You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. – (Winston Churchill)
Last night was a warm October night in Grand Rapids, it was an indian summer delight. I was sipping a lemon-lime Slurpee while sitting on a porch outside talking to my brother-in-law about world events. We discussed the war in Israel, the crazy election season, our media’s penchant for bold-faced lying, and the rise of egalitarian exigesis in traditional conservative churches. Light topics for a few hours in the evening. Our main discussion with all this was “How do we as evangelical Christian leaders makes sense of it all?”
And then a question shot out of the blue came up, “Did you hear that Tucker Carlson had a man on his show that thinks Winston Churchill was the cheif villian of WW2? Chris, I know you are a WW2 buff, so do you think he is right?” I was taken aback because I never heard that argument before.
Truth be told, Winston Churchill has been one of my heros. Not only was he positively portrayed in William Shirer’s epic book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Riech”, one of my all-tiime favorite reads, but last spring I acquired Winston Churchill’s personal chronicle’s on the Second World Wor. Throughout his writings, one of the main themes he had to wrestle with throughout his life was how does a nation secure peace?
His viewpoint on war was not as an invader or conqueror, but as a flawed human being who was given the dreadful task of leading a powerful but weary country, in a time of full scale war where your enemy wanted your demise. His primary task was figuring out how to keep the Nazi wolf from blowing down England’s front door.
In his first volume, entitled “The Gathering Storm”, Churchill weighed the massive implications that engaging in an all out war would entail. He writes, “It is established that nations who believe their life is at stake will not be restrained from using any means to secure thier existence. it is possible – nay, certain – that among their means which will next time be at their disposal will be agencies and processes of destruction wholesale, unlimited, and perhaps, once launched, uncontrollable.” He then writes, “They would do well to pause and ponder upon their new responsibilities.”
These are not to words of a villian, but of a realist. He knew war was suicide, but it also was inevitable when you are fighting a madman.
The one major issue in Churchill’s desire for peace, was how to deal with evil. He knew that ignoring the growing threat imposed by Hitler was not the solution. After seeing the carnage his country suffered after winning the Great War, (WW1), he feared that his country would be lulled into having a false sense of security. He warned his government that, “Only brute force can ensure the survival of the race; hence the necessity for military forms. The race must fight; a race that rests must rust and perish.”
But during the ten years between the two wars, Churchill did not have the ear of his people. Parliment was led by men who wanted to believe the goodness of other’s intentions, even believing that Herr Hitler’s public face and words concerning good will could be trusted. Meanwhile behind Britian’s back, his Axis allies like Mussolini conspired together against Britian, “These men (the contemporary Brits), are not made of the same stuff as England’s past heroes, they are tired sons of a long line of rich men…The British do not want to fight.” This “peace at all costs” that many Brits adopted was expressed vividly in 1933 when the students of Oxford Union, under the inspiration of the famous English philosopher, teacher, and pacifist radio personality, Mr. C. E. M. Joad, passed their idealistic resolution, “That this House refuses to fight for King and country.” Churchill later writes, “Little did the foolish boys who passed the resolution dream that they were destined to quite soon to conquer or fall gloriously in the ensuing war.”
While England waited and desperately hoped for peace in the ensuing years, Germany ‘s bloody war machine started rolling over Europe with ease. In the year of 1936 Churchill noted with prophetic precision, “Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness. A sincere love of peace is no excuse for muddling hundreds of millions of humble folk into total war. The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their voices soon cease to count. Doom marches on.”
Doom marches on, or as one writer said, “Evil never sleeps.” Churchill understood this. And so does every person who understands the true relentless wickedness of evil. Depravity needs restraint.
Yesterday I was listening to a podcast about the diminished faith of Gen Z generation as compared to Christians 30 years earlier. Before 1990, Christianity used to be seen as a positive influence on the world. From 1994 to 2014 it was seen as nuetral. But around 2016 Christian culture began to be reviled and replaced by a more agressive progressive agnosticism, to the point where only 2% of Gen Z Christians approached the world with a biblical worldview.
So what happened?
Christian socialogists believe that this great reversal happened during the nuetral years of 1994 to 2014. Instead of speaking up and pushing against the agressive cultural shift, Christians wanted to be liked, they wanted peace, and so they kept their mouth shut when their values and beliefs were trampled on. And as Churchill so eloquently put it, “The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their voices soon cease to count. Doom marches on.”
This means that niceness, peace at all costs, not wanting to rock the cultural boat is a sure way to lose the moral high ground and eventually forfeit influence on a decaying culture. Yes, when you push back people won’t always like you, some will even hate you, but you must never forget, “Salt burns infection, and light scatters roaches.” Really the more important question is this, do you believe Jesus when he says:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.” (John 15:18-21)
So don’t be surprised when you get blowback for confronting cultural rot. People might even see your defense as villiany. Churchill was right, if you don’t resist, doom marches on.
