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Gridlock – Governmental stalemate arising from a deeper cultural divide

Posted by :admin On : December 5, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Constitution, Government, Progressivism

Gridlock is a favorite bogeyman of journalists, columnists, and commentators in recent years, especially following national elections. They may as well save their breath and barrels of printer’s ink for the political divide has never been wider and deeper. Perennial prescriptions of non-partisanship and cooperation disappear as quickly as the morning mist following Election Day. One must ask if political polarization always results in gridlock which is shorthand for the inability of government to govern effectively. A cursory review of American history reveals many times of intense polarization, but the country and its government survived. Why was that possible then and not possible now? An examination of one of the defining moments in our nation’s history suggests an answer.

The fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention had labored through the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. Their efforts to draft a constitution for the fledgling nation were floundering and near failure amidst bitter debate and hostile feelings. On June 28th, eighty-one year old Benjamin Franklin rose to his feet and addressed General Washington who served as Convention president and the other 54 delegates. Here we recite only portions of this perhaps nation-saving speech.

Mr. President:

The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other—our different sentiments on almost every question…is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding.

In this situation of the assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God Governs in the affairs of men…

We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages…I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business…[1]

Franklin noted on the bottom of his copy of the speech that the convention, except for three or four, thought prayers were unnecessary.[2] But he was wrong. Jonathan Drayton, delegate from New Jersey, reported the response of the convention.

The Doctor sat down; and never did I behold a countenance at once so dignified and delighted as was that of Washington at the close of the address; nor were the members of the convention generally less affected.[3]

Upon motion of James Madison, seconded by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Franklin’s appeal for prayer was approved by the delegates who further voted that at the request of the Convention a sermon be preached on July 4th and thereafter prayers be used in the Convention every morning.[4]

On June 30, two days after his speech, Franklin would help set in motion events that would break the impasse and ultimately help shape the new nation.[5] John Drayton noted a profound change in the convention as they assembled on July 2nd. “We assembled again; and …every unfriendly feeling had been expelled, and a spirit of conciliation had been cultivated.”[6]

The entire delegation assembled at the Reformed Calvinistic Church on July 4th to hear a sermon preached by Reverend William Rogers. Rogers prayed that the delegates would be favored “…with thy inspiring presence, be their wisdom and strength; enable them to devise such measures as may prove happy instruments in healing all divisions and prove the good of the great whole…” He closed with, “May we…continue, under the influence of republican virtue, to partake of all blessings of cultivated and Christian society.”[7] God answered Rogers’ request. On September 17, 1787, the delegates approved the Constitution of the United States of America. This was not the first of many instances of God’s providence in the founding and preservation of the nation amidst polarizing events and difficulties including the greatest threat of all—the Civil War that divided the nation not only politically but also divided families and friends.

In reality, the political divide in the nation’s first 150 years was probably more dramatic then than it is today. So what makes modern political divisiveness more intractable than that of our forebears?

The fundamental divide in America goes far deeper than mere political polarization and gridlock. This divide is the result of the ascendance of a humanistic worldview that believes that “change and progress are the law of life.” To maintain progress, America must be unshackled from the past. On the other side of the divide are those who are concerned with the nature of man and values.[8] It is on this side we find the central cultural vision of the colonial Americans, the Founders, and most Americans since then.

The collective consciousness of those early Americans was essentially Christian in the way they saw the world. Man was fallen but redeemable. Their values were fixed by timeless truths found both in the natural law and the revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. Even though Franklin and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were mired in deep philosophical disagreements regarding the details of founding a nation, the Christian worldview held by virtually all of the delegates defined their basic beliefs and informed their deliberations which made possible compromise and success in creating a document that reflected their understanding of timeless values and the nature of man.

For those who believe that change and progress are the fundamental forces for directing life, it is essential that the Founders’ central cultural vision and values be discarded. In their central cultural vision, man is not fallen. He need not look to any god or the supernatural for solutions to his problems for those solutions come only through man’s reason and scientific advancement. As man progresses, values must change to reflect the times and accommodate current attitudes and situations.

