Retirement has permitted me to read books that I wouldn’t have had time when I was an active pastor.

I have essentially ended these once-weekly blog posts and will probably close down the Welcome to the Front Porch Swing in February when my contract renews.

Occasionally a book is so relevant that I want to share it with my former blog followers. However, I usually don’t share anything, but today I will.

The book, The War on The West, was an eye-opener. The author is Douglas Murray, an international bestseller. His latest book was released only a few months ago, and I predict it will be another bestseller. It ought to be. In fact, it ought to be required reading for every person concerned by the dramatic social, political changes that threaten to tear the fabric that once held us together as a nation. Or as a civilization.

Murray lays out evidence exposing the sinister effort to destroy all western civilization. Nothing is sacred anymore, it appears. Western art and music that has endured and been cherished is under attack simply because they are the product of white men and women.

If you want to understand contemporary issues such as woke, BLM etc., this book is a must read. The root goes far deeper than racism.

As we watch, statues and memorials that once honored great men and women are being toppled or defaced, if for no other reason than an ancestor might have benefited by slavery. I emphasize “might have”. Buildings on college campuses are being renamed. Even the statue of an elk in downtown Portland was not safe because it was on land that once belonged to native Americans.

Yet, statues in honor of Karl Marx remain unmolested.

It is clear that much, if not most, of the anger supposedly driving this movement has nothing to do with slavery or race. The root goes far deeper than the death of a black man at the hands of a renegade cop.

Karl Marx, in personal letters to his friend, Friedrich Engels, are laced with racial slurs especially against Jews and blacks. Marx frequently tosses the “N” word around in his ranting. Yet, he is safe from all this madness.

We can determine the root of a tree by its fruit. The focus of Murray’s book is to expose the root that is driving this war against all western civilization.

Will they succeed?

Yes, unless enough people and enough corporations get enough courage to say, “enough!”

One final concept from Murray: He observes that there are no boats filled with migrants going south across the Mediterranean ocean. There are no masses of people crossing the Rio Grande going south to escape the United States of America.

Go figure.