America’s ‘Odd Demigods’ Will Be Thrown Into a Panic
If Christians turn out in record numbers at the polls on Nov. 6, 2018—as they did in 2016—the “odd demigods” dominating America’s cultural mountains of influence will be thrown into a panic. Two highest evangelical voter turnouts in succession would be potentially the writing on the wall for secular America and its secularization of the originally biblically-based Western moral and legal philosophy, “more particularly the Ten Commandments, the basic source and summary of Natural Law” (Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution II).
“As recently as 1952, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States could state in a judicial opinion that Americans are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” (Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution II). This exemplifies how deep today’s America has sunk spiritually.
Media elites have worked overtime this year to keep under wraps the savage uproar and turmoil orchestrated by George Soros, Antifa anarchistic subversives, left-wing tyrannous mobs and rabid Berkeley-type radicals. All are demagogues, up to no good. Given the current forbidding and menacing behavior of certain people and organizations, it will be easily understood why the Founding Fathers regarded godly character as the cornerstone of sustainable freedom. Anarchists and nihilists, on the other hand, are prone to “shoddy moral character, prone to wickedness and simple nastiness, and devoid of good sense and moral compunctions”(Michael V. Fox, Proverbs Commentary).
Being heckled out of restaurants, hunted down at gas stations, driven from stores, and threatened when appearing in public can be seen as the precursors to despotism and absolutism, that is, dominance through threat of punishment and violence. From a biblical perspective, the Lord equates rebellion with witchcraft: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry”(1 Sam. 15:23a).
Prophetic leaders who display “a close relationship with God and a thorough knowledge of His Word” (R. Dennis Cole, Numbers Commentary) and show equal skill in the business of politics in the public square are quite rare. Modern leadership appears to be more obscure and bookish. Over the last 50 years, Christians have adopted, to all appearances, a different mode of engagement in the culture than the American Founding Fathers, which calls for remaining quietly behind the four walls of the church building. Having run roughshod over the once biblically-based culture, secularism and secularists should be challenged where competition is fiercest: in the public square. It is painful and agonizing to realize who has been so fully and plainly rejected over the last two or three generations (A.W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John).
Fear of the “world” and its seemingly insurmountable power has no real influence on those with vision and discernment regarding God’s promises and workings. Real power does not lie in military might or in Gross Domestic Product; ultimate power and authority belong to God.
The church’s passive response to secularism over the last century has given rise to a Christian subculture whose sole function has become the mitigation of obscenity, sexual perversity, video game violence, broadcast pornography and every other imaginable anomaly advanced and lionized by secularists. “The mark of a decadent society is the exaltation and normalization of sin.” (A.W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John) Needless to say, this is no recent development, but an age-old predicament originating from Adam and Eve. Solomon warned his son, “If sinners entice you, do not consent” (Prov. 1:10). Both sin and misery love company.
The early American educational model centered upon the heart, developing good character in America’s youth. The model encompassed a moral dimension, which positively influenced behavior. Concerning the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, Scottish Presbyterian minister and biblical scholar William McKane [1921-2004] wrote: “[it] does not now depend on a severe educational discipline in which submission is made to the authority of a teacher and the pupil’s attitudes formed by his assimilation of a body of traditional, empirically based wisdom. The context is now one of piety rather than education, and the source of authority is Yahweh. Without this basic reverence for Yahweh and submission to him, there can be no acquisition of wisdom”(Proverbs, a New Approach). True education requires a moral dimension.
Contemporary secular education seems fixated on sex rather than on “fear of the Lord” and knowledge of God. The objective appears to be desensitization of young people to violence, porn and immoral lifestyles, thereby inciting destructive social behavior, which undermines social stability and is detrimental to freedom.
The link between the odd secular demigods of public education and academia must be severed for the sake of America’s youth. If idolatry is to be purged from public education, and education to be returned to the local level, the National Education Association (NEA) must be abolished. This action alone will portend the spiritual resurrection of America.
From a spiritual point of view, it must be understood that the making, enforcing and adjudication of laws in 2019-2020 will be decided by whose “values” gain the upper hand at the midterm elections. Sunday sermons, marches around the U.S. Capitol, petition gathering or catchy tweets carry little or no weight for secular politicians. But they do pore over statistics on who cast ballots, for “politicians are actors performing a script that is written by the audience.”(Russell Kirk)
Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand.
