Today’s news revealed a single theme, namely, the breakdown that occurs when a Western culture abandons God entirely.

The humanist Christianity that arose in the 18th century and lasted through the mid-20th century had a lot going for it regarding societal success and stability. When leftists convinced the West to overthrow Christianity entirely, a whole lot of baby went out with that bathwater. Here are the four recent stories illustrative of the harm done because we’ve allowed leftists to erase those humanist Biblical norms from our culture.

One. The University of Richmond is in Virginia, which was once a part of the South’s well-known Bible belt. Perhaps acknowledging that heritage, the University is still teaching the Bible...but with a really perverse twist. Professor Rhiannon Graybill (“she/her”) is a religious studies professor, along with being an advisory board member of the “Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.”

Her research and teaching revolve around the Hebrew Bible. Graybill, though, isn’t interested in tired old saws about God or morality. Instead, “She is especially interested in feminist and queer approaches to biblical interpretation,” a focus that sees her talking about “unstable masculinity in the Hebrew prophets” or focusing on rape and sexual violence in the Bible. You really have to read her webpage page to see the obsessive homosexual spin she brings to the Bible.

Or maybe, instead of reading her webpage, you should just sign up for her Queer Bible class. (Hat tip: Legal Insurrection.) Here’s what you’ll “learn”:

This course brings together queer theory, sexuality, and the Bible in order to explore what it means to “queer” the Bible and biblical interpretations. Readings include both biblical texts and queer and trans scholarship on the Bible. Topics may include questions of sexuality, gender identity, and queer hermeneutics, queer time, queer affect, and queer pleasure in the Bible.

It costs $62,600 per year to attend the University of Richmond.

Two. Ireland was once an intensely Catholic country. The Irish took their Bible seriously, which would have included believing in the sexual binary. That’s why the country’s persecution of Enoch Burke is so horrific.

Burke taught at Wilson’s Hospital School, which is a Church of Ireland school. (That is, it’s run by the state but exists under the Church’s aegis.) Burke made the mistake of believing that the Church’s role meant the school actually hewed to Biblical precepts. For that reason, he refused to pretend that a boy in his class was a girl. For this sin, Burke has been fired, fined, and jailed.  This persecution recently saw the government seize or freeze all of his money:

As a reminder, Islam is now Ireland’s third-largest religious group, with a steadily growing population. The Muslims would undoubtedly agree with Burke’s position, but it’s equally likely that they’re pleased to see Ireland commit cultural and moral suicide.

Three. In Colorado, a 17-year-old girl—autistic and traumatized by her mother’s bout with cancer—was shunted to a school therapist without her mother’s knowledge. When the girl decided she was “trans,” she got into a fight with her mother (Cynthia Stein) and fled to the home of JoAnn Smotherman, a one-time teacher at the girl’s school. Smotherman, in turn, lives with a “trans (i.e., fake) woman named Vivian Smotherman. When Stein called the police to rescue her minor child from these people, the police refused to act, dismissed Stein’s concerns, and even pretended that Stein’s daughter was, in fact, male.

Regarding the above three stories, all of which revolve around so-called “transgenderism,” please enjoy this video and be sure to note the man’s attack on parents and traditional values, an outlook taught at the University of Richmond, and folded into the governing system in Ireland and Colorado.

Four. I wrote the other day about young women giving up on marriage and children. I discussed a few possible factors, such as the ease of dating apps, fear of climate change, and the women’s unwillingness to accept that men are different from women. What I might also have discussed is the profound narcissism behind the women’s refusal to celebrate the difference that makes men so complementary to women, the yang to their yin.

These young women are consistent with American culture as a whole, which is defined by self rather than any element of self-sacrifice. Each of our personal desires becomes the highest goal and justifies any behaviors necessary to achieve that goal. People no longer believe in morals, nor do they believe an omniscient being is watching them. If they can get away without being caught...well, that’s all to the good.  

When I go to services at my local Chabad House, I am reminded that I am not the most important thing in the universe, that I am being watched and judged by an outside moral force, and that there is an order to human life and society. A country that loses those anchors very quickly lapses into madness.

Image: X screen grab.