Is the 20th century’s pre-eminent economic and militarity power even sustainable in the 21st century?
First let’s get our terms straight. I live in Costa Rica. Latin Americans and Canadians resent the appropriation of the name America to only one country. But for convenience, this blog post will follow the international convention of using that name to refer to the United States of America.
The role of the US in world history in this author’s lifetime (since 1947) is remarkable. America was the crucial victorious power in WWI, WWII and the Cold War against soviet communism. The US developed nuclear power, both as a weapon of war and an energy source for the economy. America’s military, academia and private companies provided the technology that set up our present internet-driven information age. US mass media, both news and entertainment, led the way to our junky but dominant worldwide news and popular culture.
Was the rise of the USA based on the merrits of its constitutional democracy and the American people? Or did God’s unfolding plan for the world guide these processes?
Two dictionary definitions for the word “catalyst” come to mind for the United States. The first, from Chemistry, is ” a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.” The second, more general definition is “a person or thing that precipitates an event or change.”
If we apply a biblical worldview, a lot of things fall into place for America as God’s modern world catalyst.
- Historically, the US turned back fascism and communism in the 20th century world wars. This set up an “American Peace” that allowed the world to thrive and develop as never before.
- In WWII, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt provided visionary leadership against the Nazis. But, befitting his “progressive” worldview, he had a blind spot against Communism. FDR died in office in 1945, only four months before total allied victory in WWII. President Harry Truman, inaugurated upon Roosevelt’s death, launched vigorous US opposition against the Soviet threat. The Cold War began.
- Crucially, Truman instead of anti-semitic FDR was President in 1948. He recognized Israel on the same day that the Jewish nation declared it’s statehood (14 May 1948). In doing so, Truman fulfilled 2700-year-old biblical prophecy.
“Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”
Isaiah 66:8
- In the Cold War, US will against the Soviets diminished in the 1960s. The combination of unprecedented economic prosperity, the Vietnam War, and academic and social decadence permanently distorted the baby boomer generation.
- But Ronald Reagan was elected US President in 1980. His faith in America was cheerful and unabashed. Reagan’s relentless opposition to, and economic pressure against the Soviet Union brought about its collapse in 1989.
- When it seemed like good had triumphed over evil in the world, the 9 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC happened. The US reaction entrenched an ever-more-corrupt Deep State, with a vested interest in permanent foreign war.
- As the internet took hold in the 2000s, leftist ideology completely dominated the Democrat political party. America’s Democrat ruling class supplemented and duplicated their elected office holder power base with unelected, permanently installed Deep State bureaucrats.
- Democrat Barak Obama, elected President in 2008 and worshipped by progressives and the mainstream press, enlarged the scope of Deep State targets. He unleashed the IRS, the FBI and federal regulatory agencies against American citizens whose crime was being conservative, Republican or Christian.
In 2016 Donald Trump, an outsider completely independent from the Deep State, stunned the world by winning the US Presidency as a Republican.
- Trump won in reaction to Obama’s excesses, and to fear and loathing of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. The Deep State launched its counterattack against Trump in the last days of Obama’s presidency. The FBI instigated the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that would dog the first two years of the Trump administration.
- President Trump drove liberal elites crazy with his brashness and confrontational style. But he governed well policy-wise, despite unprecedented sabotage of his presidency by the establishment. Living standards for working class Americans improved for the first time in a generation.
- In the 2020 presidential election, the Deep State and the governing elites got their revenge. Democrat Joe Bidden, a corrupt, senile mediocrity, was imposed as President of the United States through a rigged election.
- The disasters of the first nine months of the Biden administration are not surprising. Given the challenges the US faces and Biden’s track record, the results we see from this President’s actions and inaction were to be expected. As Barak Obama said, “Don’t underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to f**k things up.”
- By 2021, secular humanism and woke ideology have replaced Christianity as the dominant religion of Western ruling elites. The USA is no exception to this. Democrat politicians have used covid lock downs to decimate church attendance, while giving free rein to BLM and ANTIFA rioting at will. The southern border is open to anyone, the better to replace millions of disaffected middle class voters with welfare dependent new Democrats. Rigged elections, woke politics, cancel culture, division of US citizens by marxist critical race theory, defunding of police and unprecedented inflationary government spending are all staples of the Democrat governing agenda.
Unlike an unaffected chemical catalyst, America has paid an enormous price in negative change, to get to the place it’s at today.
But the second definition of catalyst, a thing that precipitates change, fits the USA perfectly. God very specifically used America to make the rebirth of Israel possible – after 1900 years of worldwide dispersion of the Jewish people. The Book of Revelation teaches that Israel will be the linchpin for world events leading to the rise of the Antichrist and the second coming of Jesus Christ. Christianity and Judaism will finally merge under the Messiah.
The changes in the US during my lifetime are heartbreaking. As I was growing up in California and Indiana, the end-times world Jesus speaks of seemed impossible. Now, open contempt for and even hatred of Christianity by secularist world elites is out in the open, not even camouflaged. Christianity and the USA, with its constitutional emphasis on individual rights, are roadblocks to the Great Reset – the latest in a long line of elitist utopias to enslave the ignorant rabble so that enlightened elites can have unlimited power. Jesus directly prophesied this. His words are both a warning to his followers, and a condemnation of their persecutors.
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also…..They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’”
John 15:18-25
In the preceding bible passage, Jesus was speaking of the Jewish religious establishment of his day, which had him crucified. But modern secular humanists can be, and in future will be, just as hateful towards the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, and his followers.
Despite the decadence of modern secular culture, the US is home to the greatest number of faithful Christians in the world. Like every American follower of Jesus Christ, I’m hopeful of Christian revival and a turning back of the godless secular humanist tide. But if we are in the End Times, the Book of Revelation maps out inevitable decline of all the US once stood for.
If the Rapture were to happen tomorrow, It would be God’s way of separating out his children, and leaving His enemies to their fates in the Tribulation.
Though the Rapture will be worldwide, the US will be the country most affected. With tens of millions of Christians disappearing “in the twinkling of an eye,” the US would be finished as a world power. Perhaps this is the reason why no country like the USA is prominent in the Book of Revelation.
Even in a post-Rapture, post-USA world, Christ’s salvation would still be available to everyone on Earth. And the Apocalypse says that His name and story will be preached throughout the world. But under the Antichrist, the price of spiritual salvation will be physical death.
Today’s world religious and political scenario was unimaginable when I was growing up. Now the end-times world spoken of by Jesus and the prophets, and described in detail in the Book of Revelation, would be a foreseeable extension of current trends.
