

Primal Ethics:

what our kids are taught in school and culture

Abridged Version

Smashwords 2016

Minor portions of this book may be used without permission

This book is dedicated to Ann Marie and Janessa, and to all single moms who work hard to give their children any advantage in an increasingly difficult world.

Table of Contents

Introduction

One—--------the worldview conflict

Two-----------the basic worldviews

Three---------the Flat formula

Four----------send in the clowns

Five-----------how we rejected context through Modernity

Six------------the Modernist impasse

Seven--------the "god-free" ethics your kids are taught in school and culture

Eight---------the Postmodern

Nine----------more on your kids and school

Ten----------Happiness, Hate, Harassment and Hysteria

Eleven------the turning point

Twelve------here a kingdom, there a kingdom

Thirteen----the Culture War

Fourteen---trying to flatten God

A summary

Introduction

Here's the central problem. Your children are growing up in an increasingly difficult culture that even you don't understand. There is growing corruption and confusion and a world of pain coming round the corner. You sense it. We sense it. But, how can we protect them? One way is to help them see what they are getting into. And, to do that YOU have to know what is going on.

For example, it has been the natural condition for the majority of mankind to suffer manipulation. Servitude and thuggish rule have controlled most populations throughout human history. It is rare that a population sees enough common reality to live free...but when that does happen great happiness and prosperity is possible. Therefore, one of the first things to recognize is that our "free" Western civilization is collapsing back into a more natural condition--miserable servitude. Why? When a people see truth it becomes possible for them to shape things for the better—to have accountable leaders and good results in society. However, when the general populace [like ours] begins to lack a clear vision, manipulation follows. And, here is a surprising fact: we live in a time of increasing darkness—a kind of social blackout.

How could that be? We have access to so much more information today. We can know the weather in Zambia and look at the animals LIVE in the Hamburg Zoo. How could it be a darker time? Anything I want to know I can Google immediately. Well, the simple answer is that, unless you are WISE, a billion more facts just create a blinding noise. Yes, what is needed today is Wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge. Wisdom is the ability to fit information into context and avoid trouble. And for some time now, our society has rejected the very idea of "context" and, therefore, no longer tries to shape wise children. Rather, your kids are being indoctrinated in a poisonous form of ethics that rejects God [the ultimate Context] and Wisdom for a cartoon vision of a perfect world. These ethics are at the very heart of our social blindness and imminent collapse today. Now, I will not hide the ball from you. There seems to be no stopping the collapse of Western civilization. It is far under way. However, you would do well to understand how our culture can pollute your kid's mind and heart, to learn the "hidden" messages and ethics they are taught in school, and to turn on the light of Wisdom for yourself and your children.

This small book will show how Western civilization began to reject the very idea of "Context" in the higher levels of intellectual study, philosophy and education. And, this created a huge worldview conflict. That conflict divided us into 3 groups: the "god-free", the God-fearing and the compromisers—or "loving middle" people. Over time, the small minority of god-free people have grown much larger and won over the "loving middle" crowd. This newly combined group claim that they are "empathetic" and those who oppose them must be either ignorant or manipulative for gain. However, great economic destruction and real physical danger is shaping up under their "loving" view of progress. Today, the commanding heights of culture are almost completely controlled by these "enlightened" people: education, media, political, legal and, now, even the military. There is no institution that has remained unaffected by their power. Thus, Western civilization is almost completely directed by the fear-based ethics and confused vision of these people.

So, let's learn the basics of this vision and ethics. Let's see what happened and how we can help our kids.

CHAPTER ONE

THE WORLDVIEW CONFLICT

I can still remember her sad expression wrapped in shiny, blond hair. My sister had just come back from her big date. She was obviously disappointed. Shaking her head, she muttered something about how it was too bad because the guy was really handsome but he didn't have a clue. I'll never forget how she summarized it: "Some people are looking in the wrong place for the answers...but this guy doesn't even know what the questions are."

What did she mean by that? Some of the timeless questions, that nearly everyone will confront, are: Who am I? Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? What is the purpose of life? How you respond to the big questions of life will shape your outlook—your worldview. Then, when a man or woman lives by a particular worldview, we say that is their "values".

Western civilization had a set of values. Originally, our society was built up with a huge majority of its people believing in a Biblical worldview or, you might say, Judeo-Christian values. In the past, so many people held such values that our society became overarched with that spiritual worldview. For example, it's hard to travel 10 miles in my home state without seeing some reference to a saint like San Francisco or an angel (Los Angeles) or a sacrament (Sacramento) or see a church...etc. Our entire public life was once soaked in religion.

However, today, the overarching worldview of Western society has gone through an enormous change. There are empty churches scattered throughout Europe. There are declining religions throughout America. Our collective worldview has adjusted to our individual, changing opinions of the big questions in life. We are no longer a united people who would have our common faith shape our public lives. A growing number of us doubt the existence of God or, at least, hold that such beliefs should in no way interfere with public life. Thus, we are a people in a sad conflict. Like my sister and her date, there is a longing for unity but a serious separation over worldview.

So, the first thing to understand about America is that we are a painfully divided people. Yet, this split did not result when everyone woke up one day and decided there was no god. [A 2015 Pew Research study shows over 70% of Americans are Christian.] Our society did not completely change its answer to the most important question in life—is there a God? Rather, we devalued the question.

One cause of our division actually began long ago, after the bloody religious wars of Europe in 1648, when Western intellectuals began to formulate an important, new question: How do we fashion a peaceful society from those who believe in God or gods or no god? The question seemed legitimate. However, the question had some bold assumptions.

It assumed the authority to override eternal faith for the public welfare. It presumed that physical security is the highest, human good. But, most importantly, this developing new, worldview question (How do we fashion a peaceful society from those who believe in God, gods or no god?) already seemed to have answered a far bigger question (Is there a God?) with the answer: "That isn't a priority".

As this new question (and answer) was restated and redefined in many ways by many great thinkers throughout history, it began to gradually displace most of the other worldview questions in social importance. By the 18th century we were designing governments that would operate as impartial and "god-free" as possible. Now, by 2016, we have gotten to a point where the fervent, public expression of religion is deemed offensive to many and downright unsafe to more than a few.

Today, with cell phones and access to all kinds of computer and media systems, it is much easier to simply ignore the big issues of life altogether— to give up trying to find the clarity of an overview. Therefore, many people surrender the peace and joy of seeing how the truths of each day fit into a larger picture. Some simply "feel" their way through life like blind men in the dark. Cut and scraped by life, empty and anxious at times, they drug themselves with petty entertainments and hollow pursuits. However, you are not like them. You want to understand this vast, worldview conflict taking place all around— how larger forces are battling it out for the fate of humanity. You want to know what drives these vast movements and how you and your family are impacted. Good for you and God bless you! Let's try and make it simple.

CHAPTER TWO

What are the basic worldviews?

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God." Psalm 19:1

The Earth moves through space as part of a Grand Story. Some have poetically called this unfolding story the "Song of Creation". They believe in a Creator. They believe God has a purpose. Thus, they approach each day within a Big Narrative of meaning and purpose. For example, such people may well reason that there is an order to Creation—that human life is more valuable than birds—that life seems to stack up vertically from the ground up. It rises from mineral to plant life to animals to humans and, ultimately, God is at the top. They see our physical world ascending into the spiritual. Many recognize that humans are uniquely composed of body and soul. And, the soul--the individual human heart—is at the white-hot intersection of freedom where the physical and spiritual universe collide. Such people may well recognize the moral demands of all this, but their lives have a treasured place within the Grand Story--each moment filled with eternal meaning.

However, a growing number disagree. They say there is no overarching meaning to life—no "meta-narrative". There is no created order because there is no Creator. Mankind is not the purpose of the universe because there is no God with a purpose. There really is no context. The human race is merely another species that came along the evolutionary process. In the vast expanse of time and space, people are actually quite insignificant. As a result, there are no eternal responsibilities. There are no fixed truths--no moral absolutes. We are not confined by transcendent, moral guidelines like "10 Commandments". Life is what we make it. We should be utterly free to write our own story.

These are the main 2 outlooks in conflict. One believes in God, great meaning, responsibility and a high purpose for mankind within a created order: it is something of a Vertical worldview. The other worldview is quite Flat as everything is reduced to the physical.

For example, in February of 2003 the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) began to display a series of gruesome, 60-foot billboard signs that compared the Nazi slaughterhouses of 6 million Jews to our modern food processing factories. There was an understandable, public outcry. Comparing starving prisoners to a plate of fried chicken seemed completely wrong. But, PETA was merely expressing their core belief that the world is Flat. To them, there is no "created order". Everything evolved randomly. Molecules formed various shapes. Therefore, one shape is not superior to any other shape. To PETA there is a kind of molecular equality, with no overarching, moral guidelines that would give a baby girl any more value than a baby seal. Perhaps, animals are superior to humans because they are often the innocent victims of human manipulation. We eat them. Therefore, PETA members have a wellspring of anger that eludes many of their fellow citizens. They have developed a kind of Flat ethics when the great majority of us still see Vertically. But, what exactly is a Vertical worldview?

Imagine you're walking down the avenue passed shops and restaurants. In one of the widows you see a woman sitting down to a plate of fish and lemon. A Vertical worldview would first recognize a distinction between the woman and the albacore. According to a created order, human life is far superior to a fish. Therefore, we could make a value judgment that fishing is a moral activity. The Vertical worldview is brimming with such moral distinctions and subsequent value judgments. Thus, we can recognize universal truths and moral absolutes based, first and foremost, on a created order and these imposing a sense of common decency on human action.

In his book "Man's Search for Meaning", a Nazi death-camp survivor Viktor E. Frankl concluded that there are only two races of people: the Decent and the Indecent. This sounds true to me because I see and think in vertical terms. I know there is a God and, therefore, a created order of natural laws and rights. Whether God used 13.7 billion years of adaptation and evolution or used a more direct process, I still recognize the classic outlook of an ascending order: from lifeless chemicals to plant life to animals and from people to God the Creator. I see transcendence to the human spirit that exceeds our physical bodies. Thus, as I look across humanity, I don't see strangers. I see my brothers and sisters under God. These are people, with various shades of skin, each with eternal souls and a God-given dignity and beauty unique to themselves. And, I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's observation that people should not be "judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".

Frankel and Reverend King obviously had a vertical way of seeing life—that people have more intrinsic worth than their flesh and bone. That is because the Vertical worldview recognizes a dignity that transcends the physical world. And, here is an important point. The Flat worldview either must ignore this great dignity or try to spread it equally to all of Nature. Therefore, really flat people--like PETA--may extend equal dignity to all things: to birch trees and Girl Scouts and polar bears alike. Far enough down that road, it leads to the idea that everything is supremely dignified—that is, everything is part of god (pantheism). Or, they might decide that "dignity" does not exist at all—that everything is completely meaningless (nihilism). Both of these contradictory ideals can be generated from a Flat worldview.

The Loving Middle

Now, in modern America, it is widely argued that there are actually 3 worldviews in play: the physically Flat, the spiritually Vertical and a tolerant, "loving middle" position. Yes, many people today would like to consider themselves as open-minded centrists. These are well-intentioned, spiritual people—mostly Christians--who seek a workable compromise with the Flat worldview. Tolerance and compassion are some of the central drivers of their worldview. These would actualize the love of God in the world by uplifting the lowly and understanding those with whom they differ and, in turn, build bridges of peace and unity—a noble goal indeed.

There is only one problem. The Loving Middle people don't seem to understand the first thing about those with whom they differ. They don't grasp that the Flat worldview is a closed system of thought, that Flat people cannot really factor in the "delusions" of theists and, most importantly, that the Flat world order ultimately leads to dysfunction, corruption and inhuman coercion. Yet, because of their naïve misunderstanding, the Loving Middle people voluntarily quarantine the sweeping narrative of Created order and meaning—of their own Vertical worldview--to the realm of near insignificant, private opinion. But, this does not achieve some noble or lasting public peace. Rather, it only serves to more thoroughly flatten society.

This book will show how and why these "loving" and "empathetic" people seem to steer a course for peace, equality and social bliss...but end up with the exact opposite result.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FLAT FORMULA

Here's a bit of a shocker from Benjamin Wiker's powerful book, "Moral Darwinism: How we became Hedonists", Charles Darwin did not discover the idea of evolution. It had been kicking around for nearly 2200 years. It seems a Greek teacher named Epicurus, long ago imagined our world was made of tiny, undividable parts. (The word "atom" is Greek for "undividable".) This was a pretty amazing speculation since he did not have access to any kind of microscope—which was invented in 1590. One of his students, a young man named Lucretius who despised the gods of ancient Greece, reasoned that atoms randomly formed all that we see. Therefore, he imagined that atoms formed random shapes, completely undirected by the gods. Some shapes were healthy. Others were "monsters" which did not survive because they could not defend themselves. He reasoned that only the fittest could survive and develop (evolve). Darwin came along much later and fleshed out the details of such adaptation along with a new twist—the theory of species changing into entirely different species. As a matter of fact, before 200 BC, Epicurus and Lucretius provided nearly the entire scientific basis of the Flat worldview of our modern era.

Epicurus was annoyed at the way people allowed the many gods of ancient Greece to disturb them. The populace always seemed agitated in their quest to please Zeus or Apollo or some other deity. He thought untroubled pleasure should be the goal of everyone. Thus, he developed a kind of "formula" or way of seeing and dealing with life that was primarily based on eliminating this Vertical worldview. The formula, therefore, was first and foremost designed to displace spirituality from the public lives of men by reducing their focus to the physical: by using speculations in natural science.

To Epicurus and Lucretius, there should be no ignorant reference to gods—only the physical world. Their brilliant, but false, evaluation of the atom was that it was eternal—undividable and incorruptible. Yet, we know now that natural radiation comes from atomic decay, which is so common that even our bodies are somewhat radioactive. Likewise, their false evaluation of the universe was that it too was eternal—without a beginning. However, we have only recently (within the last hundred years) discovered that the universe started with a kind of "Big Bang". No, our universe is not an unlimited lottery of chance events. Everything is a mere 13-14 billion years old--hardly enough time to go from a burning pool of hydrogen to a single, complex protein. But, since these early scientists—Epicurus and Lucretius—had these false evaluations, of an eternal and self-sustaining universe, they gladly closed God out of their system of inquiry. Thus, their Flat worldview formula would speculate with physical research but their true aim was for undisturbed pleasure.

Epicurus was so interested in being "undisturbed" he became something of an ascetic. He would forgo pleasures, like eating fine foods, so as to not want them in the future. His younger students, however, became openly hedonistic and used scientific speculations as a justification of their own wild behavior. As the early Christian church spread out, it strongly confronted this Greek philosophy—these crude scientific theories rooted in atheistic/hedonism. [Acts 17:18 records how Paul was mocked by the Epicureans of Athens.]

In "Moral Darwinism", Professor Wiker goes on to demonstrate how this [Flat] worldview, that our modern dictionaries loosely refer to as "Epicureanism", went underground for over a thousand years with the powerful rise of Christianity, only to reemerge (by 1417) with the fresh republication of the writings of Lucretius and Epicurus. The closed system of Epicurean science, with its core antipathy to God and the Vertical worldview, would become the conduit for a building skepticism over Church corruption, political/religious wars, the Enlightenment philosophers, Darwin and many others. The old idea that God was a disturbing invention of the ignorant, an enemy of human comfort, and that science was the only path to true human peace took root again.

Thus, a great irony began to unfold over the following centuries. Christianity, which had preserved a large repository of history and knowledge within its monastic libraries after the collapse of the Roman Empire, began to be assaulted by this ancient formula. Christianity, which had developed early models of public education and great schools of higher learning, found itself opposed from within its own academic walls. Christianity, which produced so many great thinkers like Boyle, Priestley, Brahe, Leibniz, Copernicus, Paschal, Kepler, Faraday, Ohm, Ampere, Harvey, Descartes, Lavoiser, Kelvin, Lyell, Herschell, Cuvier, Gassendi, Steno, Lemaitre, Planck, Maxwell, Newton, Pastuer and countless others, [who diligently advanced the natural sciences with the premise of uncovering the beauty and rational order of God's creative design] began to be "rationally" shut out by the old Epicurean view of a closed system of natural science.

Most of the early assaults to the Vertical worldview took place with small, incremental steps over hundreds of years. For example, some great thinker like Hobbs or Spinoza would come along, casting doubt on the veracity of Scripture or contend that God and Nature are of the same "substance". Then another, like Hume, would come along and introduce even more skepticism.

