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Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – Will local churches remain silent?

Posted by :admin On : November 8, 2022
1

Category: American Church, Archives, Culture Wars, Education

On October 17, 2022, KTUL Channel 8 aired a story about an Owasso parent’s efforts to have a graphic novel removed from the school library. The book had been randomly checked out by his 14-year-old daughter. The parent described what he found in the book.

There was children with their penises showing that were urinating in each other’s faces. There was scenes, and this is graphic, images of ejaculation. There are scenes of teen sex. There are also scenes of a child, a child being raped in the book, and all in graphic depiction.[1]

The parent stated that when he first told school officials about it, they didn’t pay him much mind until he brought copies of the pages to the assistant superintendent who then, he says, pulled the book for review. The parent stated that he was very happy with that and thanked him and sent emails thanking them.[2]

The parent then attended a school board meeting on October 10, hoping the district would establish a policy that addressed his concerns about pornographic materials in the school. Apparently other parents in attendance voiced similar concerns to the board as well. According to the parent, those wanting pornographic materials removed from the school were accused of “just trying to ban books or burn books” in spite the parents claims that they were just trying to protect their children from pornography. In spite of their efforts, the board took no action to address a policy change on what books would be allowed in the school.[3]

After the meeting the parent spoke to school board member Brent England in the parking lot about the concerns of the parents. Within three or four days after the meeting the parent received a letter from Owasso School Superintendent Margaret Coates informing him that he had “committed one or more acts” that interfered “with the peaceful activities on District property.” Specifically, the letter stated, “You are hereby directed to leave the Owasso Public Schools and all of its grounds including sports events, sports venues, and not return.” The Channel 8 news reporter asked the parent if he could pick up his kids. The parent responded that, “I cannot pick up my children without written permission from Margaret Coates. It feels very retaliatory.”[4]

Subsequently, U.S. District Judge John Heil issued a temporary injunction that prevents Owasso Public Schools’ efforts to ban the parent from attending school board meetings, dropping off and picking up his children from school, and attending parent-teacher conferences and other extracurricular activities. The judge noted that it “is clear” that Owasso’s ban was “substantially motivated as a response to Plaintiff’s criticism of the Board’s decision and his petition for a redress of grievances” which is protected under the First Amendment.[5]

Pornography in Oklahoma’s K-12 schools is widespread and deeply embedded

Owasso Public Schools is not the only school system that has been found to have pornography in its libraries and classrooms. The State Board of Education recently voted to sanction Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma’s second largest district, by significantly reducing its accreditation status to “accreditation with warning” for violating the provisions of House Bill 1775 passed by the Oklahoma legislature in 2021. HB 1775 prohibits the promotion or teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in Oklahoma K-12 classrooms. The recent vote to sanction Tulsa Public Schools for violation of HB 1775 occurred the same week that the Twitter account, Libs of Tik Tok, highlighted two books available to Tulsa students in the school library—“Gender Queer” and “Flamer.” The Twitter account reported that the books contain sexually explicit and pornographic content. When the sexually-explicit images from the books were posted on Facebook, the tech giant quickly shut down the post citing its graphic content.[6]

Oklahoma Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat, called the news “appalling and nothing short of deplorable.” Further, he stated,

It is indefensible to have children exposed to images and material that is the definition of pornography. It makes no difference whether its same sex, opposing sex, or anything in between, children should never be able to view the images in a public school sanctioned library setting.[7]

State Representative Sherrie Conley, a former teacher and school administrator, warned that “materials such as these are not just in Tulsa Public schools but in other school libraries throughout the state.”[8]

Owasso is just one of many school boards across the nation that has tried to prevent parents and other critics from participating in school policy actions and decisions. Although present for years, these efforts significantly increased in 2021 with school administrators’ inclusion of critical race theory in classroom instruction. The National Association of School Boards in a letter to the Biden administration sought to label parental resistance as being equivalent to “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and requested that federal law enforcement officials investigate protestors under federal anti-terrorism and hate—crimes laws. This was quickly followed by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum to the FBI to meet with state and local officials to develop “strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Many state school boards associations across the nation denounced the NSBA’s actions and announced their departure from the NSBA. However, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association has never publicly denounced NSBA’s action and has continued its affiliation with the group.[9]

Pornography is just one of several weapons used by the purveyors of the liberal-woke-Marxist agenda aimed at the overt sexualization of elementary and secondary school children throughout the nation. In addition to inclusion of pornographic materials in libraries and classrooms, this overt and well-organized sexualization process includes legitimization and promotion of the LGBTQ philosophy and lifestyle. The LGBTQ agenda for K-12 schools includes promotion and use of cross-sex hormones, surgical procedures, and puberty blockers, all based on their perceived gender identity. Parents of K-12 students must be on constant alert for these and a host of other issues that have infiltrated many public school systems such as Marxist/socialist indoctrination and criteria race theory.

How can local communities once again gain control of their local schools boards and administrators?

The first step is to elect school board members who respect and reflect the Judeo-Christian values and morals upon which the nation was founded. But when the local school boards actions or lack thereof no longer represent or reflect those values and morals, the parents and local citizenry have a powerful voice residing in almost every community. This powerful group is comprised of the local churches which means, first and foremost the pastor, followed by their staff and board of deacons, and backed by the congregations.

Unfortunately, the voice of the church in America became silent during the last half of the 20th century as most pastors and their churches have substantially ceased to speak into and influence their community beyond the walls of the church. For several decades the silence of the church has extended far beyond silence about local affairs. This is the foremost cause of the nation’s moral, social, political, and cultural turmoil and decline. It appears this failure to speak into the various spheres of American life has infiltrated into a large majority of Owasso’s churches.

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”

Many believe the above quote originated with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the World War II German pastor who resisted the Nazis and was martyred on the direct order of Adolf Hitler at the end of the war in 1945. Although not directly attributable to Bonhoeffer, “it so well sums up what he desperately tried to communicate to those who believed they could safely stand on the sidelines in the battle of that time.”[10]

If we are not actively living out our faith by fighting the wickedness in society and the culture of our time (in the schools, government, business, popular culture, arts, entertainment, media, and so forth), God will view our inaction (neutrality) as participation in the enemy’s wicked cause. In other words, God will not find us guiltless. Here we speak of collective and individual guilt.

