Collapse – We’ve Seen this Movie Before

‘In the year of 146 BC, as the great North African city of Carthage, the capital of the Carthaginian Empire, burned, its conqueror, the Roman general Scipio Africanus, stood on a nearby hill with tears running down his face. They were not tears of joy at his great and famous victory but tears of pain and sadness. For what he saw was not Carthage in flames, the evidence of his great triumph that marked the end of the titanic struggle between the two superpowers of the time, Carthage and Rome, but a vision. This vision was that the scene in front of him would also be the ultimate end of all great civilizations, including his own Roman Empire, an event that indeed did occur at the hands of Barbarian hordes towards the end of the fifth century AD.

It’s often said that great empires fall because of internal weakness. However, it’s probably more accurate to say of arguably the greatest empire, Rome, that it failed as a result of both internal weakness and external pressure. The internal weakness was the result of weak, self-interested leadership, public complacency, and bad financial decision-making. The external pressure came through the weakening of its military by the hiring of mercenaries, who were committed to money rather than the Empire, instead of its own citizens to man the famous Roman Legions.

Very importantly, and topically, mass immigration flows also allowed a series of Barbarian invasions of Rome from the beginning of the fifth century’.

Yes, as some will be aware, I have recounted that story before in my book ‘Quantum Mission‘, but I repeat it here because of its relevance to our times. That is, it concerns the collapse of civilizations. The reality is that, from the Egyptians, through the Mayans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, to the Ottomans (and with many in between), they all come to an end.

In this context, the former long-serving Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, recently asked a very important question.

                        ‘Could western civilization finally collapse?’

What would be your answer to that question I wonder?

However, before answering it it might be worth looking at how western civilization came into being in the first place.

Up to the 5^th century Rome, in the form of the Holy Roman Empire, controlled the whole of Europe. Called Holy because since the time of the 4^th century Emperor Constantine, Christianity was the state religion.

Downer points out in his article that great civilizations generally collapse due a combination of two factors. One is internal division and weakness. The other is that they are destroyed by external enemies that capitalize on those internal weaknesses. It is arguably the case that this is what happened to Rome and what we see in the West today.

Western civilization was birthed and shaped by the Bible. It is the Biblical world view, recovered through the 16^th century Reformation and Enlightenment movements, that was the impetus for the creation of modern society, and drove the Science that has given the citizens of western countries the wealth and prosperity they have largely enjoyed up to recent times. It is the biblical shaping of society that has produced many other blessings such as the rule of, and equality of status before, the law, the freedom of citizens from tyrannical monarchs or governments instigated by the 13th century Magna Carta (Great Charter), freedom of speech and assembly, and (when it is biblically guided) democratic government. Few of which blessings are not much evident as emanating from non-biblical cultures.

However, such blessings are now in the process of being lost, if they haven’t been already. The question is why?

The first president of the newly free United States, George Washington, gives us a clue as to the answer to that question when he said that –

            ‘Religion and Morality are the essential pillars of civil society’

It is now fairly clear that western civilization has effectively lost the religion, namely Christianity, which created it. Consequently, it is now not hard to see the ongoing collapse of the biblical morality that was the societal glue, the world view with its generally, if subconsciously, accepted understanding of right and wrong. As even the famous atheist Nietzsche could see, if you take God (by which he meant the belief in God) out of society you lose Christian morality too.

Following along with George Washington, the result is that we now don’t have a ‘civil’, we might say civilized, society – the ‘essential pillars’ have been removed, so Downer’s question above is a highly relevant one to our own time.

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Western civilization was created by the intellectual, but most importantly spiritual, triumph of Christianity over a pagan world. The agent of that triumph was the Church, not one such as the western Church is today, but a Missional Church that was intent on conquering pagan societies with the Gospel of Jesus which is ‘the power of God for salvation’ (Romans 1:16).

The only agency today that can reverse the civilizational collapse of the West, a society that has lost its Soul, is the Church. Not the rapidly declining Church we see today, but one that has regained its understanding of its primary mission, which is now once more after 1500 years, one of Pagan mission.

For this to happen requires a new brand of leaders who fully understand the missional challenge of our times, and who are willing to take the hard, costly, and extremely unpopular decisions that must be taken to reinvent the western Church as an effective missional entity.

There is absolutely no sign of that happening. However, unless it does the West will follow the pattern of All, underline All, great civilizations of the past, and the answer to Downer’s question ‘Could western civilization finally collapse?’ will be yes as we watch the vision of Scipio Africanus repeated in our own time.