Guest post by Héctor J. Ramírez, New York City, September 11, 2025

I am not an American, but I am a Christian who came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior because of the work of American missionaries. And this is the reason I do not want to remain silent in the face of this horrific event. So please allow me to contribute the following words.

Looking at the events taking place in America and the West at large at this critical time, one can easily conclude that the battle is not political, nor is it ideological or social. The real crisis the West is going through at this pivotal moment is a spiritual and cultural one. It is indeed spiritual warfare, a clash between the preservation of a Christian culture and the resurgence of a pagan one; between the advocacy of good and the advancement of evil; in a world where Christians are being persecuted, cancelled, fined, and even imprisoned for preaching the Word of God in public, or for praying silently on the streets; in a world where artists of many disciplines produce works that desecrate and mock the Bible or the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; where pastors, religious leaders, and churches have to assign a significant part of their budgets for security to protect their lives and their buildings; where churches, children, and religious advocates are being targeted and brutally assassinated, for the only crime of being Christians. In a world like this, it is obvious that the time of persecution for Christians has begun.

This means that we are returning to the very place where the Church was born. And this is so because, at the beginning of the Church, the very foundation, the cornerstone, was laid by the Lord Jesus Himself. He was indeed the cornerstone – dishonored, rejected, mocked, and killed, as had been prophesied in Isaiah 53. Soon afterwards, the Lord’s followers had to walk in His footsteps and were also persecuted, crucified, and thrown into the circus to be eaten by lions. The foundation of the Church was laid by hundreds, if not thousands, of Christians who followed in the Lord Jesus’ footsteps and paid for their faith in Him with their lives.

For the Christians of the early Church, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ meant being willing to die for Him – literally. But for them to die was gain, and instead of being afraid or succumbing to the spirit of defeat, they found strength in weakness. They knew that their battle was not against flesh and blood. They knew that they were not to fight for political ideologies, for social causes, or even for religious values. They knew that they were supposed to live and die for the cause of the gospel and the fulfillment of the great commission, which meant nothing other than living out and preaching the Word of God. They knew that their only enemy was sin and the devil, and that the only real battle they needed to fight was spiritual warfare. They knew that it was in God that they could find their strength and guidance to stand their ground and live up to the teachings of the Bible.

Dark times have certainly arrived for those who believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the West. This resurgence of a neopagan culture has been going on for some time already, and has had many names along the way and many mutations as well: Humanism, Illuminism, post-Christianity, Postmodernism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Globalism, and Wokeism. But let us not deceive ourselves. The culture wars going on in the West have nothing to do with political or philosophical ideologies, nor with social causes. They have to do with a spiritual battle that has now become an open battleground.

However, as the disciples quickly learned in the book of Acts, the same question assaults us at this time: who should we obey, the rulers of this world or the Word of God? As the disciples did in their own time, it is now our turn to seek God in unity and ask for the same things they did when they found themselves in a critical situation. Acts 4:29-31 states:

“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

Indeed, there is no other hope for Christians in the West at this crucial hour. The power of God must be claimed and declared. The Lord’s power must be manifested, and His outstretched hand must perform the signs and wonders only He can do. But we, the Church, the children of God, must humble ourselves in prayer and repentance and claim and expect the healing of our land. God is real and His love for this lost world is as well, but so is His power to intervene even in moments of crises, apostasy, and persecution, while His children continue to be the light and testimony we must be.

Following the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk on September, 11, 2025, it is an honour to include this guest post by my friend of many years: thinker, actor and Christian, Héctor J. Ramírez, currently in New York.