Basic civics lesson all but forgotten by the American sheeple. Resisting judicial activism is right and necessary for the maintenance of freedom and liberty.
I’m Just a Bill – Schoolhouse Rock – The Supreme Court Does Not Make Law!
Reply
Category Archives: Social Issues
A Failing Movement – Pastor Sam Jones
It has been said that if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. I am afraid this statement is all too true in the conservative Christian culture. We are called to learn from history and to fix our mistakes, which brings me to some great concerns from what I am seeing today. I think of Henry Parsons Crowell who once said it would not be the “modernists nor the conservative who was tolerant of the modernists; but the conservative fundamentalist who was tolerant of those who were tolerant of modernists that would defeat fundamentalism.” Henry Parsons Crowell was the founder of the Quaker Oats Company and a lifelong Presbyterian who at the end of his life withdrew from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Crowell feared the reason fundamentalists were losing to modernists was simply because the fundamentalists “were tolerant toward those who were tolerant toward unbelievers.”
You may be reading this wondering what this has to do with today, but I assure you it has everything to do with today. In Christianity, there is a great battle going on and it is a battle that is very similar to the historic one of Modernists vs. Fundamentalists. This isn’t just something that I am seeing. There was a statement put together and signed by over 10,000 Christians, many of them being Christian leaders. This statement was titled “The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel”, it is also known as “The Dallas Statement”. This statement has been a “shot heard around Christianity” and is the hallmark of Christianity standing against the false gospel of Social Justice (the newest incarnation of the Social Gospel). At this point it is imperative that you understand that I see the need for a movement in Christianity, I see Social Justice as a great threat to the church, and that I am all for standing against Social Justice and for Biblical truth. The issue that I have is that we seem to be racing to a defeated destination because we are unwilling to learn from the Fundamentalist movement and heed the words of Henry Parsons Crowell.
We need to understand that there is a difference in a movement and doctrine. From a doctrinal perspective fundamentalism is still very much alive today, but from a movement perspective it is dead. There are a few things that a movement needs. Firstly, a movement must recognize where the enemy is attacking (this was well executed through The Dallas Statement). Secondly, a movement needs a unified message to stand upon (this is how Christians from across the theological perspectives still claim the title of Fundamentalist). Thirdly, a movement needs a very distinct line drawn that is tied to their unified message and recognition of where the enemy is attacking. If you lose one of these elements it impacts the other two and completely stalls the movement. For instance, if you do not recognize where the enemy is attacking, you will either fight a strawman or have a battle front in disarray, both making it impossible to be unified in message or to have a distinct line drawn between you and the enemy. If you do not have a unifying message then you have nothing to combat the enemy with (so it doesn’t matter where they are attacking, they will win), and you have no substance to draw a line with. If we do not have a clear distinct line drawn between us and false teachers, it confuses the foot soldier on where the enemy is attacking and it makes it impossible to have a unifying message to defend our doctrinal position as our position itself becomes blurred. This is where the words of Crowell ring true that it would be the “conservative fundamentalist who was tolerant of those who were tolerant of modernists that would defeat fundamentalism.”
This is where I will present my great concern with what is happening in the movement that is fighting the dangers of Social Justice. So far, the biggest name pastor to speak out against Social Justice and sign the Dallas Statement is Pastor John MacArthur. John MacArthur has presented some good material on the subject and provided what should be one of the most lethal statements towards the false gospel of Social Justice. When in his initial article on Social Justice, “Social Injustice and the Gospel” he said, “Over the years, I’ve fought a number of polemical battles against ideas that threaten the gospel. This recent (and surprisingly sudden) detour in quest of ‘social justice’ is, I believe, the most subtle and dangerous threat so far.” Let me say, I love that statement, I agree with that statement, I have quoted that statement, but John MacArthur has betrayed that statement. John MacArthur has betrayed that statement through the speakers that he is allowing at the Shepherd’s Conference. This is an annual conference that John MacArthur’s church hosts (along with Master’s Seminary, Grace to You, and a host of other MacArthur related ministries). In this conference the list of speakers has some of the usual suspects who have spoken out against Social Justice (John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, etc.), but there are also some speakers who have positioned themselves on the other side of the issue (Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, and Mark Dever). Galatians 5:9 has never shouted louder in my mind, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
John MacArthur has blurred the line of the movement. This makes it impossible to truly have a unifying message and it has started to confuse the foot soldiers on where the enemy is attacking. This has been made clear when he said in a Q & A with Mohler, Duncan, and Dever.
