What Happens When You Stop Believing in God?
The Manufactured Crises of the Left
Let’s return again to Chesterton. When men stop believing in the true God they do not then believe nothing. They then believe anything.
And that’s where we are. Many in western culture, especially our so-called elite, no longer believe in the God of the Bible. And that makes them vulnerable to all kinds of crazy fears—fears that have no basis in reality and which they create in their own minds. Why do they invent such fictions? Because a fearful populace can be easily ruled and manipulated. But why do people believe this nonsense? Because they do not place their trust in the true God of Scripture.
At the top of the list of invented crises is catastrophic climate change. I am not arguing here that the earth is not warming. What I am arguing against is the absurd conclusions Progressives come to as a result of different weather events. A reader of the New York Times recently recited a list of fears due to a changing climate: species extinction, more widespread disease, unlivable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas.
This is all absurd. None of these fears is grounded in reality. Last Wednesday Bjorn Lomborg, the president of an environmental think tank, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal. It was entitled “Polar Bears, Dead Coral, and other Climate Fictions.” He opened with this comment, “Whatever happened to polar bears? They used to be all climate campaigners could talk about, but now they’re essentially absent from headlines. Over the past 20 years, climate activists have elevated various stories of climate catastrophe, then quietly dropped them without apology when the opposing evidence becomes overwhelming. The only constant is the scare tactics.” Why have climate doomsters stopped talking about polar bears? Because in the last twenty years their numbers more than doubled.
Again, “The same thing has happened with activists’ outcry about Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. For years, they shouted that the reef was being killed off by rising sea temperatures.” But recently it has been found that the reef has actually increased in size and is bigger than it has ever been.
And one more example from Lomborg: “More recently, green campaigners were warning that small Pacific islands would drown as sea levels rose…. About a month ago, the New York Times finally shared what it called “surprising” climate news: Almost all atoll islands are stable or increasing in size.”
I could go on and on cataloguing this silliness but you get the picture.
The catastrophes of catastrophic climate change are one of the Progressive Left’s manufactured crises.
Let’s consider others.
How about White Christian Nationalism?
Numerous left-wing media outlets and authors argue that America is about to be taken over by so-called White Christian Nationalists, or WCNs. A WCN allegedly believes things like the federal government should: “declare the United States a Christian nation,” “advocate Christian values,” “allow prayer in public schools,” and believe, “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”
A recent documentary, God and Country, argues that Christian Nationalism threatens to destroy American democracy and replace it with religious rule.
A new Republican administration would “fill government jobs with “Right-wing psychos” who want to ban birth control and abortion and usher in fascism.
This is strictly a Leftist bogeyman. It is a manufactured crisis for people who are terrified of everything because they no longer trust in God. If WNCs exist at all their numbers are tiny and they have absolutely no influence.
Ask yourself these questions: What academic department at any university in America is controlled by WCNs? What government bureaucracy exists to do their bidding? What major piece of legislation are they pushing through congress? What Hollywood studio is under their control, cranking out movies that promote WNCN values? Who is more likely to be violent? WCN’s or BLM protestors and antifa?
Let’s look at a third manufactured crisis: Systemic racism and the war against black Americans. There is an entire industry built around this hoax. DEI, or Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion are now bureaucracies designed to address this supposed crisis and the exist at most major universities and it is treated as settled law in most government bureaucracies. It has made enormous inroads into corporate America. Last spring at a graduation the president of the United States said that “white supremacy is the greatest threat facing America.” He said it is an ongoing conspiracy against black Americans denying them their rightful place in America life.
Nothing could be further from the truth. American society has made heroic efforts to elevate African Americans and has largely succeeded. Our black population is the richest in the history of the world. It is politically the freest and most powerful. African Americans are successful in every area of endeavor and are disproportionately superior in some of them. We have just finished the Olympics, a spectacle watch and celebrated by millions of white Americans. Did you notice any presence of black Americans? The argument that they are singled out for oppression by the police has been debunked over and over again. Read anything by Heather McDonald on this subject. I have linked one of her articles below. The African American United States senator from South Carolina, Tim. Scott, recently said the mantra of systemic racism “is a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people today.” Instead of wringing our hands we should be shouting black achievement from the housetops. Black failure is a manufactured and imaginary crisis created by the Left.
Then there is January 6, 2021. The Progressive Left called it an insurrection to take over the American government and end democracy as we know it. One current presidential candidate compared it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The majority leader of the United States Senate said the same thing. This is ridiculous. January 6 was not a proud moment in American history but Pearl Harbor? Please. A political protest became a riot and the halls of congress were briefly occupied. No one brought a gun. One person was killed—one of the protestors by a capitol hill policeman. If you are going to overthrow the U.S. government you should at least bring guns. The same people who condemned January 6 made little mention of the George Floyd riots the previous summer that caused 2 billion dollars in damage. But the Left has leveraged this event, manufacturing a crisis in order to gain political advantage.
One more manufactured crisis the Left has labeled Rural White Rage. This, too, has been called a threat to “the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.” Leftist academics have stated that Rural whites are “the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay demographic group in the country.” On top of that, rural whites are also “most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.”
This is ridiculous and the opposite of the truth. Rural America is the least violent place in our country. Left-wing hatred of rural America is primarily because people vote the wrong way. They aren’t racist or violent. They just don’t vote for Left-wing candidates. There is no data whatsoever to back up the above assertions about rural America. This is just another crisis invented by the Progressive Left.
Next time the Left-wing press trots out a new crisis, an “existential” threat to America remember that it is probably manufactured and has no basis in reality.
What bothers me most is the Progressives willful blindness to the blessings we enjoy in modern life. (Given us, by a benevolent, good God.). They enjoy the richest, healthiest, most secure lives of any human beings that have ever lived. Yet their ungodliness leads to fear, worry, and handwringing of the worst sort.
They don’t need to be fighting imaginary catastrophes. They need to change their religious beliefs. They need to turn to the God of Scripture and be healed.
Thanks for listening. May our gracious God continue to bless you in a mighty way.
Bjorn Lomborg:
The hysterical Left-wing fear of “Christian Nationalism”
Ryan Burge looks at the White Christian Nationalism statistically:
The Myth of White Christian Nationalism:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/05/the-myth-of-white-christian-nationalism
Heather McDonald: There is no epidemic of racist police shootings; https://manhattan.institute/article/there-is-no-epidemic-of-racist-police-shootings
Liberals cannot comprehend black advancement: https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberals-cant-comprehend-black-economic-progress-real-estate-interest-rates-893b647?mod=opinion_lead_pos8
Rural rage: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395
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