You Can Save the West by Having a Family
A Pastoral Call to Men Who Want to Fight for Civilization
by Pastor Joseph Spurgeon
There’s a rising idea spreading among post-liberals and frustrated young men online: the claim that you can’t save the West by having a family. According to this argument, marriage and children only weigh men down, distract them from the “real fight,” and dilute the army of single, angry warriors needed to storm the gates of political power.
It sounds bold. It sounds strategic. It even sounds—at first—like realism. But it’s wrong. Not just slightly wrong, but fundamentally, civilizationally, biblically wrong.
The idea that you must abandon marriage and children to save the West is the ideological equivalent of George W. Bush saying he had to “abandon free-market principles to save the free-market system.” It’s self-defeating. It destroys the very foundation of what it claims to protect.
If you abandon the family, you abandon civilization.
If you abandon civilization, what exactly are you fighting to save?
In this article, I want to speak plainly to men who feel the weight of cultural decay. You feel the pull to do something. You want to fight. Praise God for that. But hear me clearly:
If you want to rebuild the West, if you want to see Christendom flourish again, if you want your great-grandchildren to inherit anything worth having—you cannot do it without strong households, fruitful marriages, and faithful children.
Civilizations are built by fathers, not by unattached activists.
Let’s walk through why.
1. God Designed Dominion to Begin With the Family
Before there was a city council, a senate, a nation, or an army, God created marriage and commanded it to bear fruit.
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule…”
—Genesis 1:28
Notice the order.
Fruitfulness comes before ruling.
Family comes before civilization.
The dominion mandate does not begin with political office. It begins with a husband and wife ordering their home under God.
A man who cannot govern his household is not qualified to govern anything else. This isn’t my opinion—it’s God’s requirement for church leadership (1 Tim. 3:4–5) and it reflects a broader principle: fatherhood is leadership training.
Every chore chart is a lesson in responsibility.
Every discipline moment is a courtroom.
Every family worship time is a school of citizenship.
If you want men who will stand firm in the public square, find the men who have already stood firm in their living rooms.
2. History Confirms What Scripture Teaches
Look at every empire: Egypt, Greece, Rome, medieval Europe, Japan, and now modern America.
The pattern always repeats:
Wealth increases.
Families shrink.
Birth rates fall below replacement.
The elites delay marriage or avoid it entirely.
Outsiders with stronger family structures replace them.
Even the liberal demographer Philip Longman admitted—in Foreign Policy magazine of all places—that the only social system capable of sustaining a civilization across generations is patriarchal, multi-generational family structure.
He warned that secular societies with collapsing birth rates will simply be replaced by more religious, more patriarchal ones.
His words, not mine:
“Conservatives will inherit the earth.”
Not because they’re smarter.
Not because they’re better at debate.
Because they have children.
3. Objection: “But families distract men from the fight!”
Answer: No—families prepare men for the fight.
This objection assumes two false ideas:
False Idea #1: The battle is “out there” somewhere outside the home.
Wrong. The household is the first battlefield. It’s where men learn leadership, discipline, sacrifice, courage, and authority.
A man who can stand firm against a tantruming toddler can certainly stand firm against a bureaucrat or activist.
If you’re not ruling your own house, you have no business ruling anything else.
False Idea #2: Children weaken a man’s public influence.
Psalm 127 says the opposite:
“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior…
He shall not be ashamed when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”
The “gate” in Scripture is the place of politics, judgment, public decision-making.
God says children fortify a man’s authority in the political realm.
Children don’t drain strength; they multiply it.
4. Objection: “But what if I can’t afford children?”
Answer: You can’t afford not to have them.
This fear is modern, not biblical.
God commands fruitfulness before He mentions budgets.
He commands faith before financial spreadsheets.
The Proverbs teach that generosity increases wealth, not scarcity (Prov. 11:24).
Does this mean raising a big family is easy?
No. It is work. Hard work. And you’ll grow stronger for it.
And let’s be clear:
Men who refuse to marry or have children because it seems “impractical” are rarely the same men who would storm a political fortress. Sacrifice begins in the home.
5. Objection: “But what about corrupt women and bad marriages?”
Answer: There have always been wicked women—just as there have always been wicked men.
The answer is not to abandon marriage.
The answer is to marry wisely and lead well.
There are godly women in the church—wise, faithful, industrious, ready to build homes and raise children. If a man says, “There are no good women,” sometimes the problem is not the women.
Be the kind of man a godly woman would gladly follow:
disciplined
courageous
sober-minded
hard-working
under Christ’s lordship
A man who is walking with God will be a blessing to a wife—and will attract one.
