I wrote about Michel Houellebecq’s satirical novel “Submission” in my last post. I clipped some quotes from the book that I thought illustrated the decline of Christendom and western civilization quite well.
On secularism:
“The fact is, most people live their lives without worrying too much about these supposedly philosophical questions. They think about them only when they’re facing some kind of tragedy – a serious illness, the death of a loved one. At least, that’s how it is in the West; in the rest of the world people die and kill in the name of these very questions, they wage bloody wars over them, and they have since the dawn of time. These metaphysical questions are exactly what men fight over, not market shares or who gets to hunt where. Even in the West, atheism has no solid basis.”
On the post-Christian west:
“Without Christianity, the European nations had become bodies without souls – zombies. The question was, could Christianity be revived? I thought so. I thought so for several years – with growing doubts. As time went on, I subscribed more and more to Toynbee’s idea that civilizations die not by murder but by suicide.”
On the way secular progressivism attacked the Church:
“Thanks to the simpering seductions and the lewd enticements of the progressives, the Church had lost its ability to oppose moral decadence, to renounce homosexual marriage, abortion rights, and women in the workplace. The facts were plain: Europe had reached a point of such putrid decomposition that it could no longer save itself, any more than fifth-century Rome could have done.”
Finally, on where to go now that western civilization has been broken:
“There is no Israel for me.”
Read the book. You won’t regret it. Let it be a reminder of what we have lost and a warning of where we are headed if we don’t begin rebuilding today.
The Decline and Fall of the United States of America 