Sometimes, as when Copernicus discovered that the Earth is not the center of the universe, a Christian scientist would seem to cast doubt on the Vertical worldview. [After all, the Bible seemed to imply that the Earth is the center of Creation.] And the Church leaders, coming under a widening assault, sometimes reacted very poorly. Trying to simultaneously refute fresh errors in theology and philosophy, the Church infamously lashed out at real truth and science. Yet, banning books, imprisoning Galileo or burning "heretics" at the stake only made the arguments of Epicurus more attractive.

So, whatever became of this epic clash of ideas? The short answer is...The Epicurean formula displaced God, in the West, as the central reference point of inquiry into scientific truth. What does that mean? It simply means that society once held that all truths were interconnected with The Truth--God. (I think it was Augustine who once said, "All truth is God's Truth".) Indeed, Science is premised on the idea that God fashioned a rational universe, therefore, human reason could "discover" [uncover] the rational design hidden in Nature. Now, such references to God or an Intelligent Design are considered unscientific because the new formula has completely closed the system of inquiry.

This is huge. Why? It overtly dismissed the Vertical worldview as irrational while it inadvertently established a new, moral formula that centered on the physical—the Epicurean goal of undisturbed pleasure. Here are a few more modern examples of the formula in action:

Alfred Kinsey compiles a mountain of biased data on human sexuality by interviewing male prostitutes and prison populations. However, he dresses in a lab coat and calmly presents his evidence to the world as "normative". Then, the public began to believe a whole tapestry of false claims...e.g....that more than 10% of the population is homosexual and that most teenagers (in the 1940's) were having sex—many with animals. Kinsey's message: the old, Judeo-Christian (Vertical) worldview on human sexuality is ignorant and unnatural. Rather, so-called "perversions" are natural because they are far more common than people suspect. Therefore, Kinsey's shocking "findings" became the primary reason that Sex Education was considered so necessary for public school children.

Here is another example. Margaret Mead, unable to really speak the language, goes to Samoa and writes a kind of research/romance novel filled with "facts" that the natives, later, strongly refute. She claims the island people, who live in a pre-industrial environment, are quite free with their sexual relationships. They have easy and open sex under palm trees with many different partners. Their sense of family is carefree and quickly dissolved. Mead's message: the Vertical worldview restrictions on sex and divorce are actually unnatural. If we could return to our pre-civilized humanity, we could find something of a paradise of undisturbed pleasure with no social restraints.

Here is a familiar example. The US government was cutting off Roger Revel's research money. He was studying the effects of nuclear testing at sea. He had research ships and an entire Institute right here in my backyard (La Jolla, California). However, the war (WWII) was winding down. Living just outside of the Los Angeles smog zone, Revel quickly comes up with another research idea. It has to do with the effects of pollution and "greenhouse gases" on our climate and ocean ice. Perhaps the planet will overheat? Later, one of Revel's worst students, Al Gore, runs with the speculation as FACT. Soon, many more scientists (most with no credentials in the field) had signed on to the hysterical idea that man-made carbon emissions were creating a global catastrophe. Consequently, world governments reward these scientists with huge financial grants to study the problem and find solutions. As huge amounts of research money pours in, the misinformation multiplies with slick documentaries and corrupt research. Why? Scientists who claimed there was indeed a worldwide climate disaster were rewarded with larger and larger research grants.

Gore's message: the Vertical worldview, that elevates human freedom through open markets and personal, moral responsibility, is obviously unworkable and dangerous. A Flatter worldview, where human activity is forced to be more level with the natural world, is a far safer course for planetary survival. [Oh, and by the way, please pay me to manage the new system via "carbon credits".]

Today, modern Western civilization is beginning to wake up to the fact that we are being played for chumps. There is a lot of false data and spin out there. New terms like "junk science" have entered our daily lexicon. Thus, we are becoming wary of agendas. The problem is that the closed, Epicurean worldview has, over time, spread from the natural sciences to the rest of academia, then to politics and the entire public square. Therefore, society is losing the Vertical tools to make the moral distinctions that would safeguard us from human manipulation. As B. F. Skinner once wrote, "A closed system of naturalistic cause and effect simply gives no basis for things like moral freedom or human dignity."

CHAPTER FOUR

Send in the Clowns

"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."

Abraham Lincoln

Have you ever been around a fussy baby? Not one that is crying just yet, but, right on the edge. Such a child might look at a toy held up to their face and calm down for 10 seconds. Then, that little face gradually scrunches back up into a cranky, powder keg--ready to explode.

Once, I saw someone invite a fully dressed clown into that drama. A young couple was at their wits end and the poor clown happened to be walking by. I guess the parents thought a freakishly large, red nose and lips, wild eyes, purple hair on a half balding, garishly colored creature with enormous hands and feet would somehow cheer up their insecure child.

I'll never forget the look on that kid's face. There was a hushed moment of great intensity as the child's eyes widened. Then, there was a shocked convulsion of absolute horror as the blood drained away from her cheeks. Then, that little powder keg exploded with screams that could be heard for a full city block.

Maybe, those results were predictable. The child had felt some mild disorder--perhaps a little gas or the onset of a rash. The loving, but frazzled, parents didn't know how to begin to alleviate the pain. So, they tried to fix things with an even worse disorder—a clown in the face. Perhaps, mom and dad forgot that most of us are delighted with clowns because we are amused by the intentional disorder: the oversized features and ridiculous proportions. A child, however, might process that same disorder quite differently. A clown's features could easily be seen as "unnatural"—stirring up revulsion and fear. [Yes, God has designed a natural order in the world that even a child can detect.] However, I brought this incident up to illustrate one simple point: even the most loving intention can sometimes make matters far worse.

Today, Western civilization is something like that baby with those frazzled parents. Our Judeo-Christian values had supplied a common order and overarching stability as we built up into a great and prosperous society. But, something was wrong. The Vertical worldview had not eliminated all sin and suffering and conflict. (Was that ever the goal?) For example, in the 1700's, Western humanity was still under the ancient curse of slavery and war and cruelty of every sort. By turn of the 20th century, there were still large pockets of racism in America and even oppressive laws on the books. So, like those worried parents, we lovingly made things far worse. We turned to a very happy, Epicurean clown. We began to set our minds and hearts on the illusion of a perfect, Flat world of equality and peace. But, like those parents, we didn't really consider the full consequences of introducing far greater disorder into the drama.

Now, there are many millions of good-hearted people devoted to establishing the Flat worldview. These range from those who are militant against the very notion of "god" to those who utterly believe that there is a Creator but such opinions are best kept as a "private matter". Both the atheist and the compromised Christian/Jew—the "loving middle people"—seem to agree that a peaceful society is only possible with a thoroughly imposed Flat worldview.

As this book seeks to help you understand America today, it will expose the comic disorder and immense dangers of imposing a Flat worldview on any society. But, I want to make it clear: I don't despise the parents who tried to help their child with a clown—nor those who seek a better world with poorly considered ideas. I am convinced that a small minority of Flat zealots, aided by a vast number of the "Loving Middle People", are currently on a path to ruin Western civilization. This will result in a tremendous increase in human suffering--worldwide. But, I am also convinced that such people have good intentions. They really do want a loving world of peace, social equality and human progress balanced in responsible harmony with Nature. However, going Flat will actually bring the opposite result. It's a clown-in-the-face solution.

Laugh or cry?

CHAPTER FIVE

How we rejected context through Modernity

This book is trying to help you with your kids. However, for this, it is important to have a basic overview of the period going into and away from the Enlightenment Era. We need to at least recognize a kind of "Big Bang" of secular thought called "Modernity"--where so many ideas exploded outward through our culture. It is also very helpful to understand the great riddle that has troubled mankind for the last 400 years, known as a Modernist Impasse. This chapter will try to achieve an easy summary of where Modernity came from. The following chapter will explain the importance of the Modernist Impasse.

To some people the "Enlightenment Era" (1500-1800) is supposed to be the real beginning of Western civilization. But, Christianity had actually preserved much of civilization before that. By the year 480 the Roman Empire had collapsed, the world was overrun by barbarian tribes and Christianity had begun a long process of trying to maintain and advance the known culture. Monasteries sprang up across Europe. These were fortresses of "Ora et Labora" (prayer and work) but also of book copying and education. The monks preserved great libraries within their walls. Soon, the walls were expanded to protect whole villages that built up around the monasteries. The monks and nuns began to teach the young, village children. (One of the founding fathers of monasticism is St. Benedict who had a sister named Scholastica where we get the words "scholastic" and "school".) After many hundreds of years, the small villages had turned into expansive towns and monasticism was in need of reform. Several monasteries were becoming infamous for corruption. And, even today, society has still not forgotten about this era. You can still see images of the overly fat monk with a large mug of beer on advertisements.

One of the early reform groups started in a monastery at Cluny in Burgundy. The Cluniac reform movement was vast and lengthy: 950-1130. One of the later reforms involved a group of Italian monks who dressed in white robes, rather than the traditional black, nicknamed "Capuchins" for their "small hoods". (Perhaps their hoods inspired the name of a small, white-hooded coffee drink: "Cappuccino".) Of course, the most sweeping of the reform movements came to the entire Catholic Church with Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation in 1517.

Ironically, the Reformation seemed to trigger a widespread trend away from religious authority generally. Powerful writers and thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Voltaire began to mock the flaws of all Christianity and the religiously dominated "Middle Ages" (1000-1500). The expression "dark ages" was repeated. Other such philosophers chipped away at the "authority of the Bible" and even "truth" itself. While others, like Rousseau and later Freud, gave humanity liberating, flat alternatives to replace the established vertical worldview. For example, Rousseau (1712-1778) rejected the biblical narrative the Fall of Mankind and any notion of redemption from personal sin. Rather, he had a vision of Mankind as the innocent victim of repressive social structures. He famously said "Man is born free and is everywhere in chains." Meanwhile, scientific discovery was advancing rapidly as capitalism swept through the West. Therefore, an industrial, scientific and philosophical revolution combined to usher in a new age of flat reason—Modernity—that discounted vertical ideals.

Why is it so important to know of Modernity? Your whole world is still in convulsions over it. For example, it is directly related to the blowback of the Islamic Jihadist movement and 9-11. When someone yells "Allah Akbar", which means "God is greater", they mean that obeying God should be the greatest focus of ALL government. In the Muslim world this is known as Sharia law. Millions of radical extremists believe that Modernity is an outrageous insult to the authority of God and they are willing to kill or terrorize you to wake up to that fact.

Some people call this a "clash of civilizations"—the religiously pre-modern vs. the secular advance of Modernity. However, is it accurate to lump radical jihadists together with Christians? No, it is not! Judeo-Christians allowed the blessing of Modernity, the impartial functions of government, to bring greater peace and prosperity to the earth. Yet, these same Vertical people have been very concerned with solving the growing ethical crisis that accompanies the spread of Modernity. So what exactly is Modernity?

Simply put, it is when humanity discovered 2 very necessary paths forward. First, we gained many new insights into our world that utterly replaced ancient scientific premises; and this led to a series of rapid discoveries that ushered in an Industrial Age. Second, philosophers who were disgusted with the corruption of religion and the Divine Right of Kings, philosophers who were already seeking a secular solution for the rule of expanding populations, used the overthrow of some of Aristotle's scientific ideas to overthrow his philosophical ideals as well. Thus, they overthrew the idea of knowing "truth". Here's a good summary from Joseph Bottums: "When Francis Bacon and all the other founders of modern science reject [Aristotle's 4th way of knowing Truth] final causation, they reject the entire idea of essence: the "beingness" of knowable things."

Now, you may ask the obvious question "How can a rejection of our ability to know 'truth' be considered a path forward?" Taken by itself, it is not. The growing rejection of our ability to claim and publicly use absolute truths, since the Enlightenment, has been like a slow-release poison pill on Western humanity. But, in the short term, it led to the formation of government structures that separated the Church from the direct rule of populations. This was a needed blessing for both the Church and humanity. Large, diverse populations need the more impartial tool of secular government to have a chance at ruling with evenhanded justice. The Church also benefits. Removed from the cold mechanisms of physically trying to lead and manage the daily affairs of a diverse nation, the Church could be a less contaminated, spiritual guide. In short, the Church can be a far more effective spiritual force when it is less constrained by duties and scandals of physical life. And, the newly emerging nation-states needed to use a secular tool to bring impartial rule to increasingly vast and diverse populations. The old days of humanity walking slowly with imperfect, variations on a Theocracy were over. We were beginning to drive the secular "car" of Modernity.

In many ways, the advent of Modernity fits the analogy of a maturing teenager with a new car. Just as the rapid intellectual and physical growth of a teenager brings great joy in discovery and newfound capabilities, it also brings a great demand for a mature, balanced and responsible approach to life. Modernity too brought a rapid intellectual movement of joyous discovery and new human capabilities but it also brought the demand for a mature and balanced approached to human affairs that, when ignored, has caused terrible suffering and bloodshed.

Like the wilder inclinations of the teenager who might completely reject their imperfect parents, a series of great thinkers and philosophers in the Enlightenment first told Western humanity that "truth" was not real unless it was physically measurable then they, having put in doubt all of previous civilization, began to search for a way to solidly construct a new Utopia based on "hard" science rather than transcendent laws. [They would build Babylon.]

They, of course, immediately had trouble with where to start building. What point of reality seemed real enough to build on? Having torn down the transcendent foundations of Western civilization, the philosophers looked for a "hard" spot to begin construction of the new, scientifically rational world order. Descartes (1596-1650) had previously come up with a rather backwards view of reality, "I think therefore I am", that was used as a bedrock foundation for the new world order. Thus, with the individual self as the center of the universe, a series of philosophers began coming up with "fixed" Social Contracts that would replace God and king as rulers of the nations. The Contracts emphasized individual freedom and Flat equality and political participation: Democracy—ruled by the people. The Contracts also tried to emphasize fixed laws: Republic—ruled by law.

Out of the Enlightenment era, humanity ended up with 2 competing forms of Social Contract: one by Locke and one by Rousseau. The contract by Locke recognizes that there are "Natural Laws" (that there is a God) and that government is merely a necessary tool. The contract by Rousseau rejected any notion of God for a world centered on the Individual and that the Individual realizes his or her highest purpose and self-expression in the collective "morality" of good government.

The French Revolution ran with Rousseau's liberal vision. Vertical ideals and people were torn down in the name of Epicurean reason and Flat equality. The revolutionaries savagely lashed out at the Vertical worldview, beheading many hundreds of clerics, including monks and nuns. By contrast, the American Revolution ran more on the ideas of Locke. Our founders were painfully aware of religious persecution so they crafted a government that, most importantly, tried to protect individual and religious liberty. Therefore, the Rousseau contract had begun to play out in Europe. Reason and social empathy, based on Lucretius's closed system of inquiry, became one of the highest human goals at the expense of transcendent values and personal liberty. While, the Locke contract played out in America with restrictions on government and the recognition of our God-given Liberty as a primary goal to safeguard with checks and balances.

Americans today can easily see the two philosophies still battling it out in the current Republican (Locke) and Democrat (Rousseau) parties. When the Republicans say they want lower taxes and less government control in our lives, it is exactly what Locke would want. When the Democrats ignore the transcendent morality of an issue and, for example, lobby for transgender bathrooms or government funding of abortion clinics in poor neighborhoods, it reflects more of Rousseau's philosophy.

You can begin to see the problem of Modernity is that we are still trying to figure out how to achieve a balance. How does humanity use the secular tools of government yet retain the transcendent values that bring order, true freedom and real prosperity to humanity? The following short chapter will discuss this often violent and blood-soaked impasse.

CHAPTER SIX

The Modernist Impasse

If you have broken free of a god-centered worldview, if you have been liberated into a merely physical world with only physical restraints, then what possible non-physical restraint of "morality" or "ethics" could there be? This, of course, is the big dilemma of the last 400 years. It has been called the "Modernist Impasse". And, today, as Western civilization attempts to cast off our Judeo-Christian value structure, it has become the clarion question of our time.

As the West trades in the Vertical worldview for whatever ethics we can tease out of the natural world, we should lose all reference to concepts like "good and evil" and "sin". We should, but we can't. Why not? It is because reality is persistent. God is real. The spiritual is real. Good and evil really do exist. The human soul still thrives or languishes regardless of whether we believe in human souls. And, yes, there is a real hunger for meaning in the heart of everyone—even materialists.

For example, in his most famous book, Victor Frankel made this remarkable claim: "Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a 'secondary rationalization' of instinctual drives." Understandably, he wrote this observation after surviving years within Nazi death camps where many thousands of starving skeletons yearned for hope, meaning and purpose. Thus, Dr. Frankel made the bold assertion that a "Will to Meaning" precedes both Nietzsche's "Will to Power" and Sigmund Freud's "Will to Pleasure". In other words, he believed Mankind's basic hunger for Meaning was the most primal driver—not Survival or Utility ethics. Wow! That's a huge claim. I don't know if it's true, but there is a lot of evidence that our need for Meaning clings to us, even as we try to reject it.

