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“Joy to the World: A Devotional Meditation”



“Joy to the World” is a well-known hymn sung by many Christians around the world at this time of year. Nonetheless, not as many are not aware that the hymn itself is actually based on Psalm 98 and was written not to commemorate the first coming of Christ (his birth), but the second coming of Christ, His glorious return in judgement, and in the restoration of all things.  The hymn was originally composed by Isaac Watts and published in 1719.  Watts’ hymn extols the reign of Christ and the blessings that Christ’”
rule will bring to the earth.  While we have not yet reached the consummation of all things, we do know that Christ reigns even now from His Father’s right hand and rules the nations with “a rod of iron“, and “dashes them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Psalm 2:9). In view that glorious truth, consider these few observations and Biblical texts structured around an outline of the 4th stanza of this popular Christmas Hymn, “Joy to the World” When we think upon the kingship or the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ, these words are a beautiful poetic expression His sovereign rule over the nations.  While this hymn these is not from the scripture and written by a man, they are a paraphrase from the scripture (Psalm 98), and reflect the scripture’s teaching on what Christ’s rule looks like.  Consider briefly what the hymn writer says about the Lord Jesus Christ’s rule of the nations.



“Joy to the World”

“He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness

And wonders of His love.”

First, consider that Christ rules the entire world, here and now, and not just the world to come.  

“He rules the world. . .”

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18)

Second, consider the character of Christ’s rule: Christ rules with truth and grace.

“He rules the world with truth and grace, . . .”

“Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.” (Psalm 85:10)

“In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity. . .” (Proverbs 16:6)

“And the Word (Christ) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . . For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:14, 17)

Third, consider that the nations are the Christ’s agents of providence to fulfill the work of the gospel, either in salvation or in judgement.

“He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove;”

“Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held-to subdue nations before him and loose the armour of kings to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut: I will go before you and make the crocked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron.” (Isaiah 45:1-2)

“Thus says the LORD GOD: Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, and set up My standard for the peoples; they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.  Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; they shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of your feet.  Then you will know that I am the LORD, for they shall not be ashamed who wait for me.” (Isaiah 49:22-23)

“Yes, all kings shall fall before Him; all nations shall serve Him.” (Psalm 72:11)

“Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15)

Fourth, consider the acts of the nations prove the character of the gospel:  The glories of God’s righteousness, and the wonders of God’s love.

“He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove; The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love.”

“Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him:

”. . . Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it?  Now I have brought it to pass that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.  Therefore their inhabitants had little power; they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field and the green herb; as the grass on the hilltops and the grain blighted before it is grown.’

“But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me.  Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came.“

“Then the Angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people rose early in the morning, there were the corpses-all dead.”  (Isaiah 37:21-22, 26-29, 36)

“And at the end of the time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding was returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation.  All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.  No one can restrain His hand, or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (Daniel 4:34-35)


“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.  Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these he also glorified.  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
”  (Romans 8:28-31)

Fifth, consider the character of the gospel: the Glory of Righteousness, the Wonder of Love

“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.  For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-16)

“For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. . . . . But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6, 8)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Sixth, consider that Christ shall rule the nations with His gospel.

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.  And the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world: For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me. I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

And the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothed You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

Then He will say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’  Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to You?’

Then He will answer them, saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did not do it unto Me.’ “

(Matthew 25:31-45)


Perhaps now, you may want to listen to the hymn again as you meditate upon these words from Scripture. Here is one of my favorite arrangements of this hymn:

Note: I do not own the rights to this video, nor the song, nor the performance. I am sharing it solely for educational purposes. Thank you for understanding. SMC

A Lying Spirit in the Mouth of the Prophets

A Burden of Divine Chastisement against the American Evangelical Church

Church in the Twenty-first Century

“Then Micaiah said, I saw the LORD sitting upon HIs throne, Therefore hear the words of the LORD: And all the host of heaven standing, one His right hand, and on His left. And the LORD said, “Who will persuade Ahab to to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?” So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward, and stood before the LORD and said, “I will persuade him.” The LORD to him, “in what way?” So he said, I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.” And the LORD said, “You shall persuade and also prevail. Go out and do so.” Therefore, look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.” II Kings 22:19-23

When I created this blog in 2013, one specific purpose governed my thinking regarding its existence.  Nonetheless, I did not share my entire perspective immediately because I needed time to test if in fact my primary reason could be validated by both Scripture and God’s providential government of all earthly events.  Seven years was required to complete that test, but the events of this year, 2020, have provided the final vindication of a burden that was placed upon my heart over eight years ago.

Throughout 2012 and 2013, God began to impress my heart with a deeply troubling and at times utterly overwhelming burden concerning the spiritual condition of the Evangelical Christian church in the United States of America.  It was a burden that virtually paralleled the events described in the Scripture cited above.  Over the course of those two years, the Spirit slowly united in my mind a collection of historical observations and interpretations, theological truths, and clear Biblical passages that would ultimately explode a “spiritual bomb” in my soul in the first half of 2013.  That “spiritual explosion”, or if I dare call it an “illumination” (not on par with the supernatural revelation of Scripture or and assuredly not some special new divine revelation) was so overwhelming I wanted to flee from its terrifying reality.  But with a force equal only to the days when the Spirit of God brought me truly to repentance from my sin and to faith in Jesus Christ as my only Savior and sovereign Lord, the Spirit pressed upon my soul this burden and COMMANDED me, not invited, not urged, not suggested, but commanded me to proclaim this illuminating and yet terrifying truth from His Word as it applies to the great events of our day.   Such was the force this burden upon my conscience that I was more terrified of the consequences of ignoring Spirit’s command than any earthly trauma I had experienced or could still experience in this earthly life.  What was this “spiritual bombshell” that exploded in my mind? I can summarize it in two statements:

First, the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century-the greatest spiritual revival the Christian church had experienced since the days of Pentecost-had now run its course and its spiritual blessings upon western civilization were now waning like the setting sun upon western horizon.

Second, now that this great revival had run its divinely appointed course, God would now remove His gracious restraining presence against sin, and instead permit a lying spirit to animate all the institutions of our western world, but particularly those of the United States, and thus begin a process of divine chastisement that would ultimately lead the world back to the spiritual darkness of the Pre-Protestant Era of the Christian church.

Volumes would have to written in order to express in any semi-complete form all that the Spirit pressed upon my soul in those two years.  But even if I wrote pages upon pages (and I have actually done so over the last seven years), I still do not believe I could fully express all that was pressed upon my soul in those days as well as in the years since then.  In September, 2013, I summarized the burden as best as I could in an open letter delivered to several other Christian brothers.  This letter was designed as a test to determine whether other believers could observe a similar pattern.  These were the words I wrote in that letter dated the 21st of September, 2013:

“The burden itself may be expressed in two statements-one negative and the other positive-with a most pointed and personal application for myself.

