RECENT MORAL EXAMPLES IN THE REALM OF DOMESTIC POLITICS

But even more important than this matter of war and peace is the way that this American moral division has been crippling America at home. But ironically, it is a problem that has been part of the American domestic scene since its founding four centuries ago. Clearly what was set up in Virginia was something on the materialist/mechanical model … and what was set up in New England was something on the spiritual model. And this difference would bring on the problems that eventually led to the Civil War. These two realms, the spiritual and the material/mechanical realms, are not designed to work well together. They never have. And they never will. And thus the battle between these two realms, these two worldviews, these two religions, is destined never to let up. Indeed the battle is going on quite strongly today. And the material/mechanical realm of Secular Humanism believes that it presently is winning the battle. Christianity’s decline. Certainly various social statistics seem to prove this to be the case. In May of 2018 the Pew Research Center released a report on the status of Christianity in fifteen Western European countries, and in October of 2019, the Pew Research Center released a similar report on Christianity in America. Both reports clearly demonstrated how deeply the Christian character of America and the West has so recently declined.* In Europe, 64% of the population identified themselves as Christians … although only 18% were actually church-attending Christians and 46% were rated as “non-practicing Christians.” The American study found that only 65% of Americans still described themselves as Christians, down 12 percent over the previous ten years. At the same time, those that claimed no religious affiliation (ranging from atheists to simply “nothing in particular”) rose to 26% of the population, up from 17% in 2009. In short, the American and European statistics overall were rather similar. The Pew study went even deeper in the American study, looking at actual trends in the Christian dynamic in the country. Thus the study found that the age of the Americans being surveyed was even more skewed against Christianity. Of the oldest group, the Silents, the decline in Christian affiliation was only 2%; for the Boomers it was 6%; and Gen-X 8%. But the percentage drop among the Millennials (born in the 1981-1996 period) was a huge 16%. This left 84% of the older Silents still standing in 2019 as Christians − whereas only 49% of the Millennials still identified themselves as Christians. That is a terrible indicator as to where America is headed in the future morally and spiritually as a nation. Not surprisingly also, political party affiliation made a big difference. For those that identified themselves politically as Republican, or leaned in that direction, the ten-year decline was 7%. But the Democrats marked a 17% decline in Christian identity. As a consequence, in 2019, 79% of the Republicans still identified themselves as Christians, whereas the figure stood at 55% for the Democrats. That is a very significant political difference, pointing further to the likely moral and spiritual direction in which the country is headed, depending upon which of the two political parties is in power in Washington. But still … a strong spiritual hunger. But the fact is also that, beneath it all, a deep spiritual hunger has been growing in America. On April 20, 2025, the New York Times reported that studies show that young Americans are hungry to find something to believe in, something that exists well above the surrounding material order. This does not mean that they are turning to the Christian faith … only that the potential for that to happen exists − exists strongly. But how and when that happens depends on more than just religious opportunism. Something truly spiritual, in the form of another Great Awakening, has to take place. Otherwise, there exist serious dangers that very bad group-think might lure them into a very dangerous personal devotion and social action … as has often been the case in the past (religious, ideological and nationalist conflicts, for instance). Thus we need God more than ever. A growing legal “aristocracy’s” assault on Christian Middle America. It is of vital importance that America’s long-standing social pattern must never be replaced by the domination, even dictatorship, of the distant enlightened ones, … or “aristocrats,” (from the Greek aristos or “best” and kratos or “strength” or “power” … thus aristocracy meaning “rule by the best.”) We have been focusing here deeply on the dangers to Middle America posed by the Secular Humanists found in bureaucratic offices or seated behind high judicial benches − or even in front of TV cameras offering 24-hour wisdom or comments on how they believe life should take shape in America − willing to assume, even to take away, such local responsibility from the community’s families, schools and churches or synagogues. In America, those in such high social position were long-expected to be there to inspire such grass roots development of the American family, school and church/synagogue − not control it. A big part of the problem has been the Supreme Court, which has taken upon itself the task of reconstituting America’s moral-spiritual foundations … from Christianity to Secularism. And there has been nothing that the American political system can do about such “enlightened dictatorship,” as the justices, once appointed to the Court, are answerable to no one but themselves − not even to Congress or the president − and for the rest of their lives if they so choose. That’s absolute power … which can corrupt a person absolutely. This all started at the beginning of the 1960s in outlawing first prayer and then Bible reading in the country’s public schools. Then in the early 1970s, the Supreme Court made such Secularism official … insisting that all education was to follow purely Secular lines − seeing Secularism as true science … and Christianity as mere religion − religion now forbidden in the public schooling of American youth. Thus Secularism came to stand legally as America’s official religion (Secularism, however, posing simply as “science”). And thus it was that Christian America was shoved aside by a tiny number of judicial dictators. And there things would remain for a while … until in 2005, when a federal district judge took things further in penalizing a school board for even suggesting that students might want to consult (on their own) a non-Secular explanation of Creation. How dare they! A $1 million fine was thus imposed on that lawbreaking school board. Then there were the two Supreme Court decisions of 2013 and 2015 (decided by the narrowest of votes, 5-4) overturning the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a piece of Congressional legislation to have received one of the highest supports ever by federal legislators, 342-65 in the House and 85-14 in the Senate. Its insistence that marriage was to be between only a man and a woman was now outlawed as some kind of criminal injustice that had to be corrected. And those who still held to that traditional view on marriage were thus to be strongly penalized, such as the young couple who informed a lesbian couple that their religious view on marriage prevented them from baking them a wedding cake, and in 2015 were fined by the Oregon Supreme Court $130,000, lost their business, and had pro-LGBTQ protesters constantly harass their home. That’s the sense of “justice” under the new “post-Christian” moral-spiritual system that Secular-Humanist “progressives” want to see directing American life. The big advance in the LGBTQ agenda would take place during the Obama years (2009-2017), Obama himself promoting that same agenda. Obama just did not like Middle America, and wanted it “changed” … however possible. And he knew the importance of the moral-spiritual foundations of that Middle America. Thus he intended the takedown of those moral-spiritual foundations to be a key part of his “change.” He was forced to act quickly on his LGBTQ agenda, when the 2010 elections brought in a new Republican Party majority in the House. He thus pushed hard right after these elections, before that new Republican majority could actually take its seats in Congress, to get his just-defeated Democratic-majority Congress to pass a bill to allow open homosexuality in the military. Then also his two Supreme Court appointments (in 2009 and 2010) of two unmarried, childless females, certainly also undercut deeply − as he likely expected these appointments would do − the standing of the traditional Christian family system so vital to Middle America … he himself not having grown up in a strong family environment (a missing father). He also knew how to play the race card … standing strongly with the Black community in registering the offensiveness of “White privilege” – meaning, the social standing that Black America was having a very hard time achieving because supposedly of widespread and most purposeful White opposition to Black advancement … a racial view that flew in the face of the fact that he, a Black, had just been elected U.S. president. That was just racism, pure and simple. But it worked … in the sense that no one dared challenge him on any of his White takedowns − for fear of being accused of being some kind of KKK member. This was only the beginning. The Black-Lives-Matter and the LGBTQ communities (widely supported across “higher” intellectual circles) have been most successful in getting DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) “sensitivity training” instituted across America … particularly in public advertising, in the media, and in the world of education (from primary level through college), all this being designed to “change” America deeply. Particularly problematic has been the LGBTQ public school program to clarify the multiple “choices” a child has about “its” own sexual preferences and development … programs that parents are quite naturally very alarmed about − programs that in some cases parents are prevented from having any say in their child’s participation and role in these matters. Not surprising, the world of LGBTQ has been expanding rapidly … given the strong support it has from numerous American power centers. But also not surprisingly, there has been a growing push-back against just such “progressive” LGBTQ programming, especially in the early-education area. The similar − and quite growing − problem of the “aristocracy” of corporate wealth. As another matter of great importance, the way that politicians go about their business these days needs to change. To a great degree this is because today’s politicians (elected, appointed or bureaucratized) are deeply beholden to the interests of the very wealthy − the billionaires who lord it over a struggling Middle America. Somehow the Supreme Court needs to overturn its Citizens United decision, and put elections − and Washington politics in general − back in the hands of the ordinary American voter. Indeed, there is something of a Darwinian attitude about the way the corporate world goes about building its wealth – by buying out other corporations in order to gain greater control of the market for their products and thus greater profits … at the expense of those needing to purchase those products. This is simply termed monopoly … and supposedly there are laws in place to block such maneuvering to control the capital markets that American (and Western) society depends on to drive its economy forward … in a fairly open or competitive way. The Federal Trade Commission thus supposedly has the power to block such mergers in order to keep the competitive game open. But mergers have been increasing in number … with only occasional intervention from the FTC as some kind of referee of this all-important financial game. We already know of the trust-busting that Teddy Roosevelt and Taft engaged in during the early years of the 20th century. This did not mean that mergers ended … but they stayed few in number and small in scope. But the number of American corporate mergers and the value of those mergers began to increase in the 1960s:* 1960s – 10 transactions – $5 billion or above (today’s dollar value) 1970s – 13 transactions – $2 billion or above ” 1980s − 20 transactions – $13 billion or above ” 2000s − 48 transactions – $38 billion or above ” 2010s − 58 transactions – $25 billion or above ” 2020 (first half) – 32 transactions – $21 billion or above Big players in the buyout game were Discovery, buying out AT&T in 2021 for $43 billion; Microsoft, buying Activision Blizzard in 2022 for $68.7 billion; Elon Musk buying out Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion; Exxon Mobile buying Pioneer Natural Resources in 2023 for $59.5 billion. But there are also a number of companies with huge investments spread widely across the corporate world. Thus BlackRock has over $11.5 trillion invested in various environment, social and corporate governance operations; the huge mutual funds manager Vanguard Group with $10.4 trillion invested widely across multitudes of companies; and the Boston bank State Street with $4.7 trillion in asset management and $46.6 trillion under its administration.* Consequently, Middle America is finding it increasingly difficult to hold its position in the economic scheme of things … as this financial aristocracy has come to hold an ever-tighter grip on the American economy and its operations. For instance, Middle Americans used to buy and own homes valued at a 2-to-3-year salary equivalency. Sadly, today, such middle-class housing costs at around a 5-to-7-year salary equivalency. And medical expenses have also become astronomical – unless a person owns a medical insurance plan … which itself is very costly to the average American. America is fighting a culture of greed … on a massive scale. The government could step in – or should step in – because it was designed and long understood to be the referee in the politics (and economics) game. But presently, Washington does not seem interested in playing that role. And Trump, who lives and breathes at the level of that same financial aristocracy (note the billionaires he offered privileged seating at his second inauguration!), does not seem particularly interested in taking up some kind of Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting role. So … Middle America, you are going to have to wake up, and take on these matters yourself. Your governmental and corporate aristocracy seems to have little interest in resolving your economic predicament. But again, this is a moral-spiritual issue most of all. It needs to be handled that way. And this is where Americans, being who they happen to be, are best equipped to take on this challenge themselves. And God has certainly lost no interest in that particular American cause. He is our best – actually only − appeal.