“I don’t think there is any difference theologically with where we stand we’ve navigated that together on every possible platform and every situation. How we respond to the culture around us and the pressures that come on us from the culture how we navigate those relationships that face us… you may have expressed yourself differently on the issue of social justice… look these are my friends these are men who have served Christ and have given their life to Him. (God) Has given each of you guys a formidable place in the kingdom and have had an impact on my life. I’ll fight error but I don’t fight my friends.”
I will let MacArthur speak to his own sin, “Over the years, I’ve fought a number of polemical battles against ideas that threaten the gospel. This recent (and surprisingly sudden) detour in quest of ‘social justice’ is, I believe, the most subtle and dangerous threat so far.” If this is true (and I believe it is), why would MacArthur bring the most subtle dangerous threat to the gospel into his conference? I wish I had an answer to that question, but I am afraid if I give my thoughts on that question I will only be diving into judging John MacArthur’s motives.
I don’t have an answer as to why Macarthur has blurred the battle lines, but I do have an answer in what we need to do if we want to see the movement march forward. We need to take the words of Henry Parsons Crowell to heart and we need to stop tolerating those who are tolerating those who are teaching Social Justice. I understand this is a hard statement and it is not fun, but do we fear God or man? Do our friendships mean as much to us as gospel purity? Is your admiration or friendship of MacArthur worth the souls of those in the nursery at your church? It is doubtful that the toleration of MacArthur would impact your church tomorrow on the issue of Social Justice, but it will have a long-term affect as the stance against Social Justice is weakened and the line is further blurred.
The best thing that could happen is repentance from John MacArthur, this is what I hope and pray for. The question each of us need to ask is if we like John MacArthur more than we fear the threat of Social Justice? If Social Justice is just a small doctrinal mistake, then keep on going as you are, but if you, like MacArthur and believe Social Justice is a big deal, then don’t kill a movement by compromising its integrity.
Pastor Sam Jones is co-host along with Patrick Wyett of The Shining Light Podcast found here.
Itching Ears that Hate the Truth – Rob Pue
In one of the apostle Paul’s last letters — the one he wrote to Timothy — he gave some vitally important words of caution and warning. 2nd Timothy 4, starting at verse 2: “Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.”
Then, he added, “But watch thou, in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”
I have been working in full time ministry for nearly 20 years now. I remember when I began, I was astonished at the many churches that were no longer enduring sound doctrine. The “seeker friendly” movement, which morphed into the “Emergent Church” movement was on a “fast track.” Mega churches were springing up with massive buildings. So large, in fact, they call them “campuses.” And many of these mega-churches have MULTIPLE campuses in various areas of their cities, because one building will not hold all those who want the feel-good, false “love gospel” message that is preached there.
I was saddened in those early days of this work, to see so many formerly rock solid, Bible-based, Scripturally sound churches DEvolve into nothing more than “happy fun time.” A “feel-good experience,” where one could go and see a show, lift their hands in mock reverence to God, dance and sway, while being promised all manner of prosperity, health, wealth, and a life of abundance. “Your BEST life NOW.” This is just SO contradictory to everything God’s Word says about the Christian life. Sin is no longer a word allowed to be spoken of in many churches, and if it IS spoken of, it’s only to say that once we simply say a prayer or walk an aisle (or worse yet, just raise our hand “with all eyes closed and all heads bowed”); we are “good” with God.
We can then go about our normal lives as usual. Except now, we are told, we are assured of heaven… just because we repeated a few words and sheepishly raised our hand while no one was looking. COME ON folks! Talk about biblical illiteracy. Talk about wolves in sheep’s clothing…. HIRELINGS lulling fat and happy fools into a false sense of eternal security. This is so sad.
But you know, we cannot put all the blame on the pastors. They’re just giving the people what they want. Look again at the Scripture from 2nd Timothy: it says THE PEOPLE will not put up with sound doctrine any longer, and so THE PEOPLE heap up for themselves teachers to tell them what they want to hear, to soothe their itching ears.