The Persistence of Meaning

We can witness the persistence of spiritual meaning as strange new interpretations of "good and evil" creep back into our daily life and language. For example, while the Flat worldview celebrates the mutilation of the human body that results in a "transgendered" person, things like ice cream and dark chocolate have become "sinful indulgences". Yes, society yawns when Planned Parenthood is caught selling body parts from abortions but Twinkies and trans-fat are taking on important new moral dimensions.

Why is that? It is because human beings are naturally spiritual: composed of both body and soul. The thirst for meaning tugs at our very core. Therefore, we will never succeed in our attempt to make a purely physical world order. No one ever truly drops the concepts of "good and evil". People will always bring their intrinsic spirituality back into the game. We will just carryover morality into a whole new system of physical ethics. G.K. Chesterton once observed: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing—they believe in anything."

Yet, our modern society would try to exclude whatever cannot be physically measured. So, there really are no "sins". Ultimate meaning and purpose, absolute right and wrong, good and evil do not theoretically exist in a Flat worldview. But, as liberating as that can be, there are many serious problems with it—not the least of which, it makes life untenable in a group and utterly miserable alone. People free of all moral restraint are also free to harm each other. And, people forced to live without ultimate meaning and purpose lose hope. Therefore, as society would reject God, an intense search for a meaningful, "god-free" value system has been going on for centuries now.

We, of course, want it all. We want the benefits of spiritual realities like widely recognized, overarching rules to live by. At the same time, we want no such thing. We want to do whatever pleases us. Therefore, we continue to comb through the physical world looking for any kind of system that will keep people lovingly restrained enough for the maximum enjoyment of "unrestrained" pleasure. In short, we need a Flat morality.

[Skip here to the next chapter or study further below.]

In Davos, Switzerland late January of 2005, a few thousand of the world's more influential people met for about a week to discuss several global challenges of our time. Bill Gates was there, so was the Prime Minister of Egypt. One of the few topics that were considered important was Modernity and the Islamic nations.

You see, there is a saying that is popular across the East: "Modernization without Westernization". This expression reflects a great longing in the Muslim world to return to the glory days of old: when Muslims ruled much of the known world and advanced the arts and sciences in peace and great prosperity. It also reflects a disdain for the sins and decadence of the West. In short, what Muslims want are the blessings of Modernity without the curse. They want the technological advances and, perhaps, even the secular tools of government that will bring them into the global economy...but they do not want to pay the social and religious price of rejecting the overarching, moral authority of transcendent Truth (to them--the Koran). They are hard pressed against the Modernist Impasse.

I first learned of the Modernist Impasse from Phillip E. Johnson's article "Nihilism and the End of Law", published in First Things (March 1993), where he states:

"Modernism is the condition that begins when humans understand that God is

really dead and that they therefore have to decide all the big questions for

themselves. Modernism at times produces an exhilarating sense of liberation:

we can do whatever we like, because there is no unimpeachable authority to

prevent us. Modernism at other times is downright scary: how can I persuade

other people that what they want to do to us is barred by some unchallengeable

moral absolute?"

In the body of his work, Professor Johnson also introduced me to the late, Yale law professor, Arthur Leff who published a lecture at Duke University in 1979 called "Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law". Quoting from the Duke Law Journal (volume 1979 number 6), Professor Leff summarizes the Modernist Impasse as:

"I want to believe—and so do you—in a complete, transcendent, and immanent

set of propositions about right and wrong, findable rules that authoritatively

and unambiguously direct us how to live righteously. I also want to believe—

and so do you—in no such thing, but rather that we are wholly free, not only

to choose for ourselves what we ought to do, but to decide for ourselves,

individually and as a species, what we ought to be. What we want, Heaven help

us, is simultaneously to be perfectly ruled and perfectly free, that is, at the same

time to discover the right and good and to create it."

Professor Leff goes on to point out in great detail how, other than a belief in a God, "there cannot be any normative system ultimately based on anything except human will"; and without a system of transcendent truths (unchallengeable moral absolutes) then all is subject to what he calls "the Grand Sez Who?" In plain English, we can reject all truth, authority and God. We can abandon all notions of the Vertical. We can, then, look the world twice over for a kind of secular, value system but, we will always come to the same impasse that he summarizes in the simple rejoinder: "Sez Who?" You would be king..."sez who?" We will do only what works..."what works for whom?"

Without a fixed source of morality that overarches humanity, we are almost completely subject to the whim of the powerful over the weak. We are being manipulated. Of course, the danger of such a condition eludes most people when the powerful in our Western governments seem only interested in defending the weak.

At the heart of the Impasse is a basic problem. Mankind is both physical and transcendent. We have bodies that require shape and direction; we also have souls to soar upward like a bird to the higher ideals of our intrinsic freedom and spiritual peace, creativity and Love. Modernity, at first, tended to downplay and marginalize our transcendence. But, Charles Darwin gave the world a scientific excuse to completely abandon transcendence in his macro-evolutionary theory. To many, if man evolved randomly and without apparent purpose then God is out of business. Humans are, then, just another herd of animals that can use clever forms of self-preservation. There would be no such thing as morality. There would be no "good and evil", only the manipulation of the strong over the weak. It would all become as Dostoevsky once said "Without God, all is permitted."

Therefore, many Modernist thinkers, like Karl Marx, looked over the vast expanse of human history and found lots of manipulation. Marx saw how mankind seems to always divide into classes of rich/rulers vs. the poor/servants. He wanted to make the world better. He would mechanically equalize everything: to eliminate all forms of manipulation and inequality. In so doing, he not only ignored the Modernist Impasse, he mocked it. He said religion was "the opiate of the masses". This has now become a common position in the Flat worldview: to lean on physical science and belittle the use of spiritual ideals as a "drug" or "crutch".

Now, the answer to the Modernist Impasse is quite simple. We need the secular tool of impartial governments (like a car) but informed by a Wise (God-fearing driver) population. Your modern world has rejected God and context and wisdom. Therefore, Western civilization relies heavily on "god-free" ethics to keep the peace. In the next chapter we will see where these came from and how your kids are indoctrinated in them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The "god-free" ethics your kids are taught in school and culture

Perhaps, it's all very simple. We didn't want God for a king, so we blamed God for just about every problem of human society--the stubborn recurrence of suffering, of conflict, of evil. Some even smeared religion as the root of every ignorance, oppression and cruelty. Thus, it seemed clear. God had to go. Besides, we had many great thinkers who imagined for us wondrous scenarios of impartial justice, prosperity, tolerance and world peace all based on "god-free" models. Yes, God had to go...but how?

Well, to put it bluntly, we did a childish thing. We made God disappear by covering our own eyes. Western civilization reduced a lofty, Created world down to a flat, physical world by simply rejecting our own ability to recognize absolute Truth. Therefore, since we can no longer know anything for sure, everything shrouds in mystery. There exist no God, no moral order, no spiritual responsibilities and, it seems, no restraint on human behavior. This, of course, makes for an exhilarating sense of liberation! There are no sexual boundaries, no eternal cares, no guilt or remorse. We are utterly free to do whatever we want. And, that's the problem. We are also free to harm each other.

In a purely physical world, the Strong could manipulate the Weak at every turn. Rape, theft and murder would multiply. Yes, the human animal, like all the other species, is concerned with manipulation and dominance. And why not? The world is a dangerously unequal place of predators and prey, lion kings, queen bees, top dogs and pecking orders. People are part of that mix. Therefore, it is a natural tendency for us to utilize our strength and compete for power over others—to simply take what we desire. Of course, such a civilization quickly turns thuggish and cruel. Thus, a secular city (a "god-free" city) seemingly leads to more suffering, conflict and cruelty—not less. Something is missing in all this. What is obviously missing is a set of widely acknowledged ethics that everyone obeys through free choice or, if need be, by coercion.

Thus, the great, secular thinkers planned a towering city of noble ethics that would reach into the very heavens but, of course, stripped of all "myths" about God. It would be a system based on widely accepted forms of human logic, reason and science alone. During the great revolution, the French even went so far as to go about chopping off the heads of hundreds of priests and nuns while enthroning a prostitute as the "Goddess of Reason" in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. But, as clever as they imagined themselves, they missed one important thing. A physical world is driven by the physical. And, logic, reason and, yes, even the disciplines of natural science are not that deeply rooted in the physical order. Surely these are all secondary concerns compared to our primal drivers and, it has been argued, these are all based on spiritual assumptions too. Therefore, for all our dreams of a god-free utopia of human love and tolerance, the real, physical world of primal urges has rushed in to drive Western humanity like a dull-witted beast.

Physical ethics

What are those primal urges? What are the most basic, physical drivers? Well, in social terms, these would be Survival, Utility, Victim and Nature ethics. These have, for better or worse, replaced God in the West. This is the new source of physical "morality". So let's quickly touch on each one.

Survival ethics—Certainly, the most primal urge of all is our will to survive. Survival is a powerful law written into the very tissue of our bodies. Therefore, it gives a primacy, a kind of ethical authority to every health and safety concern. In a world stripped of spiritual safety concerns—of eternal life and death—physical safety takes center stage.

Thus, people can shelter in Survival ethics, not only rejecting all spiritually inspired ideals that might lead to conflicts like war, but also they might feel entirely justified in trying to bubble-wrap the world we live in. You've already noticed their worry about cigarettes, product labeling, drugs, bullying, childhood obesity, choking hazards, safety labels and soft playgrounds as they push for more car seats, safer cribs and less unhealthy diets. In a world so full of sharp edges and potential hazards, from a pin prick to international war, Survivalists are a busy crowd.

Utility ethics—Now, at the core of every primal urge is a single driver: me getting what I want by utilizing any means necessary. The challenge is that the Earth is an unequal place where the Strong naturally dominates the Weak. Therefore, without some self-restraining, overarching morality that belief in God affords, the human animal is justified in taking any opportunity to impose power over others: to achieve what works, what is profitable, regardless of the impact on others.

Adolph Hitler was an obvious picture of Utility. He spoke of a "master race" and brutally imposed solutions. Dickens character "Scrooge" is a milder example. But, of course, there are many more. There are men who seek only to use women. There are schoolyard bullies, corrupt politicians, pimps, crime bosses, thugs and predators of every stripe. In short, the manipulation of Utility ethics is quite common. It is merely the human animal seeking itself first.

Victim ethics—One way for the Weak to get what they want, to defend themselves and to ensure survival, is to find a way to manipulate the Strong. However, in rejecting God, the secular city has rejected the subsequent moral imperative to care for our Weaker brothers and sisters under heaven. Rather, we are reduced to animals in an anxious struggle, where there is a critical need for the Weak to band together and equalize things with the Strong. This urgent need takes the form of an "ethic" or "right" based on victimhood. Central to Victim ethics is the notion of imposing equality. But, this is not an equality born of the humble, loving recognition of our common Father. No, it is not what the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about. Rather, Victim ethics are born of a defensive need to control the Strong, to equalize the social environment out of fear.

For example, large corporations like Exxon or Wal-Mart are an obvious threat to a person caught up in Victim ethics. Such industries are a potential source of manipulation for the little individual. These could monopolize the market place with cheap labor and price gouging profits. Therefore, Victims band together under the guise of government and seek to intentionally weaken these with regulation and higher taxation.

Now, Victims might rally together for defense against just about any perceived big threat like those with big money—the rich. The problem is that there are a myriad of potential threats out there. And, Victim ethics ultimately divide a nation into agitated, special-interest groups. Thus, as the West replaces Judeo-Christian values with radical secularization, we tear apart into various racial groups, advocacy for the homeless, child advocacy guilds, feminist groups, thuggish worker unions, gay activists, disability activists, patient rights groups, animal rights groups, teenage acne support teams and a million other perceptions of weakness or inequality.

However, all these balkanized groups usually have one goal in common: a big government (a sheltering herd) friendly to their cause. For it is only a really large and powerful government that could stand up to the Strong, that could even attempt to micro-manage the inequality of hundreds of millions of people. Therefore, modern Victim ethics aims to uplift the Weak and control the Strong but it, eventually, achieves the opposite result. It ultimately empowers a Strong government bureaucracy that subjugates the entire population: a government that makes everyone equally miserable by tearing down society to the level of the Weakest victim. Thus, a Victim society becomes the haunt of every caged bird, with oppressive restraints on our most basic freedoms.

Nature ethics—Now, in all of this you can easily see that a god-free world generates a singular choice: "Will I dominate or must I seek the shelter of the herd?" The natural world is filled with both answers. There are Strong creatures (like lions) of raw manipulation and Weak ones (like zebras) using subtle forms of self-preservation. Yet, most creatures are not dominant. Most creatures seek the equalizing power of the herd or some other deceptive cover to level the playing field. The same is true of Humans. Without God, without an overarching morality to guide a self-restrained people, the critical question remains: "Am I strong enough to get what I want directly or must I achieve it corporately through some equalizing technique?"

Of course, such techniques are rooted in a primal fear, but what ethical basis could there be for imposing equality? Where is the moral absolute in all this? Well, from the perspective of the Weak, the theory of absolute, physical equality--Nature Ethics--would be a convenient ethic to impose. Nature Ethics are built on the belief that all things evolved randomly and, thus, no shape is inherently more or less valuable than any other shape. A seal, a tree and an Eskimo are essentially equal. Therefore, the presumption of a moral absolute (the premise of absolute, physical equality) underpins the entire moral case of the Weak. It is the defensive rational or "ethic" behind modern secularism. In other words, it is wrong for the Strong to bully the Weak because all of Nature is equal.

Now, thanks to a legion of secular thinkers like Rousseau, the ideal of Natural harmony has developed quite a narrative over the centuries. Perhaps, their story goes something like this: Once upon a time, maybe a billion years ago, there was a lush garden that sprang up. It was full of evolving plants and living things of every sort in natural balance. Very recently, however, a clever animal evolved—mankind. Man lived for a while in a balanced equality with the rest of Nature. It was a time of great freedom and pleasure, with no sexual inhibitions and everyone shared everything equally. Then, one day, the first "bad" man began to think in unequal terms. He hunted for meat. He stopped sharing his food and sex partner and built a private shelter for his family—all of which he now had to defend.

Thus, we are led to believe that selfishness, greed, war, hatred, indeed, every "evil" apparently can be traced to a defective person who began seeing the world as an "unequal place". Therefore, as the story goes, people are intrinsically good, "civilization" has led us astray and the problem of evil in the world can be physically explained away by some defect in the brain that creates the delusion of inequality and disordered appetites like religion. Hence, the frantic search in our own day for discovering the physical malady of "the Right Wing brain" or the elusive "god gene".

Assuredly, Nature ethics is a fascinating study that generates many bizarre, secondary principles that are most often anti-human because they are premised, like all defensive ethics, on a fear of the Strong—in this case, a fear of our natural, Human domination of the planet. For example, the "pristine ethic" is a biased evaluation of environments based on the premise that humans contaminate Nature. "Come see Nature's unspoiled beauty" the travel brochure exclaims. Such logic avoids the obvious conclusion that building a Volvo is just as natural to our human capabilities as digging a hole is to a gopher—that humans are part of nature too. However, for space requirements, we will not go into further detail on concepts of "natural balance", "proportion", "natural goodness" or the ultimate "attraction of pantheism" here. It is suffice to say that there are serious problems with Nature ethics, not the least of which is that it seems to contradict the entire Natural order where we can plainly see various hierarchies and a pervasive law of Utility within, for example, the animal kingdom.

In other words, if absolute physical equality is supposed to be fact of the universe, it is not really found in Nature. Nonetheless, the take home point is that Nature ethics are, first and foremost, a denial of the existence of God, with the subsequent claim that everything should receive equal deference. Thus, "going Green" is not so much a movement based on the responsible stewardship of the planet God gave us. Rather, it is based on a primal fear of domination, with Humanity in the crosshairs.

Our new ethical system

Therefore, as you can see, stripping the world of a belief in God forces everyone to depend on physical "ethics" born of primal fear and desire. Since most of us are not strong enough to control, much less dominate our circumstances, we shelter in the herd and try to defend ourselves. Together we impose restrictions on the Strong. Thus, our first ethic is to Survive which eventually drives us into herds (Victim ethics) where we cleverly equalize things according to the "moral absolute" of physical equality (Nature ethics). Admittedly, throughout all of this, there remains the yearning desire to "get what I want", the ubiquitous will to power of Utility.

