Fragmentation
In 2024, British Member of Parliament Neil O’Brien published an article to his substack titled The End of Mainstream Christianity in Britain … . O’Brien shared a number of stories and statistics that point to the decline of Christianity in the UK, a trend that he was not comfortable with:
Even as an atheist I find this kind of sad. Christianity inspired so many to do amazing things … . It has been a central part of life in Britain since the third century. It provided comfort and purpose and meaning for so many people.
O’Brien’s article gives readers a useful snapshot of the de-Christianisation in his country. Particularly revealing was the Church of England’s webpage, linked by O’Brien, which lists closing churches “available for disposal”. (Those interested in buying an unused church building can view the site here.) It appears that the historically high rates of membership of the state-based church have been collapsing over the last several decades. But this is not just a UK-based phenomenon; it is occurring all over the West. And why might this be?
In Origin: Why Genesis 1–11 Trumps Secular Accounts, we explained our view that the de-Christianisation of the West is a complicated phenomenon that accelerated in earnest following the adoption of evolutionary education into state-funded education:
In 1968, American schoolteacher Susan Epperson won the right to teach human evolution in Epperson v. Arkansas, a decision that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. This decision was tantamount to a proclamation that a Genesis-as-history interpretation of the early chapters of the Bible had been disproved by science. At this point secular humanists had achieved a powerful pedagogical advantage in schools throughout the U.S., which specifically meant the right to teach the secular origins account pertaining to humans as science within the science curriculum. Similar decisions were soon enacted by the educational bureaucracies in other Western countries. By default, secular humanism became the established religious perspective of the West. The secular state, an idea which sprung partly from Protestant biblical theology, had been replaced with the secular humanist state.
The Epperson v. Arkansas decision was handed down nearly 60 years ago. What is the trajectory of the UK and the broader West if it continues to reject Christ? In our view, a possible answer is fragmentation, a Biblical concept which is the counterpoint to unity.
Fragmentation of those that oppose God is a motif that runs through the Bible. Psalm 2 speaks of Christ wielding a rod of iron against those nations and rulers who “conspire against the Lord and his Anointed One” (v.2b), dashing rebellious nations in pieces like a potter’s vessel. The imagery is evocative of ceramic shattering and shards flying in all directions. The spiritual driver that underpins this phenomenon is the rejection of the Triune God, whose very essence is multi-personal unity. In rejecting God, whether at personal, national or civilisational levels, a formerly united body becomes subject to fragmentation. The human body gives a micro-view of fragmentation at death: “For you are dust, and you will return to dust” (Genesis 3:19).
At a larger scale there is community fragmentation. One of the contributors to this phenomenon is the rise of atheism and the resulting collapse in church attendance (e.g., see here). In rejecting God, individual atheists become isolated from the corporate life they might otherwise have enjoyed in the Christian church, as well as pulling back from volunteering and other community activities.
At an even larger scale, corporate fragmentations at the level of nations are described in the Bible. In the Genesis creation account, mankind suffered corporate fragmentation at Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). Humanity had resisted God’s command to spread out over the whole earth, and God responded by confusing their languages. The formerly unified race of mankind fragmented into many nations.
A second example of national fragmentation from biblical times is that of New Testament Israel. At the time of Christ, life in Israel centered around Jerusalem, with worship based in the rebuilt temple. The New Testament teaches that the rejection of Christ by the Jews resulted in the national fragmentation imposed by the Roman Empire (Luke 19:41–44). Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D.; not one stone of the temple was left on another. The Jewish population was scattered into various parts of the Roman empire. For almost two thousand years, Jews of the diaspora maintained their culture apart from their homeland. A modern state of Israel was formally constituted in 1948—officially secular but with religious accommodation for Rabbinic Judaism.
Any nation or union of nations that opposes God is at risk of fragmentation. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), an atheistic empire headed by Russia, fragmented when the system fell in 1991. Historically, Russia had become a Christian nation as far back as 988 AD, but the Russian revolution of 1917 ushered in an era in which Christianity was banned and Christians were harshly persecuted. Following fragmentation of the USSR, the various countries which comprised the union decided to forge their own separate paths. This effect was not limited to the countries in the vicinity of Russia; the territories of the Ethiopian Derg, a Soviet client state in the Horn of Africa, split into Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1991.
The brevity of the reign of the USSR is noteworthy. The USSR lasted just under 70 years (1922–1991). In contrast, Christianised Europe ran from the time of Constantine in the fourth century AD through to its peak in the thirteenth century. This was followed by a lengthy period of decline culminating in the events of 1968 described above. Where Christianised Europe took a thousand years to rise, and six centuries to decline, the USSR rose and fell in a few score years. This hasty rejection of the system underlines how unworthy, and how unworkable, anti-Christian systems can be.
Is the outlook for the atheistic West the same kind of fragmentation that marked the end of the USSR? Based on the biblical principle in Psalm 2, the same Christ, wielding the same rod, may shatter the West at some point. In the meantime, various commentators have noted increasing levels of polarisation in the West, either social or political:
- Social fragmentation in the United States was investigated by political scientist Robert Putnam.
- The potential Balkanisation of the UK (this refers to a phenomenon in which “in-group preference” determines where people live and the kind of news and opinion they consume) has been discussed by Neil O’Brien.
- Political polarisation is increasing in the United States.
These are probably the warning signs that a larger breakup of the West could be in the offing. And if USSR-like timing applies, a catastrophic disintegration may be just a few decades away.
Granted, this is not a cheery conclusion, but it reminds us that rejection of Christ at either personal or corporate levels is an alarming development with serious consequences.