Why Are European Elites Destroying the West? :: By Brandon Holthaus

I recently returned from England, where my time in Oxford and conversations with remnant believers sharpened concerns that have grown during other visits to Ireland, Scotland, Amsterdam, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. These encounters have left me deeply troubled about Europe’s spiritual direction. A continent shaped by Christianity increasingly seems embarrassed by the faith that helped form it, while Christians who still believe the Bible find themselves defending truths their culture once took seriously.

My conclusion is that influential political and cultural leaders are actively advancing a post-Christian Europe for Globalism. I believe the weakening of biblical authority and national identity serves a globalist vision of power increasingly removed from ordinary citizens.

Bruce Bawer’s recent Front-Page Magazine article, “Europe’s Suicide Pact,” offers a related warning: governments are transforming societies while dismissing the people who must live with the consequences. His criticism of multicultural ideology, contempt for their own countries’ citizens, failed integration of Islamic immigrants, and political cowardice are causing Europe to commit civilization suicide. [1]

What I Saw in Oxford

Walking through Oxford, I was struck by its embrace of the fifteen-minute-city agenda—another scheme imposed by globalist elites using the climate change hoax to justify greater control over people’s lives, moving toward a prison without walls. I also noticed visible expressions of Islam, including buildings named after Islamic donors and women wearing hijabs, in a city with deep Christian associations through figures such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. That contrast left me asking serious questions about Europe’s future and what is becoming of its Christian inheritance.

The desire for a post-Christian future is being discussed openly.

In July 2018, Viktor Orbán accused European elites of moving the continent into a “post-Christian era” in which nations would disappear. His warning identified a fundamental dispute over whether Europe should preserve its Christian inheritance and national distinctions or regard them as obstacles to progress. [2]

In March 2025, Bishop Athanasius Schneider made a more direct accusation in an interview reported by Andreas Wailzer for LifeSiteNews. Schneider argued that powerful elites were using mass migration to change Europe’s identity and diminish Christian influence. I share his concern about policies that weaken a country’s inherited moral framework. [3]

Melania Phillips has noted in her book, The Builder’s Stone, that Western elites are taking a wrecking ball to their own institutions and values because they believe that Western civilization is fundamentally corrupted by colonialism and racism. Consequently, they do not believe its inheritance deserves to be passed on to the next generation. Their project goes beyond correcting historical injustices: it involves dismantling Western culture and institutions. Western civilization rests substantially on Christianity; Christianity rests on Judaism; therefore, attacks on the West’s foundational principles ultimately attack its Christian and Jewish moral inheritance. [4]

What European’s Are Saying

In my other discussions and interviews with individuals from Europe, such as Pastor Gary McKibbon of Victory Church Belfast in Ireland and Ken Luff of Hephzibah Oxford in England, elites are making a concerted effort to destroy Europe’s Christian heritage.

McKibbon notes, “When K. Schwab coined the phrase “Build Back Better,” a race was on. Not to build, but to deconstruct! The forerunners in this race…Europe! A collective that decided, in the 2002 resolution, that fundamentalism was at odds with EU goals. Evidently, they did not mean Islamic fundamentalism or the communist, socialist, and leftist fundamentalism that has permeated Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Rather, they meant Christian fundamentalism, specifically the Judeo-Christian bedrock of Western civilization.

Luff notes, “Whether knowingly or not, the elites, aka the globalists, are essentially Satan’s agents in today’s world. Typically, they are members of groups such as the WEF, the Freemasons, the Fabian Society, Skull and Bones, and so on, seeking power and the riches of this world. Any investigation of the philosophy of these groups shows them to be against our Christian faith and the freedoms that emanate from true Christianity.

The freedoms of liberal Western countries like the UK and the USA were largely established by the impact of the Protestant Reformation. Thus, Satan’s strategy has been to use these anti-Christian groups to infiltrate key sectors (e.g., government, education, the media, etc.) of these nations over the past 200 years or so in order to undermine and ultimately destroy the very fabric of such societies by attacking the culture upon which their freedoms have been established.