The problem with the worldview of progress and change is that it violates the essential requirements that define a viable and sustainable culture. The essence of culture is to give allegiance to a center of authority that reflects moral codes and laws whereby it enforces what it believes is right and good for society. In other words, a culture must have a unifying central vision of how things ought to work, what’s important, its moral values, and what must be included and what must be excluded from that culture.

The progressive view of culture is essentially disintegrative because it has no unifying, cohesive central vision for it, by definition, produces multiple centers of cultural vision. Progressives attempt to create coherence and cohesiveness among these multiple centers of vision by substituting falsely defined concepts such as diversity, equality, and other egalitarian ideals as the cultural center of authority. However, these concepts do not resonate with man’s innate understanding of truth and freedom and fail to answer the basic questions of life. Therefore, these humanistic concepts inevitably lead to tensions and frictions, are inherently divisive, and result in cultural disintegration.

These tensions and frictions are most evident in the modern political arena and result in gridlock. Present day political polarization has become insurmountable because the conflict flows from fundamental differences in our basic beliefs that can’t be compromised without destroying who we claim to be as individuals and as a nation. And it is in these basic differences of belief that we see the flashpoints in the culture wars which include abortion, same-sex marriage, and homosexuality.

For over 150 years America overcame its political polarization and gridlock because its citizens and leaders were guided by a single cultural vision. Now, many of the leaders in the nation’s spheres of influence adhere to and promote a humanistic view of life in which God is a myth and man is the master of his own destiny. From such beliefs come political solutions that conflict with the central cultural vision that has been held by most Americans for three hundred years (colonial Americans, Founders, and most citizens since then). And without the cohesive and coherent central cultural vision of the Founders, there is no firm foundation upon which America’s leaders can overcome political polarization and gridlock. In Franklin’s words, they have become “the builders of Babel.”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc.1996), pp. 248-249.
[2] Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin – An American Life, (New York, Simon & Schuster), 2003), p. 452.
[3] Federer, p. 249.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Isaacson, p. 452.
[6] Federer, p. 250.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), pp. 4-5.

“Workplace violence” comes to Canada

Posted by :admin On : November 21, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Government, Humanism, Islam, Worldview

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as “…violence or the threat of violence against workers. It can occur at or outside the workplace and can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicide, one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide.” The OSHA website also tells us that workplace violence can strike anywhere and anyone…people in homes, pizza delivery persons, gas meter readers, psychiatric evaluators…literally anywhere work is or can be done.[1] But OSHA’s definition is so broad that it is meaningless. Almost any violence can be classified as connected to the workplace however tenuous that connection might be. Not only does OSHA mask the real reasons for much of the violence, but it magnifies the level of workplace violence by equating minor non-violent and non-criminal occurrences with violent crimes such as physical assault and murder. Effectively, a large segment of general societal violence is jury-rigged to the workplace and made the responsibility of employers. The assumptive language of OSHA’s workplace violence regulations is that all such violence is workplace related.

OSHA’s workplace violence rules were written long before November 5, 2009, when Army Major Nidal Hasan shot to death thirteen people (fourteen including the unborn child of one of the victims) and wounded thirty-two others at Fort Hood, Texas. Major Hasan committed these crimes after years of open and verbal support of Islamic jihad while serving as an Army officer. Hasan is an American-born Muslim who had exchanged emails with a leading Al-Qaeda personage in which Hasan asked if those attacking fellow soldiers were considered martyrs.[2] Hasan fired over 200 rounds in the killing spree while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” which means “Allah is the Greatest” and is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer as prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Only four days after the shootings at Fort Hood, General George Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army, appeared on several Sunday news talk shows and expressed concern regarding the speculation as to the cause or motivation behind the shootings. “We have to be careful because we can’t jump to conclusions now based on little snippets of information that have come out. As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.” (emphasis added) Not only was the general more concerned with protecting diversity than exposing the truth regarding the attack, he deliberately switched the focus of what happened when he said that he did not think there was currently discrimination against the estimated 3,000 Muslims who served in the Army at that time. Implicit in the General’s unwarranted statement was that if Hasan had acted because of his religious beliefs, it would have been because of discrimination against Muslims within the Army.[3]