6. The Real Danger: Childless Leadership
Look at our current political class—sterile, single, unrooted, transient, uncommitted. That’s not an accident. It is the inevitable result of a society that despises marriage and fruitfulness.
A ruling class with no children has:
no stake in the future,
no generational accountability,
no long-term vision,
no understanding of duty,
and no ability to build anything lasting.
A civilization run by childless elites is a civilization on hospice care.
7. The Real Path Forward
Western civilization will not be rebuilt merely by:
angry bachelors,
podcasters yelling into microphones,
childless careerists,
or influencers.
It will be rebuilt by:
husbands who love their wives,
fathers who disciple their children,
mothers who shape souls,
families who worship together,
households who live under Christ’s lordship,
and generations who pass down faith, honor, and courage.
This is dominion.
This is glory.
This is civilization-building.
Not the glamorous kind the internet obsesses over, but the real kind—the kind that creates nations.
8. Be Encouraged—Your Ordinary Faithfulness Is Cultural Warfare
You may never stand before Congress.
You may never lead an army.
You may never write a manifesto.
But if you build a godly home, raise godly children, catechize them, discipline them, protect them, and teach them to love Christ—you are accomplishing something the world can never replicate.
You are doing battle in the arena God actually cares about.
And your great-great-grandchildren will still feel the effects.
In the late 1800s, a sociologist named Richard L. Dugdale was assigned to inspect several New York prisons. While reviewing inmate records, he discovered something remarkable: 42 different prisoners were all descended from the same man. That man was named Max Jukes.
Dugdale was shocked. He wanted to know how one man could produce such consistent generational ruin. So he traced the Jukes lineage as far as he could through public records, court reports, poorhouse rolls, and institutional files.
What he found became one of the most famous studies of heredity, environment, and generational behavior in American history.
The Jukes Legacy
Max Jukes lived between 1720 and 1740. He was a drunkard, a brawler, a habitual criminal, and a man who had multiple children with multiple women. He avoided work, despised responsibility, and spent his life chasing immoral pleasure.
Across five generations, Dugdale documented the astonishing fruit of that lifestyle:
310 died in poverty
150 were chronic thieves
128 were prostitutes
60 were repeat criminals
7 were convicted murderers
The pattern was unmistakable: Max Jukes lived like a fool, and the consequences of his foolishness didn’t end with him—they multiplied through his descendants.
Dugdale concluded that when a man rejects the responsibilities of husband, father, and provider, he does not merely destroy himself—he unleashes chaos upon generations.
The Contrast: Jonathan Edwards
Years later, another researcher, A.E. Winship, conducted a parallel study of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan pastor and theologian who lived around the same time period as Jukes.
Edwards had eleven children with one wife. He led his home in worship, discipline, education, and industry. His journals show a man who prayed daily for his descendants down to “ten generations,” asking God to raise them up to serve Christ.
What did Winship find?
13 college presidents
65 professors
75 military officers
80 public officials
60 authors
60 physicians
100 missionaries, pastors, and theologians
100 lawyers
30 judges
3 governors
3 mayors
3 congressmen
1 vice president of the United States
The difference between the Jukes line and the Edwards line is not “luck,” genetics, or random chance. It is the fruit of two very different kinds of men.
Why These Studies Matter
These aren’t fairy tales. They are sociological analyses demonstrating an obvious biblical truth:
A man’s character radiates outward for generations.
Max Jukes chose sin, disorder, and irresponsibility. His lineage bore the fruit of it.
Jonathan Edwards chose faith, discipline, worship, and fatherhood. His lineage bore the fruit of it.
When we talk about saving the West—about restoring culture, rebuilding institutions, and reviving Christian civilization—this is why the family must be central:
Homes create legacies. Legacies shape nations.
Jukes toppled culture one child at a time.
Edwards strengthened it one child at a time.
This is why marriage, fatherhood, and generational faithfulness are not optional “lifestyle choices.” They are the engines of civilization itself.
Your faithfulness today will echo in eternity.
Conclusion: Build. Fight. Protect. Lead.
Men, the West won’t be saved by Twitter debates, political cosplay, or angry monologues. It will be saved the same way it was built: by men who loved their wives, raised children, took responsibility, feared God, and planted trees they knew their great-grandchildren would sit under.
So marry.
Have children.
Raise them well.
Discipline them.
Disciple them.
Lead your home.
And when needed—stand in the gate.
This is how we build a people.
This is how we rebuild a culture.
This is how we advance Christ’s kingdom.
This is how we save the West.
Build. Fight. Protect. Lead.
This is The Patriarchy.