the case for Christian Wahhabism

You might think that for an atheist I’m a bit obsessed with Christianity. And you’re probably right. The thing is I really do believe that secularism is a dead end. I believe that the greatest enemy that the West has ever faced is liberalism and I don’t see any way to fight liberalism by purely secular means.

The only secular alternatives to liberalism that ever seemed viable were communism and fascism. They weren’t terribly pleasant and they certainly don’t look viable any longer.

The only way to combat liberalism is, I believe, some kind of religion. There are several alternatives but most seem very unpromising, or unpalatable, or both. The least unpalatable alternative would be a revival of Christianity. The question is, is such a revival possible?

It’s instructive to take a look at the history of Islam over the past hundred years. A hundred years ago nobody took Islam seriously. The Ottoman Empire seemed to be tottering towards destruction and the universal view in Europe was that quite naturally the European great powers would carve up the corpse of that empire between them. The idea of Muslims putting up any kind of resistance seemed too fantastic even to consider. And in fact when the Ottoman Empire did collapse most of it was carved up by the great powers. The European powers pursued a policy towards the Middle East that was cynical, hypocritical, vicious, short-sighted and foolish. After the Second World War the Americans naturally assumed that the Middle East would be within their sphere of influence, and they proceeded to pursue policies that were even more cynical, hypocritical, vicious, short-sighted and foolish.

Much to the surprise of the great powers there was a reaction within the Islamic world. In fact there were two responses. One was the growth of Arab nationalism, but the Americans were determined to put a stop to that. The other response was the explosive growth of a new kind of Islam – the kind of militant radical Islam with which we are now familiar. This didn’t really exist to any great extent a hundred years ago. Wahhabism existed but was confined almost entirely to what is now Saudi Arabia. The spectacular growth of movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabism was a response to what many Muslims saw as an existential threat.

There’s no question that the West in the 21st century faces an existential threat at least as serious as that facing Islam in the 20th century. Christianity as it currently exists is not going to be any help. In fact mainstream organised Christianity is part of the problem, not part of the solution. It is merely secular liberalism with a feelgood gloss. It’s a more emotional, more effeminate, secular liberalism.

Of course I am aware that Not All Christians Are Like That. Of course there is still a very small minority who still follow the teachings of actual Christianity, and a small number of Christians who are still prepared to fight for their faith. However the sad truth is that most of the people who currently identify as Christians are secular liberals, and globalist SJWs.

If Christianity is to play a part in defending the West it will have to reinvent itself the way Islam did. It is significant that Wahhabism started as a movement to purge Islam of what were considered to be un-Islamic innovations. A viable Christian revivalism requires a similarly ruthless purging of non-Christian innovations, and that means it must be purged of liberalism. Purged thoroughly and completely. No compromise is possible with liberalism. No compromise at all. A pre-Enlightenment Christianity is what is needed. I do not believe that any existing mainstream Christian church can be reformed sufficiently to be able to play a useful role. A new Christianity will have to be built, from scratch. The existing churches need to be consigned to the scrap heap. They are too thoroughly infested with liberal ideas to be saved.

The new Christianity will need to be a radical militant Christianity, somewhat on the lines of radical militant Islam. Many Christians (and many on the right) are not going to like the idea of learning from Islam. They are also going to be reluctant to abandon many of their cherished liberal ideals, ideals that they often do not recognise as the liberal poison that they are (I enumerated many of these ideals in a previous post on conservatives and Christians defending liberal ideals).

The struggle against liberalism is a war, and it’s a war to the death. It’s about time we accepted that reality. A Christian wahhabism may be our one slim chance of survival.