Eric Metaxas in his new book, Letter to the American Church, captures the essence of how the church has become silent in the face of evil.

…those who behave as though there is really nothing to worry about, who seem to think—as such prominent pastors as Andy Stanley and others do—that we ought to assiduously avoid fighting these threats and be “apolitical” are tragically mistaken, are burying their heads in the sand and exhorting others to do the same …Do we not realize that no good ever can come of such silence and inaction, that human beings whom God loves suffer when His own people fail to express boldly what He has said and why they fail to live as He has called them to live?[11]

Such silence has led American schools to where they are today.

The very youngest of children in schools are being fed pernicious ideas on the subject of sexuality—ideas with which their young minds are quite unable to cope, and to which their own parents object. Older children are being so confused by sexual activists that they agree to have their bodies mutilated, so they can never become the men and women God has created them to be.[12]

We cannot help but wonder where are all of the leading American pastors today on the issues of sexuality and transgender craziness. Are they afraid to speak? Like lemmings, it appears that local pastors across the nation have also lost their voices and backbones as well. The question I have for Owasso pastors is this, have you regularly spoken to your congregations about these issues? God calls us to speak truth to power. John the Baptist spoke truth to Herod, and it cost him his head. Jesus spoke truth to the religious leaders of his day knowing they would bring about His crucifixion.

Plan of action for Owasso pastors

Pastors must organize, speak, and act for Owasso’s K-12 students who are unable to defend them themselves from the vicious attacks from the enemy of our souls.

1. Preach frequently and frankly to your congregations with passion fired by the Holy Spirit about the evils of pornography, the LGBTQ agenda, Marxism and socialism, and other evils facing our children in the public schools?

2. Pastors should deliver formal notifications of their churches’ opposition to any policies and practices that allow, tolerate, or encourage the presence of pornographic materials in Owasso Public Schools. This document should be signed by the pastor and every congregational member willing to do so and delivered to the Owasso School Board and Superintendent.

3. Encourage like-minded pastors willing to break their silence to come together as a group and attend an Owasso School Board with spokespersons prepared to demand changes to school’s policies and practices that would eradicate pornographic materials from K-12 classrooms and libraries, both now and in the future.

4. Using both social and print media, the Owasso ministerial alliance should publicly addressed the dangers of pornography and other philosophies and practices that promote sexualization of our children in public schools.

Removal of pornography from Owasso Pubic Schools is just one tiny skirmish in the culture wars. Fellow Christians and other defenders of the Judeo-Christian worldview are called to soldier in a much larger ongoing conflict which I described eight years ago in my book Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity.

Apart from the apostate church, there is also a faithful but mostly silent church in America that is content to preach the gospel and ignore the culture. Erwin Lutzer wrote, “whether in Nazi German or America, believers cannot choose to remain silent under the guise of preaching the Gospel…we must live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives. We must be prepared to submit to the Lordship of Christ in all ‘spheres’.” Yet, as we live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives, we must understand that the culture wars in which we soldier for Christ are not about maintaining the American dream however one may define it. Rather, the culture wars are about restoring the biblical understanding of truth in all spheres of our national life. To do so one must speak the truth in the face of lies, stand on biblical principles when others compromise, and take right actions in spite of consequences.[13]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
[1] Burt Mummolo, “Owasso parent banned from school grounds after asking for pornographic book to be removed,”
KTUL Channel 8, October 17, 2022, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/owasso-parent-banned-from-school-grounds-after-asking-for-pornographic-book-to-be-removed/ar-AA134R0f
The video version of this telecast may be viewed at: https://ktul.com/news/local/owasso-parent-banned-from-school-grounds-after-asking-for-poronographic-book-to-be-removed
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ray Carter, “Court prevents Owasso school from banning parent critic,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,
November 2, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/court-prevents-owasso-school-from-banning-parent-critic
[6] Ray Carter, “Concerns over racism, porn lead to Tulsa school sanction,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,
July 28, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/concerns-over-racism-porn-lead-to-tulsa-school-sanction
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church, (Washington, D.C.: Salem Books, 2022), p. 51.
[11] Ibid, pp. xiii, 51.
[12] Ibid, p. 84.
[13] Larry G. Johnson, Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House
Publishing, 2016) p. 265.

The deadly hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter

Posted by :admin On : June 19, 2020
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Category: Culture Wars, Humanism, Marriage, Socialism, Truth

“To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.”[1]

The above quote is from one of the twentieth century’s greatest truth tellers—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). Born in Russia, Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics, philosophy, literature, and history at the university level. He was thrice decorated for personal heroism as a Russian Army Officer during the fight against the Nazis in World War II. In 1945 he was arrested for criticizing Stalin in private correspondence and sentenced to an eight-year term in a labor camp. From that experience he wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which was published in 1962, the first of many books. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the Soviet Union whereupon he moved to Vermont with his wife and four sons.[2]

I have taken time to briefly describe Solzhenitsyn’s background because his experiences and quiet words in defense of truth from such a man speaks far louder than the din of lies shouted by Black Lives Matter and their toadies including spineless politicians, the corrupt media, universities in name only, complicit mega-corporation billionaires, ranting Hollywood leftists, self-proclaimed “intellectuals,” and many corrupt voices/false teachers in the Church. Such lies cannot long stand against the timeless truth of which God is the author and finisher.

Regardless of their self-professed good intentions, the devil-doing of those leading and promoting Black Lives Matter is exposed by its own words on BLM’s official website[3] with regard to its beliefs and true objectives.

Black Lives Matter Beliefs and Goals

A thoughtful examination of just three of BLM’s goals gives a clear and frightening understanding of the damage that is being done in the war against the soul of American life and liberty including the culture at large and the average American family, black or white.

1. “We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.”