The negative statement could be expressed in this form:

When this year began [2013], I received a distinct impression in my spirit that with the start of this year and possibly for many more months and years to come, prevented only by a great Spirit-led revival or the return of our Lord Jesus, this land shall experience two dreadful realities:

First, we shall witness a removing of the hand and grace of God against the spiritual hosts of wickedness.  As a result, I believe we shall see a greater manifestation of evil, unbelief, and apostasy with great sin and apostasy the likes of which ten or twenty years ago we would not have believed possible to witness in both the nation and in the church.

Second, we shall experience a more fearful reality than the previous statement, and that is we shall witness a dulling and deadening of the souls of those who profess to belong to Christ.  Much like the account in I Kings 22:22, I fear that God is sending forth a lying spirit among His professed church in our day and permitting the hearts of those who say they belong to Christ to grow cold, dim, and darkened towards the truth of God.  The reason I believe that God sends such moments of spiritual darkness among His people is recorded in Jeremiah 5:30-31 and Deuteronomy 13:3.  I shall not expound these texts in this letter, but simply commend them to you for your own meditation.

The positive element of the burden could be best expressed with two passages from the epistle to the Hebrews: 12:4 and 13:13.  Like before I shall expound these two passages in this letter, but I would urge you, my brethren, to meditate upon the words of those texts carefully.  I would like to offer one summary statement regarding both passages:

In days to come, I believe those who truly know and love Christ, His Word, His doctrine, and His commands will find that it will become harder to strive against the sin and unbelief around us, and that we may soon find that those who will heap the most shame upon us will be those who declare they love Christ, but disregard His Word, His doctrine, and His commands.

I believe that I must use with greater zeal what limited gifts and knowledge I have to proclaim the truth of God’s Word regarding the spiritual deception and declension in our own time to all those whom God has currently placed in my life.

I am an historian by training-being “afflicted” with two degrees in that discipline.  One of the few gifts God has given to me is the ability to see the past not simply in little snippets, but the ability to comprehend deeply the vast panorama of centuries of historical data-both the great as well as the seemingly insignificant events of the past-while relating it all to the larger arcs or movements which stream through the ages.  When I view the world today, I do not see it only in the context of the last few years or even the last thirty or forty years.  No, I see what is happening in 2020 through two distinct lenses:

One, I see today’s events as consequences from events that occurred one to five to even twenty centuries ago, if not longer. And yes, I do believe in causation in history in opposition to some of the more modern and even postmodern schools of historical interpretation.  But that is an essay for another time.

Two, I interpret every single historical event through the epistemological framework of the divine declarations of the Word of God.  Furthermore, I believe that the best systematic expression by the Christian church of that epistemological as well as theological framework is the theological principles affirmed in the Westminster Confession of Faith and its subordinate catechisms (American edition-1789).

To summarize, I believe the record of human history is nothing more than the reactions of men and women to God’s eternal decree to glorify Himself by accomplishing the salvation of His church through the redemptive work of His own appointed mediator-Jesus Christ-the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God who became man two millennia ago to live, die, and rise again as the representative of His own people-both Jews and Gentiles.  But I must provide some vital clarification.  I do not simply affirm this doctrine as true.  In my mind’s eye I can see many of the various historical details like pieces in a giant puzzle fitting together in a synergistic form as they pass from one generation to another.  Furthermore I can sense in my soul the spirit of each age as it passes from one generation to another, feeling the strength of that which is from the Spirit of God as well as the oppressive evil cascading from the spirit of Antichrist which was already active in the days of the Apostle John (See I John 4).  If you and I were speaking together in person I could with ease walk you through some of the various ages from the last two thousand years and show you the mechanics of divine providence to illustrate how the seemingly secular events of men and nations were actually the tools of God in accomplishing a far greater work-the building of His church.

So how does my historically conscience perspective relate to the burden that was pressed upon my soul?

That question is best answered by considering the passage at the beginning of this post as well as the entire context of I Kings 22.  In fact, if you have not read that part of the Old Testament in some time, read the entire chapter upon finishing this brief essay.  At some point I may expound this passage on my blog, but for now, simply let the force of those words from Scripture press into your mind and soul.  Through the prophet Micaiah God declared that He had determined to punish Israel and in particular King Ahab for their sins of embracing idolatry and rejecting the law (word) of God.  But note carefully these three singular observations:

First, earthly events-both present and past-are reactions to events in heaven.  To be more precise, historical events are reactions to God’s declarations in heaven.  This doctrine is the primary reason I believe in causation in history.  In short, all of human history revolves around the spoken as well as the written Word of God.  God never reacts to the actions of people on earth.  Quite the contrary, events on earth are always reactions to that which is happening in heaven.

Second, God reveals His method for destroying civil rulers as well as nations who rebel against His Word (or law).  What is that method?  He directs a lying spirit to enter the hearts of the prophets (or if I may use another term, preachers) to animate the people to believe lies and reject the truth.  Other passages in Scripture clearly teach that God’s greatest judgement upon any people is to give them over to lies and to permit them to follow those lies to their total destruction.

Third, consider that it was not just any Gentile nation that God had chosen to punish, but it was His own chosen people-Israel-against whom He had declared disaster.  It was to Israel that God sent a lying spirit designed to lead His own people into calamity.  This truth reveals that God’s judgement upon the wickedness in the world always begins with the people of God.  Indeed, one might argue from Scripture that God always judges His own people before He judges the wicked and unbelieving.  The apostle Peter affirms this truth in his first epistle when he writes, “For the time has come for judgement to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (I Peter 4:17).  God will punish the wicked for the multitude of their sins, but His judgement always starts with the spiritual condition of His people.  This doctrine teaches an essential truth: when God blesses His people with spiritual blessings, even the ungodly will prosper in an earthly sense.  But when God’s people experience a spiritual declension and divine judgement, the wicked are emboldened to pursue their evil designs and lawless conduct.

These three observations provide the theological foundation for the burden of divine judgement against the church of Jesus Christ in the United States.  Yet even these simple statements hardly express all that fills my heart.  Furthermore, I would not have any reader accept my testimony alone.  Thus in my next post, I intend to share a series of passages from the Scripture with little comment from myself so that all may consider these things carefully from the Word of God.

This is the burden that I have borne since 2013.

And what is the forceful command?

God the Holy Spirit commanded me that I must spend the rest of my earthly days bearing witness of this spiritual reality.  While I believe God has appointed diverse means for how I shall bear witness of this burden, my primary duty in this calling is to write of these things and proclaim to any and all who will listen and heed.  And that is this reason I created this blog.

“Who Will Remember?”

Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

(The following text is from a speech I wrote in 1994, when I was still in high school.  I presented the speech at a camp in the summer of that year.  While my writing is still reflective of a high school sophomore, I believe my observations and arguments are still relevant. Since I have not posted anything here for 2016, I thought this would be a fitting post for this 72nd anniversary of the D-Day invasion. SMC )

On June 6, 1994, President Bill Clinton joined world leaders in northern France to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D-Day.  He did all that protocol required of him.  He attended speeches and visited memorials.  He looked every bit the President of the United States.  The media’s attention focused on seemingly touching gesture made by President Clinton-that of placing rock in the shape of a cross on the beach.  But when it was revealed that this incident was staged, it became evident how President Clinton really felt about D-Day.  He wasn’t there to celebrate it.  The 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was merely a photo opportunity for our president.  All the speeches and ceremonies were nothing more than required presidential duty-just another famous date in history to commemorate.

But unfortunately, President Clinton isn’t the only one guilty of participating in the empty ceremonial style.  Today, many Americans have come to view D-Day in the same way.  It has no meaning to their lives.  It has simply joined the long list of historical dates that have a school book significance to the modern world.  We must not let this happen!  We must not allow ourselves to forget the on-going influence of D-Day!  It is an event that history will always remember, and we as Americans must never forget!

Why is this historical event so important you may ask?  First, the invasion across the English Channel was the only successful one of its kind in modern times.  Many invasions across the channel have been attempted.  Few have succeeded.  Both Napoleon and Hitler attempted to send invasion forces across the channel.  Both attempts failed.  Until 1944, the last successful attempt at sending an invasion fleet across the channel was almost 900 years before, in 1066, when William the Conqueror sailed across the channel and defeated the Saxons.

However, it could be easy to forget.  As time marches on, the miracle of D-Day will lose its grasp upon our souls.  As the date grows further away, it will become easy to simply view it as another event in history or just another date to remember for a test.  As the veterans grow old and leave us, we will lose the first-hand accounts of what it was like to hit the beaches and face the Germans.  We will lose the personal testimonies of heroism and honor.  In the year 2019, when we celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, we will no longer have such people as Walter Cronkite to take us back to Normandy.  As the veterans dies, we will lose an important piece of living history.  The collection of veterans at the 50th anniversary will probably be the last time such a gathering will ever take place!

But perhaps the most important reason why we should not forget D-Day could be best summarized in the words of the great Roman orator, Cicero: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”  How can we as a nation move forward in the future if we do not know where we have come from in the past?  By forgetting the Americans who landed at Normandy, we do not only them, but us a great disservice.  How can we remain the leader of the world if we do not know where we have come from and what our past is?  The only way we can maintain our greatness as a nation is to remember the struggles we had on our rise to greatness.  It is our solemn duty as citizens to remember those who gave all they had for the fight for freedom.  But do we want to remember them in President Clinton’s way of empty ceremonies?  Do we want to treat their sacrifice as just another day’s work?  I think not.  Let us instead remember them as we should-men who did their duty.  Let us remember the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who were willing to commit themselves to fighting for the cause of freedom.  And let us dedicate ourselves, once again, to remembering them as we should.  As those soldiers on the beaches of Normandy were willing to do their duty, so let us do ours in preserving their memory and their work.  The nation that forgets its past leaders will be the nation that falls.  But the nation that remembers will be the nation that prevails.  As American citizens, let us dedicate ourselves to the task of remembering D-Day.  We must not forget.  Instead, we must remember so that we are better prepared for the problems and challenges of the future.  Let us remember the past so that we will know what we are about in the present and what we will be about in the future.

Protestantism’s Death & Liberty’s Demise

The Rise of Neo-Medievalism, Religious Authoritarianism, and the Fusion of Church & State in the West

