in the faiths that gave vitality and unity have become enervated and rejected entirely.

The West is now largely opposed to the faith that made it, and the intelligentsia in its lead society America are increasingly opposed to both the faith that made the West and the revolution that made America. Ignore it and the decline will be inevitable and irreversible.

Guinness makes four observations.

First, the West owes much to other civilizations and their ideas. The debt to the Greeks is primary. Second, this broad understanding of Christendom is not limited to Christendom proper. It includes the powerful Christian consensus that exerted its influence in many European and Western nations. Third, it is an article of Christian faith itself, and a matter of Christian realism and hope, that perfectibility is impossible in this life, and where there is failure there can and must be correction, forgiveness, reform, and renewal. Fourth, no statement of the centrality of the Christian faith to the West is complete without an equally clear acknowledgment of the centrality of Judaism to the Christian faith. The Christian faith made the West, and the Jewish and Christian faiths have been the central inspiration and dynamic of the West.

Guinness notes that there have been three things we can see clearly. First, secular liberalism has failed. Reason is now tainted. They have replaced God with things such as Marxism. C.S. Lewis foretold this in The Abolition of Man. Second, the renewal of faith is now seen as indispensable. People need three things: meaning, belonging and purpose. Faith provides roots, restraints and renewal for civilization. The West is a “cut flower” civilization—cut off from its roots it looks fine for a while but will not last. We need chains on our appetites. Third, there is a need for renewal. The biblical story is one of exile and return, rather than decline and fall. The alternative to going back to faith is to be focused on power. The will to become powerful is the predominant motivation according to Nietzsche. “We are at a showdown moment in Western Civilization." He referred to historian Arnold Toynbee who observed that a critical element to change is a creative minority.

There are three powerful impulses behind the surge of the philosophy of secularism over the past four centuries. First, there is the revolutionary impulse to secularism: We do not want God.” Second, there is the enlightenment impulse to secularism, which rose up parallel to the revolutionary impulse: We do not need God.”  Third there is a closely related but even more recent scientific, technological and evolutionary impulse to secularism, the Promethean impulse now out in the open: We can replace God (and be gods ourselves).”

The question for the West, and for America in particular, is more pointed. Can countries that pride themselves on being liberal, free, and open maintain that freedom without belief in God?

Guinness writes about the four waves in contemporary America: The Red Wave – Radical Marxism. The Rainbow Wave - The Sexual Revolution. The Black Wave – Radical Islamism and finally the Gold Wave – Corrupt Elitism.

Guinness notes that much of American Establishment still has no idea of the vast difference between the American Revolution and the opposing radical revolution advanced today.

Western civilization is spiritually exhausted and deeply divided. Its intellectual, political, and social territory is fractured along a hundred fault lines. The diverse legions of cultural Marxism and Critical Theory have emerged triumphant from their “long march” through the American institutions.

The nation that prides itself on the way it rose up to defeat two deadly ideologies…appears not to recognize that it faces the deadliest enemy of all: equally hostile ideologies that are threatening to overpower American citizens from within.

But Guinness does not leave us without hope. In the final chapter, Choose Freedom, he argues that the choice could be between the world’s three major families of faith, or philosophies and worldviews. The first family is the eastern (including Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age movement. The second is the secularist (including atheism, agnosticism, naturalism and materialism). The third is the Abrahamic (including Judaism, the Christian faith and Islam). In light of Western history, the choice is more likely to be between a form of secular materialism that has descended from the Enlightenment and a partnership between the Jewish and Christian faiths that have been the central inspiration of the West.

One thing is certain, there is no sitting on the fence. Only the Jewish and Christian faiths, and their ideas and ideals that made the West at its best, can renew and remake the West at this momentous civilizational moment, and so lead all humanity forward towards a truly human-friendly future.

For those looking for a comprehensive analysis of the West’s current situation, I cannot recommend this book too highly. Buy it. Read it slowly and let the message sink in. Dr. Guinness looks at the West through the lens of his great learning and erudition, above all, his deep Christian faith.

You can buy the book  at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558?dplnkId=02a7f48c-aef4-4c0e-b1ff-fee3249b4512&nodl=1