Sitting at my friend’s kitchen table in West Lothian, where he ran the Scottish Owl Centre, I gazed in amazement as he poured prodigious amounts of cream into his large, Chelsea FC mug of coffee. “Isn’t that bad for you,” I suggested. “No”, he said confidently, “there are good fats and bad fats.”

Informational good fat

If knowledge/information is the fat of our western mind-diet, producing unwelcome pounds of stress, confusion, superfluous information and dubious knowledge, then here is a book with lots of good fat. It is written by Robert Oulds of the Bruges Group, a UK think tank which advocates for a restructuring of Britain's relationship with the EU and other European countries, and Niall McCrae, a senior lecturer in mental health at King’s College, London.

In a time of the saturated fats of ridiculous media and book information on our national condition, this little study of 100 pages makes essential reading. I suggest five copies per congregation, so that there can be discussion, evaluation and informed prayer with which to re-calibrate mission in each reader’s locality.

Ideological bad fat

The book locates the emergence of cultural Marxism when we thought the uncultured version had died out decades ago. We face an enemy that does not respond to reason. Its nature requires a prayer-base of attack, because it falls into the category of Paul’s, “not flesh and blood” (Eph 6), and his “strongholds of the mind” (2 Cor). This enemy is dousing our children, our communities, our whole nation with the incendiary nonsense of ‘woke’.

This bad fat also contains ‘cancel culture’, ‘virtue signaling’ and a palette of ideological nasties. These are the pollutants that wash through the rivers and streams of our nation’s society. They are the particulates of the social atmosphere we breathe. They need to be understood and opposed.

This bad fat contains ‘cancel culture’, ‘virtue signaling’ and a palette of ideological nasties

Cultural virus

In military parlance, we are told to know our enemy. Once we understand his objectives and strategies, then we can wage a spiritual warfare against him. Once we can isolate and treat each virus, each pollutant, then we will see a recovery of health in our communities. The book abounds with information on the methodology of the virus, and its targeted sectors of society. Ingested, this book will assist in directing the artillery fire of prayer to key strongholds. Under attack are our schools, the malleable minds of children, and even some of our academics who appear to have succumbed to what others regard as nonsensical thinking.

This may not be categorised as a specifically Christian book, but it is good fat. It describes a cultural virus which is passed on through our screens and by our news outlets, flooding our society with its saturating content. Do become familiar with this cultural revolution, from its mid-twentieth century beginnings right up to the present day; it has advanced by incremental changes over that period, each change drifting society further and further away from Christian values and previous social norms.

Not for dummies!

This destructive virus inhibits free speech and introduces a cocktail of destructive thinking, opposing Christianity itself with its anarchic spirit. Borrowing a phrase from the book, “this postmodernism is not for dummies.” ‘Moralitis’ tracks changes from the movement’s 1960s origins to the present day, led by the ‘liberal intelligentsia’, the modern-day ‘cosmopolitans’. The book abounds in references to source material on viral mutations and means of transmission. There is even a glossary of the bewildering terms of the woke, as well as, unusually, a questionnaire.

This viral pandemic, with its family of mind-altering mutations, needs to be identified and understood by the Church – for only then can it be countered. ‘Moralitis’ is a thoughtful, helpful and resourceful little book. Remember, at least five copies per congregation!

‘Moralitis: A Cultural Virus’ is priced at £9.99, and is published by, and available from The Bruges Group.