“What is meant by ‘civilizational moment’? A civilizational moment is a critical transition phase in the rise, course, and decline of a civilization when a civilization loses its decisive connection with the dynamic that inspired it. Such a moment must then issue on one of three broad options: a renewal of the dynamic that inspired the civilization in the first place, a successful replacement of the original dynamic by another, or the decline of the civilization and perhaps birth of a new and different civilization later in time and elsewhere in the world. In sum, the issue for a civilization in the civilizational moment is its vision of ultimate reality.” (Our Civilizational Moment, page 30)
Crunch Time for Christian Americans
We’re here, friends. Bravery and wisdom must guide us. It’s all about the freedom to choose your own worldview and the path your calling dictates. You must think and act in the spheres of influence you enjoy as God’s imago Dei blessed to be in God’s beautiful—though challenging, to say the least—creation.
If you’ve read the quote above from our Praxis Circle September Book of the Month, Os Guinness’ Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds (177 pages, 2024), you will understand what a “civilizational moment” is and why Christian Americans (and all Westerners, really) face either (1) renewal, (2) replacement, or (3) decline of the civilization that’s taken 2,000 years to build, with certainly 500 years of conscious focus.
In this book review, I rely heavily on quotes and offer more detail about contents than usual because, like Praxis Circle Contributor Eric Metaxas’ Letter to the American Church, Our Civilizational Moment carries such an important message.
Os Guinness has dual U.K. and U.S. citizenship and lives in McLean, VA. He’s a member of the world-famous beer family. He descends immediately from Christian medical missionaries to China. He studied under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri.
He moved to America in the 1980s as a young man and eventually took an active role in evangelical Christianity through the founding of The Trinity Forum. TTF is dedicated to Christian leadership. That’s where I met Os in 2000. Os left TTF after it became well-established (it continues to prosper under Cherie Harder’s leadership) to speak and write on the topics that, in my opinion, have culminated in today’s Book of the Month.
Praxis Circle has conducted over 50 interviews. We’ve only interviewed two people twice: Os Guinness and Mary Eberstadt. They are founding partners to our mission centering on building worldviews. Os has written over thirty books, and our two interviews with him (here and here) review many of them. Having read most, my rough estimate is that up to half have contributed to making the subject of today’s post so highly focused and artful.
Praxis Circle is not the only organization today recognizing Os’ amazing contributions to Christianity’s and America’s self-understanding and direction. The Colson Center and Focus on the Family recognize the importance of Our Civilizational Moment in producing the newly released documentary Truth Rising featured at the top of this post. There Os summarizes the civilizational moment for the West now and introduces five individuals (Chloe Cole, Seth Dillon, Jack Phillips, Katy Faust, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) whose life experiences demonstrate the issues we face today as described in his book.
To complement Truth Rising, we created the Praxis Circle playlist presented below. It includes six clips (15:43) selected from a library of Os’ 69 clips that fit squarely within Our Civilizational Moment’s themes. Several are Praxis Circle classics—particularly “The Golden Triangle.”
Os’ view is that CJC (Classical Judeo-Christianity, a Praxis Circle term) made the West, not the Enlightenment or secularism. To the contrary, secularism has its roots deep in the West’s Middle Ages, with the Enlightenment and America being its later-stage epochal children.
“There is no question that the Christian faith was the ultimate allegiance and the view of ultimate reality that most Westerners knew. In sum, it was the conviction of the supreme Presence of the one true, transcendent God and what faith in God made possible that made the West.” (page 32)
In my opinion, Our Civilizational Moment is Os’ most worldview-oriented book, though all address key worldview aspects. A clue might be his frequent use of the phrase ultimate reality, a term we’ve explored extensively in the past. (Please note the phrase appears in our first two Os quotes so far.)
Os, the Colson Center, Focus on the Family, The Family Foundation (mentioned below), and I do not need to tell you that America is “up the creek” in identity conflict. The utter lawlessness of the Summer of 2020, the Biden Administration’s incoherence and corruption, and the increasing violence stemming from the Left—recently witnessed in Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the Left’s response—demonstrate that we are nowhere near national resolution of our issues. Published last year, Our Civilizational Moment remains as timely as ever. It summarizes America’s situation as clearly and succinctly as possible in just 177 pages.
