No, not running on empty. We are running on left-overs. Even Europe, which people say is godless, still bears the burden of the longest chapter in the history of the West.
What is calculated to perpetuate the decline, is the odd remark--the sentiment is perhaps picked up like a cold, or a yawn--Greg's remark that "The West is not Christianity." I'm sure you could squeeze some truth out of that, but not much. For where is Christianity, but in the West? His concept of the West begins where? Lately, the West has been presented as something that is constituted in California. But the roots of our civilization run deeper than our present education.
I mention this because while part of our culture, its technocracy, gives evidence of success, it is faceless in the shadow of a religous balance of power that threatens protracted conflict.
In an article by Philip Jenkins, "The New Iron Curtain," he notes that "No fewer than ten of the world's twenty-five largest states in 2050 could be profoundly divided between Islam and Christianity, and judging by present trends, any or all of them could be scenes of serious interfaith conflict."
And forget about that prime motivation of that cold-war antagonist, communist Moscow. Here we have another foreign religion that knows its target with an impatient resolve unlike the Reds "We have heard a great deal in the past year about War on Terrorism not being a war against Islam, and Americans are understandably hostile toward giving an overtly religious coloring to their foreign policy. . . The new, militant Islam overtly procalims that its attempt to crush its Christian neighbors is an integral part of an ongoing fight against America and the West.
And as a post script, it is the sinister part of the American Left and Right that harbors the same disdain and shares a common enemy.