The Fear That Manipulates

Through conversations with Europeans, I have come to recognize a lingering World War II hangover: a deep fear of nationalism rooted in what happened in Nazi Germany. Europe was devastated by that war, and its memory continues to shape how many European elites view national identity.

The problem is that they confuse the extremes of Nazi ideology with basic loyalty, pride, and love for one’s country—what we call patriotism. Their fear of repeating the past leads them to treat national affection as though it were the beginning of another totalitarian movement.

That helps explain why some immediately associate Donald Trump’s “America First” message with Nazism. Trump’s call for patriotism- expecting people who come to America to respect the country and confronting the universities, political activists, the media, and the entertainment industry to stop promoting hatred for America and the West is his goal. Loving your country does not mean embracing racial supremacy or seeking to conquer your neighbors.

But when European leaders interpret patriotism primarily through the lens of World War II, they mistake it for the radical nationalism of Nazi Germany. Their proposed safeguard is internationalism and, ultimately, globalism. They believe that weakening national sovereignty and transferring authority to international institutions like the UN will prevent another nationalist catastrophe.

The danger is that fear drives them toward the opposite extreme. Without a biblical worldview, they lack the foundation needed to evaluate that fear in light of God’s truth. Scripture exposes both the idolatry of exalting a nation above God and the arrogance of concentrating human power in global institutions like the UN in defiance of Him.

From that biblical perspective, I can clearly see Satan exploiting their fear of the past to draw them toward globalism. In their determination to prevent one form of tyranny, they are surrendering their national sovereignty to another. They believe globalism will protect them from national tyranny, yet that very belief draws them into a trap they will not escape.

Moral Relativism and the Romans 1 Judgment of Being Given Over

The intentional dismantling of Christianity does not require every politician to attend a secret meeting. It advances spiritually through a shared rejection of absolute truth in favor of moral relativism and individual feelings. After decades of suppressing the truth and worshiping the creation rather than the Creator, European elites illustrate the judgment described in Romans 1:18-32, where God gives people over to the desires they insist on pursuing.

Professing to be wise, they have become fools. I see this reflected in their embrace of socialism, the welfare state, LGBT activism, open-borders policy, gender ideology, and their sacrificial devotion to the climate-change hoax. Their thinking becomes futile, and their hearts become darkened. Their willingness to pursue Islamic immigration policies that undermine assimilation and expose their own citizenry to Islamic behaviors that are destroying their European culture further illustrates this rejection of wisdom.

Romans 1 describes people being given over to uncleanness through the lusts of their hearts after exchanging the truth of God for a lie. That exchange distorts how they view Christianity and Christians, Israel and the Jewish people, national sovereignty, and progress itself. Having rejected the truth, they celebrate the very things that contribute to their destruction as progress.

Some are simply useful idiots who follow whatever ideology is fashionable. Others believe that removing Christianity from public life will liberate society from patriarchy, sexual restraint, and what they label intolerance. They promise diversity, equity, and unrestricted personal freedom. Ultimately, however, they want freedom from God’s authority—the very attitude described in Psalm 2:1–3. Their policies consequently push Europe in the same post-Christian direction toward globalism.

What they fail to recognize is the trap Satan has set for them. Like their pagan ancestors at Babel, they look to human unity and centralized power for security. Genesis 11:4 captures their ambition: “Let us make a name for ourselves.” Rather than honor God, they seek greatness and security on their own terms. The global order they envision echoes that ancient rebellion associated with Nimrod: humanity united in defiance of its Creator.

Behind the promise of liberation lies spiritual deception—the attraction of worship that accommodates human desires rather than submitting to the one true God, whose moral authority cannot be rewritten to suit our preferences.

They run from the knowledge that God established governments to exercise authority under Him. Government is therefore accountable to a moral authority beyond itself. That conviction directly challenges any global ideology that demands ultimate allegiance to the state or a supranational institution.

