The ‘Left’s’ Worst Nightmare: A Return to the 'Crusader Mindset'

Remember when the Atlantic complained about “Christian nationalists,” whose “social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, Deus Vult (‘God wills it’) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become Church Militants”?

This was a frustrated admission of something the so-called “Left” secretly fears: that Western peoples might one day reclaim their Christian heritage — their true Christian heritage, not the “Doormat Christianity” variety that was manufactured, nurtured and led by subversive leftist elements, wolves in sheep’s clothing, seeking to undermine the West’s Judeo-Christian ethos.

The Left fears such Crusader imagery precisely because they invoke something innately appealing. For example, most of the eight men profiled in my recent book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, sacrificed their lives — though they were emperors, kings and lords who had much to live for — fighting in defense of the Faith.

These included Godfrey of Bouillon, a wealthy duke who forsook his many possessions in Europe to take the cross and fight for the cause of Christendom during the First Crusade; El Cid, who almost single-handedly stopped and even turned the tide against the jihadist infiltration of Spain; Richard Lionheart, a king who nearly lost everything — and complained to God in Job-like fashion — in his attempt to liberate the Holy Land; Ferdinand III, the Castilian monarch who spearheaded the Reconquista and liberated Spain from Islamic tyranny; Louis IX, the French king and tragic hero who, never once complaining, sacrificed all that was dear to him in the cause of Christ; John Hunyadi, Hungary’s champion who fought both the jihadists and their elitist Western collaborators; Skanderbeg, the Albanian Braveheart who abandoned a life of wealth and honors to fight and die alongside his countrymen in the name of freedom; and even Vlad the Impaler — Hollywood’s bloodsucking “Count Dracula” — who defended his kingdom against Islamic invasions, including by fighting fire with fire (that is, impalement with impalement).

The contagiously inspiring image invoked by these men who boldly and unapologetically sacrificed everything to defend their faith is precisely what the Left does not want today’s Christians, of whatever denomination, to recollect as part of their heritage, a thing available to them to emulate in times of crisis.

This is precisely why, for decades, all departments in service of the Left — from the public school system to Hollywood — have done everything in their power to 1) emasculate men and 2) present “good” and “true” Christianity as being nothing more than a welcome doormat.

Thus, the powers-that-be have idolized the effeminate and extolled the homosexual; they have portrayed sword-waving women as the true and only embodiment of courage, heroism and self-sacrifice; they have demonized true masculinity — without which civilization perishes — as “toxic”; and, most insidiously, they have depicted any Christian who wishes to do anything other than “turn his other cheek” as being hypocritical and oppressive.

One can go on and on as to how the Left has done everything, subtle and increasingly not so subtle, to neuter men, but the point should be clear: The first and foremost enemy of any one or thing — in this case, the Left — is men. As such, teaching men not to be men has been one of the most strategic ways to defeat men. Little wonder the lgb-whatever agenda has been to infiltrate and indoctrinate the minds of children — whether through schools and libraries, or television programming and books for children. While that agenda is dark on several fronts, one of its chief goals is to strip boys of their latent manhood while they’re still young and pliable — nipping them in the “bud,” as it were, so they become compliant in adulthood.

Before closing and for the record, I am not here calling for any physical militancy. After all, and unlike the aforementioned Defenders of the West, who had no choice but to fight, today’s Christians need not take up arms in a physical manner.

Rather, if today’s men were simply to reclaim their manhood and start behaving like men — and, most importantly, believe in a Cause greater than themselves — all of the insane ills plaguing Western society would dissipate like vapor.

That said, time is short. As Winston Churchill, who understood the dangers of procrastinating while one’s enemy grows in power, once said:

[I]f you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.