Awoken by the Woke. . .

Though the elections did not turn out well for the woke who thought they were fighting the battle for the forgotten American, it did produce one good result.  The forgotten American realized that this was not simply about peripheral things like changing the name of a school or taking down a statue but changing the way America sees itself.  Critical race theory, defunding the police, governmental responsibility for our children (from preschool through college), control of the public schools, the use of public money to define agendas, and the out of control spending have all been rejected by a growing number of people -- from the suburbs to the hill country to the cities.  Americans have begun to realize that the progressive agenda is not to free anyone but to extend the range of the government into the family, home, finances, and business more and more -- something that will not ever be scaled back once it is in place.

Ordinary Americans have begun, and it is only a beginning, to stand up and insist that they have not only the right but the authority to challenge the agendas of those who insist they know better what our children need, what our medical needs are, what financial information should be accessible, and how to secure our neighborhoods.  Of course, everyone ought to be shocked by the lawlessness that has occurred on both sides of the spectrum but everyone ought to be equally as shocked by the overreach of the government in response.  The hidden items in the bills being discussed and passed by Congress will come back to haunt a nation in which liberty is supposed to mean privacy.  How odd is it that a SCOTUS that once found a right to privacy to justify the change of laws for abortion and sodomy now is hesitant to find a right of privacy for our bank accounts and our medical choices!

I am not a reactionary.  Actually, I believe that government is a good thing and can do good things.  Like every American I depend upon the government for a whole variety of services.  That said, government can be dangerous to our liberty and a threat to our way of life when it becomes a tool in the hand of those with an agenda to control our thinking, our way of life, and our economic well-being.  While it sounds good to think that the rich can afford to pay for every kind of governmental program, it is a convenient lie.  The inconvenient truth is that the costs of many of the things being discussed and passed into law will place a burden on our financial future and on our grandchildren.  Once enacted, entitlements are seldom scaled back or eliminated.  Instead, they become starting points for the elected officials who think we want more and more of them. 

Once it was promised that Biden would be a moderate, someone to restore decency and common sense to a political climate that had become divided and gridlocked.  Instead, his agenda has become a radical call to reshape America.  Everyone of us who drives on roads is happy to hear of infrastructure repairs but what about the other stuff hidden in that law?  Everyone of us would love to have the government pay for child-care, preschool, and family leave but what about their control over the curriculum and the use of that benefit to shape our values and choices?  Everyone of us who cares about families in need would love to see a more equitable America in which there is not such a great divide between the haves and have nots but will a redistribution of income accomplish what a level playing field in the marketplace has in the past?  Biden has made many promises but it appears that his agenda is not a continuation of a modern Democratic plan.  He is to America today what FDR was to the America of the 1930s.  The difference is that the rules are being bent so that the there is no voice in his party or in the opposing party to challenge the steamroller that is making its way across America.  By the smallest of partisan majorities America is being governed.  This is bad even for those who might agree with the changes.

As a church we ought to be concerned about the implications of the plans being put forward or adopted.  What will it do to the many thousands of church preschools when the government takes over this aspect of education?  How will we counter the indoctrination of progressive values and goals that takes place in the public classroom and protect the faith and the faithful?  Will we find our very freedom curtailed by those who will define what words and ideas are allowed in the public square?  Are we willing to surrender the promise of no government infringement of religious rights for a promise of protected private religious belief and worship?  We dare not become politicized congregations in which we adopt a party or a candidate but we must not be silent before the encroachment of government into every aspect of our lives or it will surely come back to haunt us.  Luther could not have conceived of such a problem in his two kingdom doctrine but hardly any of us would have believed twenty years ago that we would be where we are today.  Hopefully, we have all been awoken by the Woke and will not sit silently on the sidelines while our future is being remade by the slimmest of majorities in Washington DC.