John Cline
Mark Davis Pickup is an extensively published Canadian writer and inspirational keynote speaker. In 1984, Mark was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 30, which drastically changed his life direction. After leaving the workforce at age 38 due to his condition, Mark dedicated his energy towards advocating, speaking, and writing on vital issues like disability, human life, the sanctity of life, Christian unity, assisted suicide, and suffering. He has spoken to various audiences across North America, ranging from university students, to United States politicians, to hospital medical staffs. Mark has received multiple awards for his work, such as a Governor General’s Medal for community service and the Monsignor Bill Irwin Award for Ethical Excellence. Here is what he wrote in a recent blog:
“When Queen Elizabeth was a young girl, she witnessed the great sacrifices entire nations made to protect western Christian civilization—its institutions, customs and laws and mores during World War II. Later, as the Queen, she watched the horrendous systematic dismantling of western Christian civilization after the war. even to the point where progressives now deny there ever was a Christian civilization. (Tell that to the families of the 861,000 British, Canadian, American and Australian soldiers who died to protect Christian western civilization from the jackboot of Axis tyranny.) Progressives, the left, and secular élite who populate centers of learning and influence have made an art form out of revising or rewriting history. But there are some things they can’t write out of history, such as the famous speech Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave to the British people on the eve of the Battle of Britain in 1941. The great man rose in Parliament and said: “I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and that long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared about will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, more sinister, perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for one thousand years, men say ‘This was their finest hour.’”
There is no record of parliamentarians or the public shouting down the Prime Minister protesting that there was no Christian civilization. There was a general societal consensus that western civilization was Christian, and people were willing to give up their lives to protect it. No longer. Post-war progressive ‘boomers are in charge now. They want to progress Christian civilization out of existence, without a shot being fired—well, not many—and replace it with an abominable Brave New World rooted in egocentric narcissism, and nihilism fueled by raw power of an elite political, government, economic and social structure of the left intent on imposing a given ideology, by force, if necessary, on the masses. Hedonistic progressives will restore state-sanctioned abortion and expand to state-sanctioned assisted suicide and euthanasia. Canada has already done this, giving unrestricted abortion under the euphemism “reproductive choice” and euthanasia by lethal injection under the euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Canada is so supportive of killing the most vulnerable at both ends of the life spectrum, we pay for every abortion of unwanted children and very lethal injection of the disabled, the mentally and terminally ill. Progressives of the boomer generation are skilled wordsmiths at veneering the truths they don’t like or do not fit into narratives supporting their sociological agendas or ideology. They gave their offspring the same skill. Their grandchildren are not so skilled. They simply shout down all opposition, set cities on fire and demand the police be defunded so their anarchy can continue unabated. Mob rule.
The disastrous 1960s were just the preamble to the disasters of the 1970s. I know that looking back as an old man. A traveller may take a wrong road but when he discovers it, he does not keep going. He turns around and goes back. Our culture has taken a wrong road that intentionally deviated from the Judeo-Christian moral consensus that made the western world great. It’s time we retrace our steps and return to the right road. The ancients were right: Marriage is between a man and a woman, where the marriage bed is not defiled. Children need their mother and their father. They need to be raised in an environment of Biblical love, nurture and protection of a family in a home where the Holy Spirit abides. That is God’s formula for people to truly thrive.”
