Defining 'The Problem'

The Problem’s three facets or challenges are; liberal humanism (liberalism), the rise of corporations as economic and political powers in their own right (corporatism) and the lost political relevance of the western Church.[1]  The latter should have been the western world’s social conscience and staunch advocate for tradition-inspired, alternative social policy alternatives.  Instead, it has tended to remain largely silent; much as the German church did during the rise of Hitler.  At times it may venture into the public square but without adopting the right means, or the persistence, to be taken seriously.  Its failure represents a revolt against its own heritage.  It has failed to develop any effective counters to liberalism and corporatism, largely because it has confined itself to church life and siding with secular conservatism.  The Bible tells Christians that wishing people in trouble well is a poor substitute for actually doing something to help them, yet that in a societal sense is exactly what the western Church has done.  Because conservatives have concentrated on mostly economic and foreign policy areas the richer perspectives the Church had on offer have been lost. Remember, I am not addressing the faith-based ‘religious’ aspects. I am instead focusing on Christianity as a philosophic system. It is abundantly clear that most Christians have no conception of their faith as a holistic world view.  They can do little better under such circumstances than slavishly track alongside secular conservatism.  

The three-faceted challenges of the problem overlap and contain within them most of the cause and effect conditions with which we must grapple. 

1st challenge: Western Civilisation’s liberal utopian problem – fascist liberalism

Since the 1960s the West has become increasingly disconnected from its cultural roots and principles.  The consequential social dysfunction and attacks on the West’s democratic traditions have been orchestrated by a liberal humanist minority intent on building a state-centred utopia, cut loose from what makes western civilisation possible.

 2nd challenge: The corporatist problem – feudal corporatism

Corporate and banking interests, coupled with their obvious affection for growth, power and usury (interest bearing debt) have usurped classical capitalism and dovetailed with liberal politicians to drive people towards covetousness and group acquiescence before a feudal corporate elite.

3rd challenge: The problem of the Western Church – a weak, ‘wilderness Church’

The Western Church has, over the last 100 years, progressively retreated before multiple attacks and in the process lost connection with the social and political implications of its world view.  Without that connection it can no longer stand for the Judeo-Christian tenets that undergird the West.

The three challenges can be linked in this way:

·      A small liberal-fascist elite imposed its political, social and spiritual will on Western societies by proclaiming its doctrinal lordship over the public sphere and forcing its agenda, using a variety of means, on western societies.  Incessant propaganda and stigmatisation (political correctness) have now embedded this elite’s dogmas in the western psyche with tragic results that span just about every serious issue from family breakdown to the Islamic threat in Europe.

·      The corporate world, with its financial elite, has supported and encouraged liberals because it compliments its own aims; a compliant populace, reduced to being mere producers and consumers, in a centralised, global economic order.[2] Money is flung at politicians, lobbyists and liberal causes, while public discourse and education is dominated by liberal teachers and the corporate world’s media monopolies. Capitalism, as a system of free enterprise designed to support social progress and well-being, has been turned into a drive for profit system that has little respect for the higher-order values that have made the West possible.

·      As it came under concerted liberal attack from various directions the Church, Protestant and Catholic, circled the wagons into a defensive ‘dualism’; a ghettoised, privatised, personal faith and a public face that exuded weakness and compromise corrosive to any effective counter to liberalism, or corporatism.  Dealing with The Problem from the Christian perspective should be about its principles. The Church’s role has to be wider than faith for salvation to also embrace Christianity’s moral and philosophic precepts which furnished the West with its founding values.

The potential for civilisational collapse has emerged from this political, commercial and spiritual cocktail.  A craven liberal political and corporate class has engineered problems so serious it is now difficult to see any way out without major disruption or even civil war. Bold leadership and radical reforms are needed.  Incrementalism and ‘adjustments’ are unlikely to work.  This book offers a way past a spectrum of seemingly intractable problems.  It is important to keep one simple idea in mind: if we were dunked in this mess by a relatively small number of self-serving elitists, the majority of us, given the right tools, can oust those fools and restore common sense, principle and practicality.  Two things are glaringly apparent.  Firstly, both sides of the accepted political spectrum, socialism and corporate capitalism are the enemies of free, equitable and prosperous societies.  Secondly, the West will not survive The Problem without a painful struggle.

[1] Wherever I capitalise the word church I mean the Western Church as a single entity.   

[2] Liberal causes are often lavishly funded, especially in the U.S.A. by corporate charitable foundations.