It is the great apostasy, the great “falling away.” And I have watched it begin as a tiny sprout many years ago, and I’ve watched it grow, blossom, flower and then re-seed itself many times over the years… Today it is so prevalent in Christendom that one is hard-pressed to find a faithful congregation of true believers anywhere. I guess that’s why God’s Word says there will only be a small “remnant” that stand firm to the end.
During my time in ministry, I have seen the old timers, the pastors who were faithful in teaching the WHOLE counsel of God’s Word grow older and retire from the ministry… or in many cases, be FORCED OUT of their ministry by church boards and elders — only to be replaced by somebody younger, more “hip,” more “in step” with the culture and times we are living in. In other words, a more CARNAL “pastor.” These “cool” new pastors often use Hollywood films on their big projection TV screens to illustrate their sermons… they make off-color jokes from the pulpits. They wear t shirts and ripped blue jeans as they speak, to appeal to the average “Joe six-pack” in the audience. They have a “hot” worship team, complete with electric guitars, drums, smoke and mirrors and in some cases even laser light shows. “It’s all about the EXPERIENCE,” they say.
Friends, I’m not some old fashioned stick in the mud. I’ve been around. And I can tell you, this ain’t “church.” At least not a biblical church. It MAY be a “synagogue of Satan.” But it’s not church, and it most certainly is not God-honoring. There is NO reverence for Him; no fear of God there at all. I have seen youth leaders take their group of kids to R-rated movies as their Youth Group “activity” for the week; I have seen pastors hold community events called a “car smash,” which apparently the kids love… they get an old car, put it in the middle of their parking lot, and let the kids destroy it with baseball bats, spray paint, and tire irons. This is their “entertainment” for the evening — a way to get kids to “come to church.”
I’ve seen pastors dress up like Hollywood movie characters, or the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. I’ve seen the bounce houses and carnival games and rock concerts… nowadays, they will do ANYTHING to get kids — AND ADULTS — to come to church, and KEEP coming to church… KEEP RIGHT ON filling those collection plates. Just don’t DARE tell them what the Bible REALLY says…. are you KIDDING? That’s MUCH too harsh. That’s no fun. Who would want to hear THAT?!
So when it comes to doing things of any real significance; when it comes to being SALT AND LIGHT and IMPACTING our society and culture with what our society and culture is in DESPERATE NEED OF — the TRUTH, for heaven’s sake — they are all AWOL… oh NO! They CAN’T “go there!” People don’t want to hear about sin and evil, or the consequences of sin and evil in their lives. They don’t want to be CONVICTED in their hearts. They want to be COMFORTED and entertained. And they call this “going to church.” Preach the WORD? Are you kidding? Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all LONGSUFFERING and DOCTRINE? WHO in the world wants THAT?! Endure afflictions for the sake of the Gospel? “NO, thank you. I’ll take a large coffee, please, and if it’s not too much trouble, please make sure the service is over with by noon, because we need to get home to watch the game.”
If you want to know why our world is the way it is, it’s because professing Christians have given up. It began at least a generation or two ago — and maybe longer. But at some point, we stopped taking God and His Word seriously. And the Great falling away began. Instead of serving CHRIST and HIS KINGDOM, we began seeking after things we perceived to be “good, fun, enjoyable, entertaining.” Instead of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, we BECAME the comfortable, …and we like it that way. So as for those old time preachers who just want to preach the “hard stuff,” “hit the road, Jack, we’ve decided to go a different direction.” Yes, indeed, they have.
Over the years I have known countless faithful men of God who have been run out of town by these congregations that no longer wish to hear the truth. I, myself, have been “disinvited” from more churches than I can count. But let me tell you about a friend of mine who has recently experienced this at his church in California. His name is Pastor Justin Hoke, and he is a faithful truth-teller, a watchman on the wall. He doesn’t allow political correctness to dictate his message. He speaks the WHOLE counsel of God’s Word — out of love for the lost, and to inform those who profess Christ of the spiritual culture war we are SUPPOSED to be fighting — as we stand our ground against the enemy and his demons.
