The children’s saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is not true!  Words do hurt, especially if you personalize the insults, innuendos, and hateful diatribe that is prevalent in today’s society.  There is a lot of hateful language, but honestly, most of it does not qualify as a criminal offense of hate speech.  Most hateful speech is rooted in hate and how do you criminalize freedom of speech? 

As a Christian, I wish that we could tone down the rhetoric and diatribe that fills today’s social media, Hollywood, the mainstream media, politics, and much of our society.  I wish we could manage a little more, no, a lot more civility even with those we disagree with.  Everyone has a right to their opinion and if I do not share it, hurling insult for insult will only aggravate the issue not come to a solution.  Unless you deem the solution to be the last one standing after the bloodshed.  I do not!

There was a time when being labeled a racist was one of the worst imaginable insults, but today it is Meh…It has become so commonplace and meaningless that one could rightly say, ‘Who cares?’  When mathematics is racist, eating meat is racist, not endorsing transgenderism is racist and not being a liberal leftist is racist, EVERYTHING becomes racist to the purveyors of that rhetoric, and it loses its meaning and impact. 

Let me state adamantly, that I do promote, nor do I endorse, nor encourage real racism.  Just because I am of white European descent does not mean I am racist.  I know of none of my ancestors who owned slaves, although some of them might.  What happened to someone’s ancestors in past centuries cannot be blamed on every one of another ethnicity any more than an automobile can be blamed for drunk driving. 

We have a society today that takes the blame for nothing bad and the credit for everything good.  We have an entitlement mentality that is spreading like cancer throughout our society, and it is deemed okay and even desirable to hate anyone who has more than you.  If they resist, (according to the woke politically correct society) then they must be racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynists, or some other moniker to brand them as the dregs of society and unworthy to breathe the air of the planet. 

In the past few years, the leftists, media, and various activist groups have painted ‘sticks and stones’ as justifiable for those deemed abused by the evil whiteness in our world.  That is, in itself, racist. Please know that I know that there are those on the Right who engage in rhetoric that is unhealthy and uncivil too. But, the looting, burning, destroying, assaulting, murdering, raping, and pillaging is not justifiable it is CRIMINAL.  Why do we insist on catering to that rhetoric and ascribe to that level of political correctness as though to do otherwise would be to relinquish our right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?”

As I read the Bible, some will vehemently disagree, I see current headlines in many passages warning of the conditions of the ‘Last Days.’  I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ 1942 satirical but quite prophetic ‘Screwtape Letters.’  It astutely describes how evil and the devil take root, undetected, in the lives of human beings.  That is largely because our tendency in these modern times, and maybe all time is to think of evil as overt, obvious, and easily discerned.  That is not always the case! 

We tend to believe that we are smarter than the average bear as Yogi would say and that we can spot evil anytime and anywhere, but as C.S. Lewis warned we are not that astute or discerning.  If you have read the work, you know that Uncle Screwtape a senior devil, writes a series of letters to his nephew Wormwood, a junior apprentice tempter.  Uncle Screwtape is disciplining him on how to surreptitiously tempt a Christian man ‘The Patient’ and lead him away from God.  In a measure, it sounds like the devil with Job.

C.S. Lewis uses light satire but is deadly serious and incredibly accurate in how evil lurks and works to remain undiscovered until it has entrenched itself.  We have slept while Rome burned.  We have been the proverbial frog in the pan of water that has been heated to the boiling point oblivious to the danger until it is too late. 

The Bible tells us to ‘renew our minds’ and to ‘guard our minds’ and to ‘be careful what and how we think.’  Sadly, too many, even Christians tend to believe that we must put more and more things in our minds to understand them.  The Bible on the other hand warns that we are to bring ‘every thought captive and make them submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ.’  Therefore, often it is more important to keep things out of our minds than to allow them free access.  Remember – ‘Shun the very appearance of evil?”

We have a self-absorbed society which has resulted in pushing God and the thought of God out of our minds and our lives.  We began allowing that in our public education, then in our government and courts.  We treated the infringements upon our rights and liberties as minor occurrences and since they did not directly impact us severely, we turned a blind eye.  That has created the monster found today in government and society. 

The globalist pushing the one-world agenda has been incubated in our music, movies, education, media, and every sector of society.  I cannot tell you how many times, I have brought up the evil and astounding lyrics in some of the music to be told, “Oh, I don’t listen to the words, I like the beat.”  Seriously?  Do you think that your subconscious does not hear all the words, even when your consciousness does not?  When we extend a graved invitation to evil to enter our minds, our homes, our schools, and our society we must know that the Law of Harvest will be realized.  We will reap what we have sown.

Uncle Screwtape gave Wormwood advice concerning The Patient.  He said, “Keep pressing home the ordinariness of things.  Above all do not use science (real science) as a defense against Christianity.  They will positively encourage him to think about realities he cannot touch and see.  There have been sad cases among modern physicists.  If he must dabble in science keep him on economics and sociology; don’t let him get away from the invaluable ‘real life’.”

Today we are told to ‘follow the science’ and by that, it could be argued they are referring to political science, not real science.  Science or scientists offering opinions that agree with their agenda, and ideology have made that science the new religion of the Left.  Sadly, both sides dismiss the other side without ever truly listening. This has allowed them the wanton killing of innocent babies in the womb with no sense of remorse because that science is their God.  If they, for one minute, realized that, that being in the womb is created in the image of God, they would squirm uncomfortably over their murder.  They insist that babies are not made in the image of God, because to them, there is no God only their science.

What has been happening in our society over the most recent centuries has been the slow erosion of our moral moorings and any sense that we are created by God and given certain inalienable rights, as declared by our Founder Fathers in the Declaration of Independence.  We have become an angry, self-centered, profane, and vindictive people and the result can only be confusion, corruption, and a collapse of our societal framework that allows us to maintain the Free Republic.

Sticks and Stones are damaging but so are words, thoughts, and ideas that are contrary to right and good.  When we deem someone who does not look or think like us our mortal enemy, we are allowing ourselves to be drawn into the abyss of destruction.  I will stand for Faith, Family, and Freedom so long as I have breath.  I will call for a return to our moral moorings and a reestablishment of our moral fiber.  I will continue to call for people everywhere to repent and return to God and if we do, He has promised to return to us. 

We can salvage America and spread the Good News around the world.  We cannot do it on the path we are now following. 

God bless you and God bless America!