Thus, a god-free public square generates a lot of worried ethics. Go to any public elementary school and see them almost shouted from the walls: EQUALITY, RESPECT, TOLERANCE, RESPONSIBILITY, SHARING, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE...etc. The anxiety is palpable. And why not? There is so much to do and so little time! Young children--potential citizens of the great secular city--need to unlearn the inequality of a Created world order and all its "unhealthy" values. Then, they must learn the dangers of following their natural, Utilitarian desires—perhaps, with a trip to the Tolerance Museum. Then, they must thoroughly understand the blessed doctrine of Nature, Victim and Survival ethics: which will become a lifelong social expectation called "political correctness". Eventually, the young, secular adult will soak in the message. They will develop a "social conscience" premised on a cartoon planet wherein battle the loving and enlightened equalizers vs. unhealthy, selfish dominators. And they will carry this battle into all walks of life, giving intense political interpretation to most everything--from baking fat-free cookies to green trash collection to manipulating news reports.

Yet, history shows these battle lines to be a false dichotomy because Utility ("me getting what I want") is at the root of every secular ethic. And, notions of "equality" actually prove to be quite fungible in practice. It is a great "moral war" that can easily be dropped if I become dominant or there is some Utilitarian gain in sight. In other words, the Weak may impose equality until they are Strong enough then it all goes out the window. Then every inhuman cruelty can be indulged without restraint—equality be damned.

The novel "Animal Farm" outlines the classic progression of equalizers rising to authority and then administering a coercive, utilitarian abuse on the workers they had just "rescued" from utilitarian abuse. Yes, the motto on your kid's classroom wall should actually read: "EQUALITY UBER ALLES [over all]... UNTIL I AM UBER ALLES!" For all the seduction of the towering secular dream of equality, impartial justice, sharing, love and tolerance, the whole thing is utilitarian to the core. With History as a bleary-eyed witness, the Earth is littered with millions of bones of the "equalized", from Havana to Beijing, whose leaders suddenly discovered they were now dominant.

The Primacy of Intent

So, here it is we arrive at a strange phenomena—intentions. As odd as this may seem, a secular people are not ultimately guided by physical facts. We are certainly not guided by results, by impartial judgment, historic evidence or, even, science. No, " intentions" are everything today. Non-physical intentions of equality are the lifeblood of the secular city--not measurable results.

How could this be? Simple--the Weak are well aware of the underlying Utility of the human animal. So they need reassurance that you are not in it for ultimate domination of the Weak—that you are not a closet Utilitarian. Therefore, what evidence can we find that you have healthy intentions? Are you an obvious member of a Victim group? Do you perform community service for the Weak? Are you environmentally responsible? No?

Well, don't worry. It's really not that hard to put on an empathetic face. Just wear a pink ribbon twist or go into any 7/11 store and buy a few rubber wristbands to tell the world that you indeed have good intentions. After all, with all the unacknowledged guilt secularism builds up, it is an exhilarating moral cleanser to go on a good 5k walk, donate blood or clean a section of freeway...just remember to wear the T-shirt telling everyone about it.

Now all this boasting is quite enough for the individual, but when lawmakers try to flaunt their empathy...look out! "Sin taxes" are reinterpreted as legislators rush to show their Survival ethics by taxing or banning an ever expanding list of "unhealthy" things like trans-fat, junk food, soda and even Happy Meals. Some want to show their allegiance with Nature ethics, by reducing humanity's ecological footprint, by heavily taxing and restricting everyone's water or energy use. And the courts clog with an explosion of Victim lawsuits as politicians push to outlaw bad intentions through edicts like "hate crimes" legislation. At the same time we try to choke the very beast of burden we're riding on—overly regulating and taxing free market capitalism—because it is Utilitarian.

Clearly, the secular city is a mess. It is intrinsically dysfunctional because it operates on a principle of equalizing intentions over effective, utilitarian results. For example, a giant pharmaceutical company can work for years in R & D trying to bring effective drugs to market, resulting in millions of lives being saved, and still be wholly despised by a secular society. That is because the profit motive is nakedly Utilitarian. The company is too large. They must be evil. Their big business obviously needs more regulation and taxes--end of issue. On the other hand, an incompetent politician can put a disastrous public welfare program in place, that ruins millions of families, and yet be loved for his or her equalizing intent. No, secularism for all its promises of safe impartiality is, in fact, dangerously biased.

In America we have entire cities like Detroit and states like California where the rule of physical ethics, dysfunctional intentions and the growing corruption of powerful "equalizers" is literally bankrupting everything from kindergarten to retirement. This will often happen because a secular city gets trapped in the box of its own ethical intentions. Would-be reformers are easily portrayed as utilitarian by corrupt leaders who convince the public of their own equalizing intentions. Ironically, in places where physical ethics have most thoroughly replaced God as king, the ugliest desolation spreads under the friendliest banner of empathy and progress. Go figure.

Where does religion fit in a physical world?

Now, of course, religion must have a place in all this. How do we explain the widely persistent belief in God throughout history? To a secular society, motivated by so many fears, the "god myth" is most likely another form of fear. It is a frightened pathology or, perhaps, a raw manipulation. Regardless, religion is a very dangerous thing because it is so thoroughly rooted in inequality. Yes, religious people seem to breathe inequality. They constantly make unequal distinctions—judgments--between good and evil and plants and animals and people and angels and demons and God. To them, there are different levels on earth, levels in heaven and, thanks to Dante, even levels in hell! Whether these people are just stupidly manipulated or trying to dominate and manipulate others, it doesn't matter. These people seem to facilitate an unequal, Utilitarian approach to reality. Thus, to our post-modern society aiming for a conflict-free world premised on eliminating deeply held convictions that are born of social identities and distinctions, the religious population is obviously unhealthy and a dangerous roadblock to peace and progress.

But, please don't get me wrong. It is possible for religious people to get along quite well in the secular city. We only need to squelch our unequal views on most everything, from obeying God to a Created order. This is really not that hard a pill to swallow. Just tell yourself it's all done for the cause of Tolerance and Love. Then we simply demonstrate to a secular world that we too are enlightened equalizers with good intentions. We privatize the spiritual and publicize the physical stuff, helping Victims and the environment. We show our Survival ethic by turning, not only against every war but, against every strongly held religious conviction. And, we Christians develop a "social conscience" by taking up the banner of absolute physical equality with causes like gay or animal rights. Yes, we too can join a world where an occasional newborn baby is sold for body parts while Twinkies and trans-fat take on important new moral dimensions.

The problem is that so few of us today really understand what is going on. We don't understand the very ethics we would adopt. Thus, we miss the fact that God has no place in a secular society. Defensive, physical ethics suggest that Strong threats (like a Christian majority) be used and we are, indeed, being used. Thus, Christians are making compromises that never seem to last. That is because there is no real compromise between physical ethics and Faith. For example, "civil unions" were thought to be a loving compromise position between a religious majority and secular minority who embrace the ideal of physical equality. But, once such unions were codified into law, the push for redefining marriage, social norms and civilization itself only increased. The anger actual grew, leaving "loving Christians" to rediscover once more that peace and unity with a secular worldview is elusive because, ultimately, it is Christ that must go.

It sometimes occurs to me that we in the West have become like the infamous Harlot of Babylon, riding the apocalyptic beast, claiming "I am no widow"...when, in fact, we have already abandoned the Bridegroom. Yes, we have seen the old Social Gospel turn into thuggish Victim ethics. We have seen Christian movements once filled with love for Christ in the poor, now primarily filled with outrage at a Utilitarian system that produces inequalities. We have even seen religious people champion abortion as an effective way to lessen human impact on Nature. And, we have seen the children of God try to equalize the Church too--from theology to the parking lot--every conceivable form of patriarchy and hierarchy needing to be tamped down. We have also seen Bishops worried about how their intentions were perceived by a secular city. We have seen our own brothers and sisters try to flatten God down to fit into a physical world of equality. We have seen such inclusive religion that it excluded itself. Thus, most tragically, we have seen the very truth of Jesus as Lord and King become an embarrassment to many a Christian.
Epilogue

After the World Wars of the 20th century, especially after the horrors of the Bomb and the Nazi attempt to "cleanse" the world, thinking along Utilitarian lines was almost completely stigmatized as heartless and cruel. Science and technology became deeply suspect, but so did the inequality of religion. Horror movies were produced to reflect these new fears. There were mutant blobs, giant spiders and radioactive zombies. There was also a growing tendency to tear down the unequal worldview of "the Establishment"—a Judeo-Christian society. The post-modern or post-rational philosophy of equalizing intentions over results gained new traction, with Survival ethics leading a blood-soaked Europe out of the ruins.

But, it all took longer here in the USA. It took the "living room war" of Viet Nam, a European invasion of music and ideas, as well as, some of our own bloody assassinations (JFK and Martin Luther King) to push a Judeo-Christian nation like America into the "blessed hope" of physical morality—into the chase after Survival, Victim and Nature ethics. But, here we are today seemingly trapped in the dysfunction. Ironically, our rejection of the mild confines of God's kingdom did not lead us to greater liberty but, rather, oppression.

Along with John Lennon we imagined a world of sharing, tolerance and peace. We had the best of intentions. We merely wanted to love each other. However, by rejecting a Creator, we reject a created order—a moral universe. Thus, we fall prey to our own primal drivers. Ultimately, this all leads to "Big Sis", as we surrender ourselves to a corrupt and intrusive government based on "equality" and fear. In short, to reject the fear of the Lord is to accept the fear of everything else. To remove the Cross is to carry the cruel and destructive burden of physical ethics upon our shoulders.

"Then I heard another voice from heaven say: 'Come out of her my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.'" Revelation 18:4

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Postmodern

"We must be about redefining who we are as human beings in a post-modern age."

Hillary Clinton, 1993

Today, few things will give a better insight into America than understanding postmodernism. It affects so much of what happens. It is all around us. Yet, rarely, do we step back and look at the "big picture" where it all can be easily observed.

Of course, some experts say the birth of the "Post-modern" merely refers to how Modernity has passed. It is dead. They believe this because they had a false view of Modernity itself. They had hoped Modernity would dismiss the irrational myths of religion that brought us so many bloody conflicts in the past. They looked forward to a world of great peace and technology—devoid of all references to the spiritual. Thus, they dreamed of a new world built on purely physical science and Utility—a world of Darwinian advancement where the strong, the intelligent and the scientist would lead the way of progress. But, after Hitler's social-Darwinism, his "master race" eugenics, Utilitarian vision and some cruel scientists who failed to fashion a society of logic and love, these Flat worldview fans were almost completely disillusioned. Some actually committed suicide. Thus, a famous expression arose: "Modernity died in the ovens of Auschwitz."

But, like I said, this was a false view from the start. Remember, Modernity has at its core a great contradiction: we need to build a world based solely on physical truth...but...there's no such thing as absolute truth. Let's put that another way. First, there was a great hope in the intrinsic goodness of human beings stripped of the "delusions" of God and the conflicts of spirituality. This led many to believe we could engineer a constantly better world through reason and impartial science alone. Second, in order to strip mankind of these concepts of transcendent reality (of sin, heaven, hell, God, morality, angels, saints...etc), the great philosophers and thinkers rejected our ability to claim ANYTHING as absolutely true. Uh...hello...newsflash...aren't "reason" and "science" predicated on the stability of "truth"?

Of course, great thinkers were not that easily duped. All of this played out in stages—over time. In the beginning of our "enlightenment", there was just a partial rejection of our ability to know anything absolutely. We convinced ourselves that we couldn't know the real purpose of any one thing. But, then, Darwin's "Origin of the Species" seemed to give Modern thinkers the academic license to more boldly reject God and all forms of transcendent truth. Then, great, Flat thinkers wrote on how humanity was intrinsically good if we could only remove all these old, social constructs—like morality. They hoped in the innocence of humanity and a new age of reason alone.

Now, Postmodernism actually means two things. 1) It refers to the destruction of this false hope in our intrinsic, human goodness (because of the millions of dead bodies piled up in the 20th century)... and...2) it recognizes a further slide into the fullest rejection of ALL truth concepts. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that the "Postmodern" is really advanced Modernity. It is Modernity playing out to its painful conclusion.

Poop Paintings

Artists and writers were the first to pick up on where all this was headed. They could sense that our initial rejection of transcendent truth would eventually lead to the loss of all social meaning. So, they began to craft sculptures, paintings, poetry and narratives with an irreverent disdain for rules, order and meaning. At first, only spiritual meanings were mocked. Then, later, even hard realities were put in question.

An example of the former would be Andres Serrano who was paid $15,000 dollars (of your Federal income taxes) for his well-lit photograph of a crucifix in a glass jar of urine. This was a somewhat unimaginative form of postmodern art that mocked the Vertical worldview. Or, consider the immensely popular book "The Da Vinci Code" as a recent example of postmodern literature. Here the author, Dan Brown, ignores how the dead past has solidified into a kind of permanent slab of facts. Rather, he finger paints with it. He twists and fabricates small bits of unrelated facts and myths into a huge conspiracy theory that reads like an historical narrative. It was a fantastic assault on the core of Christianity that many people took as real. (An early survey showed over 40% of the Canadians who read the book thought it was a true account of history.) But, then again, that is what postmodernism is all about--the assault on meaning. For example, there are "artists" who paint with their own feces or menstrual blood just to make the physical statement that there are no "truth barriers" to human thought or behavior.

Perhaps, you've witnessed the fear of out of control, scientific Modernity in the face of the "Terminator". Or, perhaps, you noticed the Postmodern rejection of established meaning at the movies where "bad" guys are now portrayed as good. For example, there are vampires who are quite considerate and loving and, even, devils who are scripted as super heroes—like Hellboy.

Another easy illustration of the spread of postmodernism in Western civilization happened recently when a British artist mailed off a wonderfully carved head bust—full of realism and meaning. But, in a separate box he mailed off the prop up stick and stone base for his sculpture. The national museum humorously rejected his carving but accepted the stone and prop up stick as "art". Such postmodern incidents are often fun or silly, but in the realm of more life-affecting ideas and policy it can all be quite dangerous.

For example, when postmodernism came to architecture it led to many strangely shaped buildings. Nonetheless, these structures still had to obey the natural laws of gravity. You could design a stairway to nowhere or a few drooping towers but, if the rejection of truth and meaning went too far, the building might collapse. And, that is generally true of postmodernism in politics and culture. If certain natural laws are followed then postmodernism can somewhat play out without too much harm to humanity. However, as in architecture, the more natural laws that are held in contempt the more it becomes a dangerous project.

As a postmodern contempt for truth, natural laws and meaning soaks into our culture, it brings with it 3 dangers. First, it undermines the people's ability to control the corruption of government. You cannot really hold politicians accountable if "morality" is in a cloud. Second, as it empowers corrupt leadership it also devalues human life with the postmodern blurring of distinctions—molecular equality. That is a very dangerous combination! Thirdly, it cuts off average people from access to real truth and reform by rewarding those in a position to manipulate information.

Jesus once said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Of course, there is more to that saying than I could possibly wrap my head around, but there are technical reasons why "truth sets us free". For example, to know anything you need enough faith to trust reality. Without a faith in objectivity, nothing could be "impartial'. If there is no social ability to achieve the fair and impartial, then, there is no basis for justice. Thus, a society without that beginning shred of faith becomes enslaved by corruption and manipulation. Postmodernism cuts off every shred of faith and, therefore, eventually leads to a world of cruel manipulation.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Listen to one of the most famous postmodern thinkers in the world today—Stanley Fish—who once said: "Someone is going to be restricted next [manipulated]. It's your job to make sure that someone is not you." In short, if we reject transcendent truth, we end up getting pushed around by the Primal Drivers, we become slaves of manipulation—of the powerful. And, the powerful include everyone who controls your daily consumption of "facts"—including science, media, government and, yes, academia.

The Ivory Towers of Main Street

In the Western world, the postmodern rejection of all truth was once considered a kooky theory cooked up in the "ivory towers" of higher education. But, now it has worked its way down to the streets. In their co-authored book, "How now shall we live?", Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey write:

"The demise of truth is not confined to the academic halls of Yale Law School or Duke

University. Across the country, a generation of college graduates have marched off,

degrees in hands and a postmodern ideology in their heads, to work in executive

suites, political centers, and editorial rooms of newspapers, magazines and television

studios. The result has been the emergence of a new and influential group of

professionals who work primarily with words and ideas—what some sociologists call

the New Class or knowledge class or, more derogatorily, the chattering class. And

because they control the means of public discourse, their philosophy has become

dominant. No longer is the majority view the outlook of morally conservative,

religious, patriotic middle America—the group Richard Nixon in 1970 called the "silent

majority", or Jerry Falwell a few years later labeled the "moral majority". The

worldview framed on campuses from the 1960s on has now entered the mainstream of

American life."

