The internet and social media are abuzz with comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Because I am not a well-known influencer, chances are this will be lost in the massive mix of opinionizing. I offer it nonetheless as a cathartic release of a lot of emotion and no little thought as to how we got here – that is, where people are gunned down because the assassin doesn’t like what they stand for and speak.
As shocking as the assassination of Charlie Kirk is, it really ought not be a surprise. We’ve been headed in this direction for a while. The two attempts on Trump’s life during last year’s campaign ought to have made that clear.
Here’s how we got here …
Until the 1950s, American society was fundamentally a reflection of the Judeo-Christian Worldview. During the 60’s, the secular humanism that had already infected the institutions of higher learning infiltrated the public square. That gave birth to the Culture Wars of the 70s, 8’s and early 90s.
By the mid-90s, the secular-minded young people of the 70s had grown up to become the institutional stewards of culture. The Culture War was for all intents and purposes, over. Secularism won. Those clinging to the Judeo-Christian worldview were at first marginalized, then, with the turn of the century, they were ghettoized; confined to quiet pockets where the assumption was – “You can believe whatever you want in private, but it must impact neither your public behavior nor statements.”
A Triumphant Secularism required adherence to a set of views that it turned into required virtues. Some of those were stated on lawn signs that sprang up all over. You probably saw them. They proclaimed slogans that branded the owner of the home as certifiably woke.
Being woke was the social inoculation people needed to avoid being cancelled.
But self-appointed woke-inspectors weren’t content to simply require a PRESENT EMBRACE of wokeism. Oh No. To be certified as AUTHENTICALLY woke, you had to have ALWAYS been woke, even before “Woke” was a thing.
People’s entire online lives were scrutinized for any hint of conservatism, which was regarded as Wokeism’s kryptonite. In a reprise of the Salem Witch Trials, hundreds of people assumed to be wokesters were outed as frauds for comments made years before. Their execution took the form of being cancelled – publicly shamed and banned from the ranks of society’s “enlightened ones.”
The only way back into good standing in the Woke Brigade was to grovel publicly, admitting past sins, and reciting the latest wokeisms. Only thus might some establish their progressive bona fides.
But the left’s campaign to erase the Judeo-Christian worldview hit a snag called common sense. The vast majority of Conservatives didn’t convert to the ascendant Progressivism. They just backed away from the public square for a while, stunned at how quickly the cultural ground had shifted beneath their feet.
It didn’t take long before they realized that they weren’t alone. Though they HEARD about people BEING woke, they didn’t know many, unless they lived in the urban centers of the East and Left Coast, or roomed in a college dorm. In some places of the Country, they didn’t know ANY! Truth be told, everyone THEY knew was still conservative, still believing in the values and virtues of traditional Western Civilization.
They decided enough was enough and turned out last November to make sure their voice was heard and their vote was counted in a move to draw a line in society that it was time to call the left’s bluff.
Turns out, the Left are sore losers. Their response to the loss of influence is to silence the opposition. Since their arguments can’t prevail against Truth, their solution is violence. The Woke’s game plan is, “When persuasion fails, resort to fear. Lash out. Silence those who dismantle our cause with logic and reason. Vilify and demonize the enemy.”
Snipers have become the heroes of the Woke Left. Assassins are lauded. Witness the massive support for Charlie Kirk’s assassin and for Luigi Mangione, murderer of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Progressives are all for gun control, except when it comes to dealing with their opponents. Watch how their spokesmen masquerading as news anchors say that the sniper’s victim “had it coming.”
No wonder bullets fly when the radical Woke Left calls Conservatives evil and equates them to Hitler.
Many people have played that game, indulged that thought experiment – if you could go back in time and live in early-1930s Germany, would you kill Hitler?
These woke assassins believe they are doing a GOOD thing when they pull that trigger. And hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, praise them for it.
What that means is this – The Culture War, that SEEMED over – ISN’T. It merely had a ceasefire. It’s returned with a vengeance and gone hot.
Switching gears a bit –
It’s long been the Enlightenment’s promise that if people could put away religion and embrace reason, Utopia would arrive. Religion was to blame for all the world’s ills and woes. A frequent charge was, “Religion has caused more wars than anything else in history.”
As a student of history, let me just say that’s absurd!! UNLESS you expand the definition of religion to include ALL ideology, including POLITICAL ideology.
FACT: Fascism and Communism caused more deaths in the 20th century than all previous centuries COMBINED!
The Engineers of Enlightenment were smart. They infiltrate the faculty of colleges and universities where they instilled their insidious curriculum in the minds of a generation that took hold of the levers of culture. As I said, they won the Culture War.
But instead of the Utopia they promised, instead of the peace and unity they assumed would flow over the Earth as the waters cover the sea, the world is more fractured and fragmented than ever. It’s also more violent as recent events have made clear – AND WILL KEEP BEING MADE CLEAR until people wake up and admit the ideology, NAY, the RELIGION of the Woke, Progressive Left is a colossal LIE. A cheat.
There’s only one way back from the precipice of ruin modern American Society stands tippy-toe on – A wholesale return to Faith in the God of the Bible and a whole-hearted embrace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Lance is the founding and lead pastor of Calvary Chapel Oxnard where he has served since 1982. Lance & David Guzik co-pastored the church for six years before David planted a church in a nearby community.
Lance & his wife Lynn were married in 1980 and have three adult children and five grandchildren. Lance loves teaching the Bible, History, and Leadership. He holds Masters-of-Arts in Biblical Studies and Ministry.
Lance serves as a chaplain for both the Oxnard and Port Hueneme Police Departments and enjoys backpacking, wood-working, working out, gardening, home improvement projects, reading, and graphic design.
The popular Communio Sanctorum: History of the Christian Church podcast can be found in both audio and video at the Into His Image website along with a growing inventory of Lances teaching.
