The Christmas Cross to Bear
Some years ago, I took a daytime train trip from London north to Edinburgh, Scotland. I particularly enjoyed the journey as a devotee of English-European literature and history. Because I knew that unlike any route in my much younger country, the same land had been traveled by civilized men for well over 2,000 years, since the Roman Empire added Britain well before the birth of Christ. And it was His birth that bridged the ancient world to our own, despite never-ending attacks on His followers — including the Christmas horror last weekend in Germany.
[L]eftist European leaders have ignored their own countrymen to welcome millions of immigrants who disdain their post-Christian culture.
I sat on the left side of the train compartment. To my right, churned the cold grey North Sea, over which sailed Vikings to pillage — some to occupy — the burgeoning England. I reflected on how close and often Englaland came to being crushed by the brutal Northmen. How only the faith of one man, King Alfred the Great, saved and fortified the nation.
In 879 A.D., Alfred’s army routed the Viking forces under chieftain Guthrum. Instead of executing Guthrum and his closest men, Alfred allowed them to convert to Christianity, an historic decision that established a new way. “The real issue is a Christian England,” he told Guthrum. “Stay here and rule this land with me, under the lordship of Jesus Christ.” Guthrum complied.
Out the left window, I could see the glorious result of Alfred’s dream, along with modernity’s betrayal of it. I passed two dozen towns in the distance, several with a magnificent medieval cathedral that dwarfed the village around it, which could not actively maintain such a site today. So, the cathedrals seemed to me like haunted ruins calling to the faithless across the millennium, “that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in Heaven and on Earth, and under the earth.” (Philippians 2:10).
A century and a half before Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings to form Christian England, Christian Europe was having a hard time against a more powerful pagan force. The Muslims swiftly conquered Spain by 718 and intended to do the same to the Kingdom of the Franks (pre-France). But they encountered the great Frankish warrior leader, Charles Martel. With just 1,500 men to the Muslim cavalry of 60,000, Charles repelled the enemy at the Battle of Tours on October 10, 732. This sent the Muslims fleeing back to Spain and ended the expansion of Islam in Europe — at least for a thousand years.
It took the Spanish more than half a century to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula, which they finally did under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492. That very year, the same royal couple shipped Catholicism across the Atlantic Ocean to the previously unknown New World. And soon afterward, Christian England spread the faith to the Colonies. Which ultimately inspired the Declaration of Independence of the United States, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But the Muslims did not earlier abandon their designs on Christian Europe. They deplored the existence of a continent and older religion unbowed to Islam. In 1571, they focused on a new point of attack — the Christian dominance of the Mediterranean, with its power center, Venice. Thus began their most massive and best coordinated military campaign yet.
A Muslim force conquered the Venetian island-state, Cyprus, beheading the old and enslaving the young of both sexes. The 100,000-man army then marched north to besiege Famagusta fortress, the key to the Venetian navy, held by 15,000 Christians. They fought for weeks, through cannon fire and starvation. When 350 survivors finally surrendered, all were beheaded, their heroic leader, General Bragadino, tortured and skinned alive.
The inhumanity proved a double-edged sword for the Muslims. Learning of it infuriated the Christian soldier-sailors sailing against the overwhelming Muslim fleet off the Ottoman city of Lepanto. But the Christian force had something the Muslims had never before encountered — six cannon-packed ships in the lead. In the greatest sea battle in history, the Battle of Lepanto, superior firepower broke the Muslim fleet, Christian fury, faith, and courage finished off their seamen.
Never again did the Islamists engage Christian Europe in battle. But then they didn’t have to for their final victory. All they had to do was wait 300 short years for Euro Christianity to die as a counterforce to Islam. Because you can’t fight something — Islamic fervency and anti-Christian hatred — with nothing — atheism — or worse than nothing, national self-disgust.
For decades now, leftist European leaders have ignored their own countrymen to welcome millions of immigrants who disdain their post-Christian culture, who have no desire to adapt to a tradition they deplore. Consequently, once their numbers have swelled past the present irreversible point, it is the protesters in Britain, France, and Germany whose governments silence, not the migrants imposing their Sharia Law and customs.
Celebrating Christmas Around the World
Yet they still recognize a more spiritual enemy than government. One who preceded their Mohammed and will outlast him onto eternity. Whose followers defeated their plans for the Islamic domination of Europe. Whose birth Christians all over the world celebrate at Christmas. This recognition proved too much for one Saudi Arabian fanatic in Germany on Friday. He drove his car into the Magdeburg Christmas Market, killing five people and injuring 200.
And as much as the Christian-hating Western press will try to distort or obscure the truth (NPR headline: Car plows into crowds at German Christmas Market), they won’t be able to. Because they no longer control the media. Because last month, the citizens of the most powerful country in the world elected a pro-Christian leader. And it’s once more Christmas in America
READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:
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Trump and the Advent of the Pax Americana
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