by ProfDave, ©2024
(Aug. 29, 2024) — It was June 7, 1968, when I returned from Vietnam to a foreign country. The America I had known was gone. A child on the bus saw my uniform and accused me of shooting his kind (Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated the day before). I got that uniform off as soon as possible. A few months later, discharged from the Navy, I took my GI bill to the University of Minnesota. Clearly, as Dorothy put it, we were not in Kansas anymore. They were demonstrating, burning draft cards – and American flags – and occasionally closing down the campus. The dominant idea of democracy was that “40,000 Frenchmen (1789) Freshmen (1969) could not be wrong.”
Whatever happened? The ‘Baby Boomers’ had reached the draft and college age. Their fathers, the ‘Greatest Generation,’ had fought to liberate the world from tyranny. They had fought hard and worked hard to provide their families with a safe, free, and prosperous “American Dream” – and their mothers worked hard to pamper them. Not all of them, of course, rejected the ethic of their parents, but the elites who set the cultural tone were doing so and went on to be the professors, the entertainers and the politicians – and passed on their values to succeeding generations. Hard work, discipline, sacrifice, patriotism, the flag, the pledge, the Ten Commandments, and all that, belonged in “the dustbin of history.” “Tune in, turn on and drop out.” “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Only the elites could afford to enjoy this lifestyle – and the therapy it required – and to pass it on to their fans and students. The less fortunate ended in dependency, NA, AA, insanity and/or premature death.
The spirit of adolescent rebellion did not pass away with the Vietnam War. If anything, it has grown old and spread like crabgrass. Now it is embraced by both parties. Rebellion against what? Right against left, left against right. Against authority: parents, teachers, then the police, the “military-industrial complex” and “the establishment.” Against patriotism and its symbols, against traditional morality, the Ten Commandments, against the law and law enforcement, against the Constitution (as written and intended, at least), against successful capitalism, corporations, retail stores, against men, motherhood, fatherhood, parents, marriage and birth gender – even human life itself. Mostly against anything that smells of authority. Dig deeper. Underlying this is a basic rebellion against right and wrong, against history, reason, logic, and reality itself. Deeper still: the God who made it all?
Whoever came up with the idea that there is no such thing as Truth? That each of us can have our own “truth” – competing for supremacy over your “truth” by political power and hatred. In addition, for at least four generations screens have blurred the line between reality and fiction. Media and Entertainment have accentuated confusion to the place where science fiction is now science and news is now propaganda. Republican truth vs Democratic truth. What is really happening? News flash: imagining does not make it so. Is this “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”
For someone trying to extricate himself from active participation in the “culture wars,” this season has been a trial. 2016 and 2020 were bad enough, but we are drowning in electioneering. We cannot avoid it. Ordinary party politics is a fond memory – the good old days of gentlemanly policy debates and party competition. Was it a myth? Our divisions are not about mere personalities and promises or even character. We are being called to fanatical, unquestioning loyalty that is frightening. One figure is toying with the language of revenge and the other side with the spirit of insurrection (while accusing the former of the same). The only thing both parties agree on is screaming, “The future of democracy depends on this election.” Is it the Fascists or the Communists and which is which? Whatever happened to the calm, objective, constitutional system of choosing our leaders?
Clearly we have contrasting visions of America, past and future. One side calls itself progressive, but whatever is progress, anyway? Down which road? “Broad is the way that leads to destruction,” Jesus said, “narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.” “Make America great again,” says the other. What was great about America? We should indeed build on it, but what is it? Does “again” mean restoring past values (whose?) or making something bigger and better? Trading insults is not constructive – it is nauseating. Promises are worthless shiny objects. The only things clear are the records of two administrations and the fact that the body politic is going down the tubes. Are we fiddling while Rome burns?
The real problem is that our divisions are far deeper than party, race, or gender – even “culture.” It’s worldview, stupid! Is there a God in heaven? Or is it all up to us? From that we draw our answers to what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what isn’t, what is liberty, justice, and equality.
Faith-based answers are pretty much fixed by our understanding of God – there are right answers which can be discovered, settled by debate, and established. Our creation has given us almost infinite variation in our DNA, and plenty of wholesome choices in our lives – within the boundaries of reality and our Creator’s purpose for each of us. Right or wrong answers have consequences in our lives, public and private. We know what the Creator says about human life, marriage, and behavior. Tolerance can be negotiated, but wrong cannot work and must not be established and indoctrinated by corrupt institutions. If we are blind to the consequences lightning doesn’t strike – reality does. Thinking doesn’t make things so!
On the other hand, the “up to us” (agnostic) answers can go off in any direction and demand liberation from established “right answers.” They demand unconditional toleration for themselves and their friends but deny it to others. This gives existential meaning to otherwise merely political choices. Our Constitution was not intended to handle such passions. Can either party accept defeat? We have already seen one attempted assassination. Are we going to have a real insurrection or a coup next January? Without the Constitution, have we slipped our moorings and drifted out to sea (or the lake of fire)? Has our republic, our United States, only one year left to survive intact?
