News Headlines
Between the Two Walls: the Delicate Balance between Conservative Policies that Reward Merit and Liberal Policies that Pursue Social Equity
Published November 29, 2021 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
We feel increasingly disheartened by the challenges to domestic and international peace, as we view the challenges broadcasts on news media every day. Demoralized by witnessing cultural and international conflict, we see Western democracies erecting walls and barriers to keep out foreigners. And so, most cannot remember or even regard the universal excitement that multitudes of peoples felt, as they viewed the dismantling of the Berlin Wall: a physical and ideological barrier dividing the German capital City of Berlin. One side of the city stood under the jurisdiction of industrialized western democracies, which continue to oversee free commercial markets; while the other side stood under the jurisdiction of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which oversaw government controlled commercial markets.
You see, since European commoner populations left the feudal-order’s farming-based, agrarian economies; western constitutional governments have wrestled with two economic approaches to govern commercial economies: the first economic approach seeks a less influential smaller government that allows private people and businesses to own the economies’ means of production, distribution, and exchange, all for the profit of the private owners. This first economic approach, we call free market capitalism. And the second economic approach seeks for the whole community through the auspices of government to own the economies’ means of production, distribution, and exchange; as the second approach seeks to distribute the economies’ profits based upon the community’s needs. The second economic approach, we call socialism or communism.Both approaches are vital for the commercial economies’ endurance to some extent; and an excessive reliance upon one approach in disregard to the merits of the other, invariably leads to tyranny: the very confounding of democratic freedom. For example, the free market, capitalism, approach to the commercial economy operates under the ideal of rewarding personal merit, trusting that individual entrepreneurship produces the most efficient use of scarce resources for the whole population; whereas the socialist approach to the commercial economy operates under the ideal of equity, which endeavors to provide everyone with resources to succeed, regardless of their individual capacities. However, the difficulties that both approaches, respectively, face is the fact that an attempt to recognize individual merit, only, overlooks the reality that the scarcity of opportunity does not always afford would be industrious individuals with chances to succeed. Likewise, an attempt to recognize equity for all often rewards and encourages indolence and low expectations of achievement. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent end of the Cold War between the United States and the defeated Soviet Union; the free market capitalist system seemed to have won over socialism, handedly. A global economy has now even emerged to fill the void of the Cold War era conflict: indeed, billions of peoples emerge from centuries old agrarian servitude to participate in the now globalized commercial economy. But as a new millennial generation have come of age at the dawn of the global economy; they are sensitive to the social disparities between developed Western nations and non-Western nations. As a consequence, socialist policies have rapidly gained new support within the United States, which is ironically the champion and leader of free market capitalism.To their credit, the younger generations of Americans strive to support any policy that seeks to eradicate all forms of bigotry; however, in their rush to produce policies that seek equity; policy makers undermine many western values that have been a bulwark for all races against the ills of commercial society.For example, many religious traditions have fostered centuries-old cultural practices that have naturally bridged the chasm between the societal need to respect one’s personal merit and the societal need to grant opportunity to the systemically disadvantaged. Two fundamentally crucial Protestant traditions are as follows: first, one’s personal faith is a gift of God, which one may not assume others share. And so, second, in respect of one’s personal gift that one has not acquired by one’s own efforts, one must indiscriminately love all, being charitable to all. In other words, many Christians have for a long time championed the belief that their skills and acquired wealth are gifts of God, to the end that God expects the gifted to share the rewards of their talents with others.Thus, looking ahead, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com seek to uphold the understanding that we must encourage such Christian traditions rather than always haphazardly resorting to legislation that forces equity, often with undesirable and unforeseen consequences. It is our understanding that the key cultural traditions that individuals have come to regard, renders individual citizens a natural jurisprudence, that is, the personal judgement to upkeep and participate in our democratic society.Having this view in mind, thelandscapeoftruth.com intends to produce a series of articles and editorials that address significant issues, in regards to the balance between the two economic policy approaches. Namely, we will assess critical race theory; open border policy; corporate censorship; and the market accountability failure that exacerbated the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The Church Must Transcend the Political Divide and Resolve the U.S.-Mexican Border Crisis
Published June 18, 2021-thelandscapeoftruth.com
“But I say unto you, love your enemies . . . and pray for them that despitefully use you,” bellowed the words from the peaceful Lord Jesus unto the crowds that were in wonder over his liberating words: while beholding in awe his liberty, they stood in bondage to social strife. And indeed, we (also shackled) continue to wonder how is it possible that society can soberly consider today’s contentious issues, such as the U.S. border crises, and not allow combative passions to prejudice groups of citizens against each other; as each group considers those who oppose their perspectives as villains of no worth.
The contrast between Americans’ impassioned positions cannot be starker: the former Donald Trump presidential administration and the current Joseph Biden presidential administration, respectively, codify the impassioned Americans’ dueling positions as the Trump and Biden administrations have taken contrasting approaches to the border crises.
But if more people from each group observed Lord Jesus’ admonition to love those who strive against you; each group of people would not succumb to hatred’s misconstrued perceptions of the opposing groups of people. Then more would understand that while the few who truly harbor malice sprout from all branches of society; the vast majority of Americans do not harbor ill-will for those who differ from them. Essentially, most truly believe that their views hold America’s best interest at heart. To be sure, all seek to defend and preserve their ideals of America for generations to come.
For instance, those who support President Trump identify with his policy of defending Americans first. In Trump supporters’ eyes, he handedly delivered in keeping his promises by shutting down the U.S.-Mexican border and making more agreeable trade deals in the best interests for American workers. However, many of President Trump’s supporters fail to appreciate the fact that a vast number of Americans derive from ethnic backgrounds that have failed to assimilate into America’s ever burgeoning prosperity, because the west European developers of the Americas severely oppressed these ethnic groups. And so, the descendants of the oppressed ethnic groups view the suppressing of new non-European immigrants as a continuance of the ancient oppression that their ancestors have endured.
On the other hand, those who support President Biden seek to appeal to the American ideal of accepting and assisting all people: Biden’s supporters believe in the ideal of America’s being a multicultural melting pot of all peoples, beliefs, and religions; however, what President Biden’s supporters fail to anticipate is that ethnic groups from politically corrupt and economically depressed regions respond to Biden’s liberal policies by immigrating en masse, regardless of the U.S. government’s capacity to receive, process, and settle the immigrants. As a consequence, ongoing surges of immigrants escapes the liberal ideal of new immigrants’ contributing to America’s melting pot, since the immigrants effectively amount to the movement of entire populations of peoples: a phenomenon that we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com term population displacement.
For instance, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), for the first three months of the new Biden administration, 569,879 migrants have been retained for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border: a figure that eclipsed the 458,068 migrants crossing the border during the course of the whole previous year, 2020, under the outgoing Trump administration.
So shocking is the U.S.-Mexican border crises that what sobers both sides of the political divide into temporarily uniting is the universally recognized humanitarian catastrophe, represented by the huge amount of abandoned migrant children whom smugglers literally drop over border barriers. All astonished seeing such inhumanity, many conservative Americans disdain the adult migrants as all too many barbarians returned to sack the civilized territory of ancient Rome; whereas liberal Americans find the migrants’ acts of desperation utterly baffling. And so, the liberals rush to halt the spread of migration until they can come up with policies that their constituents will support before conservative gain political momentum.
Case in point, Vice President Kamala Harris is herself of African and Indian descent: two ethnicities who have suffered greatly from Europe’s colonial period. And so, VP Harris has been outspoken in expressing the principle that America must always open her doors to migrants of all races; however, because the migrant crises has become an increasingly out of control humanitarian crises, Harris finally travelled to Central America and proclaimed that the migrants were no longer welcome in the United States, at this time.
Even if liberals and conservative politicians agreed to close the U.S.-Mexican border completely, they would be far from resolving the crises: you see, America has ample military and police forces to close the border indefinitely; and America has the bureaucratic organization to process new immigrants beyond the multitude that have crossed illegally in recent years. Thus, we must conclude that the true cause of the border crises is not the illegal immigrants who exploit America’s hesitancy to force its will: the actual cause of the crises is the fact that ideological borders within so divide the American people that they cannot decide what exactly constitutes the origins of American liberty; which the people must effectively guard to ensure the nation’s continued prosperity.