Immigration and the Politics of Power

Immigration becomes politically dangerous in Europe and throughout the West when governments treat immigrants, legal or illegal, particularly young Muslim men arriving without wives or children, as instruments of power. My concern is that globalist elites are using immigration from Islamic societies as a battering ram or hammer against the West, disregarding assimilation, a country’s capacity to absorb newcomers, learning the national language, embracing Western civic values, and the responsibilities of citizenship.

These policies have already deepened segregation and created isolated enclaves, no-go zones, and parallel societies. When authorities fail to confront Islamic rape gangs, sexual exploitation, and Islamist intimidation, they abandon the people they are responsible for protecting. That failure betrays public trust, and it’s intentional.

Europe is projected to have a substantially larger Muslim population by midcentury, driven by immigration, a younger population, and higher birth rates. Pew Research Center’s 2017 study projected that the Muslim share of the 30 European countries studied could rise from 4.9% in 2016 to 7.4% by 2050 with no further migration, 11.2% with continued regular migration, or 14% if the exceptional refugee flows of 2014–2016 continued alongside regular immigration.

Changes would vary considerably: under the high-migration scenario, Sweden could reach approximately 31% Muslim and Germany approximately 20%. These figures point toward a significant demographic and religious shift, with alarming implications for integration, public policy, and national identity. These trends raise a serious concern: if European leaders continue failing to address existing problems with Islamic immigration and integration, those problems could deepen as migration continues, while political elites make further concessions to Islamist demands. [5]

Islamification and institutional surrender and the Red-Green Alliance

When I speak of Islamification, my concern is the expansion of Islamist political demands into European institutions that should protect everyone’s freedom. Pressure to suppress criticism of Islam, excuse antisemitism, or subordinate equal civil rights to religious authority deserves resistance. Europe should protect freedom of conscience and refuse demands for religious coercion; instead, they demonize the citizens as being Islamophobic, racist, or xenophobic who criticize the teachings and behaviors of Islam.

European Globalists and Islamists make strange bedfellows, but they share common enemies: the West, Christianity, and Israel. Both realize they cannot destroy the West from the outside, so they have worked to destroy it from within, institutionally, culturally, and politically. They cooperate against those enemies while pursuing different goals; one seeks a globalist order, the other a global caliphate.

A secular politician may foolishly imagine that Islamist movements can be managed after they dismantle all vestiges of Christianity and Israel from their society, but he does not understand the history of Islam. Islam cannot be managed due to its supremacist and conquering nature.  Islamists, meanwhile, regard their secular allies as temporary partners as a means to an end. They exploit Western freedoms to advance their agenda while presenting themselves within the woke framework as an oppressed group deserving protection. This gives them political cover to pursue goals fundamentally opposed to the freedoms that make their agenda possible.

The Price of Refusing Uncomfortable Facts

One example of many in the UK is Oxford’s child sexual exploitation scandal of Pakistani Muslim men who targeted underage white girls, which exposes the devastating consequences of this red-green alliance failure. The agencies of the state, including the police, social services and the care system, seemed eager to ignore the sickening exploitation that was happening before their eyes simply because they didn’t want to appear racist.  In 2015, the county council acknowledged repeated missed opportunities to protect abused girls who were being groomed by Pakistani Muslims.[6] Journalist Allison Pearson noted, “what remains is a political class still far too timid to challenge growing and alarming separatism in Muslim education and law.” [7]

Romans 13:3–4 gives government a responsibility to restrain wrongdoing. Officials who fail to protect vulnerable children deserve rigorous accountability and jail time. A society that cannot fulfill that elementary duty has a moral crisis far deeper than its public-relations language can conceal. Protecting villains instead of victims is the worst crime someone can commit.  It’s demonic, but it fits their agenda.

Teaching A Civilization to Despise Itself

I am also concerned about an approach to history that treats the West primarily as a record of white oppression, colonialism, slavery, and patriarchy. Every nation has both failures and achievements. An honest historical evaluation considers the whole picture. But when every achievement is recast as domination, the agenda becomes clear: historical education becomes an exercise in cultivating shame. People taught that their inheritance is irredeemably evil will struggle to explain why it deserves to survive.

