I watched as these disturbing developments gathered momentum through the ’80s and ’90s. More recently, I have been warning that marriage as an institution appeared to be dying. I’m sure some of my readers and listeners saw those statements as alarmist and overstated, and in fact, some have emphatically told me so. No more. The facts are now indisputable. Let me say one more time that if the family and the Judeo-Christian ethic collapse, the entire culture will descend into the same black hole that consumed Greece, Rome and the other great empires of the world. It’s just a matter of time.

It is well past time that all Americans, and all people living in these United States, heeded warnings such as these.  These are not the alarmist warnings of some kooky cult leaders; they are the continual observations of human history.  If you disagree, do the homework for yourself.  British Historian Sir John Glubb’s Fate of Empires is one of the best, most scholarly works I have read on the subject and it reached the same conclusion; I strongly recommend reading. 

Recently in Virginia, a 90 year old War Hero and Medal of Honor winner was attacked for simply raising our Nation’s flag on his own property.  While the homeowner’s association made such ludicrous declarations as “rules are rules” and this is “not about the flag” etc., the real truth was self-evident to any thinking person.  It was about the flag.  Somebody exercised their “right” to be “offended” (see Bill of No Rights by Louis Napper), and went after one of the very people who are most responsible for their freedom.  The people in the homeowner’s association sicked their lawyer on the Old Veteran (click on link for more). 

While everyone has the God given right to their opinions, there is a line between freedom and intrusion; there is a line between giving an offense and taking one.  Today that line is being deliberately blurred and besmirched.  Our nation is based upon freedom for all, and we can no longer tolerate such blatant disrespect as attacking an old man’s flag, because evil is emboldened when we do not confront it.  We are becoming a corrupted people; we are becoming a nation of bullies and cowards.  Worst of all we are terribly divided and balkanized.  There are stories similar in scope to the aforementioned happening every day; we now have outrage de jour in America.  No one has a “right” to take offense at that which is simply not offensive, such as reasonable public prayer or the orderly display of a flag.  We can no longer tolerate the contempt some of our elected officials show for the simple concept of righteousness (righteousness, from the Greek dikaiosune, that is – right conduct of man before God and right conduct of man before his fellow man).  We can no longer tolerate the contempt that some of our leaders (and by extension, some of our citizenry) show for things that are self evidently right and true, such as a respectful patriotic display.  We are committing societal suicide when we tolerate such convoluted behavior, and we are trampling on the very foundational concept of freedom upon which our republic rests.  When a society refuses to deal with evil, it has literally no hope of overcoming it.     

A ideological war has long been brewing from within and is becoming more heated every day.  All of human history reflects a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil; a titanic war between the forces of light and darkness.  G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “America is the only nation in the world that was founded on a creed,” and it is true.  At the heart of this present ideological war are those who think our nation ought to become more secularized, and that radical secularism coupled with blanket egalitarianism is the true road to freedom.  There are many who see America’s Godly Heritage as strictly oppressive and evil, and they do everything in their power to propagate and advance that stilted view point.  On the other side of the war are those who believe that there is a just God who presides over the destinies of men and nations – that He is the One who blessed America, and that America ought to make sure we are on His side.  With such a sharp divide from within, is there any hope for the future of our republic? Our Nation was founded “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”  God exists and the future is His, therefore there is always hope.  God’s people are not mere passengers on the voyage of history, we are its navigators.  We have a God-given purpose, from the greatest to the least of us; we have a purpose, and that purpose is not to live like animals seeking pleasure as so many today might suggest. 

Please join me and the millions of other Americans who want to rightly navigate the waves and storms of this particular age in history.  A recent and very encouraging development in the culture war is called the Manhattan Declaration (Bill O’Reilly eloquently discuses the matter here).  I strongly encourage you to look at it; you can read the declaration in its entirety on its website.  Finally, people of faith are starting to band together to stop the lies, corruption, rage and militant secularism that threaten each and every one of us.  Please join us as we fight for the very future of our children.  We have marginalized something in America that is absolutely fundamental to all our cherished freedoms.  It is this: freedom is the gift of God, and without His blessing, a people will not and cannot remain free.  Freedom is the simple duty of man to live under the gracious and just governance of God.  Human beings are not wards of the state, but instead are free moral agents who will all answer to the Supreme Judge of this Universe.  The moral capacity of mankind for self governance has been so badly undermined in the very nation that started it, that it is literally dying in the same place it was born.  Robert Winthrop, an early Speaker of the House of Representatives, said, "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."  And as Reagan once so rightly observed,

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.

But we are not finished yet; our freedoms may be dying but they are not dead.  And there is indeed a terrible divide from within.  We can no longer afford to pretend the divide does not exist, or that divide will grow and eventually conquer.  The divide exists, and as long as we live we have an obligation to do anything we can to fix the problem.  It starts with winning hearts and minds.  It starts with believing in something and living like we believe it.  We are called to be “salt and light,” and to “fight the good fight.”  We have a solemn obligation to define and stand for good and to define and stand against evil.  The ideological war in America is one that we simply must win.  The cost of losing will be greater than anyone of can possibly pay, because if we lose, the suffering will be unimaginable.    

As we opened, so will we close with these words from Reagan’s famous speech, as he referred to America and to all Americans, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us, we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”