The United States of America is the consequence of an advent in human history wherein a social consciousness among commoner masses instilled the understanding that the people did not have to repeat the error of preceding generations; in which the privileged few or elite individuals ruled inequitably over group-based commoner masses; which did not regard the significance of common individual’s free volition. To wit, the vast economic opportunity that the new found lands of the Americas afforded commoner Europeans the capacity to fashion a government that recognized the rights of the people over any privilege few or faction. As a consequence, the significance of the United States of America is that it is the first modern democratic nation to create constitutional liberties for every individual citizen; therefore, the U.S. continues to inspire other free countries to stand against the headwinds of human history; wherein natural prejudices produced only governments of the privileged few, clan, faction, or elite-individuals.
Secular historians believe that only Europe’s enlighten philosophers inspired modern constitutional government; however, thelandscapeoftruth.com recognizes the fact that the vast majorities of individuals within newly liberated commoner masses were either illiterate or did not have access to the writings of the enlightened philosophers. The reality is that the tenets of the Protestant Reformation, which stressed salvation through grace alone and not religious works (or any other social merit), inspired the commoners to look beyond group-based prejudices and religious rites and believe that all could grasp truth and salvation. And so, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com understand that the Protestant Reformation provided fertile ground for commoners to accept others who held different beliefs and opinion as all support the mediation of constitutional government of the people.
So in the light of what we attest to be America’s true origin, the American people and their government representatives must consider first American liberty’s origin, as the nation fashions immigration policies. The policies must demonstrate to the new immigrants that America is not just a patchwork of fertile lands that freely yield wealth: the policies must demonstrate that America is the outcome the advent of a grassroots social consciousness wherein common people understood that all types of people could unite around a universal truth that is of an eternal worth greater than the temporal gains of the prejudices and self-aggrandizement that have produced factions throughout human history. Any policy must therefore ensure that the metric for assimilating new arrivals is the nation’s capacity to culture new immigrants to revere individual liberty above the immigrants’ group-based factions. Finally, Americans must understand that the U.S. Government’s immigration policy must begin with its foreign policy. When would be immigrants hold the false belief that they can just drop their children on U.S. borders and somehow their children’s future will be magically taken care of; the U.S. Government has not effectively promoted an accurate understanding of how America came into being and how its people painstakingly continue to overcame economic adversity by holding true to liberty for all.
Its being the only true universally recognized grassroots and community organization, the Church must take the lead in proclaiming the peoples’ success in the American experience. Any foreign people’s achieving liberty must spring from a grass roots cultural awakening to the reality that the greater truth of God, which all may prosper under, is of greater worth than the temporal gains of factions. Upholding the Holy Bible’s Old and New Testaments, revered around the world by all; the Church has only to demonstrate how the resurrected Lord Jesus freely bequeaths in his Testament salvation through faith; regardless of the kindred status, religious works, and other societal standings that separate us, inequitably. Like so, by grasping a systematic theology of the Holy Bible, the Church can demonstrate how Lord Jesus’ Testament overcomes the idol of humanity’s ideological governments that the Book of Daniel depicts. The very doctrine of grace through faith inspired the early American settlers to understand that they could grasp the moral capacity to government themselves, while guarding against factional prejudices.
For further understanding, please refer to our overview on thelandscapeoftruth.com; or purchase a copy of our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth: an Orthodox Understanding of the Biblical Testaments for the True Worshippers. The Landscape’s chapters 4 through 7 give a detailed understanding of how Lord Jesus’ Testament overcomes the prejudices of human government to establish his eternal Kingdom. Accordingly, the 7th Chapter puts into context the American experience in regards to unfolding Church history.
But if more people from each group observed Lord Jesus’ admonition to love those who strive against you; each group of people would not succumb to hatred’s misconstrued perceptions of the opposing groups of people. Then more would understand that while the few who truly harbor malice sprout from all branches of society; the vast majority of Americans do not harbor ill-will for those who differ from them. Essentially, most truly believe that their views hold America’s best interest at heart. To be sure, all seek to defend and preserve their ideals of America for generations to come.
For instance, those who support President Trump identify with his policy of defending Americans first. In Trump supporters’ eyes, he handedly delivered in keeping his promises by shutting down the U.S.-Mexican border and making more agreeable trade deals in the best interests for American workers. However, many of President Trump’s supporters fail to appreciate the fact that a vast number of Americans derive from ethnic backgrounds that have failed to assimilate into America’s ever burgeoning prosperity, because the west European developers of the Americas severely oppressed these ethnic groups. And so, the descendants of the oppressed ethnic groups view the suppressing of new non-European immigrants as a continuance of the ancient oppression that their ancestors have endured.
On the other hand, those who support President Biden seek to appeal to the American ideal of accepting and assisting all people: Biden’s supporters believe in the ideal of America’s being a multicultural melting pot of all peoples, beliefs, and religions; however, what President Biden’s supporters fail to anticipate is that ethnic groups from politically corrupt and economically depressed regions respond to Biden’s liberal policies by immigrating en masse, regardless of the U.S. government’s capacity to receive, process, and settle the immigrants. As a consequence, ongoing surges of immigrants escapes the liberal ideal of new immigrants’ contributing to America’s melting pot, since the immigrants effectively amount to the movement of entire populations of peoples: a phenomenon that we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com term population displacement.
For instance, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), for the first three months of the new Biden administration, 569,879 migrants have been retained for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border: a figure that eclipsed the 458,068 migrants crossing the border during the course of the whole previous year, 2020, under the outgoing Trump administration.
So shocking is the U.S.-Mexican border crises that what sobers both sides of the political divide into temporarily uniting is the universally recognized humanitarian catastrophe, represented by the huge amount of abandoned migrant children whom smugglers literally drop over border barriers. All astonished seeing such inhumanity, many conservative Americans disdain the adult migrants as all too many barbarians returned to sack the civilized territory of ancient Rome; whereas liberal Americans find the migrants’ acts of desperation utterly baffling. And so, the liberals rush to halt the spread of migration until they can come up with policies that their constituents will support before conservative gain political momentum.
Case in point, Vice President Kamala Harris is herself of African and Indian descent: two ethnicities who have suffered greatly from Europe’s colonial period. And so, VP Harris has been outspoken in expressing the principle that America must always open her doors to migrants of all races; however, because the migrant crises has become an increasingly out of control humanitarian crises, Harris finally travelled to Central America and proclaimed that the migrants were no longer welcome in the United States, at this time.
Even if liberals and conservative politicians agreed to close the U.S.-Mexican border completely, they would be far from resolving the crises: you see, America has ample military and police forces to close the border indefinitely; and America has the bureaucratic organization to process new immigrants beyond the multitude that have crossed illegally in recent years. Thus, we must conclude that the true cause of the border crises is not the illegal immigrants who exploit America’s hesitancy to force its will: the actual cause of the crises is the fact that ideological borders within so divide the American people that they cannot decide what exactly constitutes the origins of American liberty; which the people must effectively guard to ensure the nation’s continued prosperity.
The United States of America is the consequence of an advent in human history wherein a social consciousness among commoner masses instilled the understanding that the people did not have to repeat the error of preceding generations; in which the privileged few or elite individuals ruled inequitably over group-based commoner masses; which did not regard the significance of common individual’s free volition. To wit, the vast economic opportunity that the new found lands of the Americas afforded commoner Europeans the capacity to fashion a government that recognized the rights of the people over any privilege few or faction. As a consequence, the significance of the United States of America is that it is the first modern democratic nation to create constitutional liberties for every individual citizen; therefore, the U.S. continues to inspire other free countries to stand against the headwinds of human history; wherein natural prejudices produced only governments of the privileged few, clan, faction, or elite-individuals.
Secular historians believe that only Europe’s enlighten philosophers inspired modern constitutional government; however, thelandscapeoftruth.com recognizes the fact that the vast majorities of individuals within newly liberated commoner masses were either illiterate or did not have access to the writings of the enlightened philosophers. The reality is that the tenets of the Protestant Reformation, which stressed salvation through grace alone and not religious works (or any other social merit), inspired the commoners to look beyond group-based prejudices and religious rites and believe that all could grasp truth and salvation. And so, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com understand that the Protestant Reformation provided fertile ground for commoners to accept others who held different beliefs and opinion as all support the mediation of constitutional government of the people.
So in the light of what we attest to be America’s true origin, the American people and their government representatives must consider first American liberty’s origin, as the nation fashions immigration policies. The policies must demonstrate to the new immigrants that America is not just a patchwork of fertile lands that freely yield wealth: the policies must demonstrate that America is the outcome the advent of a grassroots social consciousness wherein common people understood that all types of people could unite around a universal truth that is of an eternal worth greater than the temporal gains of the prejudices and self-aggrandizement that have produced factions throughout human history. Any policy must therefore ensure that the metric for assimilating new arrivals is the nation’s capacity to culture new immigrants to revere individual liberty above the immigrants’ group-based factions. Finally, Americans must understand that the U.S. Government’s immigration policy must begin with its foreign policy. When would be immigrants hold the false belief that they can just drop their children on U.S. borders and somehow their children’s future will be magically taken care of; the U.S. Government has not effectively promoted an accurate understanding of how America came into being and how its people painstakingly continue to overcame economic adversity by holding true to liberty for all.