Forty-six people were killed or wounded just three days earlier on an Army base whose supreme commander was General Casey. The perpetrator was a Muslim who shouted “Allahu Akbar” and had a well-known history among his military peers and superiors of being in sympathy with and vocally supporting Islamic jihad. However, the general’s greatest concern was for discrimination against Muslims in the military and not the families of the dead and those wounded by Hasan. It is incredibly naïve for anyone to believe the general did know the complete story of Nidal Hasan within hours of the killings and not just little snippets of information.

So the United States government saw to it that Hasan’s crimes were labeled “workplace violence” as opposed to what it really was…an act of terror whose motivation was to advance the beliefs and purposes of a false religion. Workplace violence may describe the location, but it does not reveal the cause or motivation of the violence. Government leadership committed to the philosophy of humanism must at all costs defend its humanistic concepts of diversity and multiculturalism in which moral relativism rules and all belief systems are coexisting and equally valid. Thus, we can all rest well tonight because diversity has been defended and OSHA is churning out even more rules and regulations to combat “workplace violence” such as committed by Major Hasan.

Recently, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a thirty-two year old Muslim convert, shot and killed a ceremonial guard on his way to attack the Canadian House of Commons and was subsequently killed by guards. Humanism in Canada is even more advanced than in the United States, but Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the courage to call the assault on the House of Commons a terrorist attack. However, true to liberalism’s humanistic roots, liberal leader Justin Trudeau quickly reassured the Muslim community.

And to our friends and fellow citizens in the Muslim community, Canadians know acts such as these committed in the name of Islam are an aberration of your faith. Continued mutual cooperation and respect will help prevent the influence of distorted ideological propaganda posing as religion. We will walk forward together, not apart.[4] (emphasis added)

According to Muslim tradition, the Quran was verbally spoken to Muhammad and is the mother document upon which Islam rests. One wonders how Zehaf-Bibeau’s actions are a deviation from the Islamic faith when the words of the Quran repeatedly justify his actions. Two examples of many similar verses that justify Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack are found in the Quran.

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.[5] [Surah 4:89. Quran]

Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): “I am with you, give firmness to the believers: I will instil [sic] terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.[6] [Surah 8:12. Quran]

Are these verses, which are consistent with the actions of Zehaf-Bibeau, distorted ideological propaganda as Trudeau would have us believe? The Quran either does or does not define Islam and direct the actions of its followers? If they are reflective of the Quran’s instruction for conduct of the followers of Islam, the verses cannot be distorted ideological propaganda. If the verses are not reflective of proper conduct for the followers of Islam, how does a follower of Islam determine which verses of the Quran are to be followed and which must be considered distorted ideological propaganda?

The philosophy of humanism would have us believe that all belief systems are equally valid. If all belief systems are not equally valid, then the tenets of humanism are fundamentally flawed including humanistically defined concepts of diversity and multiculturalism which are embraced by General Casey and most of the leadership of the institutions of American life. When common sense and thousands of years of human experience expose the falsity of the humanistic worldview, its defenders use the power of office and meaningless language such as “workplace violence” and bogus definitions of diversity and multiculturalism to mask its failings.

