Postmodernism recognizes no heroes and builds no statues. That was my thought while in London recently for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference. After the event concluded, I took a few hours to do what scores of American tourists do: I visited the Tower Bridge, ate scones with clotted cream and jam, and walked for miles, marveling at London’s classical beauty.
As I did so, I chanced across the lonely statue of French hero Charles de Gaulle. As the leaders of France capitulated to the Nazis in June 1940, de Gaulle fled to England and effectively relaunched France from 4 Carlton Gardens in St. James, thereafter known as the Free French Forces headquarters. France may have been lost, but Free France was alive.
At the center of de Gaulle’s costly labors was this: sacrifice. He put the future interests of French citizens before his immediate comfort. Fast forward many years, and our culture has rejected that principle. Sacrifice is out; self-expression (and self-indulgence) is in.
However, not everyone has forgotten the power of the old ways. At ARC, before 4,000 people, psychologist Jordan Peterson spoke to the necessity of sacrifice:
. . . sacrifice is by necessity the foundation of civilization.
Civilization is social and future-oriented, and that means, since it’s social, that the individuals who come together to constitute society have to sacrifice their narrow pleasure, seeking individuality . . . locally, first in marriage, in family, in town, in city, expanding to province and state and country, nested all under the auspices, let’s say, of the Divine.1
Peterson’s words ring true in light of Scripture. The only way we can hand off a civilization to our children is if we sacrifice our immediate pleasures for their future good. This is not merely a part of parenting; put most simply, parenting is sacrifice.
In 2025, as America recovers from a long and terrible decline, these themes are worth pondering. Christians, after all, know the value of sacrifice. Sacrifice not only enables us to raise children and build a civilization. In the case of Jesus Christ, His one perfect sacrifice for sin is our redemption from the bondage of sin and death.
Postmodernists may not honor heroes, but we Christians do. Knowing Jesus’s death on the cross, we go far beyond building a statue to Him. In gratitude, we give Him something far greater: our worship, our devotion, our very life itself.
1. Joel Carini, “Jordan Peterson’s Vision of Christian Civilization: My Reaction to Peterson’s Lecture at ARC (the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship), The Natural Theologian, February 21, 2025, https://joelcarini.substack.com/p/jordan-petersons-vision-of-christian