BLM wishes to dismantle cisgender privilege. The term “cisgender” means “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.”[4] Although the word may be unfamiliar to many, the concept that the two sexes equate to two genders is obvious to the vast majority of Americans and needs no label to explain it unless one is of the “woke” crowd.

Carla A. Pfeffer expands on Merriam Webster’s definition: “I grew up in a family with a cisgender and heterosexually identified mother and father of the same race (White) who had 2 children when they were well into their late 20s and early 30s and after they legally married with the full support of both their families.”[5]

For BLM, cisgender privilege has been transformed to be equivalent to white privilege. Such privilege cannot be eliminated without suppressing the carriers of this disease (privilege) by denigrating their belief systems. Therefore, the supposed evil that adherents to BLM ideology desire to dismantle are the dominant Judeo-Christian beliefs in the nuclear family, heterosexuality, marriage, and monogamy from which “white privilege” supposedly arises. However, the fatal flaw of BLM’s ideology regarding cisgender families is that the very nature of these beliefs is color-blind. To the contrary, the strength of cisgender families (of whatever color) rests on the universal truth of the values, beliefs, and structure of Judeo-Christian families.

2. “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

Now we come to “trans” by which is meant transgender and defined as “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.”[6] And trans does not mean just male and female but a whole alphabet of identities such as LGBTQ+. However, deny it as they might, it is one’s biological sex that determines gender, and there are just two. BLM calls this belief being in the “tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”

3. “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

BLM wishes to disrupt (disorder, upset) the nuclear family structure by supporting (replacing) it with extended families and “villages” (also infamously promoted by Hillary Clinton). This group care for children promises to limit such care “to the degree that mothers, parents, and children (what about fathers?) are comfortable.” Tell that to parents who have unsuccessfully objected to the things taught in their child’s classroom that made them uncomfortable (e.g., transgenderism).

History reveals the fatal flaw of BLM ideology with regard to the nuclear family, marriage, monogamy, and heterosexuality.

1. Nuclear family, marriage, and monogamy

Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired from the United States Senate (Democratic Senator from New York) in 2000. Near the beginning of his career he was an assistant Secretary of Labor in Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. At the time of his retirement, the senator was asked to describe the biggest change he had seen in his forty years of government service. Articulate and intellectual, the distinguished public servant, having served both Democratic and Republican presidents, replied, “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world” and had occurred in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” Author of the 1965 Moynihan Report officially known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, Moynihan knew that of which he spoke.[7]

Enormously controversial at the time of its release, the report continues to be a topic of debate in the twenty-first century. The report characterized the instability of the black families in America and the importance of the family unit in providing that stability.

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro Family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time…The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit. By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child…the child learns a way of looking at life in his early years through which all later experience is viewed and which profoundly shapes his adult conduct.[8]

Writing shortly after Moynihan’s perceptive summation of the condition of the family structure, William Bennett noted the deep concern of Americans with regard to the family. Bennett pointed to the general instability of the American family and the contributing factors such as the decline in the status and centrality of marriage in society, substantially greater percentage of out-of-wedlock births, and the significant increase in co-habitation. With the decline of social perception and necessity of matrimony, children are less valued, more neglected, more vulnerable to non-family influences, and have less resources devoted for their care and benefit. Bennett wrote that, “Public attitudes toward marriage, sexual ethics, and child-rearing have radically altered for the worse. In Sum, the family has suffered a blow that has no historical precedent—and one that has enormous ramifications for American society.”[9]

Two decades have elapsed since Moynihan’s diagnosis of the disintegration of the family unit as the major modern affliction of the Western world and Bennett’s reporting of Americans’ purported concern for the survival of the family. It is no longer the problem of the black population. The deterioration of the family unit is pervasive and crosses all ethnic, socio-economic, and religious lines although the poor and disadvantaged bear a greater portion of the misery. Yet, there has been no public hue and cry to reverse the decline, no urgency or sense of crisis in dealing with the problem, no new series of government studies explaining the situation, and no investigative reporting or meaningful media attention regarding the most profound change in society that has had no historical precedent. Why is this so? The answer is that the solutions to reverse the decline and devastation of marriage and the family unit stand as polar opposites of the prevailing and pervasive humanistic worldview of which Black Lives Matter is the current purveyor of this cultural carnage. Its own website condemns it.

2. Heterosexuality

Heterosexual marriage is the central organizing concept in society. By contrast, homosexuality is a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. Heterosexual marriage orders the soul whereas sexual intimacy outside of marriage, co-habitation, divorce (apart from infidelity and willful desertion), and homosexuality (with or without benefit of a civil union) are inherently disorderly and destructive. History and human nature attest to these assertions for according to researchers, heterosexual married life as opposed to all other similar social arrangements provides greater financial security, better health and sex, and a longer and better life.[10]

Bennett called marital love that rests upon a foundation of unconditional commitment as “…safer, more enduring, and more empowering that any sentiment yet discovered or any human arrangement yet invented.” He credits these attributes to the basic heterosexual complementarity of man and woman joined together as one in marital love. The complementariness of the relationship is based on the differences, not just the physical but also the emotional and psychological. As the physical differences make sexual union possible, so too do the emotional and psychological differences of the marriage partners complement and complete each other.[11] The union becomes stronger than its parts.

In the longer term, homosexuality and same-sex marriage undermine society. The central cultural vision upon on which the nation was founded was based on biblical Christianity and its understanding of the nature of man and his origins. The truth of the Christian worldview of marriage as being between a man and woman is supported by the fact that it is a cultural universal imprinted on human nature and common to all people groups, all cultures, and all ages in history. Heterosexual marriage is the well-spring of civilization, and its centrality in the human experience is indisputable. Humans have fashioned numerous methods by which to organize their societies, but the common link to all is the family unit—a father, a mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring.