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.[7]

…the humanist multicultural agenda reveals that multiculturalism is not intended to supplement but rather to supplant Western culture that is so steeped in Christianity. The attack on Western civilization comes through a dismissal of American religious values as they intersected with and made possible the rise of the American political system…The essence of multiculturalism has its roots in the denial of absolutes, one of the cardinal doctrines of humanism, which translates into a moral relativism. Such a values-free approach, according to the humanists, makes it impossible to judge one period or era in relation to another or to say that one culture’s ethic is superior to another.[8]

The American experience since the first Europeans set foot on its eastern shores has been centered on a Christian understanding of the world. America became the greatest nation in the world because it was founded upon principles based upon that understanding.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] OSHA Fact Sheet, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2002.
https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/factsheet-workplace-violence .pdf (accessed November 5, 2014).
[2] Billy Kenber, “Nidal Hasan sentenced to death for Fort Hood shooting rampage,” Washington Post, August 28, 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html (accessed November 5, 2014).
[3] Lindy Kyzer, “Gen. Casey on the strength of our diversity,” Army Live, U.S. Army, November 8, 2009.
http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/11/gen-casey-on-the-strength-of-our-diversity/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[4] Erika Tucker, “Soldier killed in what Harper calls ‘terrorist attack’ in Ottawa,” Global News, October 22, 2014. http://globalnews.ca/news/1628313/shots-fired-at-war-memorial-in-ottawa-says-witness/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[5] The Meaning of The Illustrious Qur-an, (Dar AHYA Us-Sunnah), p.49.
[6] Ibid., p. 98.
[7] 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, 2011), p 398.
[8] Ibid., pp. 189-190.

America’s malaise

Posted by :admin On : November 14, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Government, Humanism, Worldview

Malaise seems an inadequate word to describe what’s happening in and to America. Synonyms for “malaise” are sickness, illness, disease, disorder, anxiety, depression, and discontent. It appears all are needed to describe America’s mood and condition. One magazine cover reads, “Is the world falling apart?” [1] Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan laments the nation’s decline in a recent column titled “Things fall apart for many public institutions.” [2] He lists numerous examples of this brokenness in recent years including the Center for Disease Control’s fumbled response in protecting Americans from an Ebola epidemic; basic security breaches in protecting the president at and away from the White House; the invasion of the southern United States by 60,000 children and young people from Central America; the Obamacare rollout debacle; the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina in which 30,000 New Orleans residents were stranded for days; the strategic blunders by the president and civilian policy makers in handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; failing schools; skyrocketing national debt; deteriorating infrastructure; and political, racial, and cultural clashes. [3] And the list grows weekly.

Buchanan says that things were not always that way, and he raises the question: “What happened to us?” “Whatever happened to that can-do nation” that survived the Great Depression, armed itself and fought World War II over five years, and placed a man on the moon in ten years because we said we could do it? [4] Mr. Buchanan ends his column in dismay but offers no solutions. To Buchanan’s list we must also add the extreme societal devastation caused by the fracturing of the family structure which the late Senator Daniel Moynihan described as the he biggest change in the North Atlantic world that he observed in his forty years of government service and which happened in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” [5]

Something is profoundly wrong in America. The symptoms of the sickness are known and well-defined as shown above. The solutions put forth by politicians, bureaucrats, education professionals, scientists, sociologists and psychologists, economists and business professionals, and a host of others in the knowledge class generally treat only the symptoms with remedies that often seem to make matters worse while at the same time fail to diagnose the disease itself.

How do we determine what went wrong with America and why? To find the answer it makes sense to go back in history to a time when things were working, a time when America was unified and had confidence in the rightness of its central cultural vision? Once we find that point in time, we must ask ourselves what changed. A cursory examination of modern history in America quickly identifies that point in time as the 1960s and the emergence of the Boomer generation. What changed was a dramatic rejection by many in the Boomer generation of the values and central cultural vision of all preceding generations of Americans since their arrival as colonists in the early 1600s. A comparison of the Boomers and the Greatest Generation confirms the beginnings of America’s cultural divide.

