Henry Ergas’s column on the war on the West, When faith takes up arms silence is no option, has drawn a number of letters which I thought were of interest and supplements his points quite well. First this although published last:

Henry Ergas’s article urges frank discussion. The thrust of the article could be simply stated in Greg Sheridan’s pithy comment last year on Iran, that no one in the West takes the idea of God seriously any more and cannot conceive of a government whose behaviour is determined by theological goals. It is somewhat amusing to think that a society that has jettisoned God could presumptuously give a movement with a god advice on changing its theology. The West is so satiated with its own righteousness it does not recognise all it has comes from the precepts of the God it has abandoned.

There is then this, also out of the published order.

The sickness of silence (don’t mention the war) and appeasement (peace in our time) that have infected Western politicians signal the death of Western civilisation. They will bring victory to barbarian invasions. Western politicians have become a supine tool through which the barbarians, not just Islamists, achieve their goals. There is no point continuing to jaw-jaw when you are losing the war-war.

Secular liberal democracy is the jewel in the crown of Western civilisation. It has taken centuries and millions of deaths to achieve it. To watch it being eroded by such idiocies as multicultural relativism and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s naive Willkommenskultur is sickening.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, according to Edmund Burke. Our politicians should remember that. There is going to be hell to pay.

The consequences will be experienced by others, not us. They will see the new world order as a victory since they will describe it for themselves. But it is not likely a world in which I would like to live. But then again, I won’t have to. And just one more:

Some of those who ridiculed Tony Abbott for his Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture have gone remarkably quiet. Perhaps a retraction is too much to ask. But acknowledging the wisdom of Abbott’s conclusion — we are rediscovering the hard way that justice tempered by mercy is an exacting ideal as too much mercy for some necessarily undermines justice for all — would not go astray.

If you would like to see an image of Christian Europe in a hundred or so years, the best template may be found in Constantinople post-1453.