When I first posted my stories about the ‘American Theocracy’ over a year ago, I did not expect to see such significant manifestations of this intellectual, religious and spiritual trend within the span of a year.  But throughout 2015, I have noted several surprising trends that all point to a very disturbing pattern regarding the fusion of religious ideology with political rhetoric to produce a frightening new phenomenon in the American scene.  This new movement is a form of bigotry, hatred and malice that appears very different to us who witnessed the horrifying racial, ethnic and religious hatred of the modern era, but in principle it is no different from the thoughts systems that produce Nazism, Communism, Socialism, and the extreme forms of social and economic racism in this nation’s history .  And for those of you following my stories on the American Theocracy, the struggle over these moral principles is the cornerstone of that imaginary story set in the future.
I hope to return to that series soon, but I want to take some time to relate the principles that under gird my story to our current context so that you, my readers, can better understand what I am seeking to communicate. While the origins of the story itself is only eight years old, nonetheless, I will admit that the influences upon my thinking which led to its creation were the result of twenty-four years of different streams of thought merging together together withing my own view of the world and Biblical truth within the last ten years.  These same streams bring us back to the main purpose in creating this blog in 2013.
In all fairness, before proceeding with this post, I should state for readers not familiar with all the nuisances of my theology and my thinking a key presupposition that guides my analysis of current events as well as their relationship to the past.  As an unapologetic Protestant Christian, I believe that the source of all truth is found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  By consequence, I also believe that the fruit of a true knowledge of truth is liberty of conscience-both spiritual and material (see John 8:32).  Thus, I draw a direct line from the rise and fall of the Protestantism in the West to the rise and fall of liberty and constitutional government among the Western nations in the last five centuries.  But I am not alone in this supposition.  Many historians, both Christian and secular alike, have noted the unique and close kinship between the rise and spread of Protestantism five centuries ago and the rise and spread of personal liberty, or as it is often known, Classical Liberalism.  Alternatively,  few historians and thinkers in our day-both modern and postmodern alike-have failed to note the close parallels between the decline of historic Protestantism and the rise of the totalitarian state with its authoritarian ideologies in the last one hundred years.  Nonetheless, since the dawn of the twentieth century, this process is exactly what has unfolded in the West-first in Europe in the middle of that century, and now in the United States in our own time.  Consequently, in Europe, as Protestantism died, the old order of constitutional monarchies or constitutional ideals were replaced with Socialism, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism.  The result was a continent ravaged with with a century of war, chaos, carnage and destruction.   But now, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, that same cancer has spread to North America, and this principle is the underlying reality to all the disturbing news stories of the past year:
The CAUSE  of the death of Liberty and constitutional government in the United States is directly linked to the death and decay of Protestantism in the United States.
Several lines of historical and theological arguments could be offered to support this claim, and I hope to continue exploring these themes in future posts.  But for this article, I simply want to note the the board historical arch which unites events of this year indicating that Protestantism is dead, and consequently, our Postmodern world is quickly returning to a Pre-Protestant and Pre-Reformational status.  But there is another term I would prefer to use to describe this phenomenon:
In 2015, the world watched the first major surge of an intellectual, religious and spiritual movement that could be defined as ‘Neo-Medievalism.’  
What is ‘Neo-Medievalism’?  Obviously, the term, ‘Medieval’ is generally used by historians to describe the millennium between the ancient era of history and that of the Reformation/Modern Era which still continues to affect our Postmodern world.  But while some might simply employ that term as a chronological sense, I would argue that Medievalism was more than just a broad designation for an era of disjointed historical chaos.  Granted, few in the actual Medieval period probably used that word to describe their own thinking regarding truth, religion, and the world (they would not have even known such a term). Nonetheless, the Medieval European and Medieval Semite (occupant of the Ancient Middle East) possessed a carefully defined and highly developed worldview.  One of the great tragedies resulting from the Modern and Postmodern study of history has been the over-simplification of the exact nature of the Medieval worldview by both Christian and Secular historians alike.  The term, ‘Dark Ages’ is often used to describe that era of a thousand years as a time of backward thinking and provincial attitudes. As a Protestant, I would argue that indeed much of Europe and the Middle East (as well as other parts of the globe) were in a deep spiritual darkness, and in that sense, the world was living in a ‘Dark Age’.  But it is the height of historical ignorance to argue that somewhere intellectual thought died during that extended period of time.  If we could learn one key lesson from the events of the Protestant Reformation (which was a true intellectual revolution for the West), the European ‘Wars of Religion’ (1524-1648) demonstrated there was clear conflict of worldviews between the Medieval and the Reformational Protestant.  And that one hundred and twenty-eight year conflict of worldviews did more than just impact religious bodies.  Besides devastating much of the populace of Europe, this conflict completely changed the entire continent, giving birth to the idea of separating the church from the civil government, and religion from society at large.
When we consider the seismic impact of the Reformation to Europe, we must ask this question: what was the foundation of Medieval Thought in contrast to Reformational Protestantism?
Without over simplifying a rather complex question (and one that deserves much more study than I have given to it), permit me offer what I believe to be the one key distinctive of the Medieval worldview in contrast to the Protestant worldview.  And while I must admit that there were and still are Protestants and Catholics who may not fit precisely into this category, I would argue that such individuals are the exception to the general observable pattern:
The Medieval mind viewed the institutional church and institutional religion as the cornerstone of society (hence Medieval and Modern Catholics often approach political and economic theory from a purely collective or materialistic perspective) whereas the Protestant mind viewed the individual and his or her family as the centerpiece of human interaction (and therefore approached their worldviews from more of an individual and spiritual perspective).
Much could and should be flushed out in this definition which at the moment I will not take the time to do.  But if one considers that basic definition of Medieval thinking in contrast to historic Protestant thought, a pattern within the significant events of 2015 begins to manifest itself:
1. The U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell vs. Hodge declared that same-sex unions were equal to more traditional definitions of marriage and therefore, should be given the same legal status by the U. S. Constitution as traditional marriage is.
This decision renewed a long standing call by ‘Evangelical’ and other ‘Christian’ conservatives that it was the responsibility of the State, as a ‘Christian entity’ to define and regulate the institution of marriage.
2. In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks linked to ISIL as well as the influx of Syrian refugees to Europe and North America, some ‘Evangelical’ and ‘Christian’ politicians have called for the implementation of Identity Cards be issued to those who do not publicly adhere to the Christian faith.
3.The open hatred expressed by some Christians towards both open homosexuals and Muslims in general is yet another reflection of the same spirit of religious intolerance and bigotry that fueled the wars of religion in Europe in the 1600’s.
4. The address of Pope Francis I to a joint session of the U. S. Congress-a first in American history, and one that was widely applauded by many self-identified Protestants and Evangelicals, despite the pontif’s ambiguity on things like the definition of marriage, the role of government in both economics and politics and a papal exhortation for Americans to embrace multiculturalism despite the fact that many Evangelicals strongly oppose such positions.
5. In recent weeks, the number of American Conservative Christians who have publicly denounced the reception of Syrian refugees by the American government to the United States as a policy that is both ‘Un-american’ and ‘Unchristian.’ simply because these refugees may hold either Muslim beliefs or simply non-Christian beliefs.
6. And lastly, but most disturbingly, calls by some Christians to embrace a total war or a ‘holy crusade’ against militant Islamic groups throughout the Middle East.
Each of these particular issues deserve more attention than I can give in a single post, but for the moment, simply consider the broad pattern that unites these events:
In 2015, we noted an unusual paradigm shift within the American political and social structure in responding to these events:
It was the political Left (not the ideological left, mind you), that became the promoter of ‘individual liberty’ as it is so badly defined in our Postmodern society, and it was the political right (and in this case, the ideological and political bloc are slowly fusing with each other) that was promoting government intervention in everything from society to economics to political power to the very definition of warfare itself.
Regardless of one’s personal views or convictions, this trend is a highly significant pattern for the student of history.  But this reality is even more troubling for the Christian who holds that the Bible is their supreme authority and that Christ is their only Lord, for here is the practical lesson we ought to learn from this observation:
The Modern world is dead, and the Postmodern world has given to us ‘The Brave New World.’  For those of you reading this blog who think that the world is still in the PROCESS of becoming the ‘Brave New World”, permit me burst your bubble right now.  Postmodernism IS the ‘Brave New World,’ and that means the ‘Brave New World’ IS NOW. And as this new paradigm works itself out in other realms of human life, the ‘Brave New World’ will appear in this fashion: the political left will defend their version of ‘personal liberty’ which might better be defined as ‘chaotic licentiousness’ and the political right will defend religious authoritarianism as the ‘divinely ordained’ means to prevent this new Postmodern ‘liberty’ from spreading.
But here is the great irony in this historical development:  It was NOT Postmodernism that killed ‘liberty’.  The rise of Neo-Medievalism that considers the church and and external or institutional religion with all its entangling totalitarianism is what is truly killing and has already killed liberty in the United States.  And this ideological foundation is fueling the conflict that is manifested by an intense hatred of many American Christians against Islam, Secularism and the inane theory of the ‘Great Left-wing conspiracy’.  This the paradigm that will govern the next fifty to one hundred years of American religion as its influence continues to grow upon American public policy.   But that reality is small in comparison to the truly frightening source of this new paradigm.  This embrace of ‘Neo-Medievalism’ by the Christian church in American is the consequence of the death of Protestantism in America.

The American Presidents: My Favorite Cinematic Portrayals

Every third Monday in February, our government sets asides a day we call President’s Day, to honor those who have held the office of President of the United States.  While as a general rule, I do not get terribly excited about this particular Federal holiday, I have had a special interest in the history of the American presidency since I was kid.  In fact, it was sometime in grade school that I memorized the list of the Presidents, and can still recite all forty-three occupants in order along with the dates that served.  (Trivia question: Did you know that while Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States, there have only been 43 occupants?  Do you know why?  I won’t answer this question in blog, but just leave the question for your consideration).