Much has been written and said about the Greatest Generation, a term that has gained almost universal acceptance following Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation. For it was this generation that grew up during the deprivations of the Great Depression, fought a world war, persisted in blocking Soviet threats and aggression in a prostrate post-war world, and built the world’s greatest peacetime economy. Following the Allied victory in 1945, the United States stood at the pinnacle of world power. But unlike any other time in history, that generation acted not as victors but as a good and honorable people who poured their resources and energies into helping devastated nations and their starving peoples around the world. And, they didn’t retreat in the face of new dictators and despots as they fought the hot war in Korea and the cold war in other parts of the world, primarily against the USSR and its satellites. Following World War II, they married; went to schools, colleges, and universities in record numbers; and birthed approximately eighty million children who became known as the Baby Boomers. [6]

And through all of these deprivations, challenges, and monumental efforts, “They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.” [7] But, how do these values play out in twenty-first century America? Personal responsibility has been replaced by government responsibility for our health, wealth, happiness, and well-being. Duty is out of date and doesn’t resonate with the goal of self-actualization. It’s all about me, baby! Honor is no longer based on timeless standards and awarded on merit but is now a matter of personal opinion and popularity. And as to faith, the beliefs of the naïve and ignorant masses that still believe in the Christian God are tolerated as long as they do not share their faith in public nor practice that faith if it conflicts with the dictates of the state.

The challenge to the Judeo-Christian worldview by the Boomer elite is not a new occurrence. For hundreds of years a conflict has existed within Western civilization between those that believe in a transcendent God and those that do not. But, it was in the mid-twentieth century as each sphere of influence in American society began abandoning the Judeo-Christian central cultural vision under the onslaught of the purveyors of the humanistic worldview. The abandonment of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built became evident as the leaders of the Boomer generation took the reins of leadership in the institutions of American life and imposed their humanistic values upon the policies, practices, and standards of those institutions. What are those humanistic values and beliefs held by many Boomers in leadership? There is no God and no life after death. Nature is all there is, and man is merely the evolutionary product of nature. Man can solve his own problems through science and reason. Freedom of expression and civil liberties are paramount in all areas of life. Happiness, freedom, and progress are the goals of mankind. The focus of life is on self and self-development. Society requires extensive social programs to achieve the goals of humanism. [8] It is obvious that these humanistic values have little in common with the Greatest Generation’s values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.

Arguing from the Judeo-Christian worldview held by Americans from the Founders through the Greatest Generation, Christopher Badeaux describes the provision of order supplied by that worldview and the consequences of its abandonment in favor of the humanistic worldview.

The Lord made the Universe according to a set of hidden but largely discernable rules, and those rules produce specific, predictable outcomes once the rules and variables are known. Furthermore, all things are made ordered—oriented if you prefer—to not only the Lord, but also to decent and right outcomes…Our consciences and our natural inclinations are manifestations of this intrinsic order; disregarding them gives rise to disorder. Indeed, even doing things that are right and good can be taken to extremes that place one outside of that natural order. When we step outside of that order, as anyone who has lived with someone suffering through, say, anorexia or alcohol addiction can tell you, the disorder radiates outward in a spiderweb-crack pattern of pain. [9]

The problem with the humanistic worldview is that its prescriptions fail the test of what is required for a culture to survive. First, cultural unity and cohesiveness necessary for any society to survive can never be achieved through a dictatorial center of authority required by humanism. Second, humanism is inherently a false worldview because it steps outside the order of the universe. Therefore, it cannot answer the basic questions of life by which all people seek to understand the meaning and purpose of life.

With the ascendance of the humanistic worldview in society, the spiderweb-crack pattern of disorder and dysfunction radiates through every institution of American life. This is the reason our public institutions and the institution of family is falling apart, and polls consistently show that Americans believe that society is truly disordered and falling apart. Mr. Buchanan asked what changed America. Without doubt, what changed America was the humanistic leadership of the institutions of American life that abandoned the central cultural vision of the Founding Americans and every generation up to and including the Greatest Generation. It is only when Americans return to that central cultural vision whose foundation is Christianity that disorder will become order and America will began working again.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “Is the World Falling Apart?” World, October 4, 2014, Cover.
[2] Patrick Buchanan, “Things fall apart for many public institutions,” Tulsa World, October 28, 2014, A-11; Pat Buchanan, “Things fall apart,”
Creators.com, October 14, 2014. http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/things-fall-apart.html (accessed October 29, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[6] 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, 2011), p. 9.
[7] Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, (New York: Random House, 1998), p. xx.
[8] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), pp. 13-15.
[9] Christopher Badeaux, “Faith, Fear and Cormac McCarthy,” The City, Vol. 1, Issue 3, (Winter 2008), 84-85.