So remember, when you go into a dance club with chairs bolted upside down on the ceiling or see some kid who likes to wear his pants on his thighs and his ball cap sideways while mumbling rap lyrics about how great it is to be a pimp or prostitute, you are being exposed to a postmodern disdain for the established view of order and meaning. That purple-haired girl in pajamas at the mall is only trying to show everyone how she too rejects the social concepts of order and meaning.

However, pajama-girl has probably never really thought out what all that entails. Therefore, for us to begin to understand the deeper complexity of our culture is to realize that this purple-haired child may be, for example, a devout Christian who has no idea that her appearance is rooted in a postmodern assault on the Vertical worldview—which include her own Christian values. As a matter of fact, some of the more spiritual people I ever met had the most outrageous appearance.

Summary

Some told us there was no "Fall of Man into sin in the Garden of Eden". They told us we were naturally pure beings deep down inside. Great thinkers told us the human race, stripped of all Vertical notions of "good and evil", would evolve into a better and better animal through Utility ethics—raw science and reason and logical manipulation. However, all such notions were ruined with the Nazi holocaust, the massive Chinese and Soviet inhumanity and the use of atomic bombs. Humanity had entered the 20th century bubbling with a wild optimism in our ability to order the world (without God) on the purely rational and scientific. But, we left it with blood-soaked doubts in reason itself.

Of course, you might ask the obvious question: Why didn't we just revisit our original mistake of rejecting moral absolutes? In other words, if we claim there is no such thing as "evil" and then have real evil knock us around, why not rethink the entire premise? Good question. Perhaps, that is a testimony to just how entrenched the Flat worldview has become.

I hope this chapter gave you a clearer insight into your next trip to the mall, where the blurred distinction between children and adults is often on display.

CHAPTER NINE

More on your kids and school

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The great Oz has spoken."

The Wizard of Oz

The parents were gathering. Many were excited. Many held cameras. One man, with an expensive tripod and movie camera, looked as if he was very concerned to get the best position in the bright, mid-morning light of the school's Multi-Purpose Room. I looked about at the expectant faces of the crowd. There was great joy and pride everywhere. You could tell that several people, like me, had taken time off from work just to be there. There was a kind of party atmosphere mixed with importance. There were happy grandparents, mothers and fathers and even sisters and brothers and friends all gathered. Some had hurried, flushed, red faces from the effort to arrive on time. Everyone was waiting for the "Student of the Month" ceremony to begin. One set of grandparents were carefully wheeled in with a portable oxygen bottle. Then it happened. A great cultural lie unfolded and very few of us understood it.

When I first got the notice, a week before, that my son had been selected as "Student of the Month" I was a little skeptical. "How many kids are in Andy's class?" I asked my wife Eva. "About twenty" was the response. I quickly thought over the scenario to judge whether or not I would use some of my vacation time for this event. I thought: there are only 20 kids in his class and it is June, the 9th month of the school year, so it seems my son is being honored for a real accomplishment because he was picked 9th out of a class of 20 kids. It's not a great accomplishment but, at least, it's a recognition that he is towards the top of his class. So, I decided to make the arrangements to attend.

On the morning of the event, any sense of personal pride and accomplishment for my child was destroyed the moment I realized that 2 students from each class received the "award" each month and that Andy's class had only 18 students in it. I just sat there in my metal folding chair—stunned. I watched the somewhat forced smiling faces of the Principal and Teachers putting on a great performance. They told us how proud we should be that our kids had worked so hard to receive this honor. Some of the Teachers gave rosy speeches that only required minimal reading between the lines.

For example, one heavy boy plodded forward. We were told how he "had difficulty earlier in the year" but now had "greatly improved". His Teacher, then, stooped down and gave him an awkward hug in front of his beaming parents. His large mom looked as if she was close to tears of utter joy. I could only sit there in amazement. I felt like standing up on my chair and shouting "Don't you people get it? Our kids are being honored today as the worst students in the school. Do the math!"

The fact was that my little "Student of the Month" was passed over 17 times out of a class of 18 kids; and, was probably only picked in the last calendar month of the school year out of a sense of "equality". My child was not being honored at all. It was quite the contrary. It was like those Little League trophies I had to purchase last year for my son's losing baseball team. Everyone got a trophy just for showing up. It was like that, only worse.

Looking around at so many naïve parents that morning, I realized that there must be a huge segment of the population who are oblivious to the artificial equality movement and the friendly but poisonous imposition of secular ethics on their kids. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we can't always see behind that curtain, at who is pulling the social levers. However, let's try to pull back the curtain a bit on the "Mighty Oz" of public education. And, let's come to a better understanding of what is both a warmhearted but thuggish indoctrination of your child in the ethics of a Flat worldview.

The Curtain

One reason we don't recognize the imposition of Flat ethics is because it seems entwined with the Vertical worldview. It is often presented as a harmless addition to our Judeo-Christian culture. Therefore, we don't see the Flat worldview for what it really is--out to replace the Vertical. For example, when my kid was indoctrinated repeatedly with Nature ethics, which began in preschool with the call to REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE, it felt like a wider perspective and responsibility was being added to his character; and, our family's values were being enhanced.

Few people, however, stop to ask: why is my child being told to drastically reduce his water consumption? Why is he not taught how there is a need to increase the water supply? Why not a primer on desalination or how to increase fresh water supplies to developing areas? Why is the answer always reduction?

Now, my child is told that we need to reduce a lot of things. We consume "too much" energy, water, food and every other natural resource. Why? It is because Flat ethics sees human beings as a threat, as dominating Nature when we should be merely equal to it. [Human dominance and stewardship of creation is part of a Vertical worldview.] Thus, your kid's teacher gently indoctrinates students with the subtle idea that we are out of balance with Nature. We need to get flatter. We need to reduce our consumption and overall impact. A kind of guilt trip is shaped in the hearts of the brighter ones. And, fear is spread to all.

Of course, the Flat worldview rarely teaches how humanity could utilize more of Nature. Utility ethics are "bad", remember? Therefore, the theme of your child's public school indoctrination on Nature ethics is how humanity has gone astray and needs to be restrained and leveled with the Earth. The "empathetic" view of equality rather than the "evil" imposition of utility will echo throughout their education. Similarly, our kids are quietly told how our prosperity in America is a zero sum game: that eating a bowl of popcorn in San Diego somehow took a bowl of popcorn from a kid in Zambia: that the rich man with 3 houses is depriving homeless people: that running the water while brushing our teeth has a harmful impact on the health of the planet...etc.

But I say, God bless all those teachers who themselves have been thoroughly indoctrinated in Flat ethics in college and only want to share their fearful insights. No doubt, their hearts are in the right place. Many of them feel almost morally compelled to preach against flushing the toilet after we pee. [Frankly, I've found that kind of environmentalism more "stain-a-bowl" than unsustainable.] But, seriously, why the guilt trip about failing to turn off a light switch as wasting an "irreplaceable resource"? Won't a few more power plants and several desalination centers solve this hysterical crisis?

Of course, if you go to your kid's school and bring any of these logical questions before the faculty, you will get the standard response. It goes something like: "We are only striving to expand your child's horizons with a greater understanding and concern for the environment." Thus, the teacher who was actually trying to replace your child's Vertical worldview with a Flat indoctrination comes off as somewhat offended while you go on trial for standing in the way of education. You dirty dawg!

Now, having touched upon the imposition of Nature ethics, the same is true for Survival and Victim ethics. These are also presented as additional values to our culture, when in fact they are entirely opposed to a Vertical view of moral absolutes. For example, who could possibly dislike the Tolerance training, Diversity and Multicultural fairs at your kid's school? These are presented as broadening your child's horizons while stirring up the virtues of empathy and patience for those who are different than ourselves. What dawg would oppose that?

However, these Flat exercises are meant to accomplish a couple of things. First, the education system is showing your child the danger of making ignorant value judgments like racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, bullying and, on a national stage, imperialism. However, the lesson doesn't seek to compare "good" and "evil" value judgments. No, rather, the actual lesson is designed to show the danger of making ANY value judgments. And, since the Vertical worldview is brimming with moral distinctions, identities and value judgments, the whole tolerance thing becomes quite intolerant of our Judeo-Christian heritage. In just this way, your kid's sweet teacher has begun the process of stripping away the Vertical worldview your child brought to class.

Diversity and multicultural fairs make the same argument: you should not judge a people or culture as inferior because you think it is "bad". Rather, making judgments are bad. "What's true for me may not be true for you" becomes the slogan. Thus, it is like going into a big grocery store, full of food and soap products, and telling a small child, who holds Cheerios in one hand and bottled bleach in the other, that trying variety is all that is really important. Yes, when all cultures are presented as morally equal, the cruel and oppressive are celebrated alongside the kind and free, then a young child gets her first taste of the poison of moral relativism.

Yes, your child's view of identity and values are destroyed by utterly equalizing them and rendering them meaningless. Thus, making judgments and distinctions becomes the modern sin. Utility is demonized. Later, our Flat society will assume your kid knows all about Victim, Nature and Survival ethics and will try to "control" them, primarily, through a peer pressure approach called "political correctness." But, for now, we have gotten a glimpse at the great and powerful Oz of Flat ethics and the little man behind the curtain is full of fear and manipulation.

CHAPTER TEN

Happiness, Hate, Harassment and Hysteria

"Secular ethics are so worried and inhumane that, ultimately, they need be enforced at the end of many a gun barrel."

Happiness

Long ago we set out to bring peace, harmony and happiness to our world by eliminating a major source of its conflicts—all these myths about "God". We set out to build a society on a solid foundation of clear reason and verifiable, natural science. We were going to marginalize all this religious ignorance that seemed to lead us into human cruelty. Instead, we were going to live in a Flat world of impartial reason, logic and publicly recognized facts. There would be no conflict—no cause for war or disorder. Humanity would banish all delusions and only be guided by physical goals and rational progress. And, we would all get on the same page. Everyone would unite in a common vision of mutual tolerance, with an easy obedience to the dictates of scientific pragmatism. There would be no more inhumanity, no more hatred or poverty or pain. We would fast-forward our evolution and, in so doing, we would express the greatness of our true human potential, our authentic nature in harmony with this beautiful planet that rides through such a wide solar system. But, then, something unexpected happened.

We learned a hard lesson. We found out that the Flat worldview doesn't lead so easily, or directly, to a utopia of peace, unity and happiness. Rather, as it removes our moral inhibitions, it unleashes the brutality of the Strong over the Weak—Utility ethics. This quickly divides people into two camps: those who would dominate vs. those who would defensively equalize society. In other words, Flat societies can be bullied by a Utilitarian thug (like Hitler) or bullied for the cause of "equality" (like Stalin or Mao). Therefore, the great dream of the Flat worldview has not led to an expansion of human happiness. To the contrary, it has historically led to a struggle for control over Individual freedom—which, of course, is no small component of personal happiness.

So, rather than reduce manipulation we have expedited it. Rather than perfect society, there is now a broadening corruption. Rather than reduce social conflict, we have greatly increased its potential. And, rather than dispel all fear, powerful waves of anxiety now sweep over our people.

Consequently, we inhabit a society today that worries about intentions. Intentions have become of critical importance. Do you have healthy or harmful intentions? In our modern culture, having "healthy" intentions would mean that your motivation stems from empathy. Are you on the side of Nature, Victim and Survival ethics? Then, you are not only enlightened but are compassionate enough to reject Utilitarian domination. Good for you! You don't selfishly ride roughshod over others to get what you want. And, perhaps, you wear a ribbon twist on your lapel or a few colored, rubber bands around your wrist or wear a 5k T-shirt to show everyone this important fact—that your intentions are compassionate.

Yes, as we live out this cartoon vision of Flat ethics, we have developed a "compassionate Class" who control the commanding heights of culture: administrators, media and public figures of every kind whose first priority is to keep us hyper-safe and defend various "protected groups". And, according to a Flat worldview, we should to try not to offend ANY protected group while portraying ourselves as empathetic. This is what it means to be "good" in our new, Flat culture while guarding against hate. But, what exactly is "hate"?

Hate

There are currently 2 different ideas on what it means to "hate". First, in a Vertical worldview, "hate" is a spiritual desire to destroy. Even God is said to "hate evil" in various passages of Scripture. Think about it. Animals can brutally destroy other animals but we do not say they hate each other. Only a spiritual being can hate.

Indeed, hate should have no theoretical place in the Flat worldview--which is devoid of spiritual concepts. However, our new culture has derived a physical meaning for the term hate which goes something like this: "hate" is to act on the presumption of inequality. Did you catch that? In the Flat worldview, to "hate" is to have a Vertical worldview. If you see the world [as it really is] as an unequal environment, you are not worthy of debate.

Therefore, Flat people actually believe that their worldview precludes hate. It's a big feather in their cap. They proudly point to the elimination of "hate" as a morally superior goal of the secular worldview. To that end, school children are enthusiastically bussed to "Tolerance museums": where the presumption of inequality is graphically portrayed as the ultimate inhumanity. Yes, as public education flattens, the aim is to delight young hearts with the principles of Survival, Victim and Nature ethics while exposing the savage brutality of Utility. Thus, the dream is to fashion a world of non-hate or tolerance based on the underlying premise of physical equality. Such a world, of course, can tolerate just about anything except for the slightest presumption of inequality.

For example, when then President of Harvard, Larry Summers, suggested that men and women may in fact process science differently, because their brains seem to be wired differently, it was considered an ugly form of "hate speech". And, since Ivy League campuses are bastions of the Flat worldview, Summers was quickly forced to resign. Of course, he had only said what little kids already know: that men and women have different types of bodies. Yet, the public recognition of such an obvious difference seemed to presume an inherent inequality.

Now, as Mr. Summers found out, the Flat dream is so unnatural it requires intense control and enforcement. This goes far beyond just shaping school children and campus speech. There is now a widening push for the silly idea of getting rid of all distinctions and identities. The whole transgender bathroom debate is just part of a larger goal of creating peace through the elimination of all social differences. For example, if men and women are exactly the same then homosexuality cannot easily evoke revulsion or hate. Often sold to an unwary public under the catchphrase "fairness", the elimination of social distinctions has also come to include a leveling of all economic inequalities.

Yes, the very basis of religion, the notion of approaching the world as it really is—which happens to be an intrinsically unequal environment—is more and more considered hateful in the West. Thus, teaching children exclusive theologies, like Jesus being the only way to heaven, is already being noised about as "unhealthy" and "abusive". For example, a leading atheist, Richard Dawkins, insists: "It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation." Consequently, Germany has already banned home schools. California is trying. Yes, eventually, the public expression of Vertical worldviews will go from being marginalized to downright outlawed.

Does that seem overstated to you? It shouldn't. Dale Mc Alpine was recently arrested in Umbria (Britain) for simply reading a list of sins from the Bible on a street corner. Going down the list, he mentioned drunkenness but when he got to homosexuality, he was led off by 3 PCS officers for a violation of public order. Yes, punishing the presumption of inequality is becoming a very detailed and full-time job. In Canada, a powerful Human Rights Tribunal has been established for the very purpose of micro-managing the words of authors, song writers and all public speech.

On an international scale, it is believed that the safety of humanity should not rely on one dominant country like America. The very idea of such dominance is abhorrent to the secular. No, the Flat must help shape a global coalition of equal nations. Thus, there is a contemporary push towards cutting America down to size while promoting the idea of "global citizenship" and cooperation. This, of course, requires a common vision across international borders and a serious downplay of international differences.

To accomplish this enormous task, the secular vision is forced to smooth over glaring problems with other nations—even harsh dictatorships. Therefore, a moral equivalence must be applied to our global policies. [Moral equivalence is where we ignore all the distinctions of Truth itself--making society "post-truth" or "postmodern".] For example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a quick summary of America's slide into this postmodern soup when she exclaimed, "Let's put ideology aside. That is so yesterday."

The secular path to a world of non-hate is through reduction. It reduces human beings to animals without souls then unrealistically micro-manages, and in some cases attempts to eradicate, our unique differences and deepest disagreements. Today, the popular use of the term hate often refers to individuals, within our emerging Flat society, who are still "contaminated" by exclusive spiritual distinctions. Thus, to act with a Vertical worldview is, by this definition, to act with "hate". As a matter of fact, there is a huge majority of people in America who are not allowed to publically express their worldview lest they are labeled a "hater". [This group is getting very frustrated--so much so that they would seek to elect an "I don't care what anybody thinks" guy like Donald Trump.]

