There is a breathtakingly simple question that haunts those of us who are loyal to European Man and his culture: What has happened to us? Why has a once-proud and courageous people that stretched its dominion from Europe to North America to Australia simply abandoned its heritage and surrendered to aliens? For many, the prime culprit, or at least a major accessory, is the Christian faith.

I believe this blame is misplaced. Over the centuries not only did Christianity preside over vigorous expressions of racial nationalism, it created the very culture that men of the West claim to defend. Far from causing the decline, Christianity has itself been debased along with so many other principles that once guided us. Christianity must therefore be rescued and revived, not reviled. What we now think of as "liberalism" rose up as a force independent from and hostile to the Church, and opposed the social order over which the Church presided. In fact, in the longer sweep of history, the Church has been one of the final citadels of resistance against assaults on tradition and the social and moral decay that follow. The same revolutionary forces that undermined Europe's civilizational and racial identity have only recently succeeded in undermining its religious identity. Therefore, to condemn the Church for what amounts to an eleventh-hour conversion to a movement it has adamantly opposed for generations is short-sighted and unfair. No student of history can argue that Christianity is somehow "inherently" defective in ways that weaken the race.

I would argue further that men who claim to be fighting for their race and culture have gone over to the enemy when they attack Christianity. As Hillaire Belloc said, "The faith is Europe and Europe is the faith." The two are inseparable. It is far better for a man to believe, but even if he cannot, respect for his ancestors and love of his people should put him firmly in the camp of the saints. For the race to survive, we must restore its ancient and defining faith.

The Rise of Liberalism

Ever since the French Revolution--even from the time of the Renaissance and Reformation--powerful forces have been changing Christianity just as they changed Europe as a whole. "Liberalism" as we conceive of it today, begins with the rejection of hierarchy. It is the sworn enemy of class, of the importance of lineage as manifested in monarchy and aristocracy, and of the myriad differences that distinguish all people. And yet hierarchies of all kind were once central to European thought and were wholly sanctioned by the Church. For most of its history, Christianity has been the essential ballast against egalitarian experiments.

Traditional forces stoutly opposed universal rights, pluralism, democracy, etc. and among those forces was to be found inevitably the Catholic Church. Pope Pious IX's 1864 Syllabus of Errors is a strong and eloquent example of commitment to the Old Order. Its list of the "principal errors of our time" concludes with the most famous: the mistake of thinking that "the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to and agree with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization." Protestants, too, opposed tampering with the sexual, moral, and racial norms of society.

One could argue that the success of counter-revolution in Europe between the First and Second World Wars was a sign that liberalism could be turned back, but this was the last real success. Even at this relatively late date, when confronted with the agonizing decision of whom to support in the Second World War, traditional Christianity often held its nose and supported the Axis. Whatever one may make of this choice, it certainly demonstrates that there was nothing in the old faith inherently at odds with racial theory or policy.

It was nevertheless the upheavals of the two wars that finally ended the struggle between revolution and the Old Order. It was only after these great struggles that ideas of equality--originally applied only to the men of one's own people--were extended to women, children, people of other races, and to hosts of ever-proliferating victim groups. Although liberalism has been ascendant everywhere since 1945, even in the post-war era it has been traditional Christianity that provided spirited defenses for everything from the preservation of French Algeria to the support of Apartheid and Southern segregation. It is only the final absurdities of liberalism that have had the support of organized Christianity.

Those who talk of the "inherent" flaws of Christianity seem to forget that it has taken a very long time for those alleged flaws to reveal themselves. The Latin Vulgate dates from the 4th century AD, and by the mid-6th century the complete Canon in a single cover was in common use. For 14 centuries European man has lived and conquered with this Bible in his hand. It is implausible to argue that it suddenly revealed its true, race-destroying character only in the last few years.