Its being the only true universally recognized grassroots and community organization, the Church must take the lead in proclaiming the peoples’ success in the American experience. Any foreign people’s achieving liberty must spring from a grass roots cultural awakening to the reality that the greater truth of God, which all may prosper under, is of greater worth than the temporal gains of factions. Upholding the Holy Bible’s Old and New Testaments, revered around the world by all; the Church has only to demonstrate how the resurrected Lord Jesus freely bequeaths in his Testament salvation through faith; regardless of the kindred status, religious works, and other societal standings that separate us, inequitably. Like so, by grasping a systematic theology of the Holy Bible, the Church can demonstrate how Lord Jesus’ Testament overcomes the idol of humanity’s ideological governments that the Book of Daniel depicts. The very doctrine of grace through faith inspired the early American settlers to understand that they could grasp the moral capacity to government themselves, while guarding against factional prejudices.
For further understanding, please refer to our overview on thelandscapeoftruth.com; or purchase a copy of our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth: an Orthodox Understanding of the Biblical Testaments for the True Worshippers. The Landscape’s chapters 4 through 7 give a detailed understanding of how Lord Jesus’ Testament overcomes the prejudices of human government to establish his eternal Kingdom. Accordingly, the 7th Chapter puts into context the American experience in regards to unfolding Church history.
Assessing COVID-19’s Positive Impact on Western Democracy and Negative Impact on the Global Economy:
Published October 28, 2020 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
In the sense of international trade for profits that do not necessarily represent the direct interests of a democratically empowered people, the global economy is certainly not a new phenomenon: if we conclude that the signing of the United States of America’s Constitution inaugurated the modern democratic era wherein common people have a say over their nation’s commercial and trade policies; we may safely conclude that international trade, unfettered by the will of common people, represents 93.4 percent of civilization’s 5000 years history.
The global economy encourages the removal of national barriers to free-trade, such as tariffs and national subsidies. Globalism, therefore, entails the breakdown of national borders in the pursuit of outsourcing the modes of commerce unto business entities that can efficiently perform work, while generating the greatest profits for global investors.
Since the end of the Cold War between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, global trade has grown exponentially. The cultural effect has been tremendous as all strata of the labor force has increased in mobility, in terms of migration from hometowns, native lands, and even cultural and religious affiliations. For example, religious observance has decreased; marriage rates have decreased; single parenthood has increased; career-change rates have increased; and an individual’s social affinity derives less from long-term personal or childhood relationships and more from online social-networks.
The negative political effect of globalization is the stifling of the capacity of government representatives to identify with and represent the interests of their ever-changing communities. Moreover, the government representatives have effectively lost the power to ensure the economic viability their respective communities, as the sources of commerce often derive from far off regions beyond local and national jurisdictions. Ultimately, the greatest negative effect is that globalism often increases the political hegemony of undemocratic regimes, who willingly exploit their populations for economic gain. In fact, the loss of safeguards over faulty transactions, products, and public health surge.
Through the nationalist and protectionist policies of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Administration dealt minor blows against globalism, in the interests of the U.S. economy; globalism has remained effectively unchallenged, as its forces simply committed themselves to waiting the Trump administration’s term out. Undaunted stood the global economy until the early months of the year 2020 when COVID-19, a global pandemic, emerged, deriving from the communist power, the Peoples Republic of China.
In what seemed to be temporary measures, Western and other developed nations began to close their national borders in the effort to inhibit the spread of the virus. Local governments began to close colleges, schools, and all non-essential businesses, especially businesses that cater to social gatherings, even including religious gatherings. The year 2020 was effectively consumed with national and local political leaders wrestling over the manner in which to protect and open up the economy, while attempting to develop vaccines. All being bewildered, increasingly the mention of three words grew from whispers to open public statements: “the new norm.”
How to assess what the new normal will be is now the question that plagues everyone’s mind, from national leaders to private citizens. And some dare to wonder what if a more devastating pandemic appears in the immediate or not too distance future. So even if medical science secures a viable vaccine, COVID-19 has so severely taken away society’s sense of economic and social wellbeing that a hasty scrabble for political, economic, and private safeguards is inescapable. For instance, many political leaders are already less likely to continue the practice of entrusting the manufacturing of vital pharmaceuticals into the hands of Chinese manufacturers, who are less transparent. Many private businesses are beginning to rethink their overseas business models, in the face of decreased international travel. Even college students are already reassessing school and career choices, as they seek dependable employment. And on a more personal level, people are weighing the value of casual friendships and other fleeting relationships, as they consider whom they are to comprise social distancing rules with. Simply put, society as a whole instinctively are falling back upon the bedrock of social norms that were so common to the pre-globalist, local-level democracy, and Judeo-Christian culture that fostered the coming into being of America’s democracy.
Of course, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com recognize two scriptural principles that colonial American Protestants held dear. First, they recognized that “the love of money is the root of all evil (1Tim 6:10)”, in regards to people compromising justice, brotherly love, and righteousness for monetary gain. And they readily recognized the scriptural edict “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew, 4:4).”
And so, we recognize that the rapacious quests for monetary gain have resided at the heart of civilization’s history of social oppression and injustice, as merciless patriarchs, kings, priests, emperors, and political tyrants have exploited the masses for their own personal gain. We hold that the Protestant Reformation, in particular, fostered amongst the general public an acceptance of the value of equity among races, male or female sex, classes, and religious beliefs over the monetary gains of factionalism. You see, the simple Protestant teaching that the eternal true riches of salvation are given by grace regardless of an individual’s religious works and social standing; therefore, the value of personal worship and belief informed the acceptance of a secular government that ensured the rights of all the masses.
So we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com see that these Protestant-inspired values are in grave danger in the face of the impetuous rise of global commercial powers, which value profit over the ensuring of justice. We will endeavor to assess how the pandemic affects society in a positive manner; as the pandemic’s ill-effects inspires the people to recommit to ensuring the social and political safeguards of our struggling democratic societies.
Since the end of the Cold War between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, global trade has grown exponentially. The cultural effect has been tremendous as all strata of the labor force has increased in mobility, in terms of migration from hometowns, native lands, and even cultural and religious affiliations. For example, religious observance has decreased; marriage rates have decreased; single parenthood has increased; career-change rates have increased; and an individual’s social affinity derives less from long-term personal or childhood relationships and more from online social-networks.
The negative political effect of globalization is the stifling of the capacity of government representatives to identify with and represent the interests of their ever-changing communities. Moreover, the government representatives have effectively lost the power to ensure the economic viability their respective communities, as the sources of commerce often derive from far off regions beyond local and national jurisdictions. Ultimately, the greatest negative effect is that globalism often increases the political hegemony of undemocratic regimes, who willingly exploit their populations for economic gain. In fact, the loss of safeguards over faulty transactions, products, and public health surge.
Through the nationalist and protectionist policies of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Administration dealt minor blows against globalism, in the interests of the U.S. economy; globalism has remained effectively unchallenged, as its forces simply committed themselves to waiting the Trump administration’s term out. Undaunted stood the global economy until the early months of the year 2020 when COVID-19, a global pandemic, emerged, deriving from the communist power, the Peoples Republic of China.
In what seemed to be temporary measures, Western and other developed nations began to close their national borders in the effort to inhibit the spread of the virus. Local governments began to close colleges, schools, and all non-essential businesses, especially businesses that cater to social gatherings, even including religious gatherings. The year 2020 was effectively consumed with national and local political leaders wrestling over the manner in which to protect and open up the economy, while attempting to develop vaccines. All being bewildered, increasingly the mention of three words grew from whispers to open public statements: “the new norm.”
How to assess what the new normal will be is now the question that plagues everyone’s mind, from national leaders to private citizens. And some dare to wonder what if a more devastating pandemic appears in the immediate or not too distance future. So even if medical science secures a viable vaccine, COVID-19 has so severely taken away society’s sense of economic and social wellbeing that a hasty scrabble for political, economic, and private safeguards is inescapable. For instance, many political leaders are already less likely to continue the practice of entrusting the manufacturing of vital pharmaceuticals into the hands of Chinese manufacturers, who are less transparent. Many private businesses are beginning to rethink their overseas business models, in the face of decreased international travel. Even college students are already reassessing school and career choices, as they seek dependable employment. And on a more personal level, people are weighing the value of casual friendships and other fleeting relationships, as they consider whom they are to comprise social distancing rules with. Simply put, society as a whole instinctively are falling back upon the bedrock of social norms that were so common to the pre-globalist, local-level democracy, and Judeo-Christian culture that fostered the coming into being of America’s democracy.
