As America enters into its phase as a nonagenarian, that is someone in their 90s, you have to be honest. At that stage in a person's life, you don't begin plans for their next thirty years. You pray they have many more happy and blessed years ahead. You just know those years will not equal out to another twenty or thirty in all likelihood, much less another ninety.
America is there. I doubt it dies any time in the next few years. On the other hand, I doubt my grandchild will know a world of freedom, equality or democracy in any meaningful sense. In just the last few years, the forces opposed to God, Man, Liberty and Life have made massive strides forward.
We've seen the speed with which people will sell their birthrights of freedom for a bowl of stew. More and more young Americans are open about their hatred of this country and desire that it be burned to the ground, along with anyone who dares defend it. Ideas thought safely condemned and put behind us, like racism, violence, discrimination and censorship have come back in a blaze of glory, fully endorsed by our media, entertainment industry, education institutions, corporations and even among many religious leaders and traditions. More and more are coming out of the closet and donning their merry communist apparel.
In typical form, several leftwing outlets came out a couple weeks ago and mocked those worried that Juneteenth will replace July 4th as Independence Day. I say typical form because if you Google this in so many words, you will see a couple fact checkers dismissing the concern, followed by dozens of results in which we're told Juneteenth should be our real Independence Day. Emperor's New Clothes level denial has been a bulwark of leftwing activism since I was in college.
Remember, last year we saw government buildings, churches, businesses, homes, and entire neighborhoods laid waste and burned, while hundreds of innocents were attacked and many killed in the name of a demonstrably false narrative - Black Lives Matter - yet with the full endorsement of not only the above national institutions, but plenty of international level support as well; including, but not limited to, the pope. That's progress. It was like Operation Cobra for the Left.
Where we'll be in the next ten years, I don't know. I find the Left makes much more progress when a Republican is in office and the media can frame it as 'bold revolutionaries against a Nazi regime.' When the Left is in the White House, things seem to slow down. There is probably some of that good old American skepticism about too much power for one side that kicks in.
Nonetheless, many things we assumed were true for the long haul have been thrown down in barely a decade. Even now, saying sex and babies are connected or that boys and girls exist can get you fired from your job in short order. Having something like a movie or even commercial with all white people would be like having a Jewish gathering in 1930s Germany. And last year churches allowed themselves to be reduced to the same level of importance in the popular mindset as put-put golf coursers and strip clubs.
So no predictions, but I'm not worrying about how America's tercentennial will be celebrated. It is enough that my children are old enough to have at least learned and seen some of what America could be at its best. They will have to bear the brunt of our folly, but hopefully there will be enough to pass down the lessons and keep a light shining, not only for the best of what America was, but for the Gospel light that, however imperfectly, was a major basis for what America and the West brought into a dark and troubled world.
Happy July 4th - Independence Day
I think we crossed the point of no return just after 9/11. From a spiritual perspective, that was a wake-up call we refused to heed. From a more secular perspective, this is about the time when the Internet became a dominant force in Western culture, bringing with it a wave of pornography and the very mixed blessings of social media. Even without the Internet, we would still be seeing some long neglected problems in fundamental morality, in education, in the economy, and in immigration reach a crisis point at almost the same time, but Twitter was perhaps the fatal blow.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of an editorial Max Lucado wrote after 9/11. When almost everyone - including Christian leaders - were running about saying we can't let this change us, he said we desperately needed to let it change us. There were plenty of things needing changed. Sadly, the things we should have changed we didn't, and things that had no business being changed were changed -for the worse.
DeleteI recently came across Evan Sayet's 2008 Heritage Foundation speech, where he told how he first examined his knee-jerk liberal mindset after 9/11, when he realized that all his friends who regularly said they hated America actually meant it. It was like hearing a guy say "I hate my wife," but not believing him until she gets beat up in the street and the guy says, "Ah, she deserves it."
ReplyDeleteEven as we see a growing number of activists calling for the Constitution to be abolished, the Bill of Rights rewritten, our Founding Fathers eradicated, and almost everything to do with our nation's heritage (and the greater heritage of the Christian West) to be eliminated, those doing so will still balk at the idea that they are 'anti-American'. Denial is one of the key tactics I notice for those on the Left.
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