He recently put a message on his church sign stating common sense, simply TRUTH. The sign read: “Bruce Jenner is still a man. Homosexuality is still sin. The culture may change. The Bible does not.” According to a news story by PulpitAndPen.org, LGBT activists swarmed the church recently, claiming the sign was “hateful.” They later vandalized the sign. And less than a week later, Pastor Hoke made the following announcement on his Facebook page:
“As of today, I am no longer the pastor of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church. After much prayer and counsel, I have decided that it is best to briefly communicate what has taken place. 1) I was informed by our other elder that he felt he could no longer follow my lead as pastor. 2) I was informed that essentially all but one couple in membership would leave the church if I continued as pastor. 3) Our other elder and the couple felt that those who left would likely return if I would leave.”
Pulpit And Pen commented, “Apparently, the public outrage was enough to cause discontent within the local congregation, which appears to value the opinion of men more than the Word of God. May it not be said of us.” I should note that this came after the pastor gave one of the most powerful sermons I’ve heard in a long time, entitled “Love Warns.” In his sermon, Pastor Hoke noted that to “accept and affirm” what the culture embraces, but which God’s Word calls abomination is NOT to love those trapped in sin; but rather WARNING the wicked of their need for repentance and forgiveness by the shed blood of Christ is the definition of truly LOVING your neighbor. It was an incredibly powerful message he gave. And then he was immediately tossed out of his role as pastor. For simply telling the TRUTH, straight from God’s Word.
I’m reminded of the prophet Jeremiah, known as the “weeping prophet,” because he wept for the nation of Israel. God sent him to declare His Word and Truth to the people, and sound the warning regarding all their iniquities. But the people did NOT want to hear. Instead they demanded, “Jeremiah, tell us something GOOD for once… tell us what we want to hear!”
Let’s read just a little bit from chapter 7 as God explains things to Jeremiah: “But this command I gave them: ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all My servants the prophets to them, day after day. Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their necks. They did worse than their fathers.”
And so God continued, “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.”
Does that not sound like America today? Truth has perished. It’s DEAD! Evil is called “good” and good is called “evil” and we LIKE it that way. And anyone who DARES defy the celebration of sodomy or speak TRUTH on this matter is virtually crucified by all — even those you would THINK would be on your side — the “church” people. Indeed, we are at a place and time now where even those who profess to be people of God will no longer endure sound doctrine. Instead, they heap up for themselves teachers who tell them what they prefer to hear.
I can tell you, from PERSONAL experience, being a watchman on the wall puts a target on your back — for Satan to aim at, AND, sadly today, for many church-goers to aim at as well. You WILL be persecuted for speaking truth. It is SO SAD realizing just how many — I dare say, the VAST MAJORITY of regular church-goers today — have NO IDEA what the Scriptures actually say; nor do they have any intention of finding out, of “studying to show themselves approved.” They would rather just attend the weekly meetings at their local “Religious Service Provider” … as long as it’s a message that makes them feel good about THEMSELVES.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “IF YOU HOLD TO MY TEACHING, you are really My disciples. THEN you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” You see, every church-goer claims to want to follow Jesus — until they find out where He’s taking them. If the truth be told, they don’t really want Jesus, nor do they want His TRUTH. They just want the benefits. They just want to feel good. But apart from Jesus you can’t even know the truth… and unless you HOLD to His teaching, you are not His disciples at all. So if you’re not serious about being His disciple, then by calling yourself a “Christian” — you are actually taking the Lord’s name in vain. So stop it. America is in the midst of serious judgment. We are a nation of depraved minds. God has sent strong delusion upon our people because we refused to hear and heed His Word.
If you want to know WHY the world is in such a mess, I can tell you. We have deserted our Heavenly Father, and shunned His Son. America will never be great again, unless we turn back to God, — who promises if we do, THEN He will heal our hearts and our minds, and our land. America needs Jesus. And men and women of true faith and courage, willing to preach the Word — in season and out. Reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and SOUND doctrine. Unfortunately, in our world today, TRUTH sounds like HATE, because our people hate the truth…
Posted with permission of the author.
© 2019 Rob Pue, Publisher
WISCONSIN CHRISTIAN NEWS
PO Box 756
Marshfield, WI 54449
(715) 486-8066
www.WisconsinChristianNews.com
They Destroy Everything They Touch, Volume 2 – Scott McKay
Now it’s Nike the social justice warrior crowd has set ablaze. Plus, various items from hither and yon.
