“Christians should stand up.” By simply making that assertion on social media, police — accompanied by a mental health professional — recently “visited” and questioned a man in his home in Australia (video here).

The man had posted that comment after a Muslim stabbed an Orthodox bishop inside a Sydney church this spring. As can be heard on the video linked above, the man can be heard telling the police,

This is religious discrimination right now, you know? Because you wouldn’t be knocking on Muslims’ doors if they had this conversation — so I already know why you’re here. This is religious discrimination.

He is, of course, absolutely correct: Muslims — to say nothing of leftists, Antifa, BLM, alphabet people of any variety, or (fill in the blank) — can make open calls to violence, praise the torching of churches, disparage their nations, etc., and the authorities won’t bat an eye, much less invade the privacy of their homes. But once a Christian responds to violence by calling on his coreligionists to merely “stand up,” then woe — all is woe!

Why? Because the one thing the Left fears more than anything else (to the point of being prudent enough to seldom mention it, lest the Right figures out its Achilles’ heel) is that Christians, who still make for sizeable majorities in the West, may one day reclaim their Christian heritage — meaning their true Christian heritage, not the “Doormat Christianity” variety that was manufactured, nurtured, and led by subversive leftist elements and wolves in sheep’s clothing seeking to undermine the West’s Christian ethos.

Emasculation at Its Finest

Consider an anti-Christian hit piece that ran in The Atlantic in 2022. Many rightly condemned it as a smear against Catholics. Even so, the fears expressed within it, while exaggerated, do touch on a certain truth: though the Left and all its depraved elements have little to fear from Christians waging a physical “holy war” against them, they do have to fear the resurrection of the “church militant,” defined as “the Christian church on earth regarded as engaged in a constant warfare against its enemies, the powers of evil” (and the people those powers animate and motivate, who are found most often on the Left).

This came out clearly after The Atlantic complained about “social-media pages … 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” (emphasis added).

“Rise up” is, of course, just another variation of “stand up” (which recently prompted the Australian police to descend on the home of that Christian man in the video). Such phrases capture what the Left so fears Christians may one day do.

Men Throughout History

Consider my 2022 book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam (there’s that idea of standing up again). Most of the men profiled in it 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 singlehandedly stopped and even turned the tides against the jihadist infiltration of Spain; Richard Lionheart, a British 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, the Hungarian 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 Romanian 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 they can emulate in times of crisis — in short, standing up against evil. Much better that they remain convinced that the highest virtue of their religion is to be passive doormats who never “judge” anyone for anything (a position that is also conveniently easier than taking a stand for something).

Incidentally, one need not be Catholic (I’m not) to be inspired by or associate with the aforementioned men and their self-sacrificial commitment: plenty of Orthodox and Protestant Christians also sacrificed much in order to defend their faith.

The Cure for What Ails Us

At any rate, from here, one realizes 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 (the antithesis of church militant).

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, cowardly, greedy, self-serving, oppressive, etc.

One can go on and on about how the Left has done everything, subtly and increasingly not so subtly, to neuter men, but the point should be clear: The first and foremost enemy of anyone or anything 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 indoctrinate children — whether through schools and libraries, or television programming and books. 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 that they will remain compliant in adulthood.

For the record, I am not glorifying or calling for any kind of physical militancy. 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 Christians were simply to stand up — which in large and practical measure means if their men start behaving like men — and, most importantly, if they all believe in a Cause greater than themselves, then all the insane ills plaguing Western society would dissipate like vapor.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.