Of course, as liberalism invaded the church it established a new understanding of Christianity. Mainstream churches have now jettisoned any teaching of the old faith that they found incompatible with the current zeitgiest. A great many "Christians" now openly reject the clearest possible Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, for example, and some are so brazen as to question publicly the existence of God. Even the Catholic Church has been in an extraordinary rush to abandon centuries of dogma and practice in the four decades since Vatican II.

This new, liberal Christianity, which is really just liberalism dressed up with a few of the old forms, is now an integral part of the juggernaut that has produced a multi-racial America and that preaches immigration, integration, and capitulation. The brotherhood of man now means that all men must live together in the same country with no distinctions.

There are still pockets of Christian resistance. The old Christianity is believed and practiced off the beaten path by small groups and congregations. Organized Christianity, on the other hand, is still organized, but it is far from Christian. The new Christianity is as dangerous to real Christianity as it is to the survival of European Civilization and the white race.

The Old South

The two societies that offered more than token resistance to post-World War II multi-racialism were the American South and the South Africa of the Afrikaner-led National Party. These were both highly traditional Christian communities. They found nothing in their faith to curb racial awareness.

In fact, the literature of race that grew out of both these cultures (often written by clergymen) may still be profitably referred to today. It is stunning how prophetic the Christians of those two societies were in their predictions of the long-term effects of racial mixing. They did not have the scientific evidence for racial differences we have today, but the common-sense observations of these deeply Christian folk arrived at the same truths about race that the Jensens, Rushtons, and Levins would express in technical terms much later.

In the pre-Civil War South, slavery was thought to be a moral institution. However jarring this may be to modern sensibilities, Christianity endorsed an explicitly racial concept of bondage. Clergymen frequently invoked Noah's curse upon his son Ham, who was to be "a slave of slaves to his brothers." They also referred to the clear acceptance of and detailed regulation of slavery in the Old Testament. As Richard Fuller, an ante-bellum South Carolina Baptist declared in a dialogue with Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, "What God sanctioned in the Old Testament and permitted in the New cannot be sin."

The religious defense of racialism continued in the post-slavery period as a defense of segregation. Robert Lewis Dabney is probably the most famous of the thousands of preachers who found a Biblical basis for white supremacy.In his more than 50 years of professorships and pastorates he opposed everything from black suffrage to black schooling. The former was a "fatal innovation" that would eventually "destroy both American liberty and civilization." The latter would "only prepare the way for the abhorred fate, amalgamation." Richard H. Rivers was the author of Elements of Moral Philosophy, which served as the standard work on ethics for Methodists. In it, he wrote that the duties of whites to blacks "are no longer the duties of masters to slaves. They are, however, the duties of superiors to inferiors."

Many Southerners today recall how, even during the fervor of the 1950s and early 1960s, the battle to preserve segregation was often led by clergymen. Of course, by then mainstream Christianity had become so weakened by liberalism that many Southern clergymen could be found on the other side as well.

Universalism

The Christian is indeed summoned to spread the message to all men, and it is Christianity's universalism that critics point to as its central flaw. However, universalism does not require equality. Among the Afrikaner, when the family gathered for prayer and Bible study it was customary for the black servants also to attend, but to sit on the floor. A concern for another man's soul does not imply that I think him my equal. He may be superior or inferior to me in any number of ways. Though not blind to his station, I am still summoned to care for his spiritual and even his material well-being, and a case can certainly be made for the view that apartheid did more for the black and colored man than will be done by self-rule. In the end, the question is one of identity. May a Christian have any identity other than that of Christ's servant? May he be loyal to nation, culture or race? Traditional, European Christianity encouraged all these loyalties whereas liberal Christianity denies them. The denial is not only a recent aberration, it is a departure from Biblical teaching.

It is true that for the man devoted to the Lord, race will not be his only loyalty or even his first, but this must not render him suspect in the eyes of men who do not believe. Of the 391 readers who responded to the American Renaissance poll, 262 believe in God and 177 practice a religion. Of these, 167 are Christians. Their numbers, which amount to almost half the AR readers who responded, show that a true Christian's love of God need not dim his love for his people.

