Introduction
Life is confusing today. When I was a boy, the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats. Oh, yes, that is an oversimplification. My hometown was an amalgamation of ethnicities with strong rivalries, definite religious antagonisms, and often hyphenated demarcations like German American, Italian American, and African American. Intermarriage of these ethnicities was generally frowned upon. For example, at sixteen, I was dating a lovely blond Polish girl, and my aunt told me in no uncertain terms, “You get rid of her. We are not having any Pollocks in this German family.”
Despite these rivals, most Americans subscribed to the same page titled The American Dream. While many violated the generally accepted morals and values, the majority subscribed to them and excused their violation as improprieties. In other words, there was cohesiveness in American society. That glue was illustrated in the greatest generation that defeated Nazism and Eastern bloc Communism. By 1960 this cohesiveness began to dissolve rapidly. The seeds of this disillusionment were planted in academia in the last quarter of the 19th century and began filtering down into the general population. My generation, 1940 to 1960, was the transition generation. For example, in my upper-middle-class high school, sixteen girls out of a class of 160 graduated pregnant.
And Now the Glimpse of Today
A group calling itself “Jane’s Revenge” took credit for the attack by contacting a reporter in the Netherlands. Three weeks later, no arrests. Another Molotov cocktail attack took place at the offices of Oregon Right to Life.
This came with a threat, should I say, of insurrection, “[we} will not stop” or “hesitate to strike.” So, here it is, Supreme Court, keep abortion legal,” or to quote Mr. Schumer, “you will repeat the whirlwind.”
If you missed it, a pregnancy clinic was attached and left with this warning sprayed in red paint, “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.” Just in case you missed the message, here is a restatement of what the nation should expect, “increasingly extreme tactics.”
From my web scan, law enforcement has done virtually nothing about these incidents. Now let it be known that this essay in no way intends to justify the following but only desires to contrast the action and the non-action of law enforcement.
The Coeur d’Alene police chief called a news conference to display the capture and handcuffing of thirty-one members of a self-styled, so-called Patriot group with appropriate equipment to stage a series of riots in protest of gay pride activities. They sported shirts reading, “Reclaim America.” They were charged with a misdemeanor.
Are We Evolving or Devolving?
So, what is wrong with this picture? Do I need to answer that question? I don’t think so. The obvious message is if you lean left, insurrection is, if not legal, overlooked by law enforcement. If you lean right, law enforcement is quick to arrest and prosecute.
This is just one obvious illustration of where we are in our culture. Over the past three years, there have been multiple similar cases. How did we get here? Well, fellow citizens of America, we did not go to bed and wake up here. Many streams have come together in a confluence the size of the Mississippi River. Politics, religion, education, music, and entertainment have more and more given vent to the heart of humanity. This heart an ancient prophet described well when he said, “The heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? The human heart will continue to press for a utopia, one world order, in accordance with wickedness. The Apostle Paul pre-described this in his second epistle to the Thessalonians.
What Happened to American Cohesiveness?
The restraint that once existed in much of western civilization through the presence of Christendom and its moral compass gave a reasonable regularity of values that kept enough citizens on the same page that the left and the right did not swing the nation far in either direction. That common core (no relation to the educational common core) has been slowly eroded and replaced not by diversity, as many would tell us, but rather with an ever-growing monolithic amoral replacement that abhors its predecessor. Under the Christian moral ethic, the rejector was free to reject so long as the exercise of his freedom did not bring harm to others. The monolith of today has no room for the Christian who rejects it.
What Is the Christian to Do?
Any Christian reader must be asking, “What do we do?” That is a good question. There are multiple answers to that question. However, Jesus gave the fundamental answer at His earthly departure. It worked then, and it worked in the 16th century. Jesus answered this question: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Through His obedient followers, the Stone (Daniel 2) crushed the opposition and spread the Christian message and its moral and ethical framework worldwide, one believer at a time. Now we are at the place where we must duplicate what those twelve leaders empowered by the Holy Spirit did then. If not, the current demise will worsen until the Stone returns and destroys evil and establishes God’s new world order. We have the privilege to engage with Him and restrain evil while anticipating His return to destroy evil once and for all.