Presentism & the Racist Laura Ingalls Wilder, Francis Schaeffer’s Prescience, and the War in Heaven

There is more than enough reason to despair of hope if we limit our perspective to our current circumstances in the physical realm.

Even if more than a few social mores and cultural ethics that harken back to a more sensible time should make a comeback in the next decade or so courtesy of the return swing of the pendulum, the effects of the scourge of wokeism stand to remain long afterward.

My concern with wokeism’s legacy as government policy as an extension of politics is much less than my concern that wokeism and its impact will be preserved by the Corporate and Donor Classes even as most of the rest of the nation throws off its more damaging fundamentals.

My view is that obsessions with racial diversity, with the effort to be inclusive of the sexually deviant, the destruction of at-risk children, et al. through normalization of homosexuality, transvestism, pedophilia, gender reassignment surgery will persist in far too many corners of our society. Granted, they may be relatively much more muted than they are now, there will still be a concerted effort to preserve them for the opportunity to more tightly weave them into the social fabric when the pendulum next swings leftward.

While the rightward swing of the pendulum is a golden opportunity for the Judeo-Christian ethics of the previous century to make comeback, the forces opposing their resurgence stand an excellent chance of blunting it and minimizing their neutralizing effect on wokeism’s fundamentals by virtue of those forces’ ownership of the institutions that once safeguarded those very ethics.

As frightening as is the prospect of the aforementioned, it is not the existential threat that is an arbitrary moral standard. We, as a society were warned of this in the late 1970s by Dr. Francis Shaefer in his book, How Should We Then Live?. The accompanying documentary film gives life to the words contained in the printed text. Forget Alvin Toffler’s, Future Shock – Shaefer’s work is far more prescient, even prophetic.

However, nowhere is the damage from an arbitrary moral standard more evident than in Presentism, as so aptly described by Bill Maher:

I’ll give him credit for the candor in his monologue, but I concur with one Lillia Gajewski, a very wise and shrewd judge of human character, that Maher is a Democrat desperately trying to save his party from itself. It’s no surprise that his efforts are falling short with each passing week.

There is no shortage of examples of the destructive nature of Presentism, though there are two that are forefront in my mind:

The first comes from a professional colleague of mine who was once employed as the web & e-commerce guy for a small publisher of textbooks for grade-school classrooms. Recalling what he related to me in a conversation several years ago, his role was such that his company email address was on almost every corporate distribution list, thus affording him access to the emails of the editorial and marketing staff celebrating the announcement that The Association for Library Service to Children had stripped author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from the children’s literature award bearing her name, “because of her portrayal of Native Americans.”

Per the ALSC’s statement:

‘This decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder’s legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness,’

At the time, this struck me as just another example of the continuing madness of political correctness run amok, but when I realized that this publisher was headquartered in a rural burgh in the midst of the part of Minnesota that Ingalls Wilder wrote of in the Little House on the Prairie series, it was shocking to me that such would be the response of the publishing company’s editorial staff.

What a breathtaking display of ignorance of local history, not to mention literary history.

As abhorrent as I find this, the damage extends outward, and despite its protestations, an organization allegedly considered to be a vanguard against censorship engaged in that very violation. Its lengthy, preemptively issued statement, in part, reads:

Changing the name of the award, or ending the award and establishing a new award, does not prohibit access to Wilder’s works or suppress discussion about them. Neither option asks or demands that anyone stop reading Wilder’s books, talking about them, or making them available to children. These recommendations do not amount to censorship, nor do they undermine intellectual freedom,

Y’know, whenever I’m told that something is not what it clearly appears to be, I have no choice but to conclude that the individual who is lying to me believes me to be so utterly stupid that I would believe him when he is pissing on my boots while telling me it’s raining.

It continues:

Yet perceptions matter, along with the very real pain associated with her works for some, and year after year ALSC gives the impression of upholding Wilder’s works through an award that bears her name.

Right. Perceptions matter, huh?

Perhaps it’s more like in George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, where all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

For the ALSC, perceptions matter, but some perceptions matter more than others. Clearly, the perception that it recognizes and signals the correct virtues of Presentism matters more than the perception that it honors its unwritten charter to protect the rights guaranteed by the first amendment, and preserve the free expression of ideas in literature instead of engaging in censorship, by whatever name the organization wishes to call it.

The second is, as we all saw in 2020, when wielded in one hand with censorship in the other, the net effect of Presentism dispensed with more than a century of science in the medical fields of immunology, and epidemiology; medical treatments’ efficacy; not to mention fact, truth, and free exchange of ideas and views that in a much more equitable world, might have effectively countered the lockdowns and isolations so quickly put into effect at the suggestion of the CDC which has been at the center of the worst and most criminal abuses of the public trust in this nation since the agency was created. Instead, these draconian measures as directed by the dark forces of the WHO, were all too convenient an excuse for Uniparty politicians bent on executing a bloodless coup d’etat to remove Donald Trump from office; and having achieved that end, to do everything in their power to prevent his election once again.

At the risk of traveling down that rabbit hole,

I submit that while social media is, in fact, guilty of trampling the first-amendment rights of Americans, the root cause lies with the entities that allow access to the backbone of the internet as we know it. Those entities are The Alphabet Corporation (aka Google), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Facebook (Meta), Apple, Microsoft, and one with which you likely are not familiar, Akamai.

What I find to be most depressing, demoralizing, and hopeless is that the behaviour of those to whom most of us looked to be of the most sound and sober judgement behaved as though they were still high school sophomores, paranoid of being considered different, of wanting to be part of the cool-kids clique or if they were already part of the in-crowd, behaving in a way that would get them banished from it.