God created heterosexual marriage as a cultural universal, and the strength and unity provided by this universal is the foundation of a strong and enduring society. Where traditional marriage is in broad disarray, as it is in most Western societies, it does not disprove the truth of the heterosexual marriage universal but rather speaks of the ravages caused by the ascending humanist worldview. Where traditional marriage declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.
______

During the turmoil in America of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Russell Kirk wrote The Roots of the American Order, a book of exceptional scope and insight into the origins of America. Summarizing the words of Simone Weil, Kirk states that “…order is the path we follow, or the pattern by which we live with purpose and meaning. Above food and shelter, she continues, we must have order. The human condition is insufferable unless we perceive a harmony, an order in existence.” Kirk identified two roots of this order: the order of the soul (moral order) and the order of the republic (social order), and they are intricately linked and dependent on each other. Disorder of one leads to disorder of the other.[12]

The American order that was established by the founders was not an “ideology” nor a “thing” created for the moment. Rather, the American order is a living culture whose roots have grown over millennia and were watered by the sound principles of moral and civil social order arising from eternal truths and the revelation of God to the Hebrews and the first century Christians. America was established on these eternal truths and the revelation in which the Founders believed, and upon these pillars they built the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Kirk’s roots of order are the same roots of which Solzhenitsyn spoke in the quote given at the beginning of this article. BLM is attempting to sever those roots along with America’s cultural norms, traditions, beliefs, and even our history and that of Western civilization. Those severed roots are to be replaced with a humanistic cultural Marxist society whose citizens will be subject to machinations of an autonomous socialistic state and its evil overseers. Such a society will be devoid of the three essential elements of the good society: divine order, justice, and freedom.

Do not fool yourselves by blithely dismissing the challenge of BLM. Our present struggle is an existential war of the highest magnitude between good and evil, and the conflict is spreading around the world. What must Americans to do who love this nation and its history? For the answer we look once again to the wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in which he gives us both the diagnosis of our plight and a prescription for preserving America’s Judeo-Christian cultural heritage and its attendant freedom.

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it (evil) will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”[13]

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.”[14]

Larry G. Johnson
June 19, 2020

[1] “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” AZQuotes, https://www.azquotes.com/author/13869-Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn (accessed June 18, 2020).
[2] “Biography,” The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center, https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-life-overview/biography (accessed June 18, 2020).
[3] “What We Believe,” Black Lives Matter, https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ (accessed June 18, 2020).
[4] “Cisgender,” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cisgender (accessed June 18, 2020).
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Transgender,” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transgender (accessed June 18, 2020).
[7] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[8] Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, (Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 3.
[9] Bennett, pp. 1-2.
[10] Ibid., pp. 14-188.
[11] Ibid., pp. 186-187
[12] Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington D. C.: Regnery-Gateway, 1991), pp. 3-5.
[13] Solzhenitsyn, AZ Quotes.
[14] Ibid.

The shame of the silent church – Passage of Oklahoma’s new marijuana law 2018

Posted by :admin On : June 29, 2018
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Evangelical Church

On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 56%+ of Oklahoma voters approved State Question No. 788 which legalized the licensed use, sale, and growth of marijuana in Oklahoma. Although described as allowing marijuana to be used for medical purposes, it is being called the most liberal state law in the nation in legalizing marijuana and is effectively an open door for recreational marijuana usage.

According to one news report, approval by the voters occurred in spite of intense opposition from Oklahoma politicians, law enforcement officials, and churches. There was intense political opposition to the proposed law from such people as U.S. Senator James Langford and from law enforcement personnel who deal with the consequences of the drug crisis every day of the week. Although there were officials from the heads of various Oklahoma denominations including the Assemblies of God, various Baptist denominations, and the Catholic Church that spoke out against State Question 788, it is very apparent that concerted opposition to the new marijuana law did not come from the rank and file pastors and congregations within those Oklahoma churches.

The fallout from this horrible law will be enormous as families are damaged or destroyed as well as the loss of many innocent lives on the state’s highways. The substantial margin of approval of State Question No. 788 is unequivocal evidence that the great majority of evangelical pastors and congregations were silent about their opposition if not secretly supportive of the law legalizing marijuana in Oklahoma.

When did the day arrive that Christian pastors and other Christian leadership no longer stand up in the church and in the community to speak God’s truth without worrying that secular listeners (and many congregation members) may not agree with even our most basic Christian beliefs?

For decades the American Evangelical church has been silent not only in the public square but in the churches themselves about societal, moral, and political issues. The truth of this observation is confirmed by an article from Christian News in August 2014 which reported the results of a survey conducted by George Barna.

Barna’s organization asked pastors across the country about their beliefs regarding the relevancy of Scripture to societal, moral and political issues, and the content of their sermons in light of their beliefs.

“What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of them are] telling us, ‘Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues,’” Barna explained. “Then we ask them: ‘Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?’ and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.”

Barna’s group also polled pastors about what factors they use to gauge whether or not a church is successful. “There are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to…Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage. What I’m suggesting is [those pastors] won’t probably get involved in politics because it’s very controversial. Controversy keeps people from being in the seats, controversy keeps people from giving money, from attending programs,” Barna said.[1]

Pastor Chuck Baldwin, a radio broadcaster and former presidential candidate, wrote about the results of the Barna survey in an article titled “Odds Are that Your Pastor is Keeping the Truth from You Instead of Preaching It.” Baldwin said that Barna’s research shows that most pastors deliberately refrain from speaking on the issues of the day even when they understand that Bible plainly addresses these social, moral, and political issues.

“That 90% of America’s pastors are not addressing any of the salient issues affecting Christian people’s political or societal lives should surprise no one,” Baldwin wrote. “It has been decades since even a sizable minority of pastors have bothered to educate and inform their congregations as to the Biblical principles relating to America’s political, cultural, and societal lives.”

“Please understand this: America’s malaise is directly due to the deliberate disobedience of America’s pastors—and the willingness of the Christians in the pews to tolerate the disobedience of their pastor. Nothing more! Nothing less!” Baldwin continued. “When Paul wrote his own epitaph, it read, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ (II Timothy 4:7) He didn’t say, ‘I had a large congregation, we had big offerings, we had a lot of programs, I had a large staff, and we had large facilities.’”