Of course, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com recognize two scriptural principles that colonial American Protestants held dear. First, they recognized that “the love of money is the root of all evil (1Tim 6:10)”, in regards to people compromising justice, brotherly love, and righteousness for monetary gain. And they readily recognized the scriptural edict “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew, 4:4).”
And so, we recognize that the rapacious quests for monetary gain have resided at the heart of civilization’s history of social oppression and injustice, as merciless patriarchs, kings, priests, emperors, and political tyrants have exploited the masses for their own personal gain. We hold that the Protestant Reformation, in particular, fostered amongst the general public an acceptance of the value of equity among races, male or female sex, classes, and religious beliefs over the monetary gains of factionalism. You see, the simple Protestant teaching that the eternal true riches of salvation are given by grace regardless of an individual’s religious works and social standing; therefore, the value of personal worship and belief informed the acceptance of a secular government that ensured the rights of all the masses.
So we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com see that these Protestant-inspired values are in grave danger in the face of the impetuous rise of global commercial powers, which value profit over the ensuring of justice. We will endeavor to assess how the pandemic affects society in a positive manner; as the pandemic’s ill-effects inspires the people to recommit to ensuring the social and political safeguards of our struggling democratic societies.
Mishpat: BREXIT is Done!
Published February 1, 2020 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
Celebrate! BREXIT, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s exit from the European Union (EU) is not merely a victory for Great Britain’s sovereignty: BREXIT is a victory for the continuance of true representation for the citizens of modern representational democracy. We here at thelanscapeoftruth.com have desired to see this day since the UK’s BREXIT referendum of 2016. Even so, we celebrate with great solemnity, for the good and wise stand on both sides of the issue of the benefits of common international markets verses the protections of national markets.
No sensible person could argue against the initial vision of the 1951 Treaty of Paris, which sought to prevent more European World Wars by creating a common coal and steel market between former competing European powers. Too, no reasonable person could fail to appreciate the initial vision of the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, which sought for common foreign and security policies for Europeans. Even the tenets of the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon could not fail to gain the sentiments of the most astute political observer: all quickly recognized the vast utility of common currency and open borders.
Yet, while in the midst of the prosperity resulting from European integration, most failed to see that the true treasure of representational democracy was being lost. Hence, the divide between good citizens. What was being lost is the full political and economic enfranchisement of individual citizens, who only flourish in representational democracies that can only be held accountable by the enfranchised citizen.
Many Britons recognized that their local and national governments were not being responsive to their needs. Most recognized that their taxes benefited foreign powers other than their local communities. They saw foreign bureaucrats generate policy decisions that would adversely affect them for the benefit of others.
Going forward, international policy makers must understand that the peoples’ sense of justice harkens back to the connotation of the biblical word for justice, which is mishpat. The ancient word mishpat does not merely convey the modern sense of the word justice: mishpat encompasses the word justice in the context of custom, manner, and norm for families and clans, that is, the mishpachah. In other words, the true sense of justice means one’s individual enfranchisement in one’s hometown where he or she thrives.
Ever seeking true justice, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com will be here to watch for further developments as other nations follow BREXIT’s lead. Until then, please consider purchasing a copy of our doctrinal treatise, the Landscape of Truth. Like no other doctrinal work, the treatise gives the reader a full appreciation for the manner in which God fulfills and liberates the individual soul, within a community of liberated souls who are united in His Holy Spirit. In this way, the treaties systematically describes how God establishes His ultimate truth and justice, for the treatise is a systematic theology for the Holy Bible. It outlines the advancement of Western culture, economy, science, and democracy unto the truest liberty in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yet, while in the midst of the prosperity resulting from European integration, most failed to see that the true treasure of representational democracy was being lost. Hence, the divide between good citizens. What was being lost is the full political and economic enfranchisement of individual citizens, who only flourish in representational democracies that can only be held accountable by the enfranchised citizen.
Many Britons recognized that their local and national governments were not being responsive to their needs. Most recognized that their taxes benefited foreign powers other than their local communities. They saw foreign bureaucrats generate policy decisions that would adversely affect them for the benefit of others.
Going forward, international policy makers must understand that the peoples’ sense of justice harkens back to the connotation of the biblical word for justice, which is mishpat. The ancient word mishpat does not merely convey the modern sense of the word justice: mishpat encompasses the word justice in the context of custom, manner, and norm for families and clans, that is, the mishpachah. In other words, the true sense of justice means one’s individual enfranchisement in one’s hometown where he or she thrives.
Ever seeking true justice, we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com will be here to watch for further developments as other nations follow BREXIT’s lead. Until then, please consider purchasing a copy of our doctrinal treatise, the Landscape of Truth. Like no other doctrinal work, the treatise gives the reader a full appreciation for the manner in which God fulfills and liberates the individual soul, within a community of liberated souls who are united in His Holy Spirit. In this way, the treaties systematically describes how God establishes His ultimate truth and justice, for the treatise is a systematic theology for the Holy Bible. It outlines the advancement of Western culture, economy, science, and democracy unto the truest liberty in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Black Swans: Preserving European Cultural Heritage, while Inspiring Minorities Who Have Been Culturally Oppressed
Published July 15, 2019 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
New whispers have been going around in recent years amongst African American women about an inspiring prodigy, Misty Copeland, a principal ballerina, who is of German, Italian, and African American decent. We, thelandscapeoftruth.com, finally took a few days to observe the performances of the ballet Swan Lake, featuring Ms. Copeland and other principal dancers of the dance company, the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). We also recently took a few days to observe the practice sessions and subsequent tennis match of Serena Williams, another African American prodigy that African American women have been happily murmuring about amongst themselves for years.
When talking to others about women’s professional tennis, the African American women struggle to mask looks of smugness, as they attempt to conceal their pride for Serena Williams’ being the dominant professional women’s tennis player for over a decade. They quickly betray their conceit when they somewhat impolitely cut to the pithy of the conversations, as they excitedly ask, “Did you see Serena’s match.”
All too funny are African American women’s dismissive explanations for the relatively few losses that Serena Williams must suffer (her actually being human and all): the women usually write the losses off as Serena’s being tired, injured, or not too into the match that day. You see, in the women’s eyes, Serena’s opponent could not possibly outmatch Serena if Serena gave her best effort.
Now, many non-African Americans, especially European Americans, view African American women’s lopsided support for Serena Williams as another instance of African Americans’ flaunting their prejudices publically; whereas African Americans routinely raise alarm at the slightest instance of European Americans expressing pride for their heritage. In fact, some European Americans may be justifiably disgruntled when they interpret the universal push for multiculturalism as being a suppression of their openly celebrating European achievements in deference to minorities’ celebrating the successes of non-Europeans.
We, thelandscapeoftruth.com, seek to preserve and understand all humanity’s cultural contributions, alike, having the knowledge that no culture is entirely insular: all cultures have global antecedents that we must trace and understand. European culture, for instance, is the outcome of Greco-Roman and ancient Northern African culture, which are the outcomes of Ancient Middle Eastern culture. Europe does not stand unto itself. And so, as we assess the cultural evolutions, we seek to distinguish and overcome the cultural attributes that are oppressive, to the extent that the attributes undermine the modern Western democracies that all Western citizens enjoy.
With patience, therefore, let us understand the importance of Serena Williams and Misty Copeland’s successes for African American women. First, we have to recognize that tennis was traditionally an aristocratic European sport that even working class Europeans only recently enjoy. Even today, becoming a professional tennis player is beyond working class people’s reach, because of training and traveling expenses. One can only marvel at the sacrifices that Serena’s parents endured to secure Serena’s training. And so, when African American women observe Serena’s overwhelmingly successful career, they find inspiration for not only their own advancement in modern society, but also the advancement of their children. Increasing is the number of African American children’s participation in reduced cost tennis camps because of Serena Williams’ success.
