Anyone watching videos of our dying cities, seeing the appalling test scores from our schools, or trying to buy groceries has to come face-to-face with the fact that we no longer live in a wholesome, productive, free country. We are not in Kansas anymore. We’re going to have to face up to that fact and act accordingly. It won’t be easy.

Almost 50 years ago my husband and I took issue with the public education our grade-school-age kids were receiving. They were being exposed to courses that taught kids that parents and clergy were suspect, that euthanasia was an appropriate course of action, that evolution was fact, that the occult would help them discover their true identity, that there was no real, absolute truth. Fifty years ago! We succeeded in removing our children from the offending courses, but we seemed to be nearly alone in our concern. We knuckled down and diligently untaught our kids the nonsense they were being exposed to in the classroom. I even taught in the public schools, grateful for being able to close my classroom door and teach truth. But even then, it became evident that I was making a dangerous compromise.

We have, as a nation, done just that. We want all our children to be educated, but we also want freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of political opinion. If we truly have that freedom, we have to admit that there is no middle ground, there is no neutral position when dealing with the important ideas. There is good and there is evil. There is nothing in between. (The Law of the Excluded Middle). If, in 12 years of public schooling, we never mention God, we have succeeded in teaching that God isn’t, that He is just a fairy tale, a hobby some of us indulge in, and He has no place in the public square.  

Knowing that some sort of mores must be included in education, the schools opted for “tolerance” as its most valued value. This has many advantages:

1. Tolerance is easy -- no thinking is necessary, no risk, no taking sides. Just live and let live, and we’ll all get along. -- it demands nothing of us.
2. Better yet, God doesn’t have to show up for that lesson. It’s not one of His commandments.
3. Tolerance can be adjusted as needed. We teach tolerance for some actions and none for others -- at the whim of the teacher her union and her political ideologies.
4. Tolerance allows people to redefine words, mess with our language, tangle and confuse things so that no intelligent conversation can happen. It’s been a win-win for the far left, for evil.

This one-note, substitute morality has cost us dearly. Tolerance has required us to deny God and His rules (rules designed to make living together as flawed human beings possible). It has required us to avoid careful, logical thought. (For instance: If we tolerate a behavior, we’ll get more of it.)  It has demanded we avoid the testimony of history and statistics. It has watered down honest academic curricula, filling that space with “studies” about topics of questionable value, designed to separate people into groups with assigned grievances. Tolerance has required us to be dishonest, to avoid competition, to eschew merit, to hate each other and our homeland.

No nation can survive that approach. It has ruined our military. It has all but dissolved our schools. Our medical system is in shambles. Businesses can no longer keep their doors open. The press is mostly just make-believe. Our police can no longer do their jobs. Our families are crumbling. Our children are being mutilated and sold as sex slaves. This must be the stopping place, the place where we put our collective foot down and turn this thing around. If we don’t, we deserve everything God will throw at us.

It is time we call a spade a spade and stop being fluffy and soft. We are so far down the rabbit hole and our downward momentum is so fast that it’s hard to sort things out, but it can be done.

We can start sorting ideas by the age-old criteria of good vs. evil. Not Republican or Democrat -- that is meaningless. I know wonderful people who still stubbornly wear the Democrat label. I know Republicans so wishy-washy they no longer deserve the term and wouldn’t know a republic from an oligarchy. This is much deeper than politics. We’re looking at carrying the Ring to Mount Doom, at following Aslan, at being ready to risk it all to turn this around. If we look at history, we see that that often requires losing everything. The signers of our Declaration of Independence did not fare well themselves -- many died, many lost families, many lost property. Are we up for that? Some of our compatriots have already lost their freedom, their fortunes. Will that be in vain?

Are we up to declaring in the public square that God is very much watching this nation and disapproving of much that has us in its grip. Sodom and Gomorrah appear to have been real cities on the plains at the north end of what is today the Dead Sea. What caused God to rain fire and brimstone down upon those cities? Sexual perversion -- pervasive sexual perversion. What caused God to order the extermination of the Canaanites? Sexual perversion that included the sacrificing of infants. Hmm…

Are we willing to call out our fellow citizens and declare that drug use (equated in the Bible with witchcraft) is evil? In my state we just legalized all drugs. The results are alarming.  Are we willing to demand that homosexual marriage be done away with? Are we willing to open the Bible and check to see what behavior God wants of us? Or are we so lazy that we’re content to just make it up as we go? That Isn’t working so well for us; are we willing to admit that?

Are we willing to catch up on what science (our alternate deity) is discovering about the real God? From microbiology, to organic chemistry, to physics, to astronomy, to archeology -- all the sciences are making astounding discoveries that ought to make us take a serious, corrective look at Darwin’s pathetic ideas. Are we willing to teach our kids and prepare them to answer their teachers with real science?

Are we willing to fight the witch’s flying monkeys, to argue in the public square for not only our right to be guided by God’s precepts, but for the necessity of doing so? Are we sufficiently tired of being told what to do by some Ozzy wizard behind a mysterious screen? Are we tired of being told what shots we have to have, what places we can go, what things we can talk about? Are we tired of our elections being rigged, our ability to own a house being abrogated, our travel curtailed by high gas prices?

One lesson I recall from my earliest Bible teacher -- “A nation gets the leadership it deserves.” I remember that every time I watch Biden stumble up the stairs or try to shake hands with invisible dignitaries. I am reminded whenever I hear Kamala stagger through a meaningless sentence or two. Are we adequately humiliated by these two to do something about it? Are we adequately angered by the evidence of Biden’s treason to demand justice?

I don’t know. But I, like every other thinking American, knows that we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re in the darkest storm we’ve been in since the Civil War. We must be prayerful, brave, knowledgeable, determined, and righteous. May the demons attacking this nation be damned.

Deana Chadwell is an adjunct professor and department head at Pacific Bible College https://pacificbible.edu in southern Oregon. She teaches writing, logic, and literature. She can be contacted at 1window45@gmail.com

Image: Public Domain