“It is time for Christians to acknowledge that these ministers are not pastors; they are CEOs. They are not Bible teachers; they are performers. They are not shepherds; they are hirelings,” he said. “It is also time for Christians to be honest with themselves: do they want a pastor who desires to be faithful to the Scriptures, or do they want a pastor who is simply trying to be ‘successful?’”[2]

These articles were written four years ago. Given that the evangelical church continues to be powerless and weak-kneed in defending the faith in the culture, I can’t help but feel the results of a new Barna’s survey would be even worse as the morality of American culture continues to spiral downward and anti-Christian sentiment grows.

The Bible is very explicit about a Christian’s duty to warn the transgressor.

When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself. [Ezekiel 3:18-19. NIV]

Donald Stamps wrote about these two verses in his commentary, “Those who fail to warn the unfaithful will themselves be accountable to God for people’s spiritual destruction.”[3]

When pastors and other church leaders are silent, they erroneously separate the gospel from the kingdom and culture, whether intentional or not. When Pastors and other church leaders remain silent, we have left the nation’s culture to be framed without the influence of a biblical pattern, and whatever area the church does not influence will soon try to destroy the church. Put in modern terms, speaking warnings to the people is not about winning but being obedient to God for the victory is His. Christians are called to the battle regardless of the outcome of the battle while on this earth.

There are no neutral places where Christianity and the world can peacefully co-exist amidst the raging culture wars. Yet, many churches seek to cultivate great reputations and be highly esteemed in the community because they erroneously believe they will be a more effective influence for Christ. But most of the time the price of this nebulous influence and esteem is compromise and accommodation. Writing six decades ago, A. W. Tozer describes the eventual outcome of this style of seeking influence and esteem in the community.

The Christian faith, based upon the New Testament, teaches the complete antithesis between the Church and the world…It is no more than a religious platitude to say that the trouble with us today is that we have tried to bridge the gulf between two opposites, the world and the Church, and have performed an illicit marriage for which there is no biblical authority. Actually, there is no real union…When the Church joins up with the world it is the true Church no longer but only a pitiful hybrid thing, an object of smiling contempt to the world and an abomination to the Lord…

Christianity is so entangled with the spirit of the world that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere. The world is whitewashed just enough to pass inspection by blind men posing as believers, and those same believers are everlastingly seeking to gain acceptance with the world. By mutual concessions men who call themselves Christians manage to get on with men who have for the things of God nothing but contempt.[4]

Without question it is easier to keep silent and avoid controversy, but there is a price to pay for being silent just as there is a price to pay when one speaks out. Silence is complicity and complicity is the path of the coward. Pastors, church boards, and other church leadership who are silent about social, moral, and political issues of the day speak volumes to people both inside and outside the church because people will think the church has nothing to say about life beyond the church doors. Jesus was never silent but stood up to the Pharisees (whom he called a brood of vipers), the government, and even his own disciples.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and martyr for the faith during World War II and was executed in April 1945 on the direct order of Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer knew well the cost of silence in the church when faced with evil in the public square. He called it what it was…sin.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil, God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.[5]

We have been silent witness of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open…Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?[6]

So where does the evangelical church in Oklahoma and across America go from here? A good place to begin would be the upcoming election season which culminates in the first week of November, and this includes the primary run-off elections to be decided over the next several weeks.

In today’s pervasive culture wars, every political race is critical from the national level down to the local community including school boards and city governments. On the national level, it appears that Christians have an opportunity to have one or two more Constitutional originalists nominated to the Supreme Court if conservatives hold the Senate. These nominees will largely decide the course of the nation over the next several decades.

The first step for church leaders is to gather and disseminate information about upcoming elections, candidates, and issues. Find out about the candidates backgrounds and beliefs, talk about the issues, and encourage people to vote their Christian values. Forget about who might be offended. Speak the truth. These actions must not be confined to just a bland one-Sunday announcement from the pulpit a week before the election. Rather, it must be a constant flow of information to the congregation and reminder of the importance of the elections. These efforts and actions should start immediately with the primary runoff elections and should start 60 to 90 days prior to the general election in November (late August or early September).

But church leaders’ efforts to educate their congregations about social, moral, and political issues of the times and to encourage them to speak and act accordingly within the culture do not end in November 2018. It must be an ongoing effort in which every church leader and congregation member become watchmen on the wall.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Heather Clark, “Study Reveals Most American Pastors Silent on Current Issues, Christian News, August 12, 2014. https://christiannews.net/2014/08/12/study-reveals-most-american-pastors-silent-on-current-issues-despite-biblical-beliefs (accessed June 27, 2018).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Donald Stamps, Commentary – Ezekiel 3:18-19, Fire Bible – Global Study Edition, New International Version,
Gen. Ed. Donald C. Stamps, (Springfield, Missouri: Life Publishers, 2009), p. 1397.
[4] A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1950, 1978), pp. 115-116.
[5] “20 Influential Quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” Crosswalk.com. https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/inspiring-quotes/20-influential-quotes-by-dietrich-bonhoeffer.html (accessed June 29, 2018).
[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letters and Papers from Prison Quotes,” goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1153999-widerstand-und-ergebung-briefe-und-aufzeichnungen-aus-der-haft (accessed June 29, 2018).

Talk, trust, and truth – Polarization of American society

Posted by :admin On : January 27, 2017
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Humanism

Mark Brewin is an associate professor and chairperson of the Department of Communications at the University of Tulsa. Mr. Brewin’s guest editorial for the Tulsa World’s Sunday Opinion section titled “Can we talk?” states that there are remarkably high levels of distrust in America which is creating an unhealthy nation. He says that, “We owe it to ourselves, and to each other to make a more conscious effort to listen to different voices, to forcibly and consciously move ourselves out of our networks.[1]

Brewin believes that the opposing ideological sides evident in 2016 presidential election have created this unhealthy situation. Brewin described the opponents.

