The End Of The West?

I just finished a fascinating book on the life and tragic death of Pat Tillman.  If you remember he was the defensive back for the Phoenix Cardinals who in the aftermath of 9/11 put his career in the NFL on hold to join the military.  I finished the book last night and in the postscript I was struck by some truth in the midst of some of the propaganda.

In 1992 Francis Fukayama wrote an artical that stirred some major political contraversy called The End of History and The Last Man.  He basically wrote that modern democracies, education, the desire for more material possessions and meeting our own personal needs has become the new way of life.  And he states that the higher educated among us will not risk our lives for a cause because history has taught us that it is pointless.  In the modern age men will be content to sit at home and congratulate themselves on their open mindedness and lack of fanaticism. 

Lee Harris, in his book "The Suicide of Reason" argues,

The Problem is not that Fukayama is dead wrong; the problem is that he is half right.  Unfortunately for us, the wrong half.

In the West we are perilously getting down to our last man.  Liberal democracy, among us, is achieving the goal that Fukayama predicted for it:  It is eliminating the alpha males from our midst, at a dizzyingly accelerating rate.  But in the Muslim societies, the alpha male is still alive and well.  While we in America are drugging our alpha boys with Ritalin, the Muslims are doing everything in their power to encourage their alpha boys to be tough, aggressive, and ruthless....We are proud if our sons get into a good college; they are proud if their sons die as martyrs.

To rid your society of high-testosterone alpha males may bring peace and quiet; but if you have an enemy that is building up an army of alpha boys to hate you fanatically and who have vowed to destroy you, you will be commiting suicide...

The end of testosterone in the West alone will not culminate the end of history, but it may well culminate in the end of the West.

Pretty Strong words!  And scary even if only partly true.  And I think we may even be closer to the "Last Christian Man" than the "Last Man".

We have an enemy that hates us more than the Muslims do.  And he and his army are taking out masculine christianinty in wholesale droves.  We've sort of been left with this 'religion' of do's and don'ts and being nice and polite and wearing a big smile.  But when the trials come we fall apart.  Or when things are going well we get distracted and start following the world.  We start seeking selfish desires.  Our sons need engaged fathers who will model for them and lead them into an authentic masculine relationship with Christ.  But instead we leave it up to their Sunday school teacher or their mother to do this.

You look around at christian men held up in your church as examples to follow.  Are they men who draw their sword and go into to battle to rescue someone who needs it?  Are the fierce?  Or are they just nice men?

We need a cause to live for.  We need to be sold out...to be a fanatic.  And we need to rescue our boys before it's too late.

-Scott