Several months ago, I stumbled across this short video documenting all the presidents who had been on portrayed on film.  Not all of the American Presidents have had actors play them, but many of the former occupants of the White House have been played by multiple famous actors in different films.  And so, in honor of the good, the bad and the ugly who have played the famous and infamous of the American Presidency, I thought for a short blog, I would present this short video along with a list of my favorite portrayals of American Presidents in film.

First, let me say a word about the film itself.  As I mentioned, not every single President has been portrayed in films, and I am not familiar with some of clips that were chosen here.  And there are a few actors that were omitted from this film that I would have included, and other clips I would have excluded.  Nonetheless, it does provide a decent overview of actors who have played different presidents in film.

Second, let me say word about my list.  I chose every single actor, not based on the quality of the film, but on what I perceived as the individual actor’s attempt to portray the particular president in which they were cast.  Some of the films listed here were fairly accurate historically while others were based more on historical myth than historical facts.  Those films made great films, but were better propaganda pieces than true historical presentations.  So please do not think that any particular film on my list has my blessing as an historian.  Some of them really pretty loose with the facts.    Nonetheless, based on my knowledge of those particular presidents, I thought the actors did a good job at either capturing the spirit of the man or his particular role in history.  And that was my primary criterion for the list.  And so without further explanation, here is my list of favorite Presidential Actors and a short history of the American Presidency in Film:

Top Actors for American Presidents:

1. Barry Bostwick (George Washington in CBS’s mini-series, George Washington (1984), and its sequel, George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation (1986)).

2. Paul Giamatti (John Adams in HBO’s mini-series based on David McCullough’s biography, John Adams (2008)).

3. Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams in Steven Spielberg’s film, Amistad (1997)).

4. Charlton Heston (Andrew Jackson in the films, The President Lady (1953), and The Buccaneer  (1958)).

5. Sam Waterson (Abraham Lincoln in the film adaption of Gore Vidal’s book, Lincoln (1988)), and Daniel Day-Lewis (in the Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln (2012)).

6. Brian Keith (Theodore Roosevelt in John Milius’ film, The Wind and the Lion (1975)) and Tom Berenger (playing Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War in TNT’s mini-series, Rough Riders (1997)).

7. Ralph Bellamy (Franklin D. Roosevelt in Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War (1983), and War and Remembrance (1988)), and Kenneth Branagh (in the 2005 film, Warm Springs, which tells the story of Roosevelt’s pre-presidential struggle with polio.)

8. Martin Sheen (John F. Kennedy in NBC’s mini-series, Kennedy (1983)), and Bruce Greenwood (as President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the film, Thirteen Days (2000)).

9. James Brolin (Ronald Reagan in the mini-series, The Reagans (2003)).

10. Dennis Quaid (Bill Clinton in the BBC/HBO film, That Special Relationship (2010)).

The American Theocracy: Modernity’s Failed Quest

‘Holy War! The Rise & Fall of the American Theocracy, 2039-2079’ (Part 6)

By Nathaniel Lane Stewart, M. A.

The Unique Phenomenon of the American Theocratic Republic (Part 5)

(Note: This post marks Part 6 of the introductory essay of an historical narrative, supposedly published in A. D. 2195, almost 200 years from now, on the history of the American Theocracy.  This post will continue the presentation of the second of the three ‘necessary presuppositions’ which Professor Stewart maintains are essential to understand both the rise and fall of the American Theocratic Republic.  God willing, this essay should be completed in three more posts: the next one will complete the examination of the second presupposition, the following post will examine the third presupposition and the last one offer a few a closing remarks.  The posts to follow those coming three parts on the ‘history’ of the American theocracy will provide an outline of the book and of key dates and events in the history of 21st century America. SMC)

The three distinct ages (or phases, if you will) of Modernity express well how Modernity was shaped by Christianity even as it rejected its basic principles:

1. The Age of Early Modernity (1650-1800)

2. The Age of High Modernity (German Higher Critical Thought) (1800-1900)

3. The Age of Late Modernity (or the Age of Dialectic Materialism, or the age of Secular Modernity) (1900-1950)

It is beyond the scope of this essay to expound the definition and influence of each age upon the course of human history (14).  However, such a effort on our part is not necessary for our point.  However, we cite these ages to offer to two sweeping observations regarding the ideological roots that contributed to the rise of the Theocratic government in the twenty-first century:

One, contrary to the claims of its apologists that it was proactive in its declarations,  Modernity was in reality a reactive movement towards the Christian Faith.  The rise of Modernity is directly linked to the century of religious warfare in Europe that was a result of the Protestant Schism in the 1500’s.  By 1650, it was clear that Protestantism and Catholicism must exist side by side as competing manifestations of the Christian Faith.  Thus, the rise of Modernity might best be expressed as intellectual men seeking a middle way for mankind to still experience the spiritual unity of the human race, but WITHOUT institutional religion or an organized church defining that unity of experience and perspective.  And these three ages express Modernity’s efforts to reunite Man after a century of religious warfare.

This note leads us to our second observation: The course and failure of Modernity to unite mankind WITHOUT institutional Religion.  And let us note the defining principles that illustrate the course and failure of Modernity in this quest:

 1. Early Modernity (1650-1800): Unlike its successors, Early Modernity was not a purely secular movement, but desired to find a non-sectarian, though a truly religious and a truly universal creed for all men, based upon either human reason or human observation.  Early Modernity was best expressed in movements such as Deism, Empiricism, Cartesian rationalism and Scottish Common Sense Realism.  The quest of these movements was effectively killed by the skepticism of the Scotsman, David Hume in the mid-eighteenth century.  The task would fall to the German scholar, Immanuel Kant, to restore Western man’s quest for a new religion that unified mankind in both a spiritual and institutional manner.  That new quest was opened up with Kant’s ‘Fourth Category’ regarding Man’s knowledge in which he separated faith from reason entirely, excluding all matters of faith, religion and the church to realm of the mystical and therefore freeing all rational pursuits from a religious viewpoint.  This premise opened the door to many radical intellectual developments over the nineteenth century and leads us to the age of High Modernity, often referred to the Age of German Modernity (1800-1900)

 2. German Modernity (1800-1900): Religion was not reasonable, and therefore, all intellectual exercise must be pursued without the influence of religion.  It was the German Modern who claimed that Religion and Reason, or Faith and Knowledge, were two distinct spheres which were separated by an impassable gulf, but man existed simultaneously in both.  Ergo, he must learn to segment his life into two distinct spheres-the mystical realm of religion, and the intellectual realm of reality (which religion could not to affect.)  This position effectively created what the Humanist of the sixteenth and seventeenth century was not able to create-a world where a global religion was not tied to faith or the supernatural realm, but to pure reason and human experience.  The Creed of the High Modern, the German Modern, was science, and progress, being centered entirely upon Man separated from both God and the church.  And by the end of the nineteenth century, the great apologists of Modernity were prophesying that finally in the twentieth century, this great quest a truly Humanist religion and creed, divorced of God and the church would finally and inevitably arrive in the world, creating the utopia that mankind had yearned after for centuries.