This secular criticism, of course, doesn't sit well with enlightened Christians of the Loving Middle. But, rather than defend the absolute truths of their faith, the Loving Middle people--like Oprah Winfrey--present the world a faux-Christianity devoid of the presumption of inequality. They attempt to practice a "spiritual faith" based on this physical misinterpretation of hate which yields a vapid religion of no moral distinctions, no exclusive choice of right over wrong and no consequences for sin. Thus, in the West, the Loving Middle have gravitated towards the Flat, utopian dream of perfect equality and peace while they sharply reject the failures of people attempting to be authentic Christians. Therefore, the Loving Middle have come to greatly value personal interpretations of faith that do not impinge on the lifestyles of Flattening people (like themselves) while holding "organized religion" in utter contempt.

Yet, reality is persistent. Life is physical but also deeply spiritual. Attempts to order life on the purely physical can get awkward and ridiculous at times. For example, in a crowded mall I have seen parents convulse with horror, under the disapproving glance of others, as their child uses the "H" word out loud. A child's casual remark like "I hate shopping for clothes" has become an occasion for a public scolding. Sometimes you can overhear an embarrassed parent chide, "I told you we don't use that word!"

Harassment

As I was writing this chapter, my seven-year-old son was in a line at school the other day. The boy just ahead of him wore no belt on his pants. Consequently, one of the kid's empty belt loops stuck out a bit in back. My son committed the unforgivable crime of reaching out with his finger and giving that loop a playful tug. Then belt-loop-boy turned around and said "I'm telling the teacher on you!"

What do you think happened? Yes, that's right. Before the day was out, my son had been hauled before the principal and threatened with suspension for sexual harassment. Parents were contacted. Global stock exchanges reacted! Well, maybe not that last one. But you get the point.

Not only is there a heightened alert for "hate", the expanding secular population is constantly on the watch now for "harassment". This can be easily understood. The Flat worldview utterly liberates us to act like an amoral animal while the sex drive remains a serious primal driver of the Individual. The secularization of society also eliminates religious expectations of public modesty and restraint. That is a formula for trouble.

For example, sexual desire can nearly override many other concerns in a young teenager's life. And, the Flat worldview is badly lacking the inhibitions, the moral codes of overarching restraint that the Vertical worldview places on human behavior. Therefore, the ideal of molecular equality may well unleash complete sexual freedom for private use, yet, Victim and Survival compassion require a hypersensitivity to unwanted sexual expression in public.

Let's not forget, as the depersonalization of sex and pornography soak into our culture so too does the fear of manipulation...i.e....the sexual abuse of the Weak. This is because a purely Flat worldview, where physical drivers rule, certainly would have a serious problem restraining sexual manipulation: which is just one of many gaping holes in the Flat worldview that daily expose the Modernist Impasse.

Thus, we are becoming a society that greatly fears individual license even as we celebrate it. For example, when my older son was in middle school, he and another boy went 60 feet from the entrance to the girl's locker room to use a drinking fountain. The fountain closer to the boys locker room was broken. Just then, a female coach emerged from the girl's locker room and loudly threatened the boys with possible expulsion for "sexual harassment".

But, that is nothing compared to what happened in Oregon to two thirteen year old boys. They were arrested, strip-searched and imprisoned for the crime of running down the hallway of their school and playfully slapping a few girls on the butt. Children in Florida and Maryland, some as young as 5 years old, have been led off by police for "sexual harassment". Ironically, the price of the Flat liberation of the Individual is excessive surveillance, restriction and downright paranoia. Perhaps, all our new, secular freedoms have really won us is an oppressive compassion.

Here's an example of modern compassion: there is growing physical science to support the thesis that Boys tend to be mentally wired for tracking shape and movement, while Girls seemed better designed for tracking relational interactions. Therefore, when it comes to outdoor or video games that are based on rapid motion, the advantage often goes to the Boys. However, Girls tend to have the advantage in early reading and communication skills like writing. As a matter of fact, as modern society becomes more informational and communicative it advantages women in general.

Yet, our society has gone in both directions at once! We have insisted on early reading and communication skills for children as young as Pre-school, while developing highly visual things for young Boys like exciting television and video games, with predictable results. Boys are excelling at Xbox while Girls are excelling in school. At the same time, the trend toward Flat equality, where children are viewed as smaller and more vulnerable adults, has effectively outlawed any physical discipline of children in Western society.

Thus, modern teachers often come into classrooms with several bored and fidgety young boys who are hard to keep attentive on relational interactions like reading comprehension. Yet, the very notion of occasionally swatting such a child with a ruler, as a physical means of commanding attention, is out-of-the-question to the compassionate. They would never dream of being so physically manipulative. It would be barbaric. But, ironically, this compassionate crowd finds it wholly appropriate to force parents, by threat of removal from the public school system, to dope their young children into a zombie state with psychotropic drugs. I guess a daily drugging is less physically manipulative...? It also helps that having such drugged ("learning disadvantaged") kids on the roles acquires more government funding for the schools and teachers.

Hysteria

Sadly, we tried to cast off our shackles: our myths and false fears. We tried to bring the world a model of greater happiness and peace. But now, we are sinking into a mire of manipulation and waves of social hysteria. How? This can be quickly understood by understanding the relation of REASON to the PRIMAL DRIVERS.

The great Enlightenment thinkers tried to establish justice in our social models based on Reason and Science. The raw idea was that we could eliminate the "God myth", that brought so many religious wars, and build from a purely rational basis. The problem was that a purely physical worldview is not in any way "morally" obligated to respond to Reason. Rather, a physical world is pushed about by physical drivers. Therefore, as society strips away its spiritual inhibitions, we do not automatically follow Reason, logic and science. No, we become Postmodern (beyond "truth") as we are guided primarily by physical desires and emotion.

In a previous chapter I outlined how our postmodern world is currently manipulating sources of public "truth": news media, science, research, academia and legal justice. Consequently, we are now subject to powerful waves of manipulation as raw fear sweeps through the West from time to time. The "swine flu pandemic", where a poor vaccine was rushed to help the public and it killed more people than the flu itself, is one example. Here are some of the panics, from the last 50 years, that created waves of social hysteria:

Nuclear winter

The overpopulation scare

The China Syndrome (meltdown) scare

DDT destroying whole ecosystems

The back-alley abortion scare

The microwave scare

World chaos due to Y2K

Cell phones cause cancer

The worldwide AIDS "pandemic"

The new Ice Age scare

The Global-warming scare

The Skylab scare

Asteroids, like Planet X, destroying Earth

The Swine flu scare (x2)

The child abduction panic

Killer bees and no more bees scare

Childhood obesity, diabetes and a thousand other child related terrors

Second-hand, third-hand smoke and now vaping!

A zillion health related scares...i.e....coffee, sugar, trans-fats

2012—the Mayan calendar/end of the world fiasco

Yes, we are becoming a more fearful people. We are often pushed about by pseudo-science and wacky studies. And, as we run out of jail space, it is becoming ever clearer that our social structures are inadequate for our own secularism. Thus, we long for peace and unity but lack the tools to get there. We lack the tools because we are cut off from knowing the height and depth of Truth. We lack wisdom. Our new system sublimates all truths to the physical order. Consequently, the truth is readily available for physical manipulation. Facts, research and data can be manipulated for political or financial gain. This, in turn, facilitates waves of short-term hysteria as public money continues to flow toward solving a perpetual list of critical issues which are often just false problems.

Ironically, we set off to simply eradicate all manipulation and delusion (all these religious "myths" that humanity leaned on) and ended up with a world steeped in micro-managed worry, widespread abuse and waves of social fear. We set a course for Happiness and ended up with Hysteria.

Perhaps, we should reconsider our course. Perhaps, we should at least consider the gentle words of Jesus: "the Truth will set you free". Certainly, this grand experiment in "post-truth" has been a disaster.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE TURNING POINT

In only a few more hours the restaurant would feed hundreds of Christmas shoppers. There would be children squealing, packages scattered in the booths and frazzled waitresses running through a maze of activity. But, for now it was a cold, dark place. The only sound was the familiar cursing of Juan Carlos as he proudly explained to me, for the 200th time, how stupid the people on the night shift were.

That morning was so cold we both kept our jackets on as we set up different ends of the huge, industrial kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him, with a matchbook in his hand, while he twisted a piece of butcher paper. I just nodded slightly and tried to tune out his daily rant while I set up my side.

"Those guys on nights are idiots!! They never do anything right. They don't know a dammed thing about how to clean. They didn't even re-light the pilots on the grills last night—f*%#ing idiots!!!" I stopped what I was doing. The word "pilots" rattled about in my head. I quickly turned to Juan Carlos, who was stooping down beneath the giant, gas-powered grills with a twisted paper on fire. But, just as I yelled "Don't...", the fiery explosion knocked him six feet backward.

I ran to him. His tall, skinny body was curled in a ball on the Spanish tile. He looked up at me and laughed. Apparently he was unharmed but for his rosy, pink face with a melted moustache, melted eyelashes and missing eyebrows. He just stood right up and laughed out loud like it was the greatest joke he'd ever heard. But, knowing how he constantly groomed himself for the waitresses--who largely ignored his advances-- I said, "You're not gonna laugh when you see your face in the mirror." Moments later, I could hear his anguished curses echoing from the employee restroom. He must have found a mirror.

In the same way, the flat Christians of Western civilization don't like it when you hold up a mirror to them. They don't believe they have compromised values. They certainly don't think Western Christianity is to blame for the corruption and decline of society. They don't like to dwell on abortion or the selling of baby parts or the destruction of the family structure. They certainly don't want to look at how their policies have actually hurt the poor and lowly. Rather, they want to feel empathetic. They want to believe they are doing a merciful work while the whole secular project is blowing up in their face.

[These next few chapters will show you how Western Christianity divided and collapsed by following a more and more "god-free compassion"--and by trying to make peace with those who reject God.]

CHAPTER TWELVE

Here a kingdom, there a kingdom

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

\--Pogo

Nearly everyone you meet has their own idea of what has gone wrong with America. Perhaps, you have heard a variety of explanations for our country's decline: from taking prayer out of public school to the establishment of the Federal Reserve. When I was younger, a lot of people blamed "that damn idiot box!" (television) as the source of every American malady. Well, here is my 2 cents. I believe the central cause of America's collapse will be traced to the Flattening of our culture via the gradual rejection of authentic Christianity by the "loving middle people".

Yes, I know. That is an explosive statement. Throughout this book I have told you the "middle people" are mostly well-intentioned Christians. Now, I'm saying that many of these have wandered away from authentic Christianity. Well, before you write me off as mean-spirited, let me at least show you how.

In the 19th century, a lot of Christians were drawn to an empathetic movement called "the Social Gospel". This would produce enormous good in the West. Over time, we saw the development of labor unions, worker safety laws, public sanitation, public parks, food and product safety laws, etc. The movement, eventually, would help bring a Christian outreach to the public in the form of soup kitchens, the YMCA, the Peace Corps, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, compassion for the disabled, for Veterans and the rights of women and "colored people"—the NAACP. Yet, the Social Gospel movement, over a hundred years, became less and less about the Gospel and more and more a secular, social project. It flattened. The biblical call to love God and love one's neighbor, especially the weak, became the embrace of Survival, Victim and Nature ethics.

Today, it is quite common to see churches, that long ago began this social outreach to the poor and downtrodden, wandering off the Christian message. For example, the same Christian movement that rallied for a Woman's right to vote has now morphed into a Flat ethics fight for "privacy rights" and funding of young, teenage girls to have abortions without their parent's knowledge or consent. Do you really want to know what happened to America? Just follow the path of the Social Gospel.

Broadly interpreted, the Social Gospel is one of the larger movements in the history of the West. It stretches from the creation of the Christian "Inner Mission" during the worker uprisings across Europe in 1848 to Barack Obama's "Blueprint for Change" in the 2008 presidential race. It can be traced from a compassionate Christian effort to help Black families after the Civil War to a modern day celebration of "gay marriage". However, the inspiration of the Social Gospel goes back much further.

Ringing like a bell throughout the Bible are several key themes...e.g....sin, salvation, personal holiness and the Kingdom of God. However, one of the most repeated themes of the Gospel regards the "anawim". This is a single, Hebrew word that means: "the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your land". Throughout the scriptures, God calls us to be always mindful of our weaker brothers and sisters. From Abraham's sacred respect for passing travelers to God's injunction to leave some of the harvest on the "edges of your fields for the poor" to Paul's collection for the needy of Jerusalem, God's compassion for the weak and downtrodden echoes throughout the Gospel. In Mathew 25:40, Jesus specifically commands all of us to visit prisoners, clothe the naked, feed the hungry and, generally, look out for the lowly. Therefore, care for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger--the anawim--is big part of the Judeo-Christian value system. But, there has also been an age-old conflict. Does one focus more on personal sanctity or the "worldly" concerns of helping the needy? Since we are both physical and spiritual beings, where should the greater emphasis be?

Jesus confronted this type of question one day with Martha (Luke 10-40). She almost scolded Him because she was so angry that her sister Mary was only sitting at His feet (concerned with personal sanctity) listening to Jesus teach while she was busy with (worldly concerns) fulfilling the common duty of serving food and drink to guests. She said, "Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me." But Jesus replied, "Martha, Martha you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

This incident seemed to imply a superiority of spiritual concerns over physical, good works. Almost immediately the early Church was grappling with this issue. "You say you have faith without good works. I will show you my faith by my good works" wrote the Apostle James. There arose whole groups of monks—contemplatives—that were almost completely focused on personal sanctity. There also arose people like St Francis of Assisi who were most active in relieving the suffering of society. The 2 movements were nicknamed "Mary" and "Martha" (or Faith vs. Works). By the time of the Protestant Reformation this conflict, between personal sanctity and social works, became red hot.

The Reformation

The Catholics of the early 16th century had built up quite a vertical hierarchy. They saw ascending levels just about everywhere. There were levels of creation, levels of sin, levels of punishment, levels of saints, levels of the angelic order, levels in heaven and, thanks to Dante's "Inferno", even levels in hell! And, the Church had become like a giant ladder that one climbed mostly by the Sacraments and good works.

I once saw a gruesome painting, from the medieval period, of this "Ladder of Salvation" where ugly, little devils are standing around in flames at the bottom of a giant ladder and using poles with hooks (temptations) to pull men and women down to hell. The ladder of the Church was for the common man, mostly, a physical climb. But, Luther and Calvin and the other Protestant reformers dismissed all that. They traded in the grand ladder of salvation, and Church authority, for the simple concept of being saved by a personal Faith grounded in "sola Scriptura": the Bible alone.

The problem to this was almost immediate. People long to know how they are doing. Am I saved or lost? And, that is how the Protestant work ethic was born. Luther had changed the focus of gaining salvation (the Kingdom of Heaven) from the physical assurance of the Catholic Sacraments to the invisible: private spirituality. Calvin answered the need to measure visible results by claiming one of the signs of a God's salvation was a person who worked hard and achieved success. For many, the post-reformation worldview became: God obviously blesses success, both the diligent and the rich. Several historians credit this inner drive and "Protestant work ethic" for the explosion of human energy that helped usher in an era of capitalism within the industrial revolution.

"Let the devil take the hindmost"

Now, let's fast-forward to the late 19th century. It was a time of crisis that spawned the Social Gospel. There was a perfect storm of trouble facing the average Protestant Christian family. Scientific advances had created an industrial revolution. Families that had worked, prayed and studied the Bible together on farms were being economically pressured to move to crowded, urban centers and divide up into factory workers. This, in effect, seemed to radically change the place of women in society to become the keepers of family morals, education and Bible training.

Yet, since the Enlightenment, there had been a growing intellectual movement to doubt the authority and veracity of the Bible: doubts that seemed to shout aloud in the streets after Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species" was published in 1859. Adding to the mix was the clash between the Protestant work ethic and the harsh reality of poverty and poor conditions that many workers experienced.

It was becoming obvious to just about everyone, by 1894, that Capitalism had a dark side. There had been a series of bloody and failed labor riots (1877, 1886, 1892 and 1894). Yet, the overarching social attitude was still a strong Victorian perception of individual freedom and personal sanctity. In the United States, it had led to the popular idea of the "American dream": that anyone who worked hard enough could be anything or achieve anything they wanted from life. It also led to a coldhearted saying of the era "Every man for himself and let the devil take the hindmost!"

And, the devil must have been quite busy in those days. Millions of families had "freely" migrated to cities, often in slum conditions, to find jobs. Most of the jobs had brutally long hours with extremely low pay. In those days, it was not uncommon to find small children working in filthy and dangerous conditions. Something had to give.