Progressive view of American history: The good old days were all bad.

Posted by :admin On : October 31, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Education, Progressivism, Truth

There seems to be few things that are exempt from the battlefields of the culture wars. The latest casualty is history…you know, the stuff that is learned in high school or at least what people used to learn in high school. But the history lessons taught in American schools for 200 years following the founding has been dumped by the education establishment in recent years. American history is no longer the grand story of American culture since the arrival of the first Europeans but has become a tool to promote the liberal political/cultural agenda. The nation’s history recorded by each generation’s citizens and eye-witness historians is an accurate record of America’s story. But now we have the latest two or three generations which claim the five hundred years of American history recorded by thousands of historians over the period is distorted and not reflective of the real story. Therefore, it must be trashed and replaced by a revised interpretation of history consistent with the current enlightened understanding of what really happened.

This approach to history is not new for it has been around since the early 1800s. It is called the Whig theory of history and is also known as the Progressive theory of history. This theory rests on the belief that the most advanced point in time represents the point of highest development. It assumes “…that history is an inevitable march upward into the light. In other words, step by step, the world always progresses, and this progress is inevitable.” [1] Thus, the historical record must be judged only in light of current beliefs, assumptions, and politics, all devoid of timeless truths, wisdom accumulated through the ages, tradition, and heritage. The roots of the Whig theory reach back to the humanistic concept of human perfectibility of the French philosophers which arose during the Age of Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. Known as progressivism, the theory contradicts the Christian view of man as having a fallen nature.

The progressive theory of history is alive and well in the twenty-first century halls of academia and the organizations that serve its needs. One of those organizations is the College Board whose membership is comprised of 6,000 institutions of higher education. Its mission is to expand access to higher education by helping students to achieve college readiness and college success through such programs as the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also acts in areas of research and advocacy for the education community. [2] It is in the College Board’s new Advance Placement course in history that dramatically advances the progressive view of history and which has caused considerable concern to many including the Texas State Board of Education and the Republican National Committee as well as some of the more conservative members of the Golden, Colorado school board.

The school board wants to review the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course which they believe contains significant anti-American content. The school board proposed to establish a committee to review texts and course plans to assure the course materials were balanced and “promote more citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and “don’t encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard for the law.” [3]

Now, who could argue with teaching that promotes a good citizenship and patriotism in a well-ordered and lawful society? Well, hundreds of students, parents, and teachers are bothered by such radical ideas and have been protesting the school board’s planned review for weeks. The protesters claim the board is attempting to change the course content to suit their views (what about the views of the people that elected them?). The College Board’s Advanced Placement history course content being taught for the first time this school year “gives greater attention to the history of North American and its native people before colonization and their clashes with Europeans, but critics say it downplays the settlers’ success in establishing a new nation.” The College Board stated that the course was built “around themes like ‘politics and power’ and ‘environment and geography’.” However, what is missing from the course framework is as significant as that which is included. For example, Martin Luther King isn’t mentioned, but the Black Panthers are. The Board explained that the content was not to be considered exhaustive, but one New Jersey teacher cut to the heart of the College Board’s unspoken agenda. He argues that the course “…has a global, revisionist view” and “depicts the U.S. as going from conquering Native Americans to becoming an imperial power, while downplaying examples of cooperation and unity.” [4]

To a large extent, Americans are a people that are ignorant of their history. Because they don’t know where they came from, they are unaware of the dangers into which the dominant humanistic worldview is leading America. This was not always so, and it has occurred by design and not by accident or neglect. The teaching of history falls within the sphere of education, and education has been in the hands of progressives for a hundred years. Of all of the institutions of life in America, the educational establishment is the one that is most saturated in the humanistic worldview which stands in direct opposition to the biblical worldview upon which the nation was founded.