We now come to the third era of Modernity:

3. The Age of Late Modernity or dialectic Modernity (1900-1950)

This age was the shortest of the eras seeing as it offered the greatest claims of all three ages, and was viewed in its day as the fruit or climax of all that mankind had been pursuing for the last several centuries.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, the promises of the Dialectic Revolutions of Communism and Socialism, the progress of science and technology, and the great power amassed by the empires of the Europe seemed to indicate the Modern must now finally succeed in his quest.  But by A. D. 1950, the Modern world had created two massive global wars that felled ancient monarchies, overthrow centuries-old social orders, and created the birth of the most terrible form of warfare known to man-the age of the atomic bomb, which then ushered in the great ‘Cold War’ of the latter twentieth century.  And even as these catastrophes exploded around the globe, the dialectic revolutions declared as inevitable facts of science and history failed to materialize.  Thus, by the late twentieth century, Modernity’s hopes were crushed and it dreams, claims and hopes were waning quickly.  It was in this world that the Post-Modern Critic attacked the folly of Modernism.  And then, at the dawn of the third millennium, the rise of religious warfare killed what was left of the old Modern ideal.   The first forty years of the twenty-first century witnessed the Death of the Modern, the rise of the Post-Modern Critic, the explosion of Religious warfare on a global level and the spread of localism and tribalism-all of which created the convergence of ideas which led to the forces that gave birth to the ideal of the American Theocracy of the 2060’s and 2070’s.

And what did that convergence look like in the history of the world?

 To be continued. . . 

(14). For a useful survey of the ages of Modernity, see Religion Without Deity: The Progression of the Modern, 1650-1950, by E. Willard Mencken, Published in A. D. 2041, by the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

The Protestant Reformation and Liberty of Conscience

October 31 has been traditionally observed by most Protestants in the last five centuries as ‘Reformation Day’.  It was on this day, in 1517, that an obscure monk and theological professor by the name of Martin Luther posted 95 Theses, or propositions for the debate, on the door of the town church in Wittenburg.  I am sure that Dr. Luther never thought that event would be remembered for five centuries, but in the providence of God, his actions marked the beginning of one of the greatest revivals of the Church of Christ since the time of Pentecost.  Over the next 150 years, the Protestant Reformation would spread through all of Europe, transforming entire nations and societies as the gospel under the powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit spread throughout that continent and would later come to the shores of this land.  Today, we are five centuries removed from those events, and the Protestant witness in Europe is practically non-existent, and in our nation, it is barely a whimper.  Instead, another day is honored on October 31st, a day that has its roots in both pagan practices and the traditions of the church of Rome.  But this does not mean that the church of Jesus Christ shall cease upon the earth.  Not at all, Christ shall continue to build His church, and even if the days are dark, He shall have a witness upon earth.  What did our Lord state when he rebuked the Pharisees in Luke 19:39-40?

“And some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd,

‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

But he answered and said to them, 

‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would

immediately cry out.'”

Christ shall always have a witness for His name and his glory upon the earth.  We can be assured of that truth!  The question each of us must ask ourselves is this: Shall we, shall I, be among that host of witnesses who shall not keep silent regarding the glory of Jesus Christ?

I urge you to consider that question carefully.

I should like to leave you with a quote written by a church historian from the early 1800’s who had a burning heart for Christ and an evangelistic zeal for souls.  Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigne was born in France in 1794, and as a young man attended college in Geneva.  Though raised in a French Protestant home, d’Aubigne was unconverted when enrolled at the academy in Geneva.  Though this was the great city where John Calvin had ministered over 2 centuries earlier, the academy had sunk into such spiritual apostasy that the teaching of ancient Greek texts of philosophers had replaced the teaching of the scripture.  But  God sent a servant to Geneva to minister to the young students there.  Robert Haldane, a Scottish missionary and evangelist had traveled to Geneva.  And there, outside of the formal classroom, Haldane held informal Bible studies where he taught the students from the word of God.  And it was during these meetings that d’Aubigne was born again.  He would go on to be well-known Evangelical preacher of his time, and would even speak in Charles Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle.  But d’Aubigne’s greatest contribution was that he was also a church historian and wrote prolifically on the history of the Protestant Reformation.  At the beginning of his third volume, A History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, he wrote the following statement regarding the true source of liberty of conscience, and the serious sin committed by any any authority-church or state-in daring to stand between Christ’s absolute rule over the souls of men.  Even as we are watching our liberties in the western world slowly ebb away, let us remember that true liberty is not something that is secular, natural or even granted by the state.  True liberty is supernatural, spiritual, and comes from Christ alone when a soul is liberated from the bonds of sin and granted new life in Christ.  And when one has that liberty, not only can no man take it away, but one would sooner die for that liberty than submit their free conscience to a human authority that is opposed to Jesus Christ.  With these thoughts, I leave with d’Aubigne’s words:

“ Religion needs liberty, and the convictions inspired by her ought to be exempt from the control of the Louvre and of the Vatican.  Man’s conscience belongs to God alone, and every human power that encroaches on this kingdom and presumes to command within it is guilty of rebellion against its lawful sovereign.  Religious persecution deserves to be reprobated, not only in the name of philosophy, but above all in the name of God’s right.  His Sovereign Majesty is offended when the sword enters into the sanctuary.  A persecuting government is not only illiberal, it is impious. Let no man thrust himself between God and the soul! The spot on which they meet is holy ground. Away intruder! Leave the soul with Him with whom it belongs.”

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  (Galatians 5:1)

ISIS and Iraq: Why are they significant?

The Death of the State and the Triumph of Tribalism

Over the last couple months, we all have observed the escalating conflict in Iraq with growing concern as to what it means for both the region and the world at large.  In one sense, this ‘civil war’ in Iraq (if we dare call it such) is nothing more than an internecine conflict between different ethnic factions who hold to competing religious and political goals.  Even the bloody massacres perpetrated by ISIS, as horrific as they are, are not in themselves truly historically significant (I hate to break it to you, but there as always been a small, but militant faction of Islam that has enjoyed killing people.  Not to sound overly trite in our age of the “touchy feely” syndrome, but for that minority of Muslims, such a practice is the European equivalent of going to the pub on Saturday night before mass the next morning.)  But in contemplating the historical context of both the presence of ISIS in Iraq, and its consequence-a growing civil war, I was struck with the following observation:  What is happening in Iraq is an excellent example of an observation I made several months ago on this blog regarding the future of the modern geo-political state as we knew it and defined it in the 20th century.