At times over the course of the fall election period, it seemed as though half the country existed of mean-spirited racist and misogynistic troglodytes, who lacked either the ability or the inclination to use their reason; whereas the other half was composed of entitled elitists who drank craft beer, traveled to places like Paris or Ulan Bator for their summer vacations, and looked with utter contempt on God-fearing folk who fixed their plugged-up toilets and bagged their groceries.[2]

What Brewin is really describing is the centuries-long clash between conservatism and liberalism. With this understanding we can restate his caricatures of the two groups: The first group identified is the hateful, bigoted, women-hating, caveman conservatives who won’t use their reasoning ability (assuming they had the brains to do so which is doubtful). In the second group we have the snobbish liberals. Their great sin is not who they are or what they believe but merely looking down their noses and failing to appreciate the lower classes of society.

Brewin says that the inability of well-meaning people of all political and cultural persuasions is of recent origin. He states that only twenty years ago Americans could disagree without resorting to charges of moral corruption for merely supporting the other side. However, Brewin’s claim is clearly bogus with regard to the political spectrum. Even a cursory examination of American history (dating back to the Adams-Jefferson presidential campaign of 1800) will prove the fallacy of his statement. With regard to the cultural spectrum, the drift apart began occurring mid-way through the first half of the twentieth century beginning with Franklin Roosevelt’s administration when he successfully purged the Democratic Party of its conservative voices. Thus, the cultural and political divide is not of recent origin and will not be bridged by conciliatory dialog and understanding of the other side’s point of view.

Brewin suggests that the path to a mutual disdain between the two sides of the culture wars is long and complicated. In that he is correct. This complexity arises because the nation’s problems flow from non-negotiable issues that have risen as a result of the liberal-conservative split and a consequent loss of a cohesive central cultural vision once held by Americans for over 150 years. Talk alone will not heal this loss of cohesion in the nation’s central cultural vision.

The networked society

Brewin says that we can begin to gain an understanding of the development of this divide by looking at the concept of “network.” Social scientists have theorized that modern culture has evolved into a “networked” society and that these changes came about because of the way Americans get their information. The “mass” media in the twentieth century tended to be large and centralized. Social scientists feared that it was possible for the mass media to dominate society by controlling what they saw and heard thereby create a “mass” society of apathetic clones that were easily manipulated.[3]

In the latter part of the twentieth century the power and domination of the mainstream media was supposedly replaced by the Internet and other alternative media sources which collectively became known as the “networked” media. Mass media’s so-called passive audience had become an active group of information seekers that turned to the networked media which was supposed to bring them freedom and variety. However, Brewin is concerned that information networks may only “provide a vision of the world that flatters our opinions rather than challenging them. We do not hear arguments from opposing sides that might work to change our minds, or at least modify our opinions into something less radical.” Put another way, he sees the new networked media as appealing to our worst instincts because we listen to only those things with which we agree.[4]

But who decides what is radical? Although Brewin admits that the mainstream media produced a lot of “bad cultural product,” it sounds like he longs for a return to the good old days when the secular mass media controlled content and presented its humanistic vision of society. Thus, the liberal elitists could once again protect the masses from their “worst instincts.”[5] He provides an example.

But some of the things [delivered by mass media] that we didn’t like and didn’t want to listen to were good for us anyhow. It was good for pro-lifers and pro-choicers to be forced to listen to spokespeople for the other side every night on the evening news.[6]

Given the mainstream media’s decades-long support of abortion, when in the last forty-four years since Roe v. Wade have pro-choicers been forced to listen to spokespersons from the pro-life side every night in the mainstream media? Such would be a rare and brief occurrence comparable to an eclipse of the sun. Here Brewin reveals either his naiveté or duplicity. It is no secret that Christianity and its beliefs have been substantially evicted from the public square for decades.

In summary, Brewin believes that networked media makes it possible for information consumers to “bypass challenging but important views” which leads to ideological cocoons that foster distrust among the citizenry and produces an unhealthy nation. Brewin would have us break out of these cocoons by making a conscious effort to listen to different voices, to forcibly and consciously move ourselves out of our networks so that our radical ideas caused by our worst instincts can be moderated.

Clash of Worldviews

Here we arrive at the crux of the problem that Brewin misses. Brewin and the social scientists’ assume that people were weaned away from the mass media and now have developed an ideological cocoon in their brains because they have spent too much time imbibing their chosen narcotic provided by the networked media. But the mass media continues to have much greater power to manipulate and indoctrinate the populace than the networked media. Television was by far the dominate segment of mass media since the early 1950s and continues to do so today. In 1981, Richard Adler described the power of television in forming the worldviews of the nation’s citizenry.

The TV set has become the primary source of news and entertainment for most Americans and a major force in the acculturation of children…Television is not simply a medium of transmission, it is an active, pervasive force…a mediator between our individual lives and the larger life of the nation and the world; between fantasy and fact; between old values and new ideas; between our desire to seek escape and our need to confront reality.[7]

In his article “Television Shapes the Soul,” Michael Novak called television a

…molder of the soul’s geography. It builds up incrementally a psychic structure of expectations. It does so in much the same way that school lessons slowly, over the years, tutor the unformed mind and teach it “how to think.”[8]

To Novak, television is a “homogenizing medium” with an ideological tendency that is a “vague and misty liberalism” designed “however gently to undercut traditional institutions and to promote a restless, questioning attitude.”[9]

Therefore, we must ask the question with regard to Brewin’s conclusions. Have Americans in this polarized age retreated into information cocoons fed by like-minded media sources? This is the question asked by Brendan Nyhan when writing for The New York Times website in 2014. Nyhan’s answer was spelled out in the title of his article: “Americans Don’t Live in Informational Cocoons.”

In short, while it’s still possible to live in a political bubble [Brewin’s ideological cocoon] of your own choosing, the best evidence suggests that very few people are getting their news only from like-minded outlets. Why, then, do so many Americans seem to live in different political realities?

The problem isn’t the news we consume, it seems, but the values and identities that shape how we interpret that information — most notably, our partisan beliefs. In other words, Democrats and Republicans don’t see the world so differently because they see different news; rather, they see the news differently because they’re Democrats and Republicans in the first place.[10] [emphasis added]

If Nylan’s conclusions are correct, then Brewin’s contention that Americans have retreated into information cocoons fed by like-minded media sources appears to be erroneous. Additionally, the origins of this distrust and ideological differences are far older than suggested by Brewin and his social scientist theorists. This raises a second question. If the theory that the networked media causes an ideological cocoon is a fiction, then what is the source for the polarization of American life? It occurs because of the way the two sides see the world, that is, their worldviews are fundamentally different.

