THE COMING CHANGES IN AMERICAN LIFE--Violent Revolution or Change of a More Subtle Kind?

CURRENT AND SCARYWhy are gun sales so increased since the last election? Can folks with a Judeo-Christian worldview live with homosexuals who demand approval from all their neighbors?

For some time now there has been a sense among regular folk in my part of the country that our nation needs fixed and the solution can't be affected politically. Freedom for folks with traditional values is the issue.

Sound far out? As you may recall, last December the world was introduced to Russian scholar, Igor Panarin. Panarin has been predicting for ten years the possibility that the war of words and ideas between secularists and Judeo-Christian religionists in America concerning social values, morals, and worldviews will turn into a victory for the secularists, meaning a moral collapse and civil war in 2010. (1)

Might Panarin's notion simply be a reheated rant from Nikita Khrushchev, who predicted the US would fall from its own decadence? Maybe, but in Panarin's defense, he's a respected scholar and in the past few months we've seen the lives and safety of those who voted for Proposition 8 in California threatened by homosexual activists. (2) (3) (4) (5) In Montana, there's a new law passed by the legislature, awaiting the decision of the governor, banning the Federal government from control, registration, or even knowledge of the production and ownership of firearms within the state's borders if those firearms are produced and remain inside Montana. (6) (7) Think the implications of that one through. Whether or not the new law will survive the court challenge or the Supreme Court will again deny the States and their citizens their constitutional right to defend themselves from each other, foreigners, or a tyrannical government who wants to tell us how to eat, think, and raise our kids, it's an indication that something serious is afoot or at least that some would want it to be so. (It's sad when bad things happen to good sentences.) This would go a long way toward doing away with any Federal gun control and it could possibly decentralize the production of weapons, leading to all sorts of freedom and technological innovation in that area sans Federal snoopervision.

Finally, by way of bolstering the case for the Panarin scenario, the Federal government's Department of Homeland Security, under the new administration, has declared to all law enforcement that individuals who tend to vote and live conservatively are enemies of the state, likely to be dangerous, and should be watched. (8) This isn't racial profiling. It's political and religious profiling. America, the land of the surveilled, home of those brave enough to report their neighbors for what they read, think, and watch?

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
I think Panarin is unnecessarily exact with his time line, but accurate in his assessment of current trends. The choices are three.

1. Continue on the path toward secularization or polytheism. (I'll explain that later.)

2. A revival of religion--not necessarily Christianity. (I'll explain that, too.)

3. Civil war or cessation of parts of the country.

We are on a train toward civil war or cessation. And that train can only be stopped by choices 1 or 2.

The trends toward polytheism and secularization are actually two paths to one place and that's why I see them as both compatible and essentially serving the same end. The goal of both is the end of the Judeo-Christian worldview. As long as there is no longer an insistence on biblical ethics in public policy, education, and entertainment secularists are happy. The secularists aren't as secular as they are anti-Christian. Hence, the puzzling attitude of atheists and the ACLU toward other religions is explained.

This is what I mean: If one prays a Christian prayer in school, secularists complain. If, however, there's a class requiring the kids to role play and do Muslim things or Wiccan things, that's okay.

Practical polytheism achieves the same thing. Modern Evangelical player Ravi Zacharias recently prayed at the National Prayer Breakfast. He was asked to not name the name of Jesus. He complied and prayed a prayer that fits with just about any religion. Like the Romans we are now being required by the tolerance-Nazis to be polytheistic at least in our outward actions. You can be a Christian, but don't say Jesus is the only way. As long as you do that, the secularists will leave you somewhat alone.

And so, atheists and theological liberals and other non-Christian religionists are comrades working toward the same end with different tools.

A revival of religion could again unify the nation, but Christianity isn't likely to be the religion that does it. That's the point of the polytheism we see today. Most of us would like to stay religious, but without all the moral restrictions biblical Christianity demands. American Evangelicalism is dead, both spiritually and as a meaningful movement. In its place practical polytheism has rushed in, allowing religion without distinction. Spirituality's okay. So is faith. The problem with that is any intellectually amorphous system of thought can't be effectively transferred to the next generation for four reasons.

First, under the currently ascending secularism/polytheism males have no defined role and many rebel in order to exercise masculinity outside of the prescribed bounds or replace that worldview with one that makes a role for males. Either usually leads to a masculinity that is exaggerated and grotesque, likely to be violent, sexually outrageous, or both. Hence, today we see many young men moving toward Islam, a religion that, if nothing else positive, is very masculine. And who has moved there the most? African American men. That makes sense because they have been excluded from the main stream of society much more than most other groups, though that has changed and is still changing.

Second, the youth can't find inspiration and motivation in a belief system that has no sharp edges. What young person with leadership potential wants to be distinctly indistinct? Or, who will follow the nebulously undefined? And who among us is attracted to ideas that have little content or illogical content? Most have no inclination to cheerleading when no team is on the field.

Third, it's actually very hard to pass on a body of knowledge without cognitive handles. And this may be of as much importance as the other three factors in this list. That is to say a belief system whose ideas have been dulled in order to be as inoffensive as possible is actually hard to communicate. And anything that is hard to communicate because it's extremely conceptual is hard to remember. The transfer from person to person is difficult even if the motivation is high.

Fourth, those who may be eligible to enter such a worldview will lack motivation for the simple reason that a worldview which has been designed or modified in order to be acceptable to others currently outside it usually says a lot of what those others outside it already believe. It has to or it would offend them. If nothing I say is new or different to my hearers, why will they listen?

The simple answer is they won't. They already believe what they're now hearing. This forgets the dictum that says any publicity is good publicity, as the current rise of Islam in the West so succinctly attests. So, go ahead and offend. At least you'll be heard.

Those four reasons are why practical polytheism, including the different forms of liberal Christianity, will have a short shelf life and even while it's still in force, it lacks the character to enforce morality of any kind, except a mindless tolerance of all things non-Christian even if it means great harm to society. (Christianity is the greatest evil to them.) So, while secularization and/or practical polytheism may stop the rush to a violent end to the America we once knew, it won't long stand without being replaced by another religion, tyranny, or civil breakdown of some sort.

Panarin is right for now. However, the problem with extrapolating current trends into future predictions is it assumes that all existing trends will continue essentially unchanged until the end state is achieved.

But then, I don't see the brake pedal. Do you?

In Christ,
Phil Perkins.

(1) http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/world/15011-russian-professor-forecasts-us-break-up-
(2) http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6479861
(3) http://thenextright.com/proud2b4family/hate-on-8-recipient-of-prop-8-death-threat-blogs-the-experience
(4) http://www.worldmag.com/webextra/14613
(5) http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/mar2009/prop8-donors-fear.html
(6) http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/04/29/greenslade.htm
(7) http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2009/01/22/montana-brings-a-gun-10th-amendment-to-a-knife-interstate-commerce-fight/
(8) http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/041609_extremism.pdf