Monday, July 20, 2020

Hearts and Minds




“What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies.” – Thomas Cranmer


If you want to change a culture, you must change its people. And to change its people, you must change their worldview. If you’ve been around more than 40 years, you’ve been a witness to the most rapid cultural change in human history. If you’re over 60, the world you grew up in would be unrecognizable and unimaginable to those less than half your age.

For most of human history culture change has been driven by natural forces, or violence or new inventions, discoveries and break-through technology. Major climate change, floods and volcanic eruptions have forced change and adaptation throughout history. And certainly violence has been a major factor in change, often erupting in response to other change agents. Some will win and some will lose.

But in today’s world, culture change is largely a matter of ideas. Technology plays a major role in change, but it’s not at the core of what we are experiencing. Today it’s more about transforming worldviews from the inside out. Some claim this is all part of a well-orchestrated conspiracy launched and managed by a select group of global elites, or the Illuminati, perhaps with ties all the way back to Free Masonry, working behind the scenes to bring about a New World Order.

I think not. We humans just aren’t that competent. It is a conspiracy, no doubt. But it’s roots extend well-beyond the dimensions of this temporal world. And it has its own modus operandi which consists of four fundamental steps: Minimize, Criticize, Ostracize and Replace.

Whether it’s religion, politics, economics, the arts, education, medicine or science; it’s the same pattern. Sometimes it’s for the better and sometimes it’s for the worse. Sometimes it’s good in the short run, but bad in the long run. The pattern may play out in a matter of a few years or it may take several centuries. Remember the strings are being pulled by forces far outside of our time and space.

First they must minimize or discount the opposition. This is the preferred strategy when dealing with deeply rooted ideas and institutions. Christianity in the West has been going through this for over 300 years. One doesn’t replace a religion overnight or even in a generation or two. It takes time. Eventually, when the idea or institution has been minimized enough or essentially ignored (the old time preachers would say “watered-down”), it may then be criticized. Some will push back, but since there has already been some replacement in values (freedom over faith or independence over authority), the criticism will lead to more replacement (pro-choice over the right to life). Finally, when the remnant of those attached to the old ideas and values are outnumbered, they are ostracized. Their beliefs are wrong, so they are cut off (main stream media, social networks.) Now you can replace all of the old “bad” stuff with the new good stuff (equality, social justice, inclusion, reparations, clean energy and the best stuff of all…FREE stuff.).

But to make the change complete and effective, you must replace economic systems, political systems, educational systems and social systems. Consider the changes over the past 50 years in the way we educate and socialize our children. Do you think perhaps that might have something to do with the state of things in our nation today? Allow politics to be run by money and special interests and you end up with a dysfunctional system that can no longer legislate but only campaign for the next election. Increase entitlements and expand the welfare state in the name of fighting poverty and creating a “Great Society” and you end up with more people unable or unwilling to support themselves or a make positive contribution to their community.

In the later stages of replacement, they rewrite history and destroy the images of those who symbolize the “old bad stuff”. The goal is justice. And judgment day can only belong to those who got the short end of the historical stick. And so we find ourselves in the latter stages of a culture war. A war that is likely to go on until some event overshadows it. Perhaps it will be a pandemic much worse than Covid 19 or anything else humans have ever experienced. Perhaps all out nuclear or chemical warfare. What if the E.T.’s finally show up and turn out not to be so friendly. And what if the Biblical prophecies are correct? If the One who created everything in the beginning decides our time is over? Whether natural, man-made, other worldly or holy and eternal; it will be an event of epic proportions that totally transforms civilization. Make no mistake, we are racing toward the finish line and have been doing so for thousands of years. The world has always been and will continue to be a battleground…until it is no more.


“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”– Revelation 21:1