I see an affinity here with Marxist approaches that interpret society through conflict between oppressors and the oppressed. The problem is selective moral judgment. The failures of the West and Christianity are repeatedly rehearsed, while their contributions to charity, education, human dignity, and moral accountability are dismissed.

A culture must acknowledge wrongdoing, repent, and preserve what is true and good. Yet within this Marxist ideological framework, no meaningful path to forgiveness or restoration exists. The civilization itself stands permanently condemned. Its failures become justification for tearing it all down.

Global Government and the Responsibility of the Remnant

By a global New World Order, I mean an envisioned concentration of authority above nations, with no restraints from voters, inherited institutions, and biblical moral commitments. The danger comes when international cooperation becomes a justification for weakening the consent of the governed and treating dissent as an obstacle to be managed.

Daniel 2 and 7, together with Revelation 13, describe the coming fourth Kingdom that will exert world dominion and will ultimately unite political authority, false worship, coercion, and economic exclusion under the Antichrist.

I can tell you this: don’t expect most Christians to understand what is unfolding. Distorted eschatology, replacement theology, seeker-friendly approaches, purpose-driven programs, and church-growth models have left many churches spiritually disengaged. They are focused on building their ministry kingdoms while failing to recognize the direction of the world around them.

I see in these churches the condition Christ rebuked in Laodicea: complacency, spiritual blindness, and confidence in their own prosperity. Do not assume they are coming to your rescue or that they will suddenly join the effort to oppose globalism. Many do not even recognize what is happening.

They remind me of the religious leaders Jesus confronted in Matthew 16:3: “Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.”

Why could they not discern the times? They failed to accept what Scripture revealed about the Messiah. Daniel 9:24–26 provided the prophetic timetable for His coming, and His miracles confirmed His identity. Yet they refused to recognize Him.

Here we are, roughly two thousand years later, watching another failure of discernment. Many churches cannot recognize the convergence of developments preparing the world for the conditions Scripture describes during the Tribulation. Their theological systems have trained them to dismiss the very passages that would help them understand what they are seeing.

The imagery of Laodicea is especially sobering. The hot springs of nearby Hierapolis were valued for bathing and therapeutic use, while Colossae was associated with cold, refreshing water. Both hot and cold water served a useful purpose. Christ’s image of lukewarm water, unpleasant enough to spit out, exposes a church whose complacency had rendered its witness ineffective. The congregation considered itself wealthy and self-sufficient, yet Christ described it as spiritually impoverished, blind, and naked.

That is why we cannot build our response around the expectation that complacent churches and their pastors will lead the way. The responsibility falls to those willing to hear and obey Christ—the faithful remnant reflected in His words to Philadelphia. We must get the warning out.

And so be it. We are called to stand as watchmen on the wall, faithfully declaring what God has revealed. At the judgment seat of Christ, faithful service will be rewarded, while worthless works will bring loss of reward. Our responsibility is to warn while there is still time.

The Christian foundations of Europe, America, and the wider West are worth defending. The Philadelphia remnant must stand confidently on Scripture, teach the whole counsel of God, and refuse to yield to intimidation. Political leaders may pursue a post-Christian future. Our responsibility is to remain faithful to Christ, make His truth known, and persevere in the work He has entrusted to us.

Brandon Holthaus Ministries

Sources

[1] Bruce Bawer, “Europe’s Suicide Pact,” October 12, 2026.

[2] Reuters via Euronews • July 28 2018
Hungarian PM sees shift to illiberal Christian democracy in 2019 European vote

[3] Andreas Wailzer • LifeSiteNews • March 20 2025
Bishop Schneider says elites use mass migration to destroy Europe’s Christian identity

[4] Melanie Phillips. The Builder’s Stone
https://www.amazon.com/Builders-Stone-Christians-Built-West/dp/B0DT15TLWP?tag=ustxtaddt-20 

[5] Pew Research Center • November 29 2017
Europe’s Growing Muslim Population

[6] Oxfordshire County Council • March 3 2015
Council accepts findings of Bullfinch serious case review

[7) Allison Pearson, “It’s time to end the cowardly appeasement of radical Islamism”