BY DON WILDMON | AFA Founder/Chairman

Reprinted from September, 1986 AFA Journal

The comic strip character Pogo once had a saying something like this: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Truly, the same could be said for the Christian community. We are our worst enemy. There is a war going on, unlike any war we have ever fought in our society. It is a spiritual war, a war for the hearts and minds of mankind. Many Christians are either unaware or indifferent to that war. The struggle will determine whether the Christian view of man will continue to serve as the foundation for our society.

I have no easy cliche answers to the problem, but I think that after nearly ten years I have some perception which might not be seen (and sometimes not shared) by others. We have neglected the cross, the Christian symbol of suffering and redemption. We have attempted to make Christianity compatible with any and all other religions – secularism, materialism, humanism, etc. We have attempted to make Christianity something it is not – a vehicle to worldly success, worldly contentment, worldly happiness.

“If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” It is as valid today as it was two thousand years ago.

There is a move, a massive move, afoot in our society to eliminate the influence of Christianity. It is fueled not only by people who are apathetic to the Christian faith, but by many who are hostile to the Christian faith.

Even so, our own worst enemy is us. We have been negligent in our thinking. We have, too much, bought the old cliches.

You can’t legislate morality. Yet every law on the books is a legislation of morality.

You should not mix politics and religion. And we haven’t. Keeping our Christian faith private, we have allowed a situation where one-and-one-half million unborn babies have their lives snuffed out each year.

You should keep religion out of the schools, even as it provides a moral base. And we have. But those who would eliminate the influence of Christianity have not. They have pushed their religion of secularism, materialism and humanism into the schools. According to Dr. Paul Vitz of New York University, those responsible for our textbooks “appear to have a deepseated fear of any form of active contemporary Christianity.” In the process, while complaining about censorship, they have censored Christianity to the point that in most children’s textbooks it doesn’t exist at worst, or doesn’t matter at best. It plays no role, gets no notice, from those who prepare the textbooks for our school children. We have allowed others, who not only don’t share our view of life but are openly hostile to it, to do our most serious thinking.

We have, nearly without a whimper, accepted television entertainment and movies which continually mock and belittle Christianity and Christians. We have allowed radio to air vulgar and violent music which Christians two decades ago would never have tolerated.

Our own worst enemy is us. There is no glory in fighting a war, even a spiritual war. There is only suffering and pain. Does the Christian community have enough of what it takes to turn this tide, to stop the decay of Western Civilization? Do we have enough Christians who are willing to pay the price, to make the sacrifices necessary so that they can provide the leadership needed in their pulpits, in their homes, and in their communities?

The answer to that question remains to be seen. And in the balance hangs the future of Western Civilization.