Most historians claim the Social Gospel was a reaction by protestant churches to the economic conditions of rapid industrialization. But, the earliest Social gospel movements were first and foremost about salvation. The overarching view of the family grounded in the Biblical narrative was collapsing while the "anawim" were growing more numerous. The Industrial Revolution was chewing through people and creating squalid conditions for the inner city poor. At the same time, overworked fathers, who once were the spiritual backbone of their families, were out at the saloons in their free moments. There was drunkenness, violence and prostitution on the rise in some increasingly dirty cities.

In 1874, a group of women in New York started the Christian Women's Temperance Union. They went into bars singing hymns, praying and urged the owners to stop selling alcohol. While in the South, efforts were under way to educate the newly freed slaves. However, when Northern preachers came to call Southerners to repent of their sins of slavery and treason, it backfired. The Social Gospel met strong resistance. Yet, the movement seemed to flourish in more industrialized areas like Chicago where Jane Adams established Hull House: a social service center for poor women and children.

It was in the cities that the followers of the Social Gospel started labor unions and pushed for better wages and safer working conditions. They also pushed for public health standards, sanitation, the first public parks, safety laws and a vast range of industrial reforms including a ban on child labor. In the beginning days, from around 1850-1880, the going was rough. The movement was somewhat scattered across America's urban centers. Yet, there emerged some key, intellectual leaders to direct the movement. Some key figures I would call attention to are: Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch and Fr. Charles Coughlin.

Some key figures

Washington Gladden gave voice to the idea of helping the oppressed of his time by preaching a building of the "kingdom of heaven on earth". This simple, Congregationalist minister drew audiences from across the nation to hear his calls for fair labor practices, bargaining, a shorter work week, factory inspections and regulation of monopolies. Gladden, who had joined the Temperance movement as a boy, brought a spiritual and intellectual focus to the deep frustrations of the working class. He also brought them revolutionary ideas: the notion that hard work and self-control did not necessarily bring salvation: the idea that there was also spiritual merit in simple enjoyments like recreation and playing cards: the idea that changing the structural sins of society would bring personal salvation and, using the popularity of Darwin, the postmillennial idea that the Second Coming of Jesus would come only after mankind evolved into a more just and equal society--a kingdom of heaven on earth.

Gladden however was quite orthodox and gentle compared to Walter Rauschenbusch. Working with the poor of "Hell's Kitchen" in New York for eleven years, the Baptist minister, Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), turned solidly against capitalism. He said, "Our disorganized competitive life must pass into an organic cooperative life." He preached a more radical version of the Social Gospel. He claimed "Individualism means tyranny." He was a socialist Christian who seemingly was heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau who were gaining worldwide popularity at the time. (I say this because he incorporated Rousseau's rejection of "Original Sin" and emphasis on social structures causing all human failing.) At the core of Rauschenbusch's theology, he distrusted religious experiences that could not be physically demonstrated. Of his own religious conversion in 1878, he said "It was a tender, mysterious experience" but that "there was a great deal about it that was not true." This Baptist minister strangely rejected the atonement of Jesus for the remission of personal sin. Then, he would tell his congregation to "realize themselves" by participating in social programs. He called Protestants to a social salvation that put "more meaning in life" and gave them a "chance of winning love." He was also one of the first to organize under a multi-cultural banner. His organization called "the Brotherhood of the Kingdom" was shockingly non-denominational--a wild idea in the early 20th century. He personally despised religious bigotry as much as the "robber barons" of industry and politics. He was an outspoken critic of "income disparity" and an early shaper of the modern egalitarian push. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Woodrow Wilson claim to have been influenced by his teachings.

Social Gospel advocate Father Charles Coughlin (1891-1979) had a radio show that was rather small time in Detroit. As a Catholic, he railed against the Ku Klux Klan and gave sermons on the anawim—the poor and downtrodden. But, his radio ministry exploded after the crash of the Stock Market in 1929. Within a few years, he had over 40 million listeners. Nearly a third of the nation was listening to him say things like "Capitalism is doomed and it is not worth saving." He told his audience "the New Deal is Christ's Deal". He advocated an even more radical idea of the Social Gospel: that government had a "duty" to limit the profits of industry; and that government must guarantee the production of "food, wearing apparel, homes, drugs, books and all modern conveniences." When the President FDR later said that government should "free mankind from fear and want", it was exactly what Father Coughlin had been saying to his massive audience.

As you can see, the Social Gospel was changing shape over time and society was changing with it. One thing should be clear by now, there are different kinds of Social Gospel activists but they have common characteristics. First, they are all focused on changing the external structures of society to achieve the common good. They devalue the idea and responsibility of personal sin for the concept of "social sins". Second, just like Flat, secular people, the Social Gospel activists strove to level most everything economically and socially. They can be mild like Washington Gladden or radical like Fr. Coughlin but thoroughly egalitarian. Thirdly, the Social Gospel is largely adrift. The movement is no longer actually anchored on fixed, transcendent truths or hard, moral absolutes from the Biblical text. Thus, the "Christian Social Gospel", which has now been drifting on the latest intellectual and emotional sway of events for over a hundred years, has been widely contaminated with a Flat ethical worldview—Survival, Victim and Nature ethics. Hell, even Pope Francis speaks in these flat terms.

In the next chapter, we will go into how Victim ethics gobbled up so many warm-hearted Christians in the West.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Culture War

"I regard Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, and all other forms of fundamentalism, as enemies of God—and I hope you'll quote me on that."

Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg

Maybe it was that grey, misty morning that never quite saw the sun. It made the shoreline blend into one. Maybe it was that we were not familiar with the landmarks and the powerful waves were thrilling no matter where you paddled back out. Certainly, it was because a strong, Northern undercurrent kept at us since dark, dragging us further and further away from our car. But the next thing any of us knew, there was a great commotion. Six soldiers, with automatic weapons, were waving and shouting. Some were standing in the sand looking down their scopes at us. The two that were getting their boots wet in the surf seemed pretty serious and angry. It was a bizarre moment. Imagine squawking seagulls twisting through the air, with the ocean surging rhythmically to and fro, while several gun barrels are aimed at your chest.

All of us began to look around at the unfamiliar beach. "Where are we?" someone said. It had been hours before any of us had tried to get a fix on the shoreline. "We must have drifted." "Yeah...and he must be home today" my older brother replied, pulling his surfboard out of the water. My brother was referring to President Nixon's San Clemente beach house and the way the marines were swarming us. Apparently, we had unknowingly drifted into a security zone around the President. But, there was no talking with the soldiers. They simply pointed South and shouted: "get out and walk!"

It was something that could have happened to anyone. You get caught in a current and lose sight of a fixed position. Next thing you know, you have drifted miles from where you should be. Well, that is almost exactly what happened to the old Social Gospel.

. . . . . . . . .

In 2007, on the campaign trail, when Barack Obama said he was a follower of "...uh...you know, the whole Social Gospel", he was making a claim to be part of a near 200-year-old Christian movement that originally fought for the abolition of slavery and against the dangers of rampant industrialization. In the past, the Social Gospel movement did enormous good. It formed marches against slavery. It rallied the Suffragettes drive for Women's social equality. It labored for public safety nets. It was a conduit for Christian compassion that took the form of soup kitchens and hundreds of other private services like the Salvation Army, the Young Men's Christian Association or YMCA, the Peace Corps, as well as, pushed for the humane treatment of the disabled and equal voting rights. Yes, many private and government safety net programs can be traced to this old, ideological defense of the biblical anawim...i.e....God's repeated injunction throughout the scriptures to care for "the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your land".

However, after nearly two hundred years, the movement has drifted far. Leaving much of the difficult and controversial Gospel message behind, it pushes today for ethics that "everyone" can agree on—Survival, Victim and Nature ethics. Why does it try to fit the Vertical Gospel into a Flat, secular outlook? "We must practice the politics of the possible" says Reverend Jim Wallis, one of the prominent leaders of the modern Social Gospel. Yes, the Social Gospel movement has long been about softening the hard message of the true Gospel.

What aspects of the Gospel can blend with a Flat worldview? Well, let's remember, there are the 2 great commandments: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And, love your neighbor as yourself. Of these, only the second commandment is Flat enough to blend into a secular society. Therefore, as the years passed, the Social Gospel focused more and more on a pragmatic love that assumed less and less connection to a defined image of God.

For example, it seemed unloving to exclude people. So there would no longer be a need for a specific denomination nor, eventually, a specific form of salvation. Rather, it seemed far more loving to ignore personal sins and concentrate on more equitable social structures. Soon, the holy Social Gospel flattened into a pursuit of mere ethics. The real Christian concern for the Biblical anawim became infected with the secular outrage of Victim ethics. The Biblical call to "seek peace and pursue it" through justice became tainted with the immorality of radical pacifism and the hysteria of Survival ethics. While the scriptural directive to "multiply and subdue the Earth", became a worried rush to squelch humanity and shame us into a "green" subservience to the physical world—Nature ethics. Thus, today, with the seeming collapse of public morality and a growing postmodern confusion within Western Christianity, the Social Gospel movement's response has been a fierce war on Wal-Mart and corporate bonuses, a push for government control of healthcare and a massive restructuring of the world's economies to fight the imaginary monster of "global warming". Huh?

Therefore, today, we have a situation in the West where MOST Christians have made a well-meaning mistake—we have compromised with the world. Christians whose "gospel" has been made to fit the Flat worldview ethic of molecular equality. For example, a sincere Christian, Hillary Clinton spent much of her early career working hard for "children's rights" over their parents. If you have ever heard of "children divorcing their parents", it was Hillary at the forefront of that effort. She is also a very staunch supporter of the American government funding of abortion in foreign countries. While, a Christian State Senator named Barack Obama has gone one step further, voting for outright infanticide in 2002—via the exposure of infants born alive after botched, late term abortions. Yet, these are just 2 of the more blatant examples from thousands where progressive Christians are pushing for what seems to have "progressed" beyond the actual gospel. That is because today's Social Gospel has corrupted. How did that happen? There are a couple of reasons.

Forcing the Hand of God

You might say, the Social Gospel didn't start out well in the first place. It wasn't completely grounded in the actual Gospel. It was premised on an overly physical reading of the Bible that presumed our society could perfect itself in order to usher in a Kingdom of Heaven on earth and, therefore, "force" the Second Coming of Christ. Even though Jesus clearly told Pontus Pilot "My kingdom is not of this world", the followers of the Social Gospel would disagree. "I'm confident we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth" said Senator Obama in his presidential bid.

Second, this idea of the "naturally good individual" that could form an earthly utopia, is a subtle denial of the biblical lesson of "the Fall of Man" (Original Sin) and the great need we all have for the applied grace of God--the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus. How could the Social Gospel miss such a fundamental gospel message? Easy—its early leadership was influenced by Enlightenment philosophers (like Rousseau) who claimed people in their "natural state" were actually pure beings that only need the right social conditions to be perfect. And, in the mid 19th century that was a welcome message.

Remember, the Social Gospel was birthed during a period of horrid physical conditions. There was squalor in the cities and brutal working conditions against the backdrop of profound philosophical and scientific upheaval. And, the Social Gospel movement was led by people who were proudly educated in the rapidly Flattening colleges of that day. Therefore, from the start, the movement promoted an old idea—love of the anawim—but was highly attuned to the new ideas of the Flat worldview. Thus, the Social Gospel leadership have been accused of Marxism since the early days—often for good reason. For example, Jim Wallis regularly makes the claim that large accumulations of wealth are "immoral" unless, of course, the government is in control. Yet, he seemed genuinely offended when a radio interview began, in early 2010, with the question: "Are you a Communist?"

One of the hallmarks of the Social Gospel leadership has always been their attempt to find the "wise center". They would make their stand between heaven and earth. They would help flesh out the gospel in daily life. They are pragmatic Christians, with an openness to any new science or new approaches to social peace and welfare. Thus, as an early compromise, the Social Gospel movement seemed to react and conform to the growing academic notion of a closed system of Epicurean truth. As the 20th century began, they had bought into the skepticism. They would not be religious extremists. They were "enlightened" Christians who would entertain all ideas and tolerate everyone. They would be a "loving middle people", rooted in the heart of the Gospel message--which they wrongly believed was primarily focused on the Anawim. Thus, they would be "smart enough" to play the game on the new, Flat field. They would be effective.

The Social Gospel movement followed their leadership into that field where Christian love need be expressed according to the "politics of the possible". Thus, the Gospel took on the language of Flat ethics within modernity only to follow the popular culture, after WWII, into a postmodern destruction of meaning and, in some cases, pre-modern pantheism. Eventually, the followers of the Social Gospel, having almost completely compromised with the Enlightenment rejection of moral absolutes, dropped the more difficult and controversial aspects of the real Gospel. Thus, the Social Gospel has morphed over its hundreds of years to a mere shell of the true Gospel. But, you may well ask, "what exactly is the true Gospel"?

Well, today, that's become a cloudy question. But, let's at least get a few things clear. The real Gospel is unequal ("give the talent to the man who has 10") and exclusive ("then He will separate the sheep from the goats"). It has a lot of uncomfortable messages about sin and judgment: "Bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness". The Gospel may, indeed, demand "love of neighbor" and the Anawim. Yet, it clearly elevates the eternal over the temporal: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" The modern Social Gospel movement, however, tries to avoid public mention of any of this. Rather, it searches for a way to be more inclusive of the lowest common denominator—which happens to be atheists on a Flat, ethical playing field. And so, Western Christianity began to tear apart long ago as this "liberal" (Flat) interpretation of Christianity began to openly battle with a more fundamental (Vertical) reading of the Scriptures.

Christian vs. Christian

Perhaps, one of the biggest surprises of my lifetime was the discovery that the so-called "culture war" did not arise from what seemed an obvious source--the conflict of atheists vs. religion. It would not yield to such an easy explanation. It was not a simple battle between angry, metro-sexual atheists and intolerant, back-woods hicks. It was actually, at its core, a civil war within Christianity.

Historians explain how the Fundamentalist movement was originally a widespread reaction to the Enlightenment and the resulting attack on the veracity of the Bible. It was also a reaction to the secularization of the Social Gospel.

For centuries, Flat thinkers had been doing an intellectual smack down on just about every aspect of scriptural research and interpretation. However, when Darwin rocked the world with what appeared to be a Flat alternative to biblical creation, there arose a deep call for a return to the fundamentals of "sola scriptura"—the Scriptures alone. But, a rift began instead. The Social Gospel preachers refused to follow the Fundamentalist's view of moral absolutes. Instead, these preachers began to compromise their message to fit a multi-denominational workforce while buying into popular trends in philosophy and psychology.

By the turn of the 20th century, Social Gospel preachers were beginning to fudge on such biblical basics as creation, Original Sin (or the Fall of Mankind), the concept of salvation from sin and much more. This, you might have imagined, provoked a strong reaction from within Christianity. 64 British and American theologians composed a publication of 94 essays entitled: "The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth". Nearly 3 million copies were passed around by 1915. Some of the Christian basics were: the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the virgin birth of Mary, our need for salvation from sin, Jesus makes atonement as the Son of God and the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Yet, the Social Gospel leaders claimed that the real fundamentals of the Bible were more practical. We are called to a practical love of our neighbor, especially the anawim—the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger in the land. Therefore, an ugly split developed in the Western world over what exactly is fundamental to Christianity? One side held up their Bibles, a list of the fundamentals and spoke of moral absolutes. The other side was more "enlightened". They rejected such certitude and followed their own heart's understanding of "love"—pointing to hundreds of references about the anawim in Scripture.

Which side was correct? Well, you decide. Judge the tree by its fruit. The mainline Protestant churches embraced the compromised Social Gospel and gradually began to follow various tenets of Flat ethics—Victim, Survival and Nature ethics. Downplaying personal salvation and responsibility while seeking fulfillment in shaping progressive social policy, today, those churches have all but emptied. Who wants to sit through a sermon on Global Warming rooted in Nature ethics when you have an aching, interior thirst for the God of salvation. Such people will either go to a more spiritual church or will be about filling that hole with doing some activity within the public arena. It's better to plant a tree than sit through such a Flat sermon.

Similarly, Christian compassion for the weak, the oppressed and the "little guy" led to organized labor unions. These once had huge membership in America. Now, they comprise less than 7% of the private workforce. Why? As the wages, hours and working conditions improved to less life threatening levels, membership declined while many union leaders corrupted. They would still try to ratchet up the worker's "needs" and "fears". For example, the UAW recently acquired Viagra for all their workers. The focus was taken off the anawim and put on class envy. Trying to inspire outrage for the "unfair" disparity between the janitor's wages and the CEO's bonuses, Victim ethics in the form of militant socialism crept into and infected many labor unions. Today, millions of government workers are often unionized and this has led to massive distortion of politics: where corrupt money flows to the politician that promises more money to government workers.

