Andy Caldwell
Jesus plays second fiddle
Some scholars in America believe we are so divided that we are on the verge of, if not already in the midst of, a civil war. In the opinion of many, the impeachment hearings going on in Washington, D.C. are but a reflection of the same. I would posit that this division came about by no accident, but by way of a deliberate march through our institutions which seeks to destroy the foundations of our society, namely the tenets of Western Civilization and our Judeo-Christian heritage, not to mention our Constitution.
The Barna Research group recently did a survey having to do with truth. Truth is now increasingly regarded as something felt, or relative (44%), rather than something known, or absolute (35%)! This reflects the degree our society, culture and body politic are in serious trouble.
My colleague, Joe Armendariz, likes to say that a lie can make it half-way around the world before the truth has the time to get its pants on. That is especially true in this age where most young people form their opinions, based on the “facts” as they know them, from the likes of Twitter. That is, they glean their opinions from quips and sound bites, not policy papers. They do not afford themselves the luxury of reading and listening to competing theories and explanations having to do with current events, as that would require the application of critical thinking skills applied to complex subjects.
Unfortunately, most young Americans have never heard of Joseph Goebbels, who described one of the most important facets of Hitler’s reign of terror as a function of the Third Reich’s ability to utilize propaganda. His famous quote: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
All this is vitally important because our nation was founded on principles derived from self-evident truths, derived from divinely endowed rights and presumed responsibilities, all of which relied on faith in “a Supreme Judge of the world.” Lest we forget, these words and concepts were taken from the Declaration of Independence, which was, in context, a declaration of war.
Speaking on another level of analysis, that is, a spiritual level, Jesus described himself as the manifestation of truth whereas he described Satan as the father of lies. In the context of the spiritual forces of darkness and light, it is no coincidence therefore that we are living in an age simultaneously described as both a post-Christian and post-truth era.
Today’s war, therefore, is nothing less than a departure from all things having to do with the impetus of our independence, namely a descent into god-less, secular-humanist socialism based on propaganda, which plays second fiddle to the truth.
Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m., on News-Press AM 1290.