The founder and architect of America’s progressive education was John Dewey who was bitterly hostile to Christianity and traditional Western thought. Dewey did not believe in the existence of God, supernatural religion, and life after death. Man was an evolutionary product and nature is all there is. The only thing that mattered was human self-realization through interaction with nature. On this foundation he built the progressive theory of education which emphasizes experience, observation, social responsibility, problem solving, and fitting in to society as opposed to centuries of traditional education by which is meant the acquisition of knowledge. [5] For progressives, the historical record holds little importance as a guide to the present and future unless it is used as the “horrible example” of America’s past sins for the purpose of leading ignorant citizens to surrender their values and freedom. From this denigration of American history, we see the obvious disconnect between progressive education and the traditional understanding of that history. If one holds the progressive view of history, the views of the present generation must be superior to those of past generations and by default superior to their concepts of timeless truths, ancestral wisdom, tradition, and heritage. In this denigration of America’s past, the progressive theories of education and history support and promote the larger all-encompassing philosophy of humanism which has been described in several earlier articles.

Ashley Maher is an eighteen year old Chatfield High School senior who helped organize the protests against the Golden school board’s plan to review the content of the Advance Placement history course. She assures that, “We are going to fight until we see some results.” [6] By “results,” it must be assumed she means that the school board’s desire to promote citizenship, patriotism, the free-market system, respect for authority, respect for individual rights, civil order, national unity, and respect for the law will be duly censored from any Advance Placement American history courses in Golden’s high schools. It would be interesting to hear Ms. Maher’s response to the question as to why her values and interpretation of American history are superior and should be taught while at the same time suppressing and/or misrepresenting the factual historical record about which she knows nothing. Following that moment of silence from Ms. Maher, it is also doubtful her parents or her Boomer grandparents peopling the picket lines could give a coherent, logical answer. Should they manage some sort of response, we counter with the words and actions of those eye-witnesses to American history: the Pilgrims and Puritans; colonial farmers and frontiersmen; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and the rest of the founding generations; Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the Abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln, the Doughboys of WWI and soldiers, sailors, and airmen of WWII, and millions of others who made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. For most modern-day Americans of the last three generations, it would be an answer they have not heard thanks to humanism’s revisionist view of American history and suppression of the historical record of our ancestors.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Progressive Theory of History,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, September 14, 2010. http://mises.org/daily/4708 (accessed October 28, 2014).
[2] College Board, https://www.collegeboard.org/about (accessed October 14, 2014).
[3] Colleen Slevin, “Colorado board backs review of curriculum,” Tulsa World, October 3, 2014, A9.
[4] Colleen Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” Tulsa World, October 4, 2014, A4.
[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, 2011), pp. 23-24, 289-290
[6] Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” A4.

Freedom

Posted by :admin On : July 4, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Humanism

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. So began the first steps in forming a new nation. It was a typically hot summer in Philadelphia in 1776. Day after day a group of men met to argue, pray, sweat, and wonder what would be the outcome of their deliberations. Eventually, the product of their labors was the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The wording of the revered document was approved on July 2nd by the Continental Congress, and on July 4th the delegates voted to accept it. What was so valuable that these men would risk their lives for it? It was freedom.

The word “freedom” is misused much as is the word “love.” Freedom’s meaning is misunderstood and has been stretched, changed, distorted, overused, cheapened, made merchandise, used to defend or promote conflicting purposes, and co-opted for support of principles and philosophies that are inherently in opposition to its real meaning.

