The USA from Commencement to Collapse: From Pain, to Productivity, to Prosperity, to Promiscuity

United States President John Adams once wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. The Constitution is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" (Source: John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798, The National Archives). 

Regent University, in establishing their Robertson Center for Constitutional Law, publicly stated: "The biggest threat to our constitutional order… is the failure to pass to subsequent generations the character, virtue, and knowledge required to protect the constitutional safeguards."

Many Americans feel as if they have lost their country. To those with a sense of this loss, it seems that the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are gone. But any lament over the loss of Constitutional liberties must take into account the past 50 years of United States history.

Sexual immorality has brought us to the fall of the Republic. If you won't take my word for the reason for our national collapse, at least ponder the conclusions of Oxford University anthropologist J.D. Unwin.

In Dr. Unwin's 1934 book Sex and Culture, he quotes the Greek philosopher Plato for the explanation of how and why a country or civilization goes "from democracy to dissolution." Plato said the dissolution occurs when the government takes from the rich to give to the poor. Plato wrote:

"Their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time, taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves (e.g. the government officials). The persons who have their property taken from them are then compelled to defend themselves as they best can...Democracy comes to dissolution by the insatiable desire of citizens to have what others possess." (Source: Timaesus, Critias, and Republic, by Plato).

Dr. Unwin studied 86 different cultures and civilizations over the past 5,000 years, including the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans, the Teutons, and the Anglo-Saxons. He analyzed these cultures and observed that sexual promiscuity always preceded the leaders' of that country's attempt to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. 

Dr. Unwin believed there was a strong correlation between a civilization's standard of monogamous heterosexual marriage and cultural advancement. He also believed (as do I) that legal equality between women and men is "a necessary prerequisite to absolute monogamy" within a culture (Sex and Culture, p. 431).  This Oxford anthropologist charted the 86 civilizations that he studied from commencement to collapse using four words: Pain, Productivity, Prosperity, and Promiscuity. 

At first, Dr. Unwin writes, people go through a painful struggle such as famine, disease, or war. that commences a cultural or national identity. Then, the people who have overcome the struggle through their self-discipline and innovation will become productive as a nation or society. For example, the United States went through our painful struggle of the Revolutionary War (AD 1775-1783). Shortly after winning the war, Americans became a productive young nation due to our Protestant work ethic and personal self-discipline, both of which were forged in the crucible of war.

Dr. Unwin observed that in productive civilizations, the prosperity of all people will soon follow. Over time, however, prosperous people become lax, casting off their self-discipline, their innovative courage, and their self-restraint. Prosperity as an experience leads them to pursue more and more pleasures. Thus, prosperous people invariably turn into promiscuous people. They set aside their morals, discipline, and religious convictions - the very character qualities that enabled them to overcome their initial seminal struggle - in an attempt to find even greater personal pleasures. 

You may not understand this Oxford professor's explanation for the rise and fall of civilizations, so let me give another explanation for the rise and fall of the United States using simpler, middle-American English.

Joe Wright, Pastor of Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas, opened the 2019  legislative session of the Kansas State Legislature with the following prayer. Joe Wright says the same thing that Dr. Unwin says: 

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We confess:

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the Name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

 The United States may be broken, but we serve a King whose Kingdom is unshakeable.

Self-Government Means Free Access to Information

If we the people of the United States are to remain self-governed, we must have access to all information, arguments, and opinions relevant to public affairs so that we may assess and choose the leaders that we desire to represent us in government.

Our free access to information and opinions must never be restricted. There are no essential substitutes for the freedom of speech and the press. Free access to a discussion about political matters is necessary for any society to remain free and self-governed.

Throughout history, repressive regimes, dominant dictators, and communist countries have recognized the power of freedom of speech. Repressive government bodies make certain they are the arbiters of what is “really” going on at home and abroad, and they regularly inform their subjects of "the truth" Any contrary opinions are silenced. Repressive governments may not allow free people to discuss public affairs and give opinions that differ from the party line. 

LEFTISM (available for free download) was written by Dr. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909-1999). Erik was a scholar and leading historian of the German “Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei” (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). He gives a gripping summary of what happens when repressive governments censor their people “for the good” of the nation. Dr. Kuehnelt-Leddihn writes:

"When a government demands identically dressed men or women carry out identical movements (e.g., “by everyone thinking, saying, and doing the same thing”), that nation gives the overpowering impression of homogeneity, synchronization, symmetry, and uniformity. A leftist identity movement tends toward the effacement of self (e.g. "the individual") and towards nostrism (e.g. "USness"). In nostrism, the individual becomes submerged in the whole as in ‘We're all in this together.’”

