For a millennium, European Christians fought to keep militant Islam outside Christendom’s gates. Now those same nations are dismantling their own Christian traditions because jihadist violence makes celebrating Christmas too dangerous and too costly.
And make no mistake, once a nation surrenders its public celebration of Christmas, the surrender of its churches and Christianity itself is not far behind. What begins with cancelled Christmas celebrations ends with emptied cathedrals and a faith driven underground — not by persecution but by a calculated decision that defending it costs too much.
Consider what is happening with Germany’s Christmas markets. Known as Weihnachtsmärkte or Christkindlemarkt, these season-long festivals became an official German tradition in 1434. They run throughout the Advent season and are an intrinsic part of German culture and tourism, as tens of millions of tourists travel to Dresden, Munich, and numerous small towns to view ornate Nativity scenes and lights; enjoy mulled wine, fruitcake, candied almonds, and other regional food specialties; and shop for the wooden nutcrackers made famous by German artists.
But this year, the town of Overath cancelled its Christmas market. So did Kerpen. Dresden shuttered several of its smaller markets. These are not isolated decisions driven by declining interest. These cancellations represent something far more ominous: Western civilization surrendering public expressions of Christianity because the price of protecting citizens from Islamic terror has become prohibitive.
In Overath, organizers spent 18 months negotiating with city officials over who would cover security costs. The requirements were extensive — concrete barriers to stop vehicle attacks, surveillance systems, and armed guards stationed throughout the market. The city refused to contribute a single euro. Without funding for mandatory counter-terrorism measures, the organizers faced an impossible choice.
So, Christmas was cancelled.
Not postponed. Not scaled back. Cancelled.
This is what capitulation looks like when it arrives not through invading armies but through demographic transformation and the slow erosion of the will to defend what was once held sacred. This is surrender dressed up as fiscal responsibility.
A pattern written in blood
These security requirements bankrupting Christmas markets were written in blood. Turns out Christmas markets don’t just attract tourists — they also attract terrorists. Here are just some of the deadly and foiled attacks:
Berlin, 2016: A terrorist in a tractor trailer drove through the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market, killing 12 and injuring 56.
Essen, 2017: Six Syrian nationals, including asylum seekers who had been in contact with ISIS, were arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on the town’s Christmas market using bombs and firearms.
Leverkusen, 2023: Authorities uncovered a plot by two radicalized teenagers, including one from Afghanistan, to ram a vehicle laden with explosives into the local Christmas market.
Magdeburg, 2024: A Saudi doctor plowed his BMW through a Christmas market at 30 miles per hour, leaving 6 dead and 338 wounded. His trial began in November 2025.
France tells the same story. Its Christmas market in Strausbourg has been targeted several times by Islamic terrorists, including in December 2018, when an ISIS-inspired attacker killed five people and injured 11 others. This year’s planning has already been roiled by news of a car attack in early November on the tourist island of Oléron, where a driver shouting “Allahu Akbar” plowed into 10 pedestrians, critically injuring 4 before trying to burn his car.
This is not a coincidence or mental illness. This is a pattern of Islamic terrorists using vehicles, knives, and other weapons to inflict mass casualties in the midst of a joyous Christmas celebration in hopes of creating the kind of fear and uncertainty that reshapes societies.
Every cancelled Christmas market in Germany is a monument to this defeat. Every concrete barrier serves as a confession that Europe no longer possesses the will to proactively defend its own people or the spiritual courage to confront the enemy.
The questions we must ask
Is there a radical element within Islam that poses a unique threat to Western civilization? Yes. This is pattern recognition, not bigotry. Islam never passed through the Enlightenment’s crucible as Christianity did. It retains a comprehensive vision for ordering society under Sharia Law. When Islamic migrants arrive without assimilation requirements, some radicalize into violence.
Can Western governments protect citizens while maintaining current immigration policies? Germany’s answer: No. Germany has imported 5.5 million Muslims, who now make up over six percent of the population. Many of them have not assimilated, and there has been an even sharper rise in Islamic attacks since 2024. Christmas markets now require concrete barriers and armed guards. Some towns cancel rather than try to find the money to pay for security. Meanwhile, authorities search elderly women while releasing violent criminals and refusing to deport rejected asylum seekers.
Are Germany’s citizens pushing back on this? They are trying, but the government actually punishes citizens who speak out, even as it refuses to address the threat.
Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a German politician, was convicted of incitement and fined in May 2024 for posting statistics that showed migrants were disproportionately committing sexual assault against young German girls, for example, while a 20-year-old German woman was jailed for a weekend after “defaming” a migrant who had been convicted with eight others of gang-raping a 15-year-old girl.
It is a moral inversion so complete that governments now function as accomplices to the very violence they claim to want to prevent.
The spiritual battle
But there is a deeper reality that secular analysis cannot capture. This is spiritual warfare. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Islam is not merely a political ideology or a religious system. It is a comprehensive worldview positioning itself in direct opposition to the Gospel. Where Christianity proclaims salvation through faith in Christ alone, Islam teaches salvation through submission and works. Where Christianity declares Jesus is the Son of God who died and rose for sinners, Islam denies His divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection.
These represent fundamentally incompatible views of God, man, sin, salvation, and society’s ordering. In every nation where Islam dominates, Christians suffer. Converts are hunted. Churches are driven underground. Believers disappear — some through exile, others through martyrdom. Look at Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The pattern never changes. Whenever Islam holds cultural power, the cross is met with coercion, and the people of Christ pay the price in blood or displacement.
Europe once understood this. For over a millennium, Christians defended Christendom from Islamic conquest — at Tours, Vienna, and Lepanto. They understood Islam was not simply another religion to tolerate but an opposing kingdom seeking to subjugate or destroy Christian civilization.
Modern Europeans, having rejected their Christian heritage, no longer possess the spiritual foundation necessary to understand what is happening. They replaced the Gospel with multiculturalism, Christianity with “tolerance,” and truth with relativism. Thus, there is paralysis in the face of an ideology that believes in its own absolute truth and is willing to kill for it.
As we look at cities like Dearborn, Houston, and the recent election in New York, we have to ask the question, “Is America following the same trajectory?” We have spent decades removing Christianity from public life and teaching children that all religions are equally valid. When Islamic terrorists attack, our leaders insist terrorism “has nothing to do with Islam” and lecture us about Islamophobia.
This is the fruit of rejecting Christ. When a society abandons the One True God, it worships false gods. And those gods demand surrender.
What Christians must do
The Church stands at a crossroads. If we remain silent while our cities require armed guards and as public celebrations become security nightmares, we become accomplices to surrender. The present is the time for the Church to speak, lead, and demand that evil be named and confronted.
Speak truth. Islam denies Christianity’s central truths and seeks to subjugate those who refuse submission. Love Muslims as image-bearers but recognize Islam as the Gospel’s spiritual enemy.
Demand leadership. Require the government to protect its people, control borders, and uphold the law. Politicians who refuse to act out of fear of being labeled racist or Islamophobic betray their mandate under Romans 13.
Evangelize boldly. The ultimate solution is the Gospel, which can save even hardened jihadists.
Raise courageous children. Teach them Christianity’s role in shaping civilization and the spiritual battle they inhabit.
Pastors must lead. Preach the whole counsel of God — spiritual warfare, false religions, government’s protective role, and Christ’s exclusivity. Churches refusing to do this fail their people.
The choice before us
Germany’s markets close not from a lack of resources but a lack of will — a refusal to name the threat, to exclude civilization’s destroyers, or to defend the Christian culture that made celebrations possible.
In America, we can still choose differently. Control borders. Require assimilation. Deport violent criminals. Arm citizens. Reject multiculturalism’s lies. Reclaim our Christian heritage.
But this requires courage that only Christians can demand. The political class won’t act — too committed to diversity ideology, too afraid of being called bigots, and too disconnected from consequences.
Europe’s fall should be America’s wake-up call. Germany’s surrender should shock us to action, not paralyze us.
Will we defend what we inherited, or hand our children a nation where Christmas is too dangerous to celebrate publicly? Will silent pastors be able to give an account when Christ asks what they did while His sheep were devoured?
Christ or chaos. Courage or capitulation. The decision is ours, and it cannot wait.
Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.
Virgil L. Walker is the Executive Director of Operations for G3 Ministries, an author, and a conference speaker. He is the co-host of the Just Thinking Podcast. Virgil is passionate about teaching, disciple-making, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Virgil and his wife Tomeka have been married for 26 years and have three children. Listen to his podcast here.