Why is it that human beings value freedom so much? Before we can answer, we must realize that one’s worldview will ultimately define his or her understanding of the concept of freedom. If a worldview is fundamentally flawed in that it is in conflict with truth, that worldview’s concept of freedom will also be flawed and result in bondage of some type and degree. In Western civilization there are two worldviews contending for dominance—humanism and Christianity.

A Freedom that coerces

In the humanist worldview, man is encouraged to realize his own creative talents and desires and exercise maximum individual autonomy that is free from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. This freedom gives unbridled expression to self and senses. However, one must read the fine print in the humanists’ promises of freedom which requires individual autonomy to be consonant with social responsibility. Therefore, humanists harness an individual’s dignity, worth, and freedom to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the greatest-number which is hitched to the humanist belief that the highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole. Freedom of the individual is subservient to his obligations to the larger society, and those obligations are determined and defined by the humanist intellectual elite. In other words, man replaces God as the defining authority for truth, and man’s highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole and not to God.[1]

The source of true and lasting freedom

To understand the Christian worldview as it relates to freedom, we must examine God’s creation of man. Man was created with God’s divine image stamped upon him. Man has an insatiable thirst for freedom because God made man with freewill. It was necessary for man to have freewill in order for love to exist. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. By creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation would be the death of His Son on the cross. In other words freewill and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection.[2] Love is a choice because man has freewill, and true love reflects the divine in that it focuses on relationships and not self.

Now we begin to see the fundamental differences between humanism and Christianity that shape the disparities of how those worldviews define freedom. In the Christian worldview, freedom simply means a lack of coercion but also implies self-restraint and deference to relational patterns revealed in the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. True freedom is found only when an individual chooses a right relationship with God through the acceptance of Christ as one’s savior. In such relationship, man chooses to subordinate his own freewill to Christ, to accept Him, and to follow the road of freedom found in the revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. From this foundation of a right relationship with God, man can find right relationships with his fellowman in family, community, and state.

In a contrary view of freedom that exalts self, humanists attempt to release the individual from the relational patterns flowing from those same mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the subjugation of divinely ordered relational patterns to the god of self results in loneliness, pain, suffering, and loss in this life and eternity thereafter. In other words, true freedom is found in freely subduing one’s will to that of God’s will as opposed to the exaltation of self and the senses. Christ’s words in Luke’s gospel capture the essence of this seeming enigma.

…If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. [Luke 9: 23-24. RSV]

Freedom lost

In twenty-first century America, the god of self rules the day. America’s humanist masters have taken control of the nation and its institutions. Many Americans recognize there is something amiss with the country, but they take little time to look, listen, understand, and challenge the despoiling of America’s central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded. Americans are much like Esau who sold his valuable birthright for a bowl of stew, that is, he traded what was important, godly, and honorable for temporary pleasures. America’s hard-won two-hundred-plus year birthright of freedom is being willingly and rapidly surrendered to a growing legion of humanistic overlords in exchange for a bowl of entitlements, fleeting and licentious pleasures, self-centeredness, egotism, radical egalitarianism, imaginary rights, sloth, and an obsession for life-consuming leisure activities.

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. They were overwhelmingly Christian in worldview, and like God in His creation of man, the Founders knew the cost of freedom as revealed in the final words of the Declaration of Independence, “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”[3] (emphasis added)

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence paid a tremendous price for our freedom: 5 were arrested by the British as traitors, 12 had their homes looted and burned by the enemy, 17 lost their fortunes, 2 lost sons in the Continental Army, and 9 fought and died during the Revolutionary War.[4]

Edmund Burke’s famous observation of the eighteenth century still rings true today. “All that is necessary for the evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”[5] To defend America’s birthright of freedom, good and Godly men and women must once again depend on the providence of God and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to subdue the humanistic apostles of self that are enslaving the nation.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] 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, 2011), p. 389.
[2] Ibid, p. 158.
[3] Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History, (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1934), p. 102.
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 144.
[5] Ibid., p. 82.