“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” That’s the caption attached to a gritty, black and white picture of Colin Kaepernick in the publicity marquee of Nike’s new marketing campaign announced Friday, a corporate branding decision which will be studied in business schools for decades along with New Coke and the Edsel as What Not To Do.
Nike’s decision to turn Kaepernick, the National Anthem-defiling, skills-atrophying, cellar-dwelling Social Justice Warrior ex-quarterback who last played NFL football with the then 2-14 San Francisco 49ers in 2016, into its latest corporate product pitch man was announced over the Labor Day weekend, and on Tuesday when the New York Stock Exchange got its first opportunity to weigh in on it the results weren’t good. Nike’s stock closed Tuesday at $79.60, though it did rise a bit in after-hours trading. That was a pretty serious bath from the $82.20 at which the stock closed on Friday before word leaked of Kaepernick’s contract — a loss of 3.16 percent of its value, or more than $3.5 BILLION in market capitalization.
There’s a great, though underrated, Cameron Crowe movie from 2005 named Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom as a Portland athletic shoe designer whose big idea results in a marketing disaster which nearly wipes out the multinational company he works for. Bloom’s character is not-unsurprisingly fired at the beginning of the movie, and what follows is his soulful journey back from the personal brink. The guess here is Elizabethtown is likely going to be a hot rental in Portland over the coming weeks as many of the marketing geniuses responsible for flying Kaepernick’s stupid social justice warrior standard atop Nike’s flagpole get a similar treatment to Bloom’s Drew Baylor in the movie.
How can it be otherwise? Kaepernick has already laid waste to one American corporate giant’s market share, almost single-handedly tubing the NFL’s TV ratings by double-digits through his idiotic kneeling histrionics during the national anthem, and though he’s been out of the league for more than a year now many of those fans are not rushing back. It could well be that Kaepernick has done significant permanent damage to a brand many thought indestructible before he came along.
And Nike has now embraced that contagion. And why? After all, Nike’s brand was made through affiliation with the best of the world’s athletes — Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, and many more at the top of their games. Now? Nike’s brand will be Shoes For Losers.
After all, Kaepernick’s fall from status as one of the NFL’s top young quarterbacks to that of whiny political poseur incapable of winning football games and losing focus on his craft has made him toxic to NFL owners, who can’t justify the distraction he presents against the upside that he might offer as a backup quarterback — and because of that he’ll not likely play in the league again. But let’s not consider him any sort of martyr, because he most certainly isn’t. It should be remembered that Kaepernick wasn’t blackballed by the NFL, as he’s alleging in his new lawsuit against the league. Both San Francisco and the Denver Broncos offered him contracts as a backup quarterback last year and he turned them down. That isn’t sacrifice; it’s arrogance. He made himself toxic as the face of a franchise, and he furthermore didn’t pursue the opportunity to play in the Canadian Football League, where he could have reclaimed his promise as a top-level quarterback (particularly given the style of play north of the border).
In other words, Kaepernick is a loser as a pro athlete — because he lacks the focus of the other greats on whose success the Nike brand is built. As Jordan famously said when asked about his apolitical stance as an athlete and product pitchman, “Republicans buy basketball shoes, too.” Williams, Woods, and so many others built their personal athletic brands on being soft-spoken on matters political, which is one reason Nike grew to such immense popularity and market share. That’s all gone with this decision.
It’s the kind of action no good businessperson would ever take. But it most certainly is the kind of thing the social justice warrior crowd who increasingly populate the decision-making positions in corporate America can be expected to do.
Again, why? The answer is something we said in our last entry in this space: because the Left is a political movement made up by and for people incapable of doing a good job at honest work.
And because of that, when you allow the social justice crowd a foot in the door they will soon destroy the entire institution. If they can take down the Catholic Church, after all, how hard is it for them to wipe out Nike?
While Nike’s stock was tanking on Tuesday, so was any semblance of decorum in the Senate, as the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee — including the potential 2020 presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who apparently achieved her position largely on the strength of her reputed former status as Willie Brown’s “side piece” — followed through on a planned attempt to disrupt Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. And the Democrats’ foot soldiers in the audience proceeded to show their collective derrières with a cacophony of heckling, sign-holding, and farcical costume displays.