Also, the Biblical call to "seek peace and pursue it" sometimes became the extreme pacifism of Survival ethics. Flattening Christians began to immorally obstruct those who would fight the spread of real evil in the world— authoritarian regimes that brutally imposed Flat ethics through forms of fascism, socialism or communism. Rather than oppose such inhumane governments, there were those who actually championed the spread of Marxist egalitarianism within their religion. In the Catholic Church this was called "Liberation theology". Today, South America is still polluted with its effects. Our new, South American Pope Francis is celebrated by a secular media and a Flat world because he seems tainted too.

Liberation theology was in full swing in the 1970's when radical feminism (Victim ethics) began to openly war against the biblical view of the patriarchy and, yes even, pregnancy as forms of "slavery". At the same time, the legitimate concern for Christian tolerance and unity (ecumenism) morphed into a Flat push for post-identity religion--all faiths are utterly equal—undercutting the need for a specific Church and, eventually, any church. Thus, having accepted the premise of molecular equality, there came about a celebration of Flat diversity and tolerance which led many loving Christians into full acceptance of some rather non-biblical things like celebrating homosexuality, animal equality, the choice of abortion, euthanasia, sex change surgery and elevating children to adult social status.

Ironically, the modern Social Gospel had turned 180 degrees. It is not uncommon today to see the remnants of the old, Social Gospel movement solidly opposed to public expressions of the actual Gospel. Your author has, more than once, seen preachers and rabbis demand a "separation of church and state" when a spiritually inspired viewpoint disagrees with Flat worldview politics. For example, the pacifist arm of the Social Gospel movement organized the American Union Against Militarism (the AUAM) before World War I. Eventually, this union became known as the thoroughly secular American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU). The Scopes Trial, orchestrated by the ACLU, pitted the Fundamentalist belief in biblical creationism against the macro-evolutionary theory of Darwin in public schools. The Fundies lost that one and, ever since, the ACLU has been eagerly seeking more Flat funding to tear down every Vertical expression in American society.

Today, it is easy to find "enlightened", post-identity Christians who accept just about any flavor of personal spirituality. What's really important to them is how much "social justice work" you do? Hence, there are ultra-green-Christians who dabble in pantheism. There are "witches" who profess to be Christian. It seems, anything goes as long as your heart's compassion somehow has you working towards Survival, Victim or Nature ethics. Therein is your Flat salvation. You decide the mix and the emphasis. It's your spiritual fruit salad. It's your choice. After all, there are few guidelines or fundamentals in today's Social Gospel. "To be saved, we need only realize that God loves us just the way we are" says Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, author of a popular, 2006 book called "A Wing and a Prayer".

Of course, this postmodern breakdown of the meaning of Christianity has led to great confusion and a collapse of large segments of Western Christianity. Many across the pond proudly boast that Europe is now "post-Christian". While, here in the States, Social Gospel preachers like the Reverend Jim Wallis have said "Personally, I am not offended or alarmed by the notion of a post-Christian America".

Summary

Please understand, the corruption of the Social Gospel is not monolithic. It is systemic in some areas and more topical in others. But, it has affected the whole tree of the Church. We have brothers and sisters of the faith who have so incorporated Flat ethics that they war against the Bible—holding fundamentalist Christians in utter contempt. And yet, there are those of the Social Gospel movement, like the Reverend Wallis, whose are more graceful, whose Flat bias actually helps keep the wider Church on our toes—helping us focus more on victims of poverty and negotiating peaceful solutions.

Yes, we should keep the needs of the world's anawim before our eyes, in our hearts and working through our hands—but not by displacing the authentic Gospel with Flat ethics. Make no mistake. The actual Gospel warns against this very thing: "You shall not be partial to the poor" Leviticus 19:15 and "nor shall you be partial to the poor man in his dispute" Exodus 23:3 and "You shall hear the small and the great alike" Deuteronomy 1:17. Yet, today's Social Gospel contradicts the real Gospel with a widespread claim that God has a "preferential option for the poor".

We can seek the true heart of the Gospel, to first love God with all our heart, soul and mind; then, we will have the mature outlook and resources to love our neighbor as ourselves. We need to balance justice and mercy without falling into the Flat trap of fear and envy. For example, more than once, reporters tried to bait Mother Teresa into an envious attack on the rich, but she would not fall for it. Rather, she humbly replied: "There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste, when I see people throwing things away that we can use." Having walked amidst crushing poverty and death, she refused to feel the need to tear down the rich. Rather, she would call us to love them with a balanced view of life. "Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own."

Yes, to really understand the culture war is to recognize this split in Christianity over what it means to "love" in the world. It is to recognize how the corrupting Social Gospel movement helped modern Liberalism get a stranglehold on America via the "loving middle people". And, it is to see the enormous drift that has occurred away from authentic Christianity.

In our postmodern society, a misty grey fog is out there but, thank God, we can still make out some of the landmarks.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TRYING TO FLATTEN GOD

"He who is his own spiritual mentor has a fool for a guide."

\--an old monastic saying

Imagine a week where you come across all of these: A Christian mom finds birth control pills in the laundry and decides not to confront her 13 year old daughter because it might ruin the "best friends" relationship they have together. The Right Reverend, Bishop Lawrence Noblename suddenly announces that everyone should simply call him "Larry". A Catholic priest tries to convince his congregation that Jesus didn't really do any miracles, like multiply loaves and fishes, but only got people to share the food they already had. An Episcopalian bishop explains how abortion actually benefits women and society while overtaxing the Earth's resources is a far more offensive act against God. A Jewish leader rails against the patriarchy while a Methodist minister tries to convince his flock that the Bible has many misleading errors—especially regarding sodomy. All this while across the country, a famous Evangelic preacher implores his followers to realize the full power and potential of their faith. He tells them "you are a god!" He ends his emotional sermon by whipping up the crowd into a frenzied chant of "I am a god! I am a god! I am a god!"

What do all these real-world examples have in common? The answer is: they all show a breakdown of our Vertical culture—a flattening of religious values to fit a new, secular worldview of equality. Whether parents are equal with children, mankind equals with the planet or we somehow consider God as subservient to our own faith, there is a great flattening going on today. Many religious people are being misled into a new vision of morality—a Flat ethical worldview that disdains any form of hierarchy.

The Collapse

Ironically, in the recent past, most of our social flattening in America did not come from secular groups or angry atheists or even government. It came from us—average Christians. We collapsed our own churches. How? Across Western civilization many religious institutions have tried to incorporate the new morality, as well as, the new anawim into their teachings. We have downplayed the exclusive, spiritual demands of religion and focused on the inclusive message of Flat ethics and molecular equality. Over time, the Vertical character of religion itself has become suspect. Therefore, it is possible to find churches opposed to just about everything they once held true. For example, a congregation today might oppose the very dogmas their denomination was founded on. A biblical people might reject the credibility and authority of the Bible. A Vertical people might reject the notion of Creation and a Created order. Christians might even reject the Divinity of Jesus.

Yes, as the Flat view of molecular equality infected religion with moral relativism, it took the sharp edges off everything. Many churches became less serious. They also got friendly, more inclusive, tolerant and "down to earth". To a lot of people, this was a welcome development. But, it came at a huge price.

In more than a few churches, the Authority of God and Divinity of Jesus became an embarrassment. Jesus was no longer a great sign of contradiction but just another wondrous teacher of ethics. "Jesus our brother" was preferred to the statement "Jesus is Lord", as people flattened their idea of God. For example, Hank Hanegraff has observed that the popular Word of Faith movement in the Evangelical community [Word of Faith people believe that faith is a force and words are the containers of that force therefore, with the right words, you can create your own reality] makes "God into a kind of cosmic busboy who must do whatever someone of creative faith demands." In such a case, we have Christians who happily flattening God to the level of subservience.

The result of all this flattening was a flat product—not a lifesaving relationship with the God of Creation. Now, just as Muslims were led into a dangerously dysfunctional view of God as "irrational and unlovable" by over-emphasizing Divine power, Western Christianity strove to be inclusive with the "fairness" of Flat ethics by over-emphasizing God's love. Thus, many churches became as Flat as secular culture—unable to inspire, uplift or defend against the onslaught of personal, moral corruption. And, like the salt that loses its flavor, they failed to make a clear contrast. Actually becoming an obstruction to the work of salvation, the meaning and purpose of such churches dissipated. Therefore, these churches are being abandoned.

Writing in First Things ("The Death of the Protestant Mainline: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline", August 2008) Joseph Bottum observers:

The death of the Mainline is the central historical fact of our time: the

event that distinguishes the past several decades from every other period

in American history. Almost every one of our current political and cultural

oddities, derives from this fact: The Mainline has lost the capacity to set,

or even significantly influence, the national vocabulary or the national self-

understanding."

At one point, in the mid-1960's, membership in the Protestant Mainline churches exceeded half of the US population. Now, Mr. Bottum explains, "less than 8 percent of Americans today belong to the central churches of the Protestant Mainline." And, it gets worse.

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor ("The Coming Evangelical Collapse", March 2009), Michael Spencer warns:

"We are on the verge—within 10 years—of a major collapse of Evangelical

Christianity. [25-35% of Americans are Evangelical today] This breakdown

will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will

fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment of the West."

Of course, all this abandonment and self direction has led to a lot of hard hearts and malformed consciences—with so-called "spiritual" people saying and doing things that would make St. Francis blush.

Unconditional Love

Thus, we are brothers and sisters who are prone to exclaim: "I don't believe in organized religion" or "I'm spiritual but not religious". Of course, few will stop to consider the outcome of all this: a vastly scattered, private Christianity bending to the destructive bankruptcy of Flat ethics as the new, public moral authority.

Perhaps we should remember how religion (from the old French to "bind back") refers to a binding back what has broken from God. But, fewer feel the need today. Who needs an "organized (binding back) religion" when few consider anything broken in the first place? A lot of us feel we are doing just fine—thank you. Yet, today, personal moral responsibility is, not only being transferred to the government but, shielded from public scrutiny in the very act of setting ourselves up as the ultimate authority of our spiritual failings. Thus, as we prefer to go it alone, we often assume God understands our difficult lives and will easily forgive everything. So, why not embrace the delightful liberty of the new morality--of divorce, pre-marital sex, pornography, homosexuality, birth control, abortion, euthanasia and much more--because we have a personal god Who overlooks our sins and loves us "unconditionally".

But, here is the take home point: God will not violate His own nature by forcing salvation on unwilling, free agents. Yet, sadly, our flattening presumption of God's "unconditional love" depends on this very violation.

Today, more than a few of us celebrate impurity while claiming the purity of God's forgiveness. We freely sin then assume salvation. This is a contradiction. It is to mock the very nature of God's essence. It is to reject the offer of salvation while claiming it. And, nothing leads to this lethal contradiction faster than relying on unconditional love.

Yes, "unconditional love" assumes a contradictory God—a Flat God. Such love fits the Flat worldview where everyone survives equally. There are no Vertical concepts to worry about. There are no overarching, absolute truths to direct human behavior. Morality delightfully disappears into the fog of individual situations and mitigating circumstance. Thus, Divine Law is twisted to the mood of personal feelings and interpretation. Yes, "unconditional love" is such an obviously Flat concept and curse on society, I have never quite gotten over my amazement at how many sincere Christians will parrot it. Go figure.

The blessing behind the curse

It's hard to find anyone who was more abused for his faith than St. Paul. He was beaten, imprisoned, gashed by a crowd throwing rocks, cursed at, whipped, starved, shipwrecked, mocked, betrayed and ultimately beheaded. Yet, he made this sweet statement: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose"—Romans 8:28. Take courage, then, this also reflects our own flattening culture today. As bad as things may seem, with the collapse of huge segments of Western Christianity and many seemingly abandoning their faith, a great good has resulted too! The true Church is awakening. What do I mean by this?

When religious people begin to see more the way God sees reality, it is indeed an awakening. Now, God has been gathering His children from every walk of life from time immemorial. For example, God can apply the salvific grace of Jesus to Baptist, Hindu, Catholic, Moslem, Jew and even those who have been brought up to reject Christianity. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" says the Lord of the Bible—Romans 9:15. Now, the secular flattening of religion has had the effect of forcing us to appreciate God's great mercy and to tolerate other walks of life...i.e....other denominations and faith traditions. When such egalitarianism brings genuine brotherly love and a wider understanding of what is the true Church, it actually helps us put aside childish ways of seeing things. No longer do Catholics dismiss other denominations as lost. No longer do Methodists (for example) consider gentle Muslim children as destined for hell fire. There has been an opening of our eyes as the egalitarian movement swept through the churches.

Today, we have more female pastors, more access to the hierarchy, friendlier services and more participation from the pews. We have plainspoken Bishops who are not removed from the people. We have altar girls, youth programs, deacons, counselors and lay ministers galore. Some of the human barriers between God and His people are being torn down. The Church is less stuffy and distant from the sinner in the street. And, some religious sects are more accepting and tolerant of each other too. That is a good thing.

Jesus once said "The time is coming when those who worship the Father will worship in Spirit and Truth. Indeed the Father seeks just such worshipers." Well, just as persecution has historically developed the Church, it seems this secular flattening—which brought so many serious maladies to Western culture—has actually been an instrument for our spiritual maturity. The worldwide Church has grown from the confrontation.

Yes, God can bring good out of anything—even our attempt to flatten Him.

A SUMMARY

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth we cannot know it." Blaise Pascal

In conclusion, our society tried to dismiss God by quietly rejecting our ability to know anything for sure. We, then, tried to proudly build a high, towering structure of human perfection—just like ancient Babylon. But, we found out (the hard way) that a "god-free" planet is one of primal fears and desires: of Survival, Victim and Nature ethics vs. Selfish manipulation (Utility ethics). For some time now, Western civilization has been reacting to and through this cartoon vision of reality. There are new rules and new forms of social offense. There are several "protected" groups now. This deeply affects your child. A whole new set of laws, guidelines, ethics and expectations restrict the youth today. Your child is expected to know the new morality, the protected groups and follow both written and unwritten codes of conduct.

Here is an example of how these unwritten rules scare kids today. I was asked by a young person to help a woman named Brittany at the shipyard where I work. The problem was that there were 3 women named Brittany in my area, 2 were Hispanic (one short, one taller) and 1 was black. When I finally asked if it was "the black woman?", the young person visibly cringed and said "Yes...but I didn't want to say that."

How sad that children are being trained to fear so much today. Before graduating from high school, your child will be taught to worry about all kinds of things. They will learn how terrible it is to bully. Then they will learn that offending one of the special groups is akin to bullying. What are the special groups? Any people who can claim minority or historic mistreatment status: for example, Blacks, women and the gender confused. At the same time, your child will learn to despise dominance: for example, the White male Christian (an old picture of Western power and privilege) or any American incursion on the world stage. Your child will also be loaded with guilt (from kindergarten on) about how dominant humans use too much of the Earth's limited resources and how we in the West are the most dominant humans.

However, you now understand something of Nature, Victim and Survival ethics. You will recognize how those fear-based ethics are being pushed onto your child. I would encourage you to be at peace above all else even though we live in a worried and defensive society with growing corruption and manipulation. And many, like ancient Babylon, are utterly confused. Even our words are losing shape and meaning. For example, Washington State will begin [in 2016/17] teaching kindergarteners that "gender" is no longer a biological fact of being born a boy or girl...but, rather, a social construct, a perception and a feeling. Yes, children today are fed insanity, directly from the government, under the guise of Health and Safety.

Therefore, it is important to first instruct our kids in the basic idea that an entire society and culture can be confused. The news can be twisted. Documentaries, TV shows, movies and people who are supposed to be "in the know" can be misled. Beloved teachers, singers, actors and sports heroes can be flat out wrong. Calmly explain to them the difference between the flat and vertical worldviews.

Secondly, pray for Wisdom. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of building your child up with a love of truth. For example, the central truth is that a Creator God exists and we are lesser beings. And, God is the source of all Truth. If you can instill a great love of truth in a child, you are a successful parent because Wisdom will comfort, protect and guide and lead them throughout life.

Third, encourage them. It is rare to find someone awake in a crisis who acts with confident courage. Now, faith is the calcium for the bones of courage. And, faith is the ability to see into the layers of reality. So, increase your family's faith by drawing nearer to God. Overarch their lives with godly practices—like prayer and scripture reading. Perhaps, a trip to church is in order.

Finally, don't be afraid. The Bible, from beginning to end, records how messengers from God would repeat one thing every time: "Be at peace". Jesus constantly asked His disciples to be calm, not to worry and be at peace. Everything will come out OK in the end. God is already working with you and He will complete the good thing that is begun in you. I know your child will grow up with a wonderful advantage. They have you!

And, may God continue to bless your efforts.