Though Serena Williams’ career has become a profound inspiration for African American women, the success of the principle ballerina Misty Copeland is, by far, more significant. Emerging in the Italian Renaissance of the 15th Century, ballet has traditionally epitomized European refinement and public etiquette. Perfected in the French Court of Louis XIV, ballet modeled European high culture in terms of European notions of civility and respectability. Initially, ballet performances were not available to the general public. Only after the 19th Century could the general public gain access to the ballet as the art evolved incorporating traditions from many cultures. Though African Americans are active participants in other forms of dance productions, such as modern dance, few African Americans seek to advance in ballet because of the cultural disparity between African Americans and the aristocratic European cultures that oppressed African Americans.
The advancement of principle ballerina Misty Copeland is profoundly inspirational to African American women, today, for the following reason: Copeland draws a stark contrast to the manner in which African American women are portrayed in the degenerate Hip Hop culture. Currently, the Hip Hop culture dominates African American society. Hip Hop originally began as an expression of the struggle against the socio-economic impoverishment of African Americans. But now, the Hip Hop culture has grossly degenerated into celebrating social deviancy. As a result, young African American women are subject to being defined as whores that are to be passed around by violent gang related young men who routinely employ curse words to denounce each other with their favorite pejorative word, nigger.
The Hip Hop culture is so pervasive that average African American young women experience the social pressure to dress provocatively at all times, showing their cleavage, while emphasizing their posteriors. The women go through great efforts to be associated with the party atmosphere, where alcoholism, drugs, and sexual promiscuity are glamorized. The outcome is that above 80 percent of African American children are born out of wedlock; cycles of gang related violence plague African American neighborhoods; rates of sexually transmitted diseases increase; and low levels of African Americans graduate high school and enter college.
To make matters worse, African American leaders, including Church leaders fail to decry the effects of the Hip Hop culture because of its financial successes for the music industry. Currently, European American youths celebrate the culture, though they do not feel the ill effects, to the same degree as the African American community.
And so, when African American women whisper to one another, “Have you seen Misty Copeland perform?”, the significance of Ms. Copeland’s performance cannot fully be articulated. Copeland’s exhibiting grace, etiquette, respectability, and high culture is a well-lighted candle in the midst of cultural darkness.
We, thelandscapeoftruth.com, will certainly continue to cheer for Misty Copeland’s career as we seek the liberation of not only African American women, but also African American men. We see that that liberation can only occur if African American Churches recognize their fault in not decrying the Hip Hop culture. To not cry out is to advocate lifestyles that affront Lord Jesus the Christ, upon whom the Church stands. Our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth details at length how God prevails over all cultures by finding His rest in portraying His glory before humankind in the brotherly love, humility, and sacrifice of Lord Jesus. In a word, the sixth and seventh chapters of the treatise describe how high culture stands upon the culture’s recreational portrayal of the liberties of all its people equally and peacefully; even as the Kingdom of Heaven secures the same eternally through Lord Jesus’ sacrifice. We, therefore, will continue to do our part at educating the Churches.
All too funny are African American women’s dismissive explanations for the relatively few losses that Serena Williams must suffer (her actually being human and all): the women usually write the losses off as Serena’s being tired, injured, or not too into the match that day. You see, in the women’s eyes, Serena’s opponent could not possibly outmatch Serena if Serena gave her best effort.
Now, many non-African Americans, especially European Americans, view African American women’s lopsided support for Serena Williams as another instance of African Americans’ flaunting their prejudices publically; whereas African Americans routinely raise alarm at the slightest instance of European Americans expressing pride for their heritage. In fact, some European Americans may be justifiably disgruntled when they interpret the universal push for multiculturalism as being a suppression of their openly celebrating European achievements in deference to minorities’ celebrating the successes of non-Europeans.
We, thelandscapeoftruth.com, seek to preserve and understand all humanity’s cultural contributions, alike, having the knowledge that no culture is entirely insular: all cultures have global antecedents that we must trace and understand. European culture, for instance, is the outcome of Greco-Roman and ancient Northern African culture, which are the outcomes of Ancient Middle Eastern culture. Europe does not stand unto itself. And so, as we assess the cultural evolutions, we seek to distinguish and overcome the cultural attributes that are oppressive, to the extent that the attributes undermine the modern Western democracies that all Western citizens enjoy.
With patience, therefore, let us understand the importance of Serena Williams and Misty Copeland’s successes for African American women. First, we have to recognize that tennis was traditionally an aristocratic European sport that even working class Europeans only recently enjoy. Even today, becoming a professional tennis player is beyond working class people’s reach, because of training and traveling expenses. One can only marvel at the sacrifices that Serena’s parents endured to secure Serena’s training. And so, when African American women observe Serena’s overwhelmingly successful career, they find inspiration for not only their own advancement in modern society, but also the advancement of their children. Increasing is the number of African American children’s participation in reduced cost tennis camps because of Serena Williams’ success.
Though Serena Williams’ career has become a profound inspiration for African American women, the success of the principle ballerina Misty Copeland is, by far, more significant. Emerging in the Italian Renaissance of the 15th Century, ballet has traditionally epitomized European refinement and public etiquette. Perfected in the French Court of Louis XIV, ballet modeled European high culture in terms of European notions of civility and respectability. Initially, ballet performances were not available to the general public. Only after the 19th Century could the general public gain access to the ballet as the art evolved incorporating traditions from many cultures. Though African Americans are active participants in other forms of dance productions, such as modern dance, few African Americans seek to advance in ballet because of the cultural disparity between African Americans and the aristocratic European cultures that oppressed African Americans.
The advancement of principle ballerina Misty Copeland is profoundly inspirational to African American women, today, for the following reason: Copeland draws a stark contrast to the manner in which African American women are portrayed in the degenerate Hip Hop culture. Currently, the Hip Hop culture dominates African American society. Hip Hop originally began as an expression of the struggle against the socio-economic impoverishment of African Americans. But now, the Hip Hop culture has grossly degenerated into celebrating social deviancy. As a result, young African American women are subject to being defined as whores that are to be passed around by violent gang related young men who routinely employ curse words to denounce each other with their favorite pejorative word, nigger.
The Hip Hop culture is so pervasive that average African American young women experience the social pressure to dress provocatively at all times, showing their cleavage, while emphasizing their posteriors. The women go through great efforts to be associated with the party atmosphere, where alcoholism, drugs, and sexual promiscuity are glamorized. The outcome is that above 80 percent of African American children are born out of wedlock; cycles of gang related violence plague African American neighborhoods; rates of sexually transmitted diseases increase; and low levels of African Americans graduate high school and enter college.
To make matters worse, African American leaders, including Church leaders fail to decry the effects of the Hip Hop culture because of its financial successes for the music industry. Currently, European American youths celebrate the culture, though they do not feel the ill effects, to the same degree as the African American community.
And so, when African American women whisper to one another, “Have you seen Misty Copeland perform?”, the significance of Ms. Copeland’s performance cannot fully be articulated. Copeland’s exhibiting grace, etiquette, respectability, and high culture is a well-lighted candle in the midst of cultural darkness.
We, thelandscapeoftruth.com, will certainly continue to cheer for Misty Copeland’s career as we seek the liberation of not only African American women, but also African American men. We see that that liberation can only occur if African American Churches recognize their fault in not decrying the Hip Hop culture. To not cry out is to advocate lifestyles that affront Lord Jesus the Christ, upon whom the Church stands. Our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth details at length how God prevails over all cultures by finding His rest in portraying His glory before humankind in the brotherly love, humility, and sacrifice of Lord Jesus. In a word, the sixth and seventh chapters of the treatise describe how high culture stands upon the culture’s recreational portrayal of the liberties of all its people equally and peacefully; even as the Kingdom of Heaven secures the same eternally through Lord Jesus’ sacrifice. We, therefore, will continue to do our part at educating the Churches.
The Rise and Fall of Theresa May: Another 1st Class British Prime Minister Susceptible to an Elite General Consensus that Loses Sight of the Actual Circumstances of the People
Published June 3, 2019 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
A Christian, a church leader, a conservative, a professor, a teacher, an economist, a libertarian, a political enthusiast, and a student of history, philosophy, and theology are the categories that the bulk of our readers fall into. We even have good reason to believe that a popular royal princess delighted in an editorial on the monarchy, so we will have to put her in a category of her own: we will categorize her as simple good will. In fact, we affectionately call all of our readers, landscapers, because they possess the vision to appreciate our aim of understanding and demonstrating how the New Testament’s generational impact upon everyday people has brought about modern constitutional government, in a way that transformed government policy, political philosophy, science, and cultural norms.