Through his unique Anglo-lens, Os stresses that not since the Civil War Era have America’s threats been so internally based. To put it another way, perhaps the West itself hasn’t been as close to destruction as it was during the Battle of Britain in 1940 when the English, under Churchill’s leadership, rallied in the air to defeat Adolf Hitler and turn his attention to what became suicide in the Soviet Union.
“No one should forget that both the strength and weakness of a civilization are always internal before they are external. They are spiritual, moral, and cultural before they are economic and military, and they must therefore do full justice to the pace of faith.” (page 35)
World War II, Germany, and the Soviet Union were external threats to America. Today, our demons are squarely internal and between our ears.
Os explains in detail that too many Westerners and Americans have lost touch with themselves and their connection to Christian, Jewish, and Classical heritage. Perhaps most important: the commanding heights of its academic and media culture, many of its so-called “elites,” have lost touch via naturalist or materialist secularism with Main Street-oriented, regular people.
Without digressing into American party politics, much of Os’ book describes how such materialism has manifested itself in several fundamental ways, operating with a blind faith usually associated with religious fundamentalism.
My observation is that this emanates primarily (but not solely) from the Left in the Democrat Party where these forces are forming a convenient, and likely if successful, long-term temporary alliance. What we saw in the Biden Administration was “a most un-American command economy and centralized surveillance society . . .” (page 38) in the process of developing.
Again, Our Civilizational Moment was published before the November 2024 presidential election. If you agree with Os’ analysis, you most likely feel some relief in that election’s results—whether you preferred Donald Trump as the GOP’s candidate or not—because you can see the need for rebalancing social and cultural forces in America and the West.
Christendom vs. Secularism (or the CGN vs. the MGN in Praxis Circle Speak)
Beyond Chapter 1’s introduction, Os establishes in Chapter 2 (“Essentially Christendom”) Christianity as the center of Western and American civilization. Then in Chapter 3 (“The Enlightenment’s Pyrrhic Victory”), he isolates radical Enlightened secularism as the Pandora who opened the West’s box to the current crisis. We call this the Creator God Narrative (CGN) versus the Man God Narrative (MGN) issue.
But it’s much more than a storyline, long since becoming murderous. I should let the book speak for itself. On Christendom or the CGN (for “PC Speak,” see link here under the monkey picture):
“For better or worse, varieties of the Christian faith have been the central and most powerful dynamic of the West, and there can be no understanding of the past, the present, or the future of the West if this central truth is not taken into account. The Jewish and Christian faiths, or the Christian faith with its roots in the Jewish faith, is the cornerstone of Western Civilization.” (page 41)
On Enlightened secularism or the MGN:
“Beyond any question, the leading rival to the Christian faith in the West is Enlightenment secularism’s entirely different view of ultimate reality. The question before us in our civilizational moment, then, is this: has Enlightenment secularism adequately replaced the Christian faith as the inspiration and commanding authority of the Western civilization? There is little question that secularism in one form or another is now the default philosophy of most of the intelligentsia of the West.” (page 49)
Os recognizes that many if not most “elites” see the Enlightenment as America’s salvation, rather than as a stumbling block. Recognizing this, he calls out the Enlightenment’s excesses that have become unquestioned ideological faith on the Left, blocking the Enlightenment’s own capacity to reason and see truth.
A favorite Guinness theme, and one that’s getting increasing recognition everywhere, is the consequences of the American Christian Constitutional Revolution of 1776 contrasted with the French Atheist Lawless Revolution of 1789. “From 1789 on, an implacable animosity towards God and faith has been at the heart of the revolutionary left, and this hostility is more important to radicals than even the politics and economics.” (page 58)
By nature, Americans and, some would say, Christians are anti-establishment or against too much government. Our national character requires a vast private sector anchored by God, family, and church. A result is our inherent yearning for a foundation of limited government.
In contrast, Os makes the persuasive argument that “reason absolutized carries the seeds of authoritarianism.” (page 66). To accommodate, “secularism has developed into a worldview . . .” (page 50). And within this crisis of multiple incompatible realities, “Jews and Christians stand apart as different.” (pages 52 and 53)
The Problem: Four Deadly, Anti-Western Waves
The heart of Our Civilizational Moment is its discussion of the ideological cancers that have overtaken much of American thinking. Again, the book is worth the price just to own a short summary in usable and understandable form.