In my previous post, Why 21st Century Politics is killing Socialism, I wrote the following observation regarding our postmodern world:

My point is that this paradigm shift in the western world, the death of the Modern, and the rise of the Post-modern, is the simple explanation why Socialism and its Centralized State are dying and being replaced with a new geo-economic and political theory. What will be the dominant political and economic theory of the twenty-first century? A modified form of Localism or Libertarianism. But lest those on the political right get overly excited about this observation, this embrace of Localism is not because mankind has suddenly experienced an awakening to the value of individual liberty. No, for the most part, the world is still rushing full speed back to authoritarianism. But for the Post-modern who views reality as splintering apart into a trillion little pieces, entirely disconnected to each other, the only sensible political theory is a form of anarcho-Libertarianism which could be stated more succinctly this way:

Let every man, woman, child or whatever gender you prefer to describe as do what is right in their own eyes.

Now, I can already hear the questions being posed. What does the death of socialism and the centralized state along with the rise of Postmodern thought have to do with a centuries’ old religious conflict among Muslims?  After all, Muslims aren’t exactly know for being champions of the centralized state or Modernism or Post-modern thinking.  Allow me to make two observations regarding why I state that the current conflict in Iraq is a reflection of the death of the Modern State and the rise of the Postmodern tribal mentality.

First, we must remember that the “MODERN STATE” of Iraq was an artificial creation of the Western powers after World War I.  The nation-state we call “Iraq” did not actually come into existence until 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Prior to that time, ‘Iraq’ was part of the Ottoman Empire and was ruled by the Turks from the mid-1400’s.  But with the defeat of the Central Powers, the victorious Allies, “afflicted and troubled in conscience” by the “sin of empire,” and eager to make the world “safe for Democracy”, determined that the Ottoman Empire needed broken up along with the German and Austro-Hungarian conglomerates.  But rather than break up the Ottoman Empire according to ethnic or tribal divisions, the Allied powers, ever mindful that making the world ‘safe for democracy’ meant preserving the oil fields of the Middle East for British and French industrial power, arbitrarily drew boundary lines in such a way as to preserve the integrity of the oil fields with no respect for centuries old tribal boundaries or ethnic and religious traditions.  This is how the modern state of Iraq came into existence.

But as the Modern ideals are dying (or in some cases, already dead), the people of the world will naturally revert back to what they knew for generations before the “modern hiccup” spit forth in the 20th century.  I would be so bold as to predict that before the 21st century ends, the ‘modern’ state of Iraq will cease to exist.  But that observation is secondary to my real point which is this: Iraq is dying because it lost it’s one point of national identity in 2003-the toppling of Saddam Hussein by the American invaders. And so it’s people are reverting back to their former loyalties: Shiites, Sunni or Kurd which are the three main ethno-religious groups in Iraq.  Localism killing the state.

But this fact pales in significance when compared to my second observation, the rise and spread of ISIS through the Middle East.  The presence of ISIS is Iraq is even more significant that then the problems in Iraq or Syria because their presence signals the rise of Islamic dominance once again in the Middle East.  I do not think that ISIS itself will last long.  Their goals and aims are far too radical, costly and disconcerting to both the Modern and Postmodern ways of thinking.  ISIS will die quickly, and if I had to make projection, Iraq will continue to plunge into worse chaos in the next several years unless another strong man comes to forefront. The question is, who will that strong man be? The United States? Another Iraqi nationalist like Saddam? Another foreign power from the East? Or a new Islamic leader who is both militant in his beliefs and can build a strong man coalition that can unite Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, and perhaps even other Arabs in a broad Islamic coalition?

That is the real question regarding the future of Iraq as well as our new postmodern world.

A. D. 2081: Post-war United States

Holy War! The Rise and Fall of the American Theocracy, 2039-2079 (Part 1)

by Nathaniel Lane Stewart, M. A.

Introduction: The Unique Phenomenon of the American Theocratic Republic

On January 20, A. D. 2081, General Josiah Grantham, who was elected the preceding November, was sworn in as President of the United States on a cold winter day.  Unlike inaugural ceremonies in past decades, this one was relatively simple.  Standing inside the dome of the old Capital building (which still contained large holes from massive bombings in the previous decade), the new president-elect took the oath of office with only a handful of observers-a few government officials, several military officers representing three different nations, and about hundred local citizens who had gathered for the occasion.  Despite its simplicity, this event was pivotal for many reasons, including several important firsts for its time.

One, President-elect Grantham was the first president to be formally sworn into office in 16 years-the last official inaugural ceremony occurred in January, 2065.

Two, he was the first president to hold office following the defeat of the American military in 2079 during the final days of the conflict that later historians would call World War III (2019-2079).

Three, his election and ceremony were also remarkable considering that during the years leading up to both events, much of the North American continent was under the joint military occupation of allied forces from the Republic of China, the Russian Imperial Federation, the Free Republic of Mexico, and the League of Islamic Republics, these powers having effectively defeated the United States and its few allies by June, 2079.  Further, despite these forces still occupying significant portions of American territory in 2079 and 2080, his election was welcomed by most of the officers of this joint military force.

Four, and perhaps most significant of all, he was the first president since George Washington in 1788 to be elected without facing an opponent.

Standing in the center of the domed rotunda with his left hand raised and his right placed upon a Bible held by his wife, the new president, dressed in plain civilian garb, repeated the oath of office to a local magistrate, who was the only official judge that could be summoned for the occasion.  After reciting the words, “So Help Me God”, the magistrate shook the new President’s hand and offered his congregations.  There was no 21 gun salute and no band playing “Hail to the Chief”.  The omission of both from the ceremony was the new president’s expressed wish.  After a quiet applause from the onlookers, President Grantham took his place at the dais and began to speak.  He offered words of thanks to the judge and to the various officials who had assembled.  He also thanked the citizens who attended, and then expressed his gratitude to all those who had participated in the electoral process despite the many hardships most Americans were facing in the post-war world.  After these and other rather generic remarks regarding the American traditions of democracy, he addressed the matter that was on the minds of most who were present:

“For almost three decades now, Americans have suffered under a brutal tyranny imposed by a minority of religious militants who upon high-jacking our system of democratic government promoted a vicious and evil form of religious radicalism of which this nation has never seen in its three centuries of existence.  We who have survived this national nightmare have witnessed the horrific consequences that religious authoritarian dogmatism can create. We have seen the death, carnage, and destruction that a religiously motivated political ideology will bring upon a people who have lost their spiritual identity, their love for truth and righteousness, and most of all, have lost sight of that second of the two greatest commandments: to love one’s neighbor as oneself. 