We thelandscapeoftruth.com appreciate the support of readers from all over the world; however, we have certainly noticed that our British readers, who were our second largest audience besides our U.S. audience, have fallen off, rather dramatically. We understand that we may have lost some credibility with Great Britain because of our failure to cover the dynamic happenings of Brexit: Great Britain, the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). Other readers have noticed that we have also remained silent in the face of other profound events, affecting common Western people’s struggle with the effects of globalism. For instance, we have not commented on the Donald Trump presidential administration’s potentially game-changing dealings with North Korea. And we have yet to offer our biblical viewpoint on the matter of abortion, especially as conservative states tackle the issue. We certainly do not wish to disappoint our readers, every one of whom we are thankful for. Howbeit, in the interest of fulfilling the farseeing scope of our website, thelandscapeoftruth.com, we study to refrain from rushing to judgment by offering ill-advised opinions simply to fill an artificial news cycle. We often ask ourselves if one is not going to offer ones guests anything worthwhile to eat, why should one so ornately dress the table? We, therefore, patiently study to pursue all ends and see if our predictions of the outcomes hold merit. Then we prayerfully offer our hopeful insight, even if our insight is only timely in retrospect.
Recalling the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May’s shedding public tears, as May offered her resignation, has given us a suitable viewpoint to offer some clarity on the state of Brexit; in regards to how its mishandling provides an invaluable example of the increasing detachment of both European and American leadership from the people whom they serve. We draw attention to Prime Minister May’s tears to underscore how we must all show due sympathy for May whether we agree with her policies or not. Her sympathy is ours because she like the gross majority of Western leaders, from all political sides, become enamored by political and economic theorems that seem to predict outcomes; however, the theorems never account for all particular circumstances that only the people’s aggregate experiences master. Usually, conservative and libertarian politicians prove to be more attentive to the people’s hands-on experience than the progressive politicians that champion the generalized political and economic theories. However, the best of conservatives like Prime Minister May find it hard to humble their formal education with the happenstance approaches of the people; the people’s only knowing trial and error.
To most conservative British voters, Theresa May seemed to be a capable and promising voice for their cause. She considered herself to be a one-nation conservative. Indeed, leading up to her becoming the second female British Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party in 2016, Theresa May began a solid conservative career by first getting elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidenhead in 1997. Then from 1999 to 2010, May held many cabinet roles, including her standing as chairwoman for the Conservative Party from 2002-2003. Next, in 2010, a coalition government appointed her as Home Secretary, through which Theresa May pursued Police Federation Reform; took a harder position on drugs; and increased restrictions on immigrants. And so, when Theresa May assumed the position of Prime Minister, many people trusted that she would oversee Great Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Conservatives believed the campaign slogan of Prime Minister May’s being a “strong and stable leader.”
Yet, what conservative voters could not see impairing May’s usual good judgment is the seemingly immovable hand of the general consensus indelibly shared amongst the political elite: one may think of it as the outcomes of the morays of states-craft, that is, the unwritten tactics of politicking and sage-like executions of stratagems that shrewd politicians wield to sway the will of the people. The first thing that entices a political leader like May is the political elite’s belief that they know better than the people whom they serve; moreover, some political elite go so far as to believe that the people are not capable of leading themselves; therefore, the elite press ahead with policies whether they have secured the people’s support or not. A further enticement for politicians like Prime Minister May is that the political elite’s political and economic policies are often altruistic. For example, in consideration of Europe’s recent oppressive and warlike past, in regards to Europe’s exploiting non-European nations in 19th Century colonialism and Europe’s prosecuting the unparalleled violence of the 20th Century World Wars; the EU’s political elite seek to prevent European nations from recommitting past wrongs. For this sole purpose, they embrace an open and multicultural society that shuns nationalism. They ultimately seek to create a United States of Europe that is equal if not stronger than the United States of American. And so, in the face of such noble aspirations, which many European elite share, even a staunch nationalist conservative like Theresa May finds it hard to align him or herself fully to nationalist causes that appear to be bigoted.
Having one foot firmly planted in the general consensus of the elite, while having the other foot planted in her British conservative roots, Prime Minister Theresa May stood as a divided house that would fall. Agreeing with those Britons who benefited economically from the United Kingdom’s union with the EU, May expressed reasonable concerns that corporations would rather invest in a U.K. that is a part of Europe rather than an U.K. that stands alone. Prime Minister May, therefore, tried to take a mitigated approach to Great Britain’s leaving the EU; however, May suffered a string of political defeats until she finally resigned in tears: first, she lost party seats in the general election of 2016, in which she had attempted to strengthen her bargaining hand in Parliament. Next, in 2018, Theresa May’s government became the first government that Parliament determined to be in contempt, because May’s government failed to offer the legal framework for the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU. Afterward, a string of large majorities voted down a succession of Prime Minister May’s Brexit proposals, in early 2019. Then the usual stone-walled countenance of Theresa May finally broke down as she publically wept while offering her resignation.
The critical understanding that Western political leaders, like Theresa May, fail to recognize is that their general consensus, even when altruistic, cannot outstep the will of the people without undermining the very nature of democracy. At that point, the elite’s altruism becomes increasingly tyrannical. Not meaning to, May overlooked her working class voters’ concerns over prosperous Britain’s becoming a main destination point for the large scale immigration of poor and low-skilled peoples, who refuse to assimilate. She overlooked conservative concerns for the British people’s losing their direct representation in a sovereign British government.
As the European Union’s political elite strive to become a United States of Europe, they overlook how the United States of America gained and held onto a sovereign democratic government, with the full support of its people. At every turn, even until the current era, the U.S.A remains an expression of the direct representation of the common people. Beginning with the British Protestant pilgrims who rebelled against Church elites that held that Protestants could not worship or read the Holy Bible without the clerical elites’ oversight; the pilgrims planted British colonies where the people self-governed and worshipped, as they determined.
Of course, very early on, the French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) attested that the strength of the American democracy rests in the political participation of the common people. As Tocqueville travelled to study the American democracy he concluded that the spirit of religion enabled the American people to put local government and civil associations in close approximation to everyday people who then seized the opportunities to participate in their freedoms.
We here at thelandscapeoftruth.com particularly draw our American audience’s attention to Prime Minister Theresa May’s political downfall because increasingly America, itself, is losing its people’s voice to insensitive political leaders, especially as the Christian Church becomes less prominent, as a consequence of globalization and its multiculturalism. More and more, the new American voters who are coming of age after the millennium are supporting socialist political platforms, born of the political elite’s global worldview consensus, which is not democratic.
We endeavor to sure up the roots of the American democracy as our democracy continues to inspire others, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe. As the pilgrims stood upon their self-governing biblical principles, we must first reinvigorate laypeople Churches to take the lead in engaging their local communities, demonstrating how the Church played a key role in making the American democracy successful. As a pertinent example for our audiences, we will continue to follow the United Kingdom’s struggle to maintain its independence for its people. We will continue to play our small part in fighting to make prominent the Judeo-Christian principles that make democracy prosperous for all. To this end, we hope our supporters will purchase a copy of our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth, which details how God gifted us our individual liberty through Lord Jesus the Christ and how the Church eventually inspired the common people’s support for a secular government that protects and ensures individual liberty for both Christians and non-Christians alike. Please visit our affiliate ministry twea.org for examples on how the Church can develop programs to engage the general public. And please see our overviews for more explanations, concerning the Church’s effect upon modern government.
Recalling the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May’s shedding public tears, as May offered her resignation, has given us a suitable viewpoint to offer some clarity on the state of Brexit; in regards to how its mishandling provides an invaluable example of the increasing detachment of both European and American leadership from the people whom they serve. We draw attention to Prime Minister May’s tears to underscore how we must all show due sympathy for May whether we agree with her policies or not. Her sympathy is ours because she like the gross majority of Western leaders, from all political sides, become enamored by political and economic theorems that seem to predict outcomes; however, the theorems never account for all particular circumstances that only the people’s aggregate experiences master. Usually, conservative and libertarian politicians prove to be more attentive to the people’s hands-on experience than the progressive politicians that champion the generalized political and economic theories. However, the best of conservatives like Prime Minister May find it hard to humble their formal education with the happenstance approaches of the people; the people’s only knowing trial and error.
To most conservative British voters, Theresa May seemed to be a capable and promising voice for their cause. She considered herself to be a one-nation conservative. Indeed, leading up to her becoming the second female British Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party in 2016, Theresa May began a solid conservative career by first getting elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidenhead in 1997. Then from 1999 to 2010, May held many cabinet roles, including her standing as chairwoman for the Conservative Party from 2002-2003. Next, in 2010, a coalition government appointed her as Home Secretary, through which Theresa May pursued Police Federation Reform; took a harder position on drugs; and increased restrictions on immigrants. And so, when Theresa May assumed the position of Prime Minister, many people trusted that she would oversee Great Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Conservatives believed the campaign slogan of Prime Minister May’s being a “strong and stable leader.”
