“The culture wars are being fought in virtually every sphere of life—government, business, law, politics, commerce, education, the sciences, media, the arts, entertainment, religion, marriage, family, health care, and popular culture to name just a few. Each of these spheres produces seemingly unrelated instances of cultural conflict. Yet, it is in the accumulation of such present-day moments of conflict that we gain an understanding and direction of the cultural drift. The purpose of these posts and the books I have written is to participate in the redemption of culture in all institutions of American life through sharing the truth of the biblical worldview which was at the heart of the nation’s founding and formed the central cultural vision by which it is to be governed.
Over the last 15 years I have written and posted many articles about American culture from the perspective of the biblical worldview. Therefore, I have selected a few of the posts that continue to offer time-tested answers to the questions of life and the turmoil found in modern society that we encounter every day.”
Larry G. Johnson
Helicopter government – Part I – A Nation of Wimps
Back in the late 1980s the term helicopter parenting came into vogue to describe a style of parenting in which overprotective parents discourage a child’s independence by being too involved with the child’s life. In other words, a helicopter parent hovers over a child like a helicopter, ready to swoop in at the first sign that their child may face a challenge or discomfort.[1] According to Dr. Robert Hudson, a clinical professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Center for Resilience at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, there are four ways helicopter parenting manifests itself: overprotecting, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. Each of these types of parenting has serious consequences for the child.[2] A nation of wimps Bad things happen to everyone in life, […]
Would Jefferson label the modern Judiciary as the “Despotic Branch”?
George Will is one of the brightest and most articulate columnists on the national scene (Washington Post Writers Group). I normally savor every one of his appearances on the opinion page. This is why I am disturbed by Will’s false and malicious criticism of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (“Huckabee’s ‘appalling’ crusade for nullification”).[1] Will is a huge fan and student of baseball and occasionally writes a column on the subject. Using a baseball analogy, Will must know that his column’s pitches at Huckabee were not only far outside the strike zone but that they were intended as bean balls meant to injure and harm Huckabee. This disappoints because Will has not lowered himself to such levels in past columns that I have read. Will claims […]
Why are democracies unraveling around the world?
There are few columnists with which I disagree more on almost all issues than E. J. Dionne (Washington Post Writers Group). In a recent column titled “Is democracy unraveling around the world?” Dionne implies that many of the world’s democracies are dysfunctional and unraveling.[1] However, his conclusions as to “why” this is happening and the solutions offered are not only wrong but are oblivious to the real cause of societal dysfunction in democracies. Dionne points to a 2013 survey in which “…63 percent of Americans said government should be doing more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, but 59 percent also believed government had grown bigger because it had become involved in things people should do for themselves.”[2] Dionne believes that […]
Are Christianity and Islam morally equivalent? – Part IV
Modern trashing of the Crusades, Christianity, and Western civilization We began Part I with President Obama’s description of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant) as a distorted and deviant form of Islam. But he immediately suggests a moral equivalency of Christianity with ISIL, slavery in America, and past racism in the South.[1] But the President’s denigration of Christianity and the Crusades are not a new phenomenon. The historical explanations of how and why the first Crusade began have been perverted by historians, academia, liberal politicians, and others hostile to Christianity for three hundred years. Their new interpretation is much more sinister and contemptuous. This cynical view of the Crusades has been widely disseminated by the progressive education movement in America which wrested education from […]
Are Christianity and Islam morally equivalent? – Part III
Muslim conquests and demise of the Islamic empire In Part I the origins and explosive growth of the Islamic empire in the seventh and eighth centuries were described. Muslim domination of its distant empires waxed and waned over the course of its twelve centuries of war on the world. In 1672, the forces of the Muslim caliph Mu-Awiyah (previously mentioned in Part II) ruling from his capital in Damascus decided to attack Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (today known as Istanbul). Sailing from the Syrian coast, Muslim ships entered the Dardanelles and moved north through the narrow strait that connects the Mediterranean with the Marmara Sea. At the north end of the Dardanelles lay Constantinople, gateway to the Balkans from which a Muslim […]