As the world evolves away from the old, prudish, ethical outlook imposed on nations by Caucasians from mainly Western Europe, many conservative Caucasian Christians have launched a rear-guard offensive designed to keep the Judeo-Christian worldview on life support.

Fuelling this rear-guard offensive is the almost unshakable belief by conservatives that Western Civilisation stands or falls based on how Caucasians relate to the moral and ethical injunctions found in the Jewish and Christian holy books.

In the rear-guard offensive, commonly referred to as the culture war, the issue of abortion is reframed and equated with the Old Testament practice of child sacrifice, whereby parents offered up their fully born children to the Canaanite god Molech. In the minds of culture warriors, abortion ceases to be a woman exercising her right to decide if she wants to bring a new life into the world and becomes something much more hideous and diabolical. Some conservative Christians go so far as to say that the abortion industry has opened a portal allowing the ancient god of child sacrifice to be resurrected in the modern world.

LGBTQIA rights have also been reframed in a language that commits conservative Christians to a no-holds-barred contest to overturn all LGBTQIA rights. Rather than viewing LGBTQIA rights as the granting of full human rights to members of the LGBTQIA community, conservative Christians speak of the gay agenda as a return to the kind of paganism that was practised in ancient Europe and in the Old Testament.

Some conservative Christian culture warriors have gone so far as to state that segregation of the races is what the Creator had in mind in the Jewish and Christian scriptures and that miscegenation should by proscribed in Caucasian majority countries. It should be noted that after segregation was abolished in the US many Caucasian conservative Christians removed their children from public schools and started numerous parochial schools for whites only.

The heat being generated in Caucasian Christian conservative circles over issues like critical race theory, diversity, equity, inclusion, Black Lives Matters, immigration — especially from faeces-hole nations — and other racially charged pressure points speak to a disquiet in the spirits of many Caucasian Christian conservatives on the issue of race.

These are just a few of the culture war issues that are further dividing faith communities already split down the centre by the liberal/conservative divide. Perhaps one of the most divisive issues impacting faith communities recently was the mandates imposed by governments around the world to combat the spread of COVID-19 and the roll-out of the new COVID-19 vaccine.

Many conservative Christians, motivated by fears of a Machiavellian plan to impose draconian features of the New World Order agenda, engaged in some high-level disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. Conservative Christians freely expressed their doubts about the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global death statistics were questioned along with the strategies imposed by governments around the world to combat COVID-19.

Once the vaccine or medical procedure became available, Christian conservatives joined in the chorus of voices opposing the vaccine mandates, especially those provisions which sought to penalise individuals who objected to taking the vaccine. The suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine in multiple countries and reports about side effects being experiences by those taking the vaccine have only emboldened many in the conservative Christian camp.

Perhaps most surprising of all the faith communities to be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 and the vaccine culture war issue was the Seventh-day Adventist community. Seventh-day Adventists are a very health-conscious faith community known for producing some of the most life-affirming literature on health. Currently, the Adventist community in the US is embroiled in controversy between the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and conservatives who share many of the concerns of fellow Christian conservatives in the US and around the globe.

The climate of controversy that is so all-pervasive among Christians communities in Western Europe and the US has filtered down to Christian faith communities in Africa and the Caribbean. The ongoing era of culture wars in the major centres of Christianity in Europe and the US has opened new doors for Christian thought leaders in Africa and the Caribbean to charts new paths for faith communities in the two regions.

Our great ancestor Malcolm X reminded us that a people who refused to treat us right can hardly be depended on to teach us right. The Constantinian brand of Christianity that was forced down the throats of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora has historically been anti-black and continues in the same vein in the modern Trumpian era.

Echoing the rhetoric of racially compromised Caucasian Christian conservative culture warriors in Europe and the US hardly seems like the best course for faith communities in Africa and the Caribbean to pursue. It is only the mentally deficient who continues to do the same thing while anticipating a different outcome.

A watershed has been reached in the history of the Christian Church. Christian leaders in Africa and the Caribbean would be wise to chart a new path for their own faith communities as we sail into the future.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.