Mark Twain once opined, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” A previous AT article noted that Scottish professor Alexander Tytler developed a similar observation specific to republics: throughout human history, they all follow a particular life cycle. According to his defined cycle, and barring a dramatic change in our nation’s conduct, America is soon destined for collapse. Best-selling author Jonathan Cahn, who wrote “The Harbinger” and a follow-on series of related biblical pattern-repeating books, has highlighted stunning parallels between specific periods in the history of Israel and the current state of the United States. These parallels are both precise in their details and alarming in their implications. Cahn also warns that without a significant change in our collective beliefs and behavior, our nation will soon fall.

Before addressing the validity of these foreboding forecasts of gloom and doom, let’s explore this interesting phenomenon of what appears to be fractal behavior. Fractals, a term coined by IBM mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, are complex geometric shapes that display self-similarity, meaning a subset or smaller part is a copy of the whole. They are found throughout nature in the branching of trees, the patterns of leaves, the outlines of mountains and coastlines, the shapes of snowflakes, and the spiral patterns of hurricanes and galaxies. These are physical patterns of self-similarity, but what Twain, Tytler, Cahn, and others imply is the existence of repeating human behavioral patterns. These “mythofractals” demonstrate that throughout human civilization, subsets of human behavior repeat themselves. Unlike the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, which can be experienced in different intensities and orders (much like the scattergram of emotions Democrats are now experiencing after last Thursday’s presidential debate), these behavioral patterns are more rigid in their sequence and thus more reliably predictive of their outcomes. Can discerning these mythofractals and analyzing their critical components be useful in directing the future course of our nation?

Today’s environment is deeply politicized. Everything has become political. Everything. Politics pervades our sports, indoctrinates our schools, is injected in movies, maligns our military, slants our news, and even infects our churches. Each holiday, there are tips for handling political discussions at family gatherings. Some accept this as normal. The problem with everything being political is that politics is a zero-sum game: there are winners and losers. If politics is the apex of our beliefs and culture, unity is impossible. A house divided will fall. There must be a higher calling or priority for unity to exist and for the community to thrive.

Politics is the superficial manifestation of deeper beliefs. As Andrew Breitbart observed, “Politics is downstream of culture.” Tracing that concept “upstream,” we find that culture is largely shaped by institutions—the so-called seven cultural mountains of arts/entertainment, media, education, government, business, family, and religion. These institutions embrace specific worldviews. Beyond worldview, it becomes personal. Everyone has a cornerstone—their greatest love or what is most important in their heart.

As we celebrate America’s birthday, we remember that our Founding Fathers promulgated a particular worldview for our nation in the Declaration of Independence. In our official worldview, we are not children of chance but descendants of the Divine. The Founders proclaimed self-evident truths: all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, including Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. They viewed God as the Supreme Judge of the world and addressed Him as Divine Providence, meaning that God did not just press the cosmic start button and sit back to watch but is intimately involved with human affairs. Later, in drafting our Constitution, they referenced Jesus Christ by signing it in the Year of Our (nation’s) Lord. Our national motto succinctly summarizes these beliefs: “In God we trust.”

“In God we trust” is the nail upon which our Constitution hangs. It is the unifying principle that creates the unum within the e pluribus. It also forms the basis of belief critical to our nation’s survival. Both Cahn and Tytler, in their mythofractal models, explicitly declare spiritual faith and a strong moral foundation as essential ingredients for a nation to thrive. The politics of liberal or conservative policies will swing left or right, but the pivot point and common bond is our trust in God. The beautiful yet double-edged sword of our Constitution is that as a citizen, you do not have to embrace our nation’s official worldview. Our First Amendment guarantees your right to express your views and worship whomever and however you please without fear of being arrested and sent to some government-sponsored reeducation camp.

The founding of our nation was not without challenges and some tragic irony. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that all men are created equal, was a slave owner. The Declaration’s principles and ideals were correct; the proper execution of them was not. The failure to address this grave injustice by kicking the can down the road (as politicians tend to do with difficult issues) was costly, leading to one of the largest civil wars in human history.

In our nation’s second struggle for independence, President Lincoln, while speaking at the battlefield site in Gettysburg, framed it by referring to our founding: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Our nation survived this horrific ordeal and, in the following century, became the most powerful nation on earth.

Now, we are in our third contest for independence, and the battlefield is not a physical one but a spiritual one. The warfare today is over spiritual bondage. Are we, the people, children of God or unknowing slaves of Satan? As our Constitution allows, it’s our choice and we need to choose wisely. The necessity of the “In God we trust” nail is now being challenged. The woke movement, undergirded by cultural Marxism, directly attacks its presence. Marxism is most understood as a political embrace of the grossly ineffective policies of socialism and communism. However, its pinnacle objective, as Karl Marx declared, is to “dethrone God.” Removing God spawns evil. There are no spiritual vacuums. Currently, the major influencers atop five of the seven cultural mountains embrace a secular philosophy. Only religion and families that follow a life of faith prioritize trust in God.

King Solomon sagely stated, “There’s a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death.” This is the path of the woke agenda, and it will be the path of America if we continue to pursue and embrace it. This godless philosophy is full of chaos and conflict, inspiring jealousy, envy, rage, and licentiousness. It promotes a hierarchical caste system of victimhood based on race, “gender,” and sexual orientation which encourages division, not unity. Its promotion through disinformation makes the father of lies smile. The emerging business practice of discarding meritocracy for DEI metrics only leads to substandard performance. And, as history has repeatedly shown, rejecting God leads to destruction.

This is the true choice for America. We began as a nation under God, trusting Him, and asking for His guidance and blessings, for blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD (Psalm 33:12). Do we pursue Him or embrace the untethered woke philosophy of doing whatever you want? What is your cornerstone?

Virtually all politicians still conclude their speeches with “God bless America.” We’ll have to do more than just honor God with our lips. It must be “all in” with our head, heart, and hands. It’s the only path to freedom that this nation, under God, with a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Tom McAllister, Ed.D, is a business consultant, adjunct professor at Truett McConnell university, and the author of Short Strolls in Faith.

Image: Public domain.