Nostrism was the term created by the Austrian Nazi Walter Pembaur (1886-1948). The Nazis (The National Socialist German Workers' Party) used nostrism in a clever way. 'Whoever praises and extolls the collective unit in which he participates (the German nation, the Aryian race, the working class, the Nazi party) only praises himself."

The nonconforming person or group who sins against the sacred principle of sameness will always be treated as a traitor, and if he is not a traitor the envious majority will push him in that direction through social shaming. All leftist identity movements take a stand for sameness and oppose otherness. All modern liberal trends point to the specter of a terrifying, bigger and more pitiless conformity.

To the simple-minded, identical laws, identical measurements, an identical language, an identical currency, an identical education, an identical political power ("one-man-one-vote"), identical pay rates, an identical intellectual level, and identical clothes (or coverings) seem highly desirable. It simplifies matters. It is cheaper. It saves thinking. To certain minds it even seems 'more just.'"

Political leftism destroys personal liberty. I would thoroughly subscribe to the words of Alexis de Tocqueville when he wrote, "Despotism appears to me particularly to be dreaded in democratic ages. I think that I would have loved liberty at all times, but in the present age I am ready to worship it."

The far-right extremist groups that breached the United States Capitol in an attempt to undermine the rule of law have been and should be condemned by all Americans. President-elect Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States, and Christians are called by Scripture to pray "for kings and all those in authority" (I Timothy 2:2). We will pray for Mr. Biden. 

But we will continue to speak out on the oppression of freedom and the repression of free people. Shutting down Americans' free access to information and opinions on political matters - even if you don't like the discussion being had - is never the solution for free people living in a free country. 

 As Benjamin Franklin once said: 

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Your Bed Is Too Short and Your Blanket Too Small

Today, half of the people in the United States will wake up mad and the other half will wake-up glad. 

Political elections have a way of splitting a country right down the middle. 

I may offend every American with this post. Whether your candidate lost and you are mad or whether your candidate won and you are glad, you have a greater problem than politics.

Your bed is too short and your blanket too small. 

That's a biblical way of saying your trust is in things other than the LORD. 

Let me explain.

Isaiah (761 - 686 BC) warned the people of Judah that their trust was in everything but the LORD. He chastised them for taking refuge in political leaders and in believing the deceptive lies that economic collapse and death would evade them. The Jews had seen those horrific problems plague their northern neighbors (Ephraim), but they felt confident those same problems would not face them. 

The Jews believed they were God's chosen people, and nothing like what happened to Ephraim could happen to Judah!

But Isaiah's message to Judah rang out with force and clarity (Isaiah 28). You may profess trust in the LORD, Isaiah said, but you don't possess trust in the LORD. 

You are trusting anything and everything but Him! The reason the prophet knew the hearts of his people was because he felt the emotions of his people. He knew them to be smugly confident when things went their way, and saw them openly fearful when things didn't go as planned.

If your trust is in the LORD, you are confident of the future no matter the present. 

Prophets speak for the good of the people, whether the people listen or not. The prophet's message is what the people need to hear. A true prophet is not silent when the people don't like his message. A prophet from God speaks because the principles conveyed are ultimately rewarding to the hearers, and he regards not whether the hearers are immediately receiving the principles conveyed.

To vividly describe the consequences of trusting in anything and everything other than the LORD, Isaiah summarizes succinctly and visually by saying:

 "The bed is too short on which to stretch out, And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in." (Isaiah 28:20 NASB)

When the OKC Thunder moved from Seattle, the Colcord Hotel changed out their beds. To entice visiting National Basketball Association teams to stay at the downtown Colcord, management replaced traditional beds with ones that were fifteen inches longer.

NBA players are tall. The Colcord knew that nobody likes sleeping on a bed too short.

You are restless on a bed too short. You are uncomfortable on a bed too short. You are often sleepless on a bed too short. You are tired the next day when you sleep on a bed too short. In short (pardon the pun), life is miserable when you sleep on a bed too short. You might not notice it immediately, but you'll darn sure feel it ultimately.

So too, when you have a blanket too small, you are cold. You feel insecure and unprotected from the elements. A blanket is a true refuge on a cold winter night. But when your blanket is too small, your problems are very large. 

Isaiah tells the people of Judah that their lack of trust in the LORD is ruining their lives. The ancient prophet's message to Judah applies in 2021 to the people of America. 

Trust in the LORD and nothing else today.