“If I Were The Devil” – America’s Culture War

Some of you from my generation, maybe earlier maybe later, remember Paul Harvey. Even during my younger days, I enjoyed his commentaries and his “Rest of the Story” broadcasts. In 1965, he broadcast a rather prophetic warning to Americans. “If I Were the Devil” was apparently reworked by him over the years, but the message delivered as only Paul Harvey could is more appropriate today than any other time I can recall. And as they say here in the hills, “I’ve been around here a day or two.” Another great one is, “So God Made a Farmer.” Take a couple of minutes and listen to both. You may want to listen to them more than once.

As he did with most every topic, Paul Harvey grasped the heart of America. He aptly zeroed in on what truly makes America great. It is her boundless middle-class people like our farmers who still feed the world, but he just as aptly pointed out what may destroy us. The loss of our God, Family, and Country culture. Today he’d be reviled by large segments of our society. He’d be branded with the whole list of phobic epithets we read or hear broadcast across today’s major media platforms and reserved for the voices declaring love of America. Branded by the people determined to shred our binding fabric ripping us from our cultural foundation and replacing it with something wholly unrecognizable. Not only unrecognizable to our founders, but also unrecognizable to the ignorant cheering for it.

God, Family, and Country buttress our free and civil society. Remove them or damage them so severely they become meaningless, and you destroy America.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1

The 2014 General Social Survey showed in 1990 7% of Americans declared no religious affiliation. In 2014 it was 21%. Inside those numbers are what’s most revealing. In 1990, 9% of 18-24-years old declared no religious affiliation. In 2014, it was 33%. Similar change is shown for the age groups up to age 44. The college educated showed comparable increases. In 1990, 15% of political liberals declared no religious affiliation. In 2014, it was 38%. Political moderates increased from 6% to 19% and political conservatives from 5% to 9%.

The Pew Research Center’s, Religious Landscape Study, shows 38% of age group 18 to 29 years do not believe in God along with 34% of age group 30 to 49. The Pew study also shows that 32% of age group 18-39 and 36% of age group 30-49 view religion as not at all important. 79% of people who believe in God with absolute certainty also believe that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. The degree of certainty a person believes in God correlates with their views on not only abortions, but every social issue and political view.

Rejecting God means much more than declaring disbelief in God. It also means rejection of a moral authority. It is only through an accepted moral authority that we believe murder, stealing, lying, etc. are wrong. The increasing rate younger generations are rejecting God, religious affiliation, and with that a moral authority does not bode well for a free and civil society. If these generations hold firm to their beliefs, until they are of age and in majority to run the country, America is lost.

As the Psalm reminds, God is our fortress. When we weaken the fortress, we endanger families and our country taking refuge behind. We’ve seen families destroyed by welfare schemes, excessive poverty in single parent homes, high divorce rates, increasing abortion rates and states passing laws allowing abortion up to the time of birth, marriage encouraged that cannot naturally produce children, drug abuse destroying families, and the list goes on. We witness daily attacks on our country. Our founders, men of their times, are disparaged by the ignorant with standards of our time. Objects of history are destroyed. There are attacks on our Republic, attacks on the methods we use for election of our president to ensure the entire country is represented. Attack after attack on our country’s foundation.

Attacks on God, Family, and Country are reaching a crescendo. Our survival relies on restoring and strengthening our foundational pillars.

Website: Pendry’s American Journal

E-Mail JD: Jd@jdpendry.com