How a culture dies

The blasphemy and perversity on display at last week’s opening of the Paris Olympics raises the question: Why did they do that? When given the opportunity to put the best of its culture on display for the world, why did France resort to a tableau of drag queens posing in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper? The Christian faith, as a matter of historical fact, has been integral in creating the culture of France, yet here it was mocked and treated with contempt.

France is at the heart of what historians have called the “West,” that is, a culture centered in Western Europe but now spread around the world, emerging out of the conversion of the pagan peoples of Europe during the Middle Ages. This culture was marked by the separation of church and state, the creation of representative government, the rise of universities and eventually modern science, and by the idea that God has endowed human beings with rights and dignity that the state must recognize to be just. It is not necessary to defend everything European culture has accomplished over the centuries to see it as the greatest in the history of the world. It is far from perfect since all human culture in a fallen world is tainted by the effects of original sin, but it nevertheless gave us freedom of speech, modern medicine, classical music, and cultural vitality as never before seen in history. Like many others, I attribute the historical success of Western culture to the influence of Christianity.

But the Christian faith that animated Western culture and grounded its distinctive values, such as human rights, is now in retreat throughout the West. Every culture has a religion at its heart. Ancient Greece and Rome were centered on paganism and therefore reflected a polytheistic religion of power. When the empire was Christianized, the suppression of paganism was inevitable if Christianity was to become the soul of the culture. It is telling that in the story modernity tells of itself, this suppression of paganism and conversion to Christianity was labeled the “Dark Ages” and the revival of paganism and anti-Christian sentiment was labeled the “Enlightenment.”

What we see occurring today in Western culture is the late stage of a process in which Christianity is being systematically rejected by the cultural elites. But they have no new religion to replace it. For this reason, they are unable to do anything other than tear down and deconstruct Christianity. The more they succeed, the more a vacuum is created at the heart of a culture where religion ought to exist.

Carl Trueman used the sociologist Philip Rieff’s concept of a “deathwork” to describe the cultural activity of those who wish to eliminate Christianity but have no replacement for it. For Reiff, a deathwork “refers to the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, and then destroy, their original significance and purpose.” This is what people do when they have no religion of their own but reject the religion of their ancestors. All they can do is mock and try to tear it down. But when they attempt to destroy the religion, they destroy the culture, and when they destroy the culture, they destroy themselves.

Recently, we have seen several high-profile secularists proclaim themselves “cultural Christians.” Elon Musk, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Murray, and others have sensed that Western culture is dependent on Christian faith to a hitherto unsuspected degree. They have also realized that radical Islam is a serious candidate to fill the void created by the disappearance of Christianity from the heart of Western culture. They see more clearly than some Christians how precarious our situation is in the West. They also grasp the danger we find ourselves in.

The sad spectacle of last week’s opening ceremony reveals the hollowness and fragility of the West at this cultural moment. Perversion and blasphemy are negative not positive, destructive not creative, degrading not enriching. The Olympic ideals of friendship and unity among the nations are unsustainable for a culture that denies the morality of Christianity in the name of individual liberation defined as no restraints on personal behavior.

The Dionysian dance of perversity leads to a culture of child sacrifice and the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. The blasphemous rejection of Christianity leads to the oppression of women and a failure to protect children. It should not go unnoted that the ugly Last Supper tableau featured a child among the drag queens.

This is how a culture dies.