9-18-17<\/p>\n
Near the beginning of my relatively modest career as a political activist, I committed an act of passivity rather than activism, de-fusing instead of igniting.<\/p>\n
It was during the Vietnam War. I was a student at American University in Washington DC, and during a stretch of time when there were almost monthly Marches on the Pentagon, huge protest rallies in the Nation\u2019s Capital, and sit-ins on campus, AU was the focus of \u201cactivity,\u201d if not activism. I bought into none of the anti-war theatrics \u2013 despite my actual opposition to the sitting-duck war of LBJ \u2013 and was a frequent sole \u201cno\u201d vote on the student Senate, whether the issue was opening dorm rooms to protesters from around the country or resolutions to (virtually) make the political sun stand still.<\/p>\n
The student body was not composed purely of aimless hippies. Some of us went on to prominence, even accomplishments of sorts. Petra Karin Kelly returned to her native Germany after graduation, founded the world\u2019s first viable Green Party and was elected to the Bundestag. (She later died in a murder-suicide with the elderly retired German general with whom she lived, ugly on world news reports.) Patricia Glaser of West Virginia was Chair of the Board of Culture when I was a member, and we also had frequent exchanges. Patty is now partner in Glaser, Weil in L.A., a high-profile entertainment lawyer, and \u201cone of America\u2019s Top 100 Female Litigators.\u201d She has again been in the news as representing a reporter sued by Fox News anchor Eric Bolling. The harassment charges against him unfortunately are the least of his worries right now.<\/p>\n
Anyway, one day back around 1969 there was a huge crowd of students gathered on the steps of the student union building. Someone had provided a portable mike-and-loudspeaker; and, impromptu, kids stepped up and railed against This and That. Each pronouncement was met with cheers and boos and clenched fists. I noticed that the \u201cdead\u201d time between harangues grew longer, from seamless to seconds to half-minutes.<\/p>\n
Realizing what was going on, and that few students wandered away, I finally stepped up to the mike myself and said, \u201cThat\u2019s all. Who cares about more of the same? Disperse, and go do something useful.\u201d Sheepishly, the assembled liberals and hippies shuffled away.<\/p>\n
It was an afternoon, back then, of dissatisfaction in search of a voice \u2013 sheep, indeed, looking for a shepherd. It reminds me of America today, especially after Charlottesville and copycat riots, protests, and statue desecrations.<\/p>\n
We have noticed \u2013 because we cannot avoid noticing \u2013 24\/7 press coverage of certain such events. On the ground. Reporters bumping into each other. Nonstop helicopter views. If there were not blood in the eyes of protesters, the media virtually pleaded for theater.<\/p>\n
Going back to my days at AU, one Friday afternoon, the \u201crespected\u201d electronic journalist Martin Agronsky, whose career spanned ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS, showed up with a cameraman and collared a few students. He asked us if we would be willing to stage some sort of disruption for his camera at the coming weekend\u2019s event.<\/p>\n
I learned early about partisans\u2019 willingness to perform; and Big Media\u2019s eagerness to manufacture.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward to our current \u201ccrisis.\u201d We are seeing those sorts of seeds, planted in the turbulent \u201860s, sprouting today. The apt description for a contemporary social malignancy is \u201cidentity politics.\u201d Who you are has become important than what you believe or how you act \u2013 when \u201cwho you are\u201d means your race, your sex, your political affiliation, and NOT your beliefs, loyalties, standards.<\/p>\n
It is lack of integrity on both sides of the equation when people demand to be known by their superficial qualities, and their agendas; and when society today \u2013 the press, the educational establishment, and, increasingly, employers \u2013 are content to accept others by those rubrics.<\/p>\n
Judging, or pre-judging, people by, say, the color of their skin was wrong when there was resultant bias against them\u2026 and is wrong when there is prejudice the other way. Left in the dust is the free marketplace of ideas; honest treatment of honest people; and a culture that seeks the truth. As so much of the anger and radicalism and violence stems from economic critiques, we should remember that the sin of envy is no less corrosive than the sin of greed.<\/p>\n
There is a spiritual component to this 21st-century malady. Of course: when societies decline, it is all aspects \u2013 none in their own vacuums. Compounding the cultural and economic offenses is the number of churches that participate in the hijacking of tradition and heritage.<\/p>\n
They mask their headlong descents into relativism and heresy with kindly bleats about \u201cchanging with the times.\u201d Many churches are so nervous about losing members, or presiding over shrinking membership rolls, that they undertake mad dashes to be \u201crelevant.\u201d Relevance should be judged against Scripture and Revealed Truth, not how many people a church \u201cruns\u201d every week (where did that phrase originate?)<\/p>\n
Churches that deny the Virgin Birth of Christ are keeping people from someday, in Glory, meeting the Virgin and the Incarnate Son. Preachers who deny the existence of hell pave the way for their followers toward an eventual encounter with that very real place.<\/p>\n
The Bible talks about a time when people will have \u201citching ears,\u201d when they will prefer to hear about their desires instead of uncomfortable truths. And, in the End Times, we are warned, even the saints shall be deceived by false teachers and false prophets.<\/p>\n
And false news?<\/p>\n
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