One’s worldview is built throughout life and reflects the picture of one’s understanding of reality (truth). From this understanding of truth we form our values, beliefs, and identities from which we attempt to answer the basic questions of life: who are and where did we come from, how did we get in the mess we are in, and how do we get out of it.

In a free society, the worldviews most commonly held generally form the central cultural vision that brings order to that society or nation. In a humanistic society order is achieved through socialism, and in a socialistic society it is the worldviews and philosophies of the state, as crafted and dictated by its ruling elites, which flow downward to the citizenry and are imposed on each sphere of society. As Western civilization moved away from the Judeo-Christian to a humanistic worldview over the last three hundred years, the pathologies in these societies have exploded because of the tyrannical demands of relativistic humanism contradicts the God-given innate nature of man that seeks objective truth and freedom.

Requirements for cultures to survive: Unity and Truth

The two essentials that any culture must have and without which it disintegrates over time are unity and truth. A society’s central cultural vision must command unity, and such unity must filter up from individuals, not be coerced or forced down on society by its elites. Also, a culture’s central cultural vision must be based on truth with regard to the nature of God, creation, and man. Without a central cultural vision that commands unity and is based on truth, there can be no order to the soul or society, and without order in both, society deteriorates over time and eventually disintegrates.

In America there are two worldviews competing for dominance in the nation’s central cultural vision—the Judeo-Christian worldview and the humanistic worldview (defined by its various components – liberalism, progressivism, relativism, and naturalism among others). For most of the nation’s history its central cultural vision has been built on the foundation of the Judeo-Christian worldviews of its citizens.

This central cultural vision has been under attack since the late nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1960s, the humanistic worldview gained momentum and by the end of the century the predominate leadership in the spheres of American life held a humanistic worldview (in politics, government, the sciences, economy, education, law, media, entertainment, popular culture, and much of the church). As these leaders consolidated their power, they began to fashion and impose a network of humanistic laws, policies, rules, and regulations on a society that is still predominately of a Judeo-Christian worldview. Each side holds diametrically opposed views of reality (truth) with regard to God, nature, the origins and purpose of man, and a host of other flashpoints in the culture wars. These differences are immutable and irreconcilable which no amount of discussion and negotiation will bridge. This is the reason for America’s polarization.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Mark Brewin, “Can we talk?” Tulsa World, January 22, 2017, G1.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Richard P. Adler, Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, ed. Richard P. Adler (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), p. xi-xii.
[8] Michael Novak, “Television Shapes the Soul,” Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, ed. Richard P. Adler, pp. 20.
[9] Ibid., pp. 26-27.
[10]Brendan Nyhan, “Americans Don’t Live in Informational Cocoons,” New York Times.com, October 24, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/upshot/americans-dont-live-in-information-cocoons.html (accessed January 25, 2017).

The failure of Western liberal ideology

Posted by :admin On : January 20, 2017
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Category: America, Archives, Culture Wars, Humanism, Progressivism

Nothing has exposed the falsity of the reigning humanist-progressivist worldview and its tenets of tolerance, multiculturalism, and diversity in Western civilization as has the massive flood of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East to Europe. The same is occurring to a lesser extent along America’s porous southern border. Floods are destructive, but a steady flow of unpolluted water is crucial to sustain a beautiful and bountiful land. Is the analogy of the hydrology of water and the occurrence, flow, movement, and distribution of immigrants into a country not accurate?

One is not anti-immigrant to want an orderly, lawfully conducted immigration process that respects the existing citizens of a nation whether they were natural born or properly immigrated and assimilated. Progressivist policies that fail to stem the continuing surge of large numbers of illegal immigrants were one of the greatest flashpoints of conflict in the campaigns of the two aspirants for the presidency in 2016. These progressivist policies undermine American society because they reflect a failure to understand the true meaning and importance of culture.

There is a ceaseless struggle between a culture’s will to survive and the agitant of modernist pluralism. Pluralism, rightly defined, is “a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain and develop their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization.”[1] [emphasis added] But modern progressive definitions of pluralism have attempted to displace the general synthesis of values in America, that is, its central cultural vision. Humanistic forms of pluralism attempt to supersede and thereby shatter the confines of a common civilization through imposition of perverse definitions of tolerance, multiculturalism, and diversity in all spheres of American life.

Progressivist tolerance

Progressivism’s idea of tolerance is a consequence of the humanistic doctrine of cultural relativism. But how does one order a society if it is culturally relativistic, that is, what anchors its beliefs and welds together a cohesive society? Humanists claim that order is achieved by a tolerance that requires a suspension of judgment as to matters of truth and beliefs with regard to moral judgements of right and wrong since all belief systems contain some truth within while no one belief system has all the truth. In such a progressivist view, a strong belief in anything becomes a desire to impose those beliefs on other people which translate into loss of freedom. It is humanism’s values-free approach which must ultimately deny any absolutes. Through the humanist understanding of toleration comes liberty by preventing the development and promotion of strong beliefs.[2]

One dictionary’s definition of tolerance is “…the allowed deviation from a standard.”[3] This definition implies a standard by which to measure the value of other cultures as well as a limit to the extent to which deviation from the prevailing culture’s standard will be allowed. However, this definition violates the humanistic understanding of tolerance which suspends all judgement as to standards of truth and morality.

