Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the Munich Security Conference where he called on the shared history of the United States and the rest of Europe to regain their national power. Rubio called on US allies to respond more strongly against those who routinely “endanger our global stability.” He called on both the United States and Europe to enforce their borders to protect their shared history and culture. “In a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people,” he warned. “For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new,” said Rubio. “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.” The speech received a standing ovation.

While conservatives lauded Rubio’s speech as a rousing defense of Western civilization, it sparked ire from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). “When the nation’s top diplomat characterizes the United States as bound to Europe by ‘Christian faith’ and frames national identity in religious terms, he marginalizes tens of millions of Americans who are not Christian. Nearly one in three Americans today is religiously unaffiliated. Millions more practice Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and other faiths. They are no less American,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. The FFRF went further to assert that “The United States is not a Christian nation.” “FFRF urges Secretary Rubio and all public officials to respect the Constitution’s mandate of state-church separation and to refrain from using their offices to promote Christian nationalism. American diplomacy should reflect our founding principles of religious freedom and governmental neutrality, not sectarian rhetoric.”

Western civilization’s Christian roots have been under attack for decades, with opponents often minimizing the impact the new faith had on the development of the Western world. Proponents, however, have defended the claim that Christianity and Western civilization are intricately linked. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a masterclass on the world stage in defense of Western Civilization,” wrote conservative Benny Johnson. “When is the last time Globalists in Europe were forced to clap for Christian values, Anti-Mass Migration and a return to tradition? The tide is shifting.”