On the Death of Christendom

From Michel Houellebecq’s Submission:

[Rediger] called it tragic that their irrational hostility to Islam should blind them to the obvious:  on every question that really mattered, the nativists and the Muslims were in perfect agreement.  When it came to rejecting atheism and humanism, or the necessary submission of women, or the return of patriarchy, they were fighting exactly the same fight.  And today this fight, to establish a new organic phase of civilization, could no longer be waged in the name of Christianity.  Islam, its sister faith, was newer, simpler, and more true . . . which is why Islam had taken up the torch.  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 that fifth-century Rome could have done.  This wave of new immigrants, with their traditional culture – of natural hierarchies, the submission of women, and respect for elders – offered a historic opportunity for the moral and familial rearmament of Europe.  These immigrants held out the hope of a new golden age for the old continent.  Some were Christian; but there was no denying that the vast majority were Muslim.

He, Rediger, was the first to admit the greatness of medieval Christendom, whose artistic achievements would live forever in human memory; but little by little it had given way, it had ben forced to compromise with rationalism, it had renounced its temporal powers, and so had sealed its own doom – and why?  In the end, it was a mystery; God had ordained it so.