Yet, what conservative voters could not see impairing May’s usual good judgment is the seemingly immovable hand of the general consensus indelibly shared amongst the political elite: one may think of it as the outcomes of the morays of states-craft, that is, the unwritten tactics of politicking and sage-like executions of stratagems that shrewd politicians wield to sway the will of the people. The first thing that entices a political leader like May is the political elite’s belief that they know better than the people whom they serve; moreover, some political elite go so far as to believe that the people are not capable of leading themselves; therefore, the elite press ahead with policies whether they have secured the people’s support or not. A further enticement for politicians like Prime Minister May is that the political elite’s political and economic policies are often altruistic. For example, in consideration of Europe’s recent oppressive and warlike past, in regards to Europe’s exploiting non-European nations in 19th Century colonialism and Europe’s prosecuting the unparalleled violence of the 20th Century World Wars; the EU’s political elite seek to prevent European nations from recommitting past wrongs. For this sole purpose, they embrace an open and multicultural society that shuns nationalism. They ultimately seek to create a United States of Europe that is equal if not stronger than the United States of American. And so, in the face of such noble aspirations, which many European elite share, even a staunch nationalist conservative like Theresa May finds it hard to align him or herself fully to nationalist causes that appear to be bigoted.
Having one foot firmly planted in the general consensus of the elite, while having the other foot planted in her British conservative roots, Prime Minister Theresa May stood as a divided house that would fall. Agreeing with those Britons who benefited economically from the United Kingdom’s union with the EU, May expressed reasonable concerns that corporations would rather invest in a U.K. that is a part of Europe rather than an U.K. that stands alone. Prime Minister May, therefore, tried to take a mitigated approach to Great Britain’s leaving the EU; however, May suffered a string of political defeats until she finally resigned in tears: first, she lost party seats in the general election of 2016, in which she had attempted to strengthen her bargaining hand in Parliament. Next, in 2018, Theresa May’s government became the first government that Parliament determined to be in contempt, because May’s government failed to offer the legal framework for the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU. Afterward, a string of large majorities voted down a succession of Prime Minister May’s Brexit proposals, in early 2019. Then the usual stone-walled countenance of Theresa May finally broke down as she publically wept while offering her resignation.
The critical understanding that Western political leaders, like Theresa May, fail to recognize is that their general consensus, even when altruistic, cannot outstep the will of the people without undermining the very nature of democracy. At that point, the elite’s altruism becomes increasingly tyrannical. Not meaning to, May overlooked her working class voters’ concerns over prosperous Britain’s becoming a main destination point for the large scale immigration of poor and low-skilled peoples, who refuse to assimilate. She overlooked conservative concerns for the British people’s losing their direct representation in a sovereign British government.
As the European Union’s political elite strive to become a United States of Europe, they overlook how the United States of America gained and held onto a sovereign democratic government, with the full support of its people. At every turn, even until the current era, the U.S.A remains an expression of the direct representation of the common people. Beginning with the British Protestant pilgrims who rebelled against Church elites that held that Protestants could not worship or read the Holy Bible without the clerical elites’ oversight; the pilgrims planted British colonies where the people self-governed and worshipped, as they determined.
Of course, very early on, the French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) attested that the strength of the American democracy rests in the political participation of the common people. As Tocqueville travelled to study the American democracy he concluded that the spirit of religion enabled the American people to put local government and civil associations in close approximation to everyday people who then seized the opportunities to participate in their freedoms.
We here at thelandscapeoftruth.com particularly draw our American audience’s attention to Prime Minister Theresa May’s political downfall because increasingly America, itself, is losing its people’s voice to insensitive political leaders, especially as the Christian Church becomes less prominent, as a consequence of globalization and its multiculturalism. More and more, the new American voters who are coming of age after the millennium are supporting socialist political platforms, born of the political elite’s global worldview consensus, which is not democratic.
We endeavor to sure up the roots of the American democracy as our democracy continues to inspire others, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe. As the pilgrims stood upon their self-governing biblical principles, we must first reinvigorate laypeople Churches to take the lead in engaging their local communities, demonstrating how the Church played a key role in making the American democracy successful. As a pertinent example for our audiences, we will continue to follow the United Kingdom’s struggle to maintain its independence for its people. We will continue to play our small part in fighting to make prominent the Judeo-Christian principles that make democracy prosperous for all. To this end, we hope our supporters will purchase a copy of our doctrinal treatise the Landscape of Truth, which details how God gifted us our individual liberty through Lord Jesus the Christ and how the Church eventually inspired the common people’s support for a secular government that protects and ensures individual liberty for both Christians and non-Christians alike. Please visit our affiliate ministry twea.org for examples on how the Church can develop programs to engage the general public. And please see our overviews for more explanations, concerning the Church’s effect upon modern government.
The Challenge of Securing Dependable Voters in the Age of Social Media May Give the Church an Advantage
Published May 27, 2019 – thelandscapeoftruth.com
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .” So begins the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America.
The vast majority of lawful immigrants will readily tell you of the pride, thankfulness, and empowerment that they feel upon becoming a citizen of what is so far the greatest democracy that the world has ever seen. Still, what is more insightful into the newfound sense of dignity that the immigrants feel is when some describe the sense of ownership that they feel when they cast their first voting ballots in common with other citizens; for at that moment, they recognize that they are not merely newcomers: they are actually active participants in deciding the greatest democracy’s future.
The vast majority of lawful immigrants will readily tell you of the pride, thankfulness, and empowerment that they feel upon becoming a citizen of what is so far the greatest democracy that the world has ever seen. Still, what is more insightful into the newfound sense of dignity that the immigrants feel is when some describe the sense of ownership that they feel when they cast their first voting ballots in common with other citizens; for at that moment, they recognize that they are not merely newcomers: they are actually active participants in deciding the greatest democracy’s future.
When we reflect upon the gratitude of new immigrants’ exercising their constitutional right to vote, we readily acknowledge the universal understanding amongst all Western democracies that every law-abiding adult citizen has an equal right to vote. Yet, though the ideal of an equal right to vote is lofty or even sublime, the reality of voting disparities persists, in terms of voting irregularities, inequalities, falsification, miseducation, and suppression.
What is at issue is determining how to enable the people, the voting public, to hold their representatives accountable as the representatives purport to secure the people’s best interests. Simply stated, in the truest democracy, the voters, themselves, must have an ethical and sagacious capacity that governs.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution and the first law-makers of the first 13 American states understood that the sufficiency of democratic government depends upon the sufficiency of voting citizens, who in theory were the actual governors of the newly created democratic state; therefore, the initial lawmakers only gave European male landowners the right to vote. In hindsight, most look back at their decision to allow only landowning European males voting rights as utter bigotry. And we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com certainly do not excuse their actions, seeing that many contemporary lawmakers from Northern states argued for giving women and slaves equal rights. Even so, we must stress, for the purposes of this article, that the framers and early lawmakers held justifiable concerns over the fitness of an inexperienced motley crew of citizens’ capacity for self-rule. The framers viewed landowning European males as taking the place of the ancient lords who independently ruled the feudal lands in the centuries leading up to the modern state.
After the American Civil War, as the new nation’s industrial capacity made citizens less dependent upon agrarian employment and more dependent upon private companies for employment; a new generation of Americans understood well that the sufficiency of a citizen voter did not depend upon his or her capacity to be a feudal-like landowner. The new generation understood that all equally participated in the nation’s industrial commerce. Therefore, the mid-19th Century and early 20th Century post-Industrial Age Americans extended the right to vote to African Americans in 1869 and women in 1920.
The concern over voter sufficiency was not only in regards to African Americans and women; the concern was also over Catholic immigrants, as well as Muslim immigrants. To the contemporary public, the concern over the sufficiency of Catholic and Muslim voters seems to be entirely born of ignorance; however, we must understand that we live in a post-industrial and post scientific age. The early American republic stood just a stone’s toss away from a centuries old feudal era; wherein Catholic clergy decided the earthly and heavenly fate of feudal kings and their subjects. For this cause, many justly wondered could catholic immigrants truly uphold the Oath of Allegiance’s requirement that new immigrants renounce their allegiances to any potentate, in regards to the potentate’s compelling the immigrants to disregard the commands of American laws. As a matter of fact, the concern persists today, to a lesser extent, as the current Bishop of Rome speaks out against many of the United States’ foreign and domestic policies.