Progressivist multiculturalism

Progressivist ideas of multiculturalism closely mirror its rationale for tolerance which is based on a relativistic, values-free society and a denial of absolutes. Multiculturalism is a humanist doctrine that came into vogue during the late twentieth century. As humanists see it, morality shouldn’t be imposed by religions or legislated by governments. Rather, the alternative is to develop civic and moral virtues in accordance with humanist doctrine by means of moral education.[4] As a result the humanists’ doctrine of multiculturalism has spread throughout the educational system in America. Humanist educational elites believe that America has been too immersed in Western “Eurocentric” teachings to the detriment of other cultures. It has been their goal to redirect the education curriculum toward various counterculture teachings (i.e., Afrocentrism, humanistically defined feminism, legitimization of homosexuality, and radical doctrines such as neo-Marxism) that challenge the “white, male-dominated European studies.” But a closer examination of the humanist agenda reveals that multiculturalism is not intended to supplement but rather to supplant Western culture that is so steeped in Christianity.[5]

Progressivist diversity

Humanism’s diversity is a close kin of multiculturalism and focuses on the differences within society and not society as a whole. With emphasis on the differences, mass culture becomes nothing more than an escalating number of subcultures within an increasingly distressed political framework that attempts to satisfy the myriad of demands of the individual subcultures. There is a loss of unity through fragmentation and ultimately a loss of a society’s central cultural vision which leads to disintegration. Humanism’s impulse for diversity is a derivative of relativism and humanism’s perverted concept of equality.[6]

The meaning and defense of culture

Once again we must turn to Richard Weaver for his brilliant insights into the meaning of culture and its defense against becoming syncretistic (a culture that attempts to mix or combine different forms of belief or practices).

It is the essence of culture to feel its own imperative and to believe in the uniqueness of its worth…Syncretistic cultures like syncretistic religions have always proved relatively powerless to create and to influence; there is no weight or authentic history behind them. Culture derives its very desire to continue from its unitariness…There is at the heart of every culture a center of authority from which there proceed subtle and pervasive pressures upon us to conform and to repel the unlike as disruptive…it must insist on a pattern of inclusion and exclusion…[It is] inward facing toward some high representation…Culture is by nature aristocratic, for it is a means of discriminating between what counts for much and what counts for little…For this reason it is the very nature of culture to be exclusive…There can be no such thing as a “democratic” culture in the sense of one open to everybody at all times on equal terms…For once the inward-looking vision and the impulse to resist the alien are lost, disruption must ensue.”[7]

The essence of a culture may be described as a general synthesis of values common to a group’s vision of the world, that is, the way things ought to work. Every culture has a center which commands all things. Weaver called this center imaginative rather than logical and “…a focus of value, a law of relationships, an inspiring vision…to which the group is oriented.” The foundation of the cultural concept is unity that assumes a general commonality of thought and action. A unified culture requires a center of cultural authority from which radiates a subtle and pervasive pressure to conform. The pressures to conform may range from cultural peer pressure to moral and legal restraints. Those that do not conform are repelled of necessity. Thus, in any culture there are patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Without such patterns, the culture is unprotected and disintegrates over time.[8]

There is an inherent tension between the exclusivity demanded by culture and progressivism’s doctrines of tolerance and its corollaries of multiculturalism and diversity. Tolerance suggests acceptance and inclusiveness while exclusivity implies segregation and denial. By segregation is not meant segregation within a culture but between cultures. The culture that values its central vision welcomes integration of diverse groups that share or at least respects that culture’s common central vision. Because of such diversity, a culture becomes a stronger.[9] It is in the humanistic definition of pluralism in which cultures are prone to failure because the central cultural vision becomes fragmented as the values-free central cultural vision does not provide the cohesion necessary for survival.

By its very essence, culture must discriminate against those outside its boundaries that do not share or respect its central vision. A culture must believe in its uniqueness, worth, and the superiority of its worldview. To attempt to meld together or comingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. By definition, culture must be an inward-looking vision and resist the alien. Without such is a loss of wholeness, and a culture’s cohesiveness dissolves into chaos as its various parts drift into orbits around parochial interests and egocentrism.[10]

Failure of Western liberal ideology

There is hope that Western civilization is awakening to the real and looming dissolution of its respective cultures because of decades of dominance by liberal elitists who promote a humanistic culture and impose policies in support of that worldview.

In the evening of December 19th, a terrorist hijacked a truck and ran over and killed twelve people and injured forty-eight more at a Christmas market in Berlin. Patrick Buchanan wrote of this tragedy and points out that it was merely the latest of a decade of similar attacks in London, Brussels, Paris, Madrid, and Berlin. Buchanan wrote that the responsibility for the attacks can be laid at the door of Western liberal ideology which is says is the ideology of Western suicide.[11]

…the peoples of Europe seem less interested in hearing recitals of liberal values than in learning what their governments are going to do to keep the Islamist killers out and make them safe…Liberals may admonish us that all races, creeds, cultures are equal, that anyone from any continent, country, or civilization can come to the West and assimilate…But people don’t believe that. Europe and America have moved beyond the verities of 20th century liberalism…Only liberal ideology calls for America and Europe to bring into their home countries endless numbers of migrants, without being overly concerned about who they are, whence they come or what they believe.[12] [emphasis added]

Buchanan rightly identifies the first duty of government is to protect the safety and security of the people. But the responsibility for our present peril in the West goes beyond a failure of government to protect its people. It is the failure of the peoples of Western civilization to defend their respective cultures from the false claims of those holding and promoting a humanistic view of the world. The rapidly approaching demise of the Western ethic can be stopped and reversed. It will not be quick, easy, or painless, but we have no choice other than to battle this menace if we care about what kind of world our children and grandchildren will inherit.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “pluralism,” Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pluralism (accessed December 29, 2016).
[2] M. Stanton Evans, The Theme is Freedom – Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1994), pp. 40-42.
[3] “tolerance,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publisher, 1963), p. 930.
[4] Paul Kurtz, Toward a New Enlightenment – The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1994, p. 101.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity –The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, LLC, 2011), pp. 188-189.
[6] Ibid., p. 398.
[7] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), pp. 10-12. Originally published by Louisiana State University Press, 1964.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., pp. 11-13.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Patrick J. Buchanan, Patrick J. Buchanan – Official Website, December 22, 2016.
http://buchanan.org/blog/europes-future-merkel-le-pen-126291 (accessed January 4, 2017).
[12] Ibid.