For example, try CRT. Did you ever read George Orwell, Animal Farm? The animals have had a revolution and taken over the farm. The pig becomes the dictator. He says, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” (and sends the old horse to the glue factory). What a line! Do minorities attain equality by handicapping (cancelling or liquidating) majorities? Can we overcome prejudice by hatred? Not in a free society. Are we exchanging the old melting pot for a nuclear reactor? If you want tolerance for your diversity, be prepared to give tolerance to my diversity. And hands off my kids. Why can’t we just get along?
If you are looking for a general principle behind the culture war, fanatical political divisions, global and national, choice and life, family and trans and all the others, try one word: God. This is not to say that many people are not fuzzy about their belief or unbelief and its implications. What is the general life-orientation of Joe Dokes? Is he generally, down deep, voluntarily surrendering to the authority of his Creator? Or is he trying to get out from under it? – to take charge himself? Is Joe Dokes his own person, living in his own world, or is he God’s person living in God’s world? In both cases, his “agenda” becomes a hill to die on. This accounts for the religious intensity of those who demand the submission of the nation to one law and of someone else who regards that same law as the height of slavery. What do you think?
We are suggesting that our basic cultural and social division is about God. Not specifically religious nor theological, much less denominational, but a worldview orientation towards either self or a Higher Power beyond self. The current triumph of personal autonomy and self-definition is over something. Over what? Over biology, social norms, natural law (reality?), “the world as it is, not as I would have it” – any law outside oneself? Despite claims of corporatism and globalism, the source of value is the self. “The heart of man [or woman] is deceitful and desperately wicked,” says the Good Book. We are adept at fooling ourselves. The opposite of making up your own rules according to your desires is acceptance of a given moral and natural order, ultimately derived from Someone or something beyond ourselves.
Examples. Our first choice, as an infant or even earlier, is to accept or deny ourselves. The framework is our own DNA, our being, our gender, and our biological heritage. How much farther back can you go? Nature determines the body we are born in and that we have a father and a mother, but popular myth encourages us to reject both the framework and its implications. How is that working for us? Choices have consequences, both for the individual and for society.
The One principle that divides our world today: is there an underlying framework that undergirds reality or is it all up to us? Is the Creator God, or am I? Do we accept what is or do we reject it for our own narrative? Prosaic fact or creative fiction? Fact, embedded in every vertebrate species down to the cellular level: biology is binary. Check your DNA if you are in doubt. Further, male and female bodies are designed to fit together to engender offspring to continue the species – and with it the civilization (given ideal conditions). Every individual is unique and exists on a continuum of characteristics and behaviors, but we all start life as one or the other. We can imagine all sorts of genders, but DNA has the last word. Your parts, built by your DNA, presented the doctor and your family with a fait accompli in the delivery room and everything depends on you and them learning to live with it or reject it. Another basic orientation question: which is the healthy way for you and for society?
The golden rule rests on recognizing the image of God in every human being. God gives them the right to be, not you or me. If human value depends on you, there can be no equality – that is the problem of CRT. Why should believers care? We believe 1) there is a real God in heaven, who made each of us in His image, knitting us together in our mother’s womb. 2) As the Lord and giver of life, He alone has the right to take life. 3) In His eternal providence there is a plan and purpose for each life, from conception to natural death. Are we willingly subject to that providence or not? As believers, can we support public measures and institutions that encourage the taking of innocent human life for mere convenience and restrict the support of those in difficult situations?
Another fact at the foundation of human society that is so ubiquitous that we forget about it is the family. In every known society it is the family – not the herd, not the village – that produces and raises offspring for the continuance of the species and of the society. A long period of dependency and socialization seems to be a requirement of the species. We are not raised like chicks in an incubator. Behind every child is a mother and a father who conceived them. It also appears to be a requirement, ignored at our peril, that each child have the continued presence of both father and mother throughout their juvenile years, preparing them for adulthood. Feral, step (even though loved), and single parent children reach adulthood at a distinct disadvantage – and so is a society full of them. Adults who are not accountable to a family often run amuck in or outside society.
“Nests before eggs,” says the raven in The Horse and His Boy (C.S. Lewis). Universally, marriage (a public, sacred commitment of one man and one woman to one another for life before the conception of children) is the gold standard for the continuation of society. Alternative arrangements either do not produce life or do not equally nurture and socialize it, resulting historically in population decline and social chaos. It happened to both classical Greece and pagan Rome. History and ethical monotheism agree. The choice: do we accept and encourage the ideal framework from the hand of nature and nature’s God, or do we reject it and deal with the consequences?
Part of the framework of reality (whether determined by the Creator or by evolution) is the responsibility of parents for their minor offspring. The contrary tendency is to abdicate the care and socialization of our young to the state (public schools) and, in the 21st century, to the media and tech moguls. Educators know a lot about education and their fields of study, but they do not know your child the way you do, nor are they particularly wise. Before abdicating your responsibility to the state or to the algorithms and waiving their accountability, you should ask: do they share your worldview and values? Nature and nature’s God holds you responsible for the kids you brought into the world. Hmmmh.
Please look for Part II of this series on Friday.
David W. Heughins (“ProfDave”) is Adjunct Professor of History at Nazarene Bible College. He holds a BA from Eastern Nazarene College and a PhD in history from the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Holiness in 12 Steps (2020). He is a Vietnam veteran and is retired, living with his daughter and three grandchildren in Connecticut.
Image credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Pixabay, Free License; modifications by Sharon Rondeau