By 1783, the American Revolution was over and the greatest experiment in human liberty was about to begin. Unbeknownst to the founders, this new nation, which declared our liberty was not granted by government, but by God, would go on to change the course of events for the next two and a half centuries. However, while the musket smoke was still clearing the air in places like Brooklyn and Princeton, a revolution of another kind was brewing in the hearts and minds of the French on the other side of the Atlantic.
By 1789, the French government under King Louis the XVI was in financial ruin and his treasuries empty. After a series of political and economic missteps by the King and his nobles, the Third Estate (the common class) formed mobs and took to the streets. They stormed the Bastille and soon enough, took control of the government. In the fervor of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, they created the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, whose declaration was founded upon secular philosophy.
They then formed an Assembly by which they (the disenfranchised) used as a legal means to begin exacting their revenge on the nobles, aristocrats, royals, and anyone else they thought deserved it. Their government eventually fell under the control of men like Robespierre and his Jacobins, but that "reign of terror" came to an abrupt end after only a year. By 1795, another 10,000 Frenchmen and women would lose their heads to the guillotine's blade and a military general named Napolean was on the ascendancy.
The French Revolution
This undeniable event in our history put the end to a monarchy with divine rights. From this point on, France no longer saw itself as the “Eldest Daughter of the Church”. France established itself as a benchmark country for Human Rights and the concept of secularism progressively became one of its protective frameworks. On 12 July 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy introduced an initial severance following the nationalisation of the Church's properties. Secularism crossed a threshold with the Concordat of 1801, which placed the church under the guardianship of state power, creating civil marriage and the civil state in particular. (Source)
While the government in France has since changed its form and function almost as routinely as one changes their clothes, the American experiment has proven to be quite resilient, perhaps even more so than the founders could have ever dreamed. Nevertheless, the twin spoils of war, luxury, and leisure have wrought more damage to the American dream than anything the Civil War, the Third Reich, or the Japanese could have ever done. In our hard-won victories, America grew both proud and weak; assured that the sacrifice of the previous generation would be enough to carry us through another century of status quo.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Pres. Ronald Reagan
Although the ways and means of the two revolutions couldn't be further apart in terms of end-results, both nations have now arrived at the same end-times destination all the worse for wear. The United States of 2021, bears more likeness to the administration of King Louis XVI of 1789 than it does the United States of 1945. The resemblance has taken the shape of overwhelming financial troubles, an overly corrupt government, and the democrat-progressive led establishment of a two-class system consisting of the haves (bourgeoisie), and the have-nots (proletariat). A perfect example of this growing wealth-divide is California, and the eradication of its middle class.
Nevertheless, this detached and yet powerful bourgeoisie represented by the career academics and politicians, Hollywood and media elite, tech and corporate oligarchs, and a growing unelected deep state apparatus, issue their conscriptive fiats via tweets and interviews from the comfort of their urban fiefdoms. They hold the keys to the bully pulpit, and have increasingly decided they are no longer interested in the "conversation" they championed for so long. Besides, its much easier to simply stifle the dissent via censorship rather than have to debate the merits of an idea. And since the 2020 election, the now unified bourgeoisie-class has decided to boil their new party platform down to four words (in ref to the rest of us)--"let them eat cake."
Meanwhile, in flyover country, the proletariat (i.e., the poor, the working class, the Trump voters, and the average Joes) attempt to eke out an existence largely living hand to mouth and paycheck to paycheck. They watch helplessly as rising inflation (due to out-of-control national debt and the overprinting of currency) eats away at their hard-earned American dream. Disruptions in our supply pipeline seem to come with increasing regularity, and come and go like rolling blackouts. Shortages in fuel, lumber, power, food products, microchips, toilet paper and so on, appear to be part of this new normal globalists keep going on and on about. Adding insult to injury, the proletariat just bore witness to the their one and only presidential champion getting sidelined by one of the most outlandish and frighteningly bizarre coup d'états in modern political history.
There is a storm on the horizon of apocalyptic magnitude. One could make the argument that the French are better suited for weathering the coming global upheaval than we Americans. Given their history of war-mongering neighbors and a continuous parade of unreliable governments, the French have had to endure much worse, for much longer, than we over these same past two and a half centuries. At least they have had the practice. The United States, on the other hand, has grown soft and effete. We are in such a weakened state that we are practically letting China (a near-peer), dictate the terms of our economic surrender. What this means is no American with the means to make a difference, will risk upsetting the Chinese and/or corporate applecart. The applecart representing the massive influx of cheap manufactured goods coming straight from the Chinese plantations to a Target or Walmart near you.
Not only this, but nations around the world are sensing our growing vulnerability and are even now, prepositioning themselves for this eventuality. Once stalwart allies are putting sunshine between us. Enemies are becoming emboldened and are now readying their forces. Nations formerly under the banner of our protection, are seeking other alliances elsewhere. This has led to the world regionalizing in the reality that a once quasi-benevolent superpower who held the world in check, is now on the outs. The world is approaching the knife's edge and the only ones who seem to be in denial of this, are our leaders.