While our desire may be to erase utterly from our national memory those thirty years of horror, the responsible course of any nation must be to never forget the evil perpetrated by those few who sought to impose their misguided attempts to create heaven upon earth.  And by refusing to forget this tragedy of horrors, may we then avoid the mistakes of our parents in permitting such an evil to exist among us in our own time.  Today, let us pledge that while we wish never to see such grotesque evils visit our land again, we will never forget the bondage that human religion when mixed with civil government can and will bring upon any people.  We, as Americans, are a spiritual people.  We have always been a spiritual people.  We believe in spiritual truths that exist beyond this world.  As our Declaration of Independence affirms, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”  What truths? Spiritual truths-principles of morality-right versus wrong, good versus evil, and the moral versus the immoral.  But while spirituality is expressed in our National Creed, let us also remember the words in our chief national instrument of law-our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion.”  These two statements are American Values and American Fundamentals.  And though we welcome spirituality in our public arena, let us vow that we shall forever uphold the fundamental truth that the government shall never stand above the conscience of the citizen in regards to matters of religion!” *

This final statement received a standing ovation as the audience expressed its solemn concurrence to this firm declaration of principle.  And while the crowd gave its approval, President Grantham paused to face his audience.  Despite their apparent consent to his words, their eyes revealed a weariness of soul the depths of which could hardly be noted in those few moments.  Few present were military veterans, but all gave the expression of a people long oppressed with severe trouble and sorrow.  Having served in the U. S. Army since 2046, the President had seen first hand the sorrow his nation had experienced.

As observers of history, we must pause as we examine this scene and ask this simple query:  Why should a nation, conceived on the idea that the individual conscience, particularly in regards to religion, was free from coercion by the state now find that its chief magistrate must assert with clarity to the world that its government will never permit religion to govern its civic life, its laws, and its national identity to the degree of eliminating the freedom of the individual conscience? If the scene before us draws us to ask this question, then we have found a fitting point at which we can begin our study of one of the darkest chapters of the history of the Post-modern era: The American Theocratic Republic.  Though this regime ruled the North American continent (as well as parts of the Central America) for a mere 14 years (2065-2079), its influence in the American national life was felt as early as the mid-2040’s while its origins can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century.  And though we are over seventy years removed from its events, nonetheless, the shadow of the American theocratic movement still deeply influences life in the Americas in our own time.

(To Be Continued. . . )

 

*Taken from the Collected Writings of Josiah Grantham: The Presidential Years: 2080-2089, published in A. D. 2129, edited by Elizabeth A. Gratham and Maggie G. Stewart.

The American Theocracy

What if Christianity ruled the USA?

So did the title catch your attention?  Are you wondering what odd and crazy ideas this next post contains?

Let me restate the question in another manner: What if Christianity ruled the United States in the same way that Islam rules Saudi Arabia or Iran in today’s world?

Such an idea may sound absurd to us in the twenty-first century.  After all, what about the First Amendment to the Constitution and the “disestablishment clause”?  Wouldn’t such provisions make it impossible for any type of religion to gain control of the Federal government?  And given the context of our Post-modern world, with secularism, relativism, the paradox and subjective morality being the key beliefs of our age, why would I even pose the question of religion dominating civil and political affairs in the United States?

To us who live in 2014, such questions are legitimate.  But as I observe the trends in both theology and philosophy as well as the shifting global attitude towards religion in general, I would be so bold as to say that in fifty years, such questions could more than theoretical ideas, but very possibly realities in the world of the twenty-first century.

Without crafting a long answer, allow me to explain why I think it is likely religion will come to dominate the American government in the twenty-first century.  As I stated in previous posts, the Modern world is dead.  I agree that most people are still thinking in modern terms, but the ideas of the Modern have died.  One of the main consequences of the death of the Modern is the decline of a secular society rooted in a purely materialistic epistemology.  While the Modern had little use for religion (other than a quaint practice from days of yore), the post-modern has a definite use for religion in its worldview of paradox and contextualization.  Why do I claim this?

For the Modern, religion was just one of many lesser spheres that had little significance upon the course of events in the world whereas concerns of politics, economics, technology and science were considered the true drivers of history and development.  Therefore, the secular was the King of all spheres and ruled all things according to a scientific and ‘rational’ (really, it was irrational, but that is another topic for later) method.

Contrary to the worldview of the modern, the post-modern views religion as a viable and equal partner with the secular realm in terms of knowledge, interpretation of data, philosophy and ethics.  It is not that the post-modern has suddenly decided the secular and sacred should merge into one or that the sacred should govern the secular (like the Medieval worldview).  No, the post-modern still sees a distinction between the secular and sacred realms.  But given the post-modern’s emphasis on the paradox and contextualization of all knowledge, a distinction between the secular and the sacred is far less important to the post-modern than to the Modern Secular Materialist, the Enlightened Rationalist or even the Evangelical Protestant.  Ergo, the Post-modern welcomes the presence of religion in the world of the twenty-first century.

With this particular fact in mind, and the related fact that in the last ten years, we have witnessed the rise of religion around the world, and it’s growing impact on global affairs, I return to my original question: Given the slow blurring of the distinction between the secular and sacred realms in our Postmodern world, how will Americans’ attitudes towards the relationship of religion to the civil and political realms change in say 50 to 75 years?

Naturally, no one  in 2014 can know for sure what the future holds.  And don’t ask me; after all, I am an historian, not a prophet.  But I have thought about this question quite a bit, and have a few thoughts that I would like to share in the coming posts.  However, rather than try to share my thoughts in the form of some essays, occasionally such themes are better explained in the form of a story.  So I am going to invite you, my readers, to take a journey of historical speculation and imagination.  Let us travel into the future to the middle of the 22nd century-the decade of the 2150’s to be precise.  And rather than having me offering my own prognostications, I will let a historian of greater skill recount to you one of the greatest (and to us, ‘potential’) events of the 21st century.  So as I bring this particular post to a close, allow me to set the stage for you in regards to the world of this historian as he narrates to us the events that could await us in the future.

The name of this renowned historian is Nathaniel Lane Stewart.  He is a respected Professor of English and History at one of the few prestigious universities remaining in North America (most of them having been destroyed by the tragic events he will narrate to us), the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.  The University is a member of the Catholic Academic League, a worldwide organization under the jurisdiction of the Vatican.  Nation-states, as we know them, do not exist with two exceptions: the Republic of China, and the Neo-Islamic Empire.  The world is governed by a document known as the Covenant of Religious Detente  which was formally ratified in 2131 and for the last twenty years, has slowly been implemented by the Jesuits and other members of the Roman Catholic Church in cooperation with the New Islamic Empire and the Council of the Jewish Nation.

Professor Stewart has long standing family ties in North America and is regarded as reputable scholar throughout the eastern part of the continent.  He has written a number of significant works, including A Short History of the Twenty-first Century (2153), The Death of the State: How the German Epistemological Matrix Destroyed the Protestant Commonwealth (2145), and a controversial little work entitled, Who Doth Protest? How the Church reversed 6 Centuries of Schism (2157).  But his most important work, and the one we shall get a few samples from is this one: Holy War! The Rise and Fall of the American Theocracy, 2039-2079 (published posthumously from his lecture notes in A. D. 2195).  I trust you will find this little excursion interesting and instructive.

Next time: We open the pages of the history of the American Theocracy.