Apostate ~ Part 1 of 5: The Contours of the Battle

The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.  We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

~ 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

I recently read Kevin Swanson’s book, Apostate: The Men who Destroyed the Christian West, and found it absolutely fascinating.  It was the first book I’ve read in a long time that I both started and finished within two weeks (usually I start a book, put it away, and maybe finish it months later).  I don’t agree with Swanson on every level, but those exceptions are few and far between, and they aren’t relevant at this time.  I respect him greatly and found this particular work essential to the modern American Christian.  As I explore his book in these next few posts, I’ll both do some summarizing and share a bit of my own analysis.

Swanson traces “the fall of the Christian West” from the early church through the modern era.  Until the very end of the book, it appears to be his contention that all hope is lost – that the Apostasy is complete and Christian civilization has been completely killed off, which makes the book terrifying and depressing to read.  It is only in the final chapter that he encourages us to “plant gardens in the ashes” of Western civilization, and raise up a new generation of Christians to build a new Christian civilization.  It remains his contention that Western Civilization is too far gone and we have to start all over, but I disagree.  Don’t lose heart – I believe there is hope for America, for Christianity, and for my generation, as long as we cling to the Rock!  But I’ll come back to that.  Let’s dig into the book.

Apostate examines the radical changes that have been wrought in the Christian West, and especially America, over the past several centuries.  In the introduction, Swanson writes, “The best way to radicalize a generation with new ideas is to infiltrate the education systems.  That is exactly what has happened to America.  Generation by generation, powerful men corrupted the minds of pastors, priests, political leaders, and teachers via the universities and seminaries.” (Swanson, p. 2)  The focus of the book is on the shift from individualized, family-centered education to centralized, socialist, statist education, and the destruction of the nuclear family.  Half of young adults retain a Christian faith; 97% of children raised in Christian homes turn from the faith within a single generation. 

We are engaged in a spiritual battle over the age-old question: who will be God?  God is the only objective standard of what is right and true.  As soon as man disconnects from God’s absolute truth and morality, and makes himself the measure of ethics, he will find himself wandering aimlessly in the dark world of relativism.  For centuries man has struggled to be god – some seek to be the god of their own lives; others desire power over others.  There has been an all-out attack on the God-ness of God: man has removed the Ten Commandments from schools, abandoned the sanctity of life and marriage, and attempted to invent his own standard of morals.  But man makes a very poor god: he makes his own laws… and then breaks them.  Without God’s law, there is no absolute morality, no absolute truth, no absolute reality.

God must be worshipped as sovereign, and His law must define our lifestyles and worldviews.  This is the foundation of the book; in my next post I’ll get into part two: the apostate philosophers.