Conclusion
"Almost by definition, secularism cannot be a future: it's a present-tense culture that over time disconnects a society from cross-generational purpose. Which is why there are no examples of sustained atheist civilizations. "Atheistic humanism" became inhumanism in the hands of the Fascists and Communists and, in its less malign form in today's European Union, a kind of dehumanism in which a present-tense culture amuses itself to extinction." Mark Steyn
As far as the history books go, a monarchy (King Louis XVIII) eventually returned to France after Napolean was deposed in 1814, albeit, in a much weaker state. The French had gotten a taste of liberty, and were determined not to let that revolution (as flawed as it was) go to waste...hence, the frequent change in governments in the many decades to follow. Meanwhile, the anti-Christian zeitgeist of human secularism lingered on long after Voltaire and other humanist philosophers passed into their eternal destinies. Secularism lingered because the Roman Catholic Church had all but squandered all of its goodwill and biblical authority in the centuries prior pretending to be "the Kingdom" vis a vis the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, in a post-revolution, secualized France, the Roman Catholic Church's claims of apostolic authority were as empty as King Louis XVI's treasure vaults.
From the French Revolution, came forth the rise of atheism, agnosticism, and skepticism, which spread from France to the rest of Europe like a second, spiritualized wave of the Black Death which had plagued Europe in the 1300s. It left its victims hopeless, helpless, angry, and spiritually bankrupt. Adding insult to injury, this secularization helped popularize the disastrous philosophies of men like Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. Fromt here, human secularism began to creep into the universities and the seminaries in the forms of liberalism, progressivism, higher criticism, and many other 'ism's'. Before long, this new spiritual pandemic was finding its way into the new world and her many universities, seminaries, and other ideological ports of entry.
In a practical sense, the Americans had bailed Europe out twice between World War I and II; thus, from a European leaders' perspective, the US had her uses. However, from the 1950s onward, there began to rise a growing dichotomy between the increasingly secularized European nations and the still religiously attuned United States. This problem was not so much with the American elites, but with the people themselves. The American people (i.e., the proletariats), whom both the American and European elites largely viewed as uncooth primitives (i.e., bitter clingers, Easter-worshippers, gun-toting, freedom loving, capitalist, Christians in the bible belt), were the problem.
This is not a theoretical problem. This is not even an ideological problem. This is an existential problem. It's existential because there is no coexisting with a worldview that seeks to put you in the dustbin of history, and then rewrite that history as if you were never really here. (Example: Hadrian's Curse)
If the European elites, who had tolerated decades of anti-semitism leading up to World War II and the Holocaust, are now willing to trash their own nations via unchecked Muslim immigration (who are largely anti semitic), do you not think they would demand the same from their American counterparts? This is part and parcel why Trump met such fierce resistance during his tenure because he intended to curb this form of weapons of mass migration with a wall. Weaponized Immigration, which is orchestrated by a nation's adversary, seeks to overwhelm the receiving nation by masses of desperate people, with no protocols for assimilation. It is the fastest way to undo a culture.
So why are the elite doing this?
Better question- why are the elites STILL doing this in the middle of a so-called global pandemic?
It is because the elites (both American and European bourgeoisie) are being driven to do this by a much older, ancient force than even they understand. For the record, they don't understand it because they don't believe it (thanks, Human Secularism). Yet that lack of belief does not negate the reality or the agenda of these dark spiritual forces.
These elite hate Christians as equally as they hate the Israel, yet, they can't comprehend the rationality behind that hatred anymore than a dog can understand why it hates a cat. The reason why its not rational, is because that hatred goes beyond the temporal, corporeal reality we presently exist in. That hatred is from the father of lies himself, the Devil. He hates the Jews because of who they are (God's covenant nation) and their rebirth as a nation in 1948 signaled to him the end of the age and his coming judgment is nigh at hand. The Devil hates the Christian because of who we identify with (Jesus Christ) and even though from an eternal perspective, we are untouchable, he wages war against us now to make us of no effect. Thus, his two primary missions: Erase Israel and stamp out Christianity.
In doing these, the Devil has convinced the European elites that the only way to fix the world's problems, is to put the whole world under one, singular government, much as it was back in the days of the Roman Empire. But the Americans and their Constitution, have increasingly becoming the main obstacle to this supposed global utopia. Thus, from a first cause perspective, he must first sideline America in order to implement said global agenda. Unsurprisingly, he has successfully convinced our American elites that national suicide is our only viable option to save the planet. Hence the demand by the left for total amnesty, open borders, universal mail in ballots, abortion on demand, vaccine passports, social credit scores, defunding of law enforcement, deconstructing US history, green new deal, and the dechristianizing of the public market place of ideas.
Adding copious amounts of salt to said national wound is the draconian governmental enforcement of an ever-increasing laundry list of politically correct dos and donts, to accommodate an ever-increasing and diverse list of victim classes who are usually located within the LGBTQ+A?, Islamist, indigenous, and progressive socialist groups. This is the same lunacy for which our literary forefathers had unwittingly forewarned us about many decades ago. G.K. Chesterton's 1914 novel, The Flying Inn (here) and George Orwell's 1984 (here) eerily foreshadow what we are actually living through now. Other notables include: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged, Philip K. Dick's Minority Report, and even often Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone.
