If history warns that nations can decline and philosophical ideas can shape that decline, the natural final question is whether anything can be done to change the outcome. Throughout history, societies have periodically faced moments of crisis that forced them to reconsider their direction. In such times, renewal rarely begins with governments or institutions alone. Instead, it often starts with individuals, communities, and cultural movements that rediscover and reaffirm foundational principles.
For many observers, the challenges facing modern Western civilisation raise exactly this question: if moral, cultural, and spiritual foundations have weakened, how can they be restored? This final section of this series explores the role ordinary citizens may play in rebuilding the foundations of society and shaping the future of their nation.
For those grieving at our torn society, weeping at the murder of innocents, is it now too late to repair what is broken? As any engineer knows, the most important part of any building is its foundations. What is needed now more than ever is a rebuilding of the foundations of our society. As the Psalmist noted, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). For those willing to take up the tools, the job will not be easy, but for a better future, it must be done.
We as a society need to preserve and expand what is left of the good in our society and to resist those anarchic voices who would take it away from us. We must learn to speak, and to stand alone if need be, against the voices of dark destruction. The first task is to learn from history in order to avoid repeating, as Santayana said, the major mistakes we encounter there. But it is not enough to just recall the lessons of history. We must be willing to act, to take a stand, to make a difference.
We cannot sit on the sidelines, shrinking from the fight, in a time of danger and threat. The greatest poet of the Renaissance, Dante Alighieri, in his Inferno, wryly observed:
“The hottest level in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in a moral crisis.” At this crucial point in history, we all must get involved. It is not enough just to talk about the problem, shaking our head sadly and avoiding the fray. There are enemies of civilisation who are all-too-involved in continuing to subtly destroy our nations from within.
Muehlenberg writes:
But what difference can one person make? Aren’t the problems just too big? Legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead said otherwise: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world… indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Philosopher Edmund Burke also wrote, “Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing, because he could only do a little”.
Another prophet 2,000 years ago said, “You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.” ~ Matthew 5:13
So what should we do, as concerned citizens? Often people debate as to whether we should seek personal revival or social reformation. This argument is often presented as an artificial either/or, yes/no, binary choice. But the need of this desperate hour is to do both. We must be a light in a dark world.
It is less than a century since our Western democracies enjoyed ‘The Happy Days’ of the 1950s. Personal honour and God-based principles were highly regarded and life was good. The USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada were all considered to be ‘Christian’ nations. That was only 60 to 70 years ago. To paraphrase Lord Macaulay, after the ‘faith, courage, liberty, and abundance’ of the 1950s, we headed into ‘complacency, selfishness, apathy, dependency’ on the state to solve our problems, and now we are facing the ‘bondage’ of huge debt and excessive expense.
A major turning point happened in 1963 when an atheist woman named Madelyn Murray (O’Hair) and a few misguided friends were allowed to persuade the Supreme Court of the USA to outlaw prayers and other godly benefits for American students. Other nations followed, and almost immediately there was a rampant rise in promiscuity, increased sexually transmitted diseases, many more fatherless children, anxiety, depression, drug abuse, increasing crime, and suicides. Many foolishly threw away faith in our super-intelligent Creator and provider, along with the moral compass He provided.
One of the ‘Principles of War’ is ‘Know Your Enemy.’ We must understand that there is an enemy of us all who works against us, but we can overcome evil with good. Madelyn Murray O’Hair and friends were only one group whose work began to destroy America from within. The religion of atheistic Humanism expressed in their magazine, The Humanist, Jan-Feb 1983:
What is needed now more than ever is a rebuilding of the foundations of our society.
The battle for mankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their roles as the proselytisers of a new faith… these teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilising the classroom instead of the pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of educational level — pre-school, day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.
Other destructive thinking ties into the enforced teaching of evolution-only as the cause of life, and survival of the fittest. Teachers and professors have been fired for daring to suggest that there may be some intelligence in the way living entities are designed. This is obviously anti-science as it eliminates the foundational scientific principle of following the evidence wherever it leads. It takes a super-intelligent and caring force (i.e. God) to create and maintain living entities. Evolution, by definition, having no intelligence, is incapable of causing life.
History from two to four millennia ago shows that collapsed nations were revived after they called out to the Creator for help. Today, we even have the spokesman for the atheists of the world, none other than Dr. Richard Dawkins, telling the world through CBN News:
There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.
It is the Christian community that provided the USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada with strong moral foundations years ago, and it will take a unifying effort by the current and future Christian community in these nations to lead the way in saving our nations from collapse. To start, the restrengthening of the Christian community from its present weaknesses of timidity and retreating before threats, will come from a revitalised understanding of its potential influence-for-good through prayer and action with God’s help.
We need to get back to knowing our Creator. We need to stop our trivial pursuits and to realise that we are here for a good purpose. The purpose of our existence is to love and appreciate our Provider and to love our neighbours as ourselves, with all that entails. Recovery starts with us. Let’s get involved! Which of these can you do?
- I can share some ideas from this article with friends.
- I can help my friends and neighbours.
- I can watch for people who are hurting and see if I can help.
- I can seek truth. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
- I can get to know my Creator better.
Remember Psalm 78:1-7 on continuing to hand our Christian heritage onto the next generation and Psalm 85:5,6. Restore us again, God our Saviour, and put away your displeasure toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?
Not to mention 2 Chronicles 7:13,14!
- I can count my blessings.
- I can give God thanks for the many works He performs for me.
- I can use the Ten Commandments as my life-guide.
- I can see if my favourite school(s) would put the Ten Commandments somewhere visible.
- I can join a political party and try to be a good influence.
To illustrate this I joined a Party in the mid-1970s, becoming its branch and state electoral president within a couple of years, then elected to the NSW State Executive with people like the future PM John Howard, and to its policy committee. The leader at the time came out with statements I’d made during those meetings. Certainly a position of influence! Then after being asked by Fred Nile to help him get elected to the NSW Upper House, I was promised a seat in it by the Liberal Party, but declined the offer to get Fred elected in 1981. On occasions, Fred Nile held the balance of power and became the State’s longest serving parliamentary member.
I can regularly plan with some friends to do something positive for our nation.
To conclude, it is worth remembering the statement by Karl Marx that those who don’t know their history can be easily persuaded. Is this the reason why the ALP still has socialism as its policy with the state owning the means of production? A great exercise would be to study the differences between North and South Korea.
History reminds us that civilisations are neither permanently secure nor inevitably doomed. Their future is shaped by the choices of the people who live within them. When nations lose sight of their foundational principles, decline can follow. But history also records moments of renewal — times when individuals and communities rediscovered the values that once sustained them and worked to rebuild their societies. Whether through cultural leadership, community engagement, political participation, or personal integrity, ordinary citizens have often played a decisive role in shaping the direction of their nations.
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