A Challenge to Non-believers

I would go farther and say that not only should Christianity not render a man suspect, Christians might even be justified in doubting the conviction of racialists who explicitly reject the faith. I know that among some non-believers there can be a tendency to mock those who believe, to think of us as somehow not intellectually complete. With all due respect, let me offer the view that perhaps no man of the West can be complete if he is not a Christian. I do not here intend to issue a challenge to believe. I suspect that many racialists will always be non-believers because it takes a powerfully skeptical mind to resist liberalism's incessant propaganda, and in any case, faith does not come from the pages of magazines. Instead I appeal to tradition, history, and the beauty of what is uniquely European.

Our culture is so saturated with Christianity that the two simply cannot be separated. Can a man who claims to speak for European Man appreciate the B-Minor Mass in anything like the manner Bach intended if he does not share Bach's faith? Can a true man of the West look upon Notre Dame cathedral with nothing more than an art critic's eye? Can today's Southerners, who claim to be so proud of their Confederate ancestors, understand the minds of Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee if Christianity is to them nothing more than an alien superstition? The art, the literature, the music, the sculpture, the history, the very essence of our heritage is suffused with faith and the symbols of faith.

To strip Christianity from Western Civilization is to tear out its heart. Christianity is so characteristic of Western man that for centuries Europe was known as "Christendom." How can whites claim to be defenders of a people and of a race and yet scoff at the deepest convictions of their ancestors? How can they speak of "preservation" when they oppose the faith that has for so long defined and guided our race? Today's whites are the final link in a chain of faith that reaches more than a thousand years into the past. If they can throw off their ancient religion so easily what else might they cast aside? Their language, their culture, their race? Should we not be suspicious of men who invoke the wisdom of their ancestors' views on blacks or immigrants but who reject the spiritual foundation on which their ancestors built their lives--who reject what their ancestors would have said was the source and strength of all wisdom?

To be sure, it is not given to all men--not even to all good men--to believe. To those men I would say: If you love your race and its heritage, do not mock the Church. Respect it, honor it, and even--yes--join it. As a duty to your ancestors, in solidarity with the ancient traditions of your people, as an act of participation in the faith that suffuses our culture, stand with the believers even if, in your hearts, you do not believe. I know that what I propose is difficult, even shocking. It is contrary to today's cult of the individual. It requires that personal qualms be set aside in the name of something greater. But for those who think in terms of race it should not be difficult to understand that there is something greater.

Those of you who were reared in the faith will find unsuspected solace in the familiar music and liturgy of your childhoods. Also, churches are not subject to civil rights laws and many are therefore the only fully segregated public institutions in America. Support the faith, work to restore its dignity and traditions and, eventually, the faith may become your support.

Those who do not believe should remember that it is a matter of pride among the liberals to flaunt their atheism. This is because they see religion as one of those loathsome things from the past, like "racism" and "sexism," that must be destroyed. It is no coincidence that Communism persecuted the church. Therefore, do not side with the Bolsheviks against your own people. Whether you call yourself a racialist or a conservative or a reactionary, if you join the assault on Christianity you league yourself with those who hate Western man. It is precisely now, when the crisis is worst, that men of the West must march together and be guided by the same light.

Rather than turn their backs on the faith of their fathers, non-believers should ask themselves whether our people can be saved if our faith is not restored. Can it be a coincidence that racial consciousness in the West collapsed at precisely the moment liberalism invaded the Church. There have been many deeply religious European societies that took pride in race and nation. Has there even been a non-religious one that did? Do we even know whether whites can build a racially conscious society on material grounds alone? Those who think of Christianity as an obstacle and a stumbling block should ask themselves whether it may be that Christianity must be cured of liberalism before the West can be cured.

Europe is the faith and the faith Europe. Those who would be faithful to Europe but not to the faith will find that Europe cannot be Europe without the faith. Even if some biologically authentic remnant of the race succeeds in securing a material corner of the earth, it will have established a nation without an identity and a body without a soul.