Since their day (Chesterton, Orwell), modern western civilization has proven, if anything, is that she will fight to the death every single time a tyrannical tinpot despot in a funny uniform rises up. Paradoxically, western civilization will also bend the knee every single time a weaker and considerably more psychotic progressive proposes some new form of legislative lunacy. The latter intellectual is often far more dangerous than the former.
Multiculturalism is a good reminder that when standards are relative, there are no standards at all. Victor Davis Hanson
Consequently, the United States has repeatedly flattered itself into believing the endless procession of Trojan Horses lined up at the gates are gifts from relationship-minded old-world suitors offering cheap labor and even cheaper capitalism in exchange for our liberality. However, we fool ourselves into believing that our supposed philosophical, political, and economic superiority, echoes familiarly in the hearts of people everywhere, not realizing, our experiment in human liberty is the exception, not the norm. This realization is why multiculturalism and cultural relativism are so destructive to our nation in particular. Nevertheless, we are no more immune to the poisonous ideologies that have been destroying the world since the 1800s than we are to some exotic virus that is but a plane ride away from becoming a global pandemic.
Conclusion
Human Secularism, as the biblical Jude once noted (regarding false teachers), crept in unnoticed. It was the gradual infection of humanism (in all its forms) which began the rot of incrementalism and gradualism which took this nation unaware. From the 1920s insertion of the Frankfurt Institute into American academia, to the cultural indoctrination of Critical Race Theory and Social Justice Gospel of today, the political and religious Left ALWAYS go after the youth. The youth of a nation is always the subversives target audience, primarily as they seek to nullify Reagan’s aforementioned maxim of being ‘one generation away’ from losing freedom.
But it is not all in roses in the world of progressive socialism. Many of those in charge now were once the 1960s radicals of the previous generation. They are increasingly incapable of controlling the monsters of their own creation (i.e., violent political activists) they have let out of the bag. One only has to note the current conditions of violence and degradation in cities like Portland, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle to see how little control the Left really has.
But this unrest is not only happening in the West. Riots, protests, looting, and the general breakdown of societies are happening round the world. While some are protesting for freedom (e.g., Hong Kong, Iran, and Venezuela), others are carrying out the mandates of critical race theory in places like South Africa and Washington D.C (courtesy BLM). Still other places are protesting the draconian COVID-19 lockdowns in places like the UK and France. But a little political unrest from the hovelled masses is not enough to persuade the global elites to give up their dreams of a global utopia hence their reply...Let them eat cake!
They are literally hell-bent on bringing their agenda to the world, not realizing that they are slavishly doing the will of their father, the Devil, who will in the end, destroy them all the same. There is no live and let live with Satan and his dark forces. They are at enmity with the human race, and will use one group to pick off the other, and then destroy those remaining useful idiots in an attempt to change their fated-destiny in the lake of fire. Satan and his ilk, KNOW what is coming, and they KNOW how terrible it is, and that is why they will do whatever they can to avoid it at all costs.
Of course, as bible believing and watching Christians, we know how this all ends. We know the world will chase after false messiahs and prophets. We know wars and rumors of war will fill the age. We know various calamities, like birth pangs, will increase in severity and frequency. Due to these problems, the world will race toward a global government. We know that two men will rise to the top of this global government and take control. We know they will bring about the worst period of time in all of human history.
We know that at the end of that seven years, Christ will victoriously return, splitting the sky in two and with the armies of heaven in tow. We know the Antichrist and the False Prophet will be cast alive into the lake of fire. We know Satan (the Devil) will be bound in chains and tossed into the abyss for a thousand years. Finally, we know Christ will set up His earthly, millennial kingdom on the earth as He rules and reigns from David's throne in Jerusalem.
Most importantly, we know that before all these things, Christ will return at the Rapture and remove His Church from the earth. Our disapearance will be so sudden and so final, it will be as if we were never really here. The atheists, the secularists, the Christ-rejecters, and the elitest bourgouisie will rejoice and congratulate themselves on getting the world they think they deserve. A world without Christ. A world without the restraining influence of a Holy Spirit filled church. In our absence, in that vacuum...hell will fill the void.
Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. Luke 21:28 (emphasis mine)
Even So, Maranatha!
Post Scriptum:
The moment we are caught up and are translated from mortality into immortality, and from the temporal to the eternal, our lives here will seem like a distant memory. And it matters not if you were 9 years old, or 90, the span of our life compared to the backdrop of eternity, will be so insignificant, that we will hardly remember, or want to remember, what it was like before we came home. It will be as if we were never really here, because here is not our home. Here is not our be-all end-all. Here is not where the story ends, but the story begins.
Those who invest only in this life and in this world, is like a man who saves all his money by throwing all of it out of his car window while racing down the road towards a washed-out bridge. Who we are now, and what we do then, is only made possible by Christ's obedience unto death. His sacrifice will be of so much more importance that in 100,000,000,000,000+ years from now, we will still marvel at the grace and mercifulness of God's plan, the sacrifice of His Son, and our redemption by the shed blood of Christ.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7