By Dr. Jim Ferguson

Religious belief has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Andy Stanley

Will Americans awaken to wokeness? Do people realize that this Marxist philosophy is everywhere? And yet I sing,

This is my Father's world:

O let me ne'er forget that,

though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

I wonder if we are on the cusp of another Great Awakening. I believe historians will someday label our time as the Information Age. However, the zeitgeist of the 1700s was the Enlightenment. This philosophical, political and scientific movement, also known as the Age of Reason, was underway in Europe and soon spread to the American colonies.

Enlightenment thinkers questioned traditional authority and thought it might be possible to perfect humanity through rational means. If the masses could be educated and fed, a utopia might be possible (John Jacques Rousseau). These are noble intentions, but have never worked.

The recent disastrous marketing campaign of Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light reminded me of other utopian visions (diversity, inclusion, equity) and the reactions they often invoke.

A Great Awakening of spirituality occurred in the American colonies of the early 1700s, perhaps as a response to The Enlightenment's reasoned secularism and the de-emphasis of personalized religious concepts. Evangelists like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield led a revival in America that fostered meaning in people's lives and led to the spread of Protestant churches like Methodists and Baptists.

A second Great Awakening occurred in the 1790s, which led to the formation of numerous "colleges, seminaries, and mission societies." Some historians note a third Awakening after the 1840s, coinciding with the transcendental movement that emphasized the "essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths."

Today, I see striking similarities to the 1700s in the current day mistrust of virtually all institutions, failing secularism with drugs and crime as well as an outright hostility to spirituality. "Belief systems define a life" (Andy Stanley). Government can never replace God and has been a failure everywhere it has been tried.

Godless leftists use tolerance as a euphemism. Mr. Webster defines euphemism as the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.

I am NOT tolerant of pedophilia and drag queen shows for children. And I am NOT tolerant of the CEI (corporate equity index) developed by the George Soros-funded Human Rights Campaign. This bunch uses their score as a cudgel to force companies to adhere to their "protection racket" (presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy). There is a proverb about allowing the tail to wag the dog. The Disney Company acting despicably and Budweiser making business decisions that cost them billions of dollars are the results of trying to appease activists.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse or more perverse, we have the attack on children. In 1981 James Fowler published a book chronicling the stages of spiritual development. He observed that 3–7-year-olds live in the Magic Kingdom and see their parents as godlike. In grammar school, the Magic Kingdom is gradually replaced by reality. Teenagers are increasingly defined by conformity, groupthink and the influences of teachers, professors, and, hopefully, ministers. In our 20s and 30s one's "own truth" emerges, and after age 40 tolerance is acquired, where paradoxes can be balanced. According to Fowler only rare people achieve the final stage of spiritual development, which might be described as selflessness or agape. Perhaps Mother Teresa would be an example.

Recently, I read a disturbing paper by the eminent scientist and researcher Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA technology. Recall that this technology made Covid vaccine development possible and may someday be used to treat cancer. Like me, Dr. Malone is worried about the assault on our children by leftists and policies embraced by the Democrat party. The following are what I consider salient points from his analysis which can be found online at rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-rogd entitled, "Rapid-onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)" April 16, 2023.

A disturbing rise in gender confusion among young people has occurred since 2013. Data from the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) showed that approximately 0.5% of young people believed their gender was different from their biological sex (XX or XY). However, a 2022 analysis by the PEW research group put the rate of gender dysphoria at 5%! This is an unprecedented change in demographics which is being attributed to groupthink, social media pressures and what some are calling "mass formation" psychosis. Perhaps a less controversial term or example might be the delusions of mob mentality.

And even more disturbing is the gender affirming surgery being advocated by for-profit hospitals and doctors, and promoted by the Biden administration as a civil rights issue. Sex change operations average $132,000, and if just 30% of non-binary people get surgery, the cost would be over $100 billion. Pharmaceutical companies love the idea of $2000 a year for lifelong hormone treatment. And think of the pain and suffering, as well as supplementary costs, from additional operations for "incontinence repair, painful urination, infections, failed grafts, penile implants or cancer from hormone replacement therapy."

The pseudo religions of transgenderism, the climate-change cult and Marxist woke philosophy are pervasive and are destroying everything that is the American brand. "Gather enough people who believe the same thing about anything and the next thing you know you have a movement. Or a new religion" (Andy Stanley).

America must awaken to the perverse ideology of wokeness and all of its iterations, including ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance), CEI, and LGBTQ activism, etc. Nineteenth century Marxist class warfare has morphed into 21st century racial, gender and diversity warfare.

Appeasement of the left will only bring more demands and more evil. We are in "political trench warfare" (Dan Bongino). We cannot submit to evil, nor is there any place to escape. Our only alternative is to stand firm and resist. We must "choose normal instead of crazy" (Sarah Huckabee Sanders). We are fighting for our children and the soul of America.

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