Having introduced the overriding problem of secularism (also known as materialism, naturalism, or atheism . . . listing many other “ism’s” at the top of page 79), Os offers a whole chapter on each of the primary ideological subgroups that threaten a Christian America and CJC-shaped West:
- Red Wave – radical or cultural Marxism
- Rainbow Wave – the sexual revolution in its various extremes
- Black Wave – radical Islamism (not Islam itself)
- Gold Wave – corrupt Western elitism
We should emphasize that the Western situation is no longer an “I’m OK, you’re OK scenario” where more dialogue and compromise will likely reduce conflict between many contending groups. As mentioned, over the last 30 years, Os has studied these issues, and you can see the development of his thinking based in truth and realism over the course of that time.
In my opinion, few understand American and Western freedom better than Os Guinness:
“The [first] three ideologies [the colored-Waves listed above] are not simply different from the alternatives to the Christian faith, but each is expressly opposed to the Christian faith and openly committed to its overthrow. . . . They form a ‘war of the worlds’ that characterizes a civilizational moment . . .” (page 86)
“Marxism is the deadliest and most destructive ideology in all human history.” (page 93)
“Once again, the revolutions of the left never succeed, the oppressors of the left never end, and the promises of the left never come true.” (page 163)
My own opinion is We the People as Americans will either do the right thing and find a balance between order and change, or we will continue to devolve into much more internal social violence, not seen in the U.S. since events just prior to 1776 and 1861.
In groups such as Antifa, the radical Left or Leftwing is well-funded and -organized. In contrast (in my opinion), a similar Rightwing does do not yet exist, or at least it hasn’t yet demonstrated well itself. If the Left’s murderous violence continues to increase (we seem to have new murders every week), eventually the Right will similarly organize. It won’t have much choice.
If you’re not a reader (surprised you’ve gotten this far) but are a Jew or Christian interested in more on Our Civilizational Moment’s issues, you can also turn to Focus on the Family’s video here hosted by Jim Daily and John Fuller or The Family Foundation of Virginia’s podcast here. (The Family Foundation’s Executive Director, Victoria Cobb, is a Praxis Circle Contributor and excellent student of Christian worldview.)
The Solution: We Must Choose Christ and Pick Up Our Cross
Seeing Our Civilizational Moment as an issue of competing worldviews, Os believes the solutions are worldview-related, as well. “Broadly, the choice could be between the world’s three major families of faith, or philosophies and worldviews, each of which has its own decisively different view of what is ultimately real.” (page 170) He lists these worldviews as eastern (Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age), secularist, and Abrahamic (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and reminds us that “the choice of faith is the choice of a story, a narrative, a framework, and a focus that will be decisive for the future of the West in every aspect of life. The choice is therefore existential, urgent, and unavoidable, and a choice for each of us individually.” (page 171)
As an unquestionably sincere, orthodox, Western Evangelical Christian, Os always remains hopeful, especially when it comes to the U.S.
Again, while recognizing that the book was published before the 2024 Election, I should note that, having the benefit of almost another year’s worth of hindsight, Americans can have the luxury now of feeling slightly more optimistic than last year at this time, even in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s tragic murder. Perhaps there’s mushrooming optimism as a result of his loss. Praxis Circle can help with any effort to regain centrist or moderate balance via an orthodox Christian worldview.
I believe it’s difficult for most Europeans, even some thoroughly schooled in American history and thought, to understand America’s respect and love for the regular, Main Street-person. The vast majority of Americans are highly averse to elitism and large government. This traditional fundamental probably grows out of our rejection in the cradle of aristocracy and need for self-sufficiency.
What I see around me locally and regionally is a revival of faith in God, family, and nation that I haven’t witnessed before in my adult life. This intuition could be no more than a hunch-based on where I live and who I know, but I don’t think so.
In sum, we at Praxis Circle believe wholeheartedly that, with the indispensable help of leaders like Os, most Americans today know what needs to be done. Whether it happens or can succeed given the force of entrenched opposition is anyone’s guess. But given the events of the last 25 years and clear analysis and direction from leaders like Os, we’ll have only ourselves to blame if we don’t choose Option #1—renewal—and succeed. It won’t be our first time.
After all, from page 177: “only the Jewish and Christian faiths, and their ideas and ideals that made the West at its best, can renew and remake the West at this momentous civilizational moment, and so lead all humanity forward towards a truly human-friendly future.”