Exactly how this is supposed to affect Kavanaugh’s confirmation beyond making the Republican majority more resolute in passing his nomination to the Senate floor is a mystery. One has the strong feeling all political activism in America now, and particularly on the Democrat side, can be reduced to the simple acting-out of children.
But when children act out, typically they are punished. We’ll see if the voters are turned off enough by the anti-Kavanaugh idiocy Tuesday to deliver approbation on Election Day in November.
This article appeared here.
Who Cares? Why Don’t We? The Attack On Western Civilization, Part 1 – Frosty Wooldridge
Part 1: What’s happening to America by its own hand: immigration, cultural chaos via diversity and multiculturalism
Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall, and that, “An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”
This series provides a poignant and far-reaching interview with Bromwell Ault, 90, Yale graduate and author of: Who Lost America? He penetrates the reasons for America’s spiraling downfall into multiculturalism, diversity, endless immigration and population overload. He offers an extraordinary depth of understanding of America’s predicament from seven decades of observations on the world stage.
I have spoken with him for hours on this subject. He brings extraordinary wisdom, understanding, and comprehension of America’s predicament.
Ault relates his thoughts as to the changes sweeping over America:
We mention these enormous changes in our society and technology in the brief period of the last half-century because we have recently entered into another period of similarly far-reaching change with the potential to devastate our values, completely alter our culture and turn America away from the destiny which past generations imagined would be theirs and strove to attain. These threats are real and have been enabled by our educational, cultural and political avoidance.
There are multiple factors that contribute to the lassitude that has gripped our government, corrupted our political class and turned the type of national unity we have been able to call upon in the past into a distant memory. If we cannot regain our past ability to view ourselves and function as one nation, then the American dream — however, it is deemed — will no longer exist.
And our time frame is shrinking more rapidly than we can know from the information or opinions provided by our government and/or MSM. It is this rapidly contracting time for corrective action that has given rise to this series of chapters we call The Attack on Western Civilization (WCIV).
America is the youngest and strongest member of what we refer to as WCIV — a mixture of thought, art, religion, government, politics, music, science, commerce, genetics and population with pre-Christian origins in the cultures of Greece and Rome. As war between the various western European states was a constant for centuries, unity was an infrequent experience, most notably exercised to turn back Muslim invasions at Tours, Vienna and the Crimea and to recapture the Christian Holy Land via the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries; and in more modern times to deny the designs for conquest and territorial acquisition by Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler and Stalin.
Europe’s monarchies controlled its power until they self-destructed in the failing values and leadership of World War I (WW I). Their system did not allow for real unity because power could shift instantly due to birth, death, marriage, insanity, religion, as well as the usual state causes such as the expansion of commerce, territory, and population.
It became clear that this beautiful, glimmering sense of unity needed determined leadership and improvement to survive in the massive rebuilding of Europe after WW II. And although Europe has been strengthened by new methods and institutions, old ways and memories persist because they have been tried and hardened and have endured centuries of history and conflict. Even so, European unity pales beside that which the U.S. displayed so powerfully in the two great wars of the 20th century. The reason lies in our origin when the first step in becoming a free nation required surrendering our colonial identities of almost 200 years, and establishing the unity that allowed our founders dreams of freedom, honor, and equality to survive and be passed on to future generations.
While we have departed from our WCIV forbears in many ways, our culture is predominantly the same. Our language, law, dress, religion, food, history, music, literature, architecture, and science have European roots and branches onto which we have grafted our own forms for over 200 years. Some have been beautiful, others offensive; but culture, like history, is a long span, an endless game in which we participate only brie y. It thanks us, or not, for our contributions; it uses them, or not, as it prefers. We have been privileged to have a part in it, and we have taken pride in that part.
We have gone into some detail because culture, history, unity and other elements of WCIV are now under global attack and, once again, if we in the West are to defend ourselves, America will have to lead. The peril we face is one of many parts, as are the problems that it will increasingly force upon us. In this, we will describe the background and the threats that we must confront. And we will outline what we must do and how it should be done. For Matters of Conscience, this will require a transformative editorial move away from commentary towards activism which we would not consider unless the stakes were as high as they are.
Contact: Bromwell Ault, www.CenterforPublicConscience.org
© 2018 Frosty Wooldridge – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Frosty: frostyw@juno.com