For the most part, our nation has overcome group-type voter sufficiency concerns, as the nation’s original Judeo-Christian concepts of ethics and morality have progressively become universally accepted as the social norm for a variety of assimilating immigrants. However, the sufficiency for voters to govern, through representatives of the voters’ best interests, stands at greater peril for reasons other than landownership, race, foreign potentate allegiances, and male or female sex. The problem concerns the difficulty in defining the modern sense of community. You see, in the contemporary age of mass transit and mass communication, which includes the internet and its social media; the notion of local democratic representation of a community is nebulous at best: most people live in what residential developers call sleepover communities, while they commute to other localities for work and socializing. What is more, most people find community in complex relationships that they build on the internet through social media. Their friends and acquaintances whom they share interests with consist of distant family relations; past school friends or colleagues; and other distant people. Seldom does the average citizen hold a commitment to their local community activities, other than the running of the school system that their offspring attend. And so, the notion that even ten percent of the citizens of a given locality know the name of their local government delegate, sheriff, or other county official is laughable. Some may know the name of their state representative or senator, and most know the name of the current U.S. President.
As an outcome, the running of local governments increasingly occur without the oversight and investiture of citizens. In recent years, local voter participation has fallen drastically. Corruption often fills the gap as interest groups hold more and more power over local delegates and officials.
The Church is the only public institute that can bridge the gap between secular government representatives and their increasingly disinterested communities; moreover, Church attenders remain far more active civically than other groups. Government officials traditionally recognize the social power of the local Church, and they often find every opportunity to speak to the congregations.
Still, why the Christian Church in particular? Well, orthodox Christianity does not discriminate based upon religious service, class, or other traditional kindred-group distinctions; therefore, the Church naturally links unrelated peoples far more deeply than the superficial relationships on the internet.
No matter what station or circumstance an individual is in his or her life, the individual will always care for the eternal meaning and preservation of his or her person. The individual, therefore, governs every aspect of his or her life in difference to his or her preservation, that is, through sickness, health, education, employment, recreation, friendships, marriage, and death. The Church speaks to this core of the individual. The Church only has to cultivate what we term life-experience programs that demonstrate how an individual’s liberty in the savior—the Church’s head, Lord Jesus the Christ—affects every aspect of their lives, through personal relationships and communal relationships, even unto securing the ethics of government policy. Using life experience programs that treat every phase of an individual’s life (that is, marriage, parenting, education, civic duty, economics, and senior adulthood) the Church can bring awareness to its congregants, concerning their necessary participation in local, state, and federal government, in order to address the policy concerns that deal with the selfsame life-experience issues.
A more detailed description concerning how the Church must systematically engage the public in the interests of preserving democracy for both Christians and non-Christians alike is beyond the scope of this particular article. We only venture to raise the issue for our readers, and we intend to address the subject matter in future articles and editorials to come. For now, please refer to our associate ministry twea.org in order to glean an understanding of the life-experience program that contemporary Churches must adopt. Please get a copy of our doctrinal treatise, the Landscape of Truth, to learn how the New Testament empowered Christians to overcome millennia of group-based totalitarian societies by enabling common individuals to appreciate and adopt modern constitutional government, which secures the individual liberty and faith of the individual.
What is at issue is determining how to enable the people, the voting public, to hold their representatives accountable as the representatives purport to secure the people’s best interests. Simply stated, in the truest democracy, the voters, themselves, must have an ethical and sagacious capacity that governs.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution and the first law-makers of the first 13 American states understood that the sufficiency of democratic government depends upon the sufficiency of voting citizens, who in theory were the actual governors of the newly created democratic state; therefore, the initial lawmakers only gave European male landowners the right to vote. In hindsight, most look back at their decision to allow only landowning European males voting rights as utter bigotry. And we here at thelandscapeoftruth.com certainly do not excuse their actions, seeing that many contemporary lawmakers from Northern states argued for giving women and slaves equal rights. Even so, we must stress, for the purposes of this article, that the framers and early lawmakers held justifiable concerns over the fitness of an inexperienced motley crew of citizens’ capacity for self-rule. The framers viewed landowning European males as taking the place of the ancient lords who independently ruled the feudal lands in the centuries leading up to the modern state.
After the American Civil War, as the new nation’s industrial capacity made citizens less dependent upon agrarian employment and more dependent upon private companies for employment; a new generation of Americans understood well that the sufficiency of a citizen voter did not depend upon his or her capacity to be a feudal-like landowner. The new generation understood that all equally participated in the nation’s industrial commerce. Therefore, the mid-19th Century and early 20th Century post-Industrial Age Americans extended the right to vote to African Americans in 1869 and women in 1920.
The concern over voter sufficiency was not only in regards to African Americans and women; the concern was also over Catholic immigrants, as well as Muslim immigrants. To the contemporary public, the concern over the sufficiency of Catholic and Muslim voters seems to be entirely born of ignorance; however, we must understand that we live in a post-industrial and post scientific age. The early American republic stood just a stone’s toss away from a centuries old feudal era; wherein Catholic clergy decided the earthly and heavenly fate of feudal kings and their subjects. For this cause, many justly wondered could catholic immigrants truly uphold the Oath of Allegiance’s requirement that new immigrants renounce their allegiances to any potentate, in regards to the potentate’s compelling the immigrants to disregard the commands of American laws. As a matter of fact, the concern persists today, to a lesser extent, as the current Bishop of Rome speaks out against many of the United States’ foreign and domestic policies.
For the most part, our nation has overcome group-type voter sufficiency concerns, as the nation’s original Judeo-Christian concepts of ethics and morality have progressively become universally accepted as the social norm for a variety of assimilating immigrants. However, the sufficiency for voters to govern, through representatives of the voters’ best interests, stands at greater peril for reasons other than landownership, race, foreign potentate allegiances, and male or female sex. The problem concerns the difficulty in defining the modern sense of community. You see, in the contemporary age of mass transit and mass communication, which includes the internet and its social media; the notion of local democratic representation of a community is nebulous at best: most people live in what residential developers call sleepover communities, while they commute to other localities for work and socializing. What is more, most people find community in complex relationships that they build on the internet through social media. Their friends and acquaintances whom they share interests with consist of distant family relations; past school friends or colleagues; and other distant people. Seldom does the average citizen hold a commitment to their local community activities, other than the running of the school system that their offspring attend. And so, the notion that even ten percent of the citizens of a given locality know the name of their local government delegate, sheriff, or other county official is laughable. Some may know the name of their state representative or senator, and most know the name of the current U.S. President.
As an outcome, the running of local governments increasingly occur without the oversight and investiture of citizens. In recent years, local voter participation has fallen drastically. Corruption often fills the gap as interest groups hold more and more power over local delegates and officials.
The Church is the only public institute that can bridge the gap between secular government representatives and their increasingly disinterested communities; moreover, Church attenders remain far more active civically than other groups. Government officials traditionally recognize the social power of the local Church, and they often find every opportunity to speak to the congregations.
Still, why the Christian Church in particular? Well, orthodox Christianity does not discriminate based upon religious service, class, or other traditional kindred-group distinctions; therefore, the Church naturally links unrelated peoples far more deeply than the superficial relationships on the internet.
No matter what station or circumstance an individual is in his or her life, the individual will always care for the eternal meaning and preservation of his or her person. The individual, therefore, governs every aspect of his or her life in difference to his or her preservation, that is, through sickness, health, education, employment, recreation, friendships, marriage, and death. The Church speaks to this core of the individual. The Church only has to cultivate what we term life-experience programs that demonstrate how an individual’s liberty in the savior—the Church’s head, Lord Jesus the Christ—affects every aspect of their lives, through personal relationships and communal relationships, even unto securing the ethics of government policy. Using life experience programs that treat every phase of an individual’s life (that is, marriage, parenting, education, civic duty, economics, and senior adulthood) the Church can bring awareness to its congregants, concerning their necessary participation in local, state, and federal government, in order to address the policy concerns that deal with the selfsame life-experience issues.
A more detailed description concerning how the Church must systematically engage the public in the interests of preserving democracy for both Christians and non-Christians alike is beyond the scope of this particular article. We only venture to raise the issue for our readers, and we intend to address the subject matter in future articles and editorials to come. For now, please refer to our associate ministry twea.org in order to glean an understanding of the life-experience program that contemporary Churches must adopt. Please get a copy of our doctrinal treatise, the Landscape of Truth, to learn how the New Testament empowered Christians to overcome millennia of group-based totalitarian societies by enabling common individuals to appreciate and adopt modern constitutional government, which secures the individual liberty and faith of the individual.