The two aforementioned examples merely reinforce my conviction that these interesting (to put it mildly) times in which we live are not just our worst natures being revealed after having thrown off all restraint. They are not just our selfish, hedonistic urges and impulses suddenly made acceptable. Not to absolve each of us of the sin we, ourselves, commit, but it is my belief that much darker spiritual forces are at work, here.

Mine is that the effects of the war in the spiritual realm that occurred even before the universe and everything in it was created are being made manifest in the material world today¹, but ‘today’ includes events of the past one hundred-plus years. It includes the Rwandan, the Jewish, and the Armenian genocides; in the US it includes the more than fifty years of “legalized” abortion, courtesy of a liberally activist US Supreme Court creating out of whole cloth a right that simply did not exist by usurping rights that constitutionally resided with each state.

Before that travesty, there was the SV40 Contamination of Polio Vaccine, and before that, the Tuskegee Study².

Second only to the abortion era is the tolerance and acceptance of pornography as mainstream “artistic” expression in film, print and most recently, cyberspace. I submit that aside from abortion, nothing has been as pervasive, and destructive to our society as a whole than pornography.

I have no doubt that pornography has been around in one manifestation or another for as long as we have sought to be entertained. Time was it could only be found in the more remote, seedy, rough parts of any given community of any size, or well outside the city limits in rural areas.

Burlesque gave way to peep shows, which gave way to topless bars. Vargas pinups gave way to the earliest incarnation of Esquire magazine. Twenty years post-WWII, Hugh Hefner managed to make porn more acceptable with the glossy, high-production periodical, Playboy. Relatively tasteful photos with articles and interviews that no one actually read even though they claimed otherwise, Playboy, with its hedonistic “philosophy” paved the way for the offensively graphically raw competing publication, Penthouse. With the advent of the internet, pornography became accessible to anyone and everyone, regardless of age. It also enabled illicit criminal activity like child sex-trafficking to reach worldwide proportions.

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A personal aside:
Granted, my encapsulation of the history of porn likely says more about the more shameful chapters of my past that I would prefer did not exist, but the alternative is to lie about it or pretend it is not, and that’s a losing proposition because I have to live with myself – so, I own it. Let he that is not guilty of the same be the first to submit his past to public scrutiny. Any takers? No? I didn’t think so – moving on…

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What else explains not only enabling the wholesale slaughter of the unborn while still in the womb, but passionately championing the repugnant practice to include ending the baby’s life even after it has exited the birth canal? Emotionally charged language or no, the fact remains that the unborn are truly the most vulnerable of our society, and if there is anywhere they ought to be protected, it is in the mother’s womb. Thank God the current SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade.

What else explains the effort to enthusiastically destroy the lives of at risk-children by submitting them to puberty blockers, hormone treatments, gender-reassignment surgery at the hands of their parents, and if not them, their teachers, or other adult authority figures without their parents’ knowledge?

What else explains the effort to not only de-criminalize pedophilia, but to also de-classify it as a mental disorder or illness?

What else explains the militant effort to completely overhaul the language to not only reduce women and that for which only they are uniquely created to the generic, “birthing persons” by seeking to replace the rights that accrue to all, including women, with those of transsexuals as a protected group before the rights of all others? Not only does it render the Bill of Rights to be absolutely meaningless, but it reveals the activist groups that champion the civil rights of homosexuals to be nothing more than authoritarians in the style of Pol Pot only with a rainbow flag. For that, I suppose we should be grateful that the enemy has identified itself.

What else explains the measures taken to completely negate women in collegiate athletics by allowing biological men to compete as women, rendering the progress made under Title IX completely null and void? Maybe if a woman’s sense of self-worth can be destroyed while she is still in college (or earlier), it won’t have to be done in the workplace. If that which makes a woman a woman can be all but re-defined out of human existence sooner, it won’t have to be done later.

What else explains all of this, not just in the US, but worldwide? If there is another reasonable explanation for the aforementioned, I am all ears.

Again, I submit that this is not a problem that will be resolved by the pendulum swinging back toward a sensible middle.

It is not a problem that is a product of the culture to be resolved through wresting ownership of said culture away from the left (though, a few victories here and there demonstrate that such dark forces can, in fact, be effectively countered), and the fight ought to continue.

It is not a problem that is a product of the political climate to be resolved by legislation.

It is not a problem that is the product of the religious denominations and sects to be resolved through religion.

It is a problem that is of a spiritual nature, and its root cause is found in the spiritual realm. Its solution is found there, as well because within each and every one of us is a connection to that spiritual realm – our hearts – perhaps better recognized as one’s conscience.

Mine is that we each are born with a sense of what is inherently right, and wrong, though the ability to distinguish one from the other is properly or improperly developed as we grow up. As we approach full maturation as adults, we become aware of our free will to not only distinguish one from the other, but to choose one or the other in any given situation. This is why no one, while alive, is beyond redemption – but that is a topic for another day.

There was a war in Heaven – the dragon and its angels fought back against Michael and his angels, and ultimately Michael and his angels were victorious. That was only one battle, however. The victory in the war occurred when Christ, on the cross became sin forcing God the Father to momentarily forsake Him. Upon His physical death, He descended into Hell³, only to ascend into Heaven three days later. This may be offensive to some readers, but it ought not be – just what do you suppose we celebrate every year in the Spring?

What we are bearing witness to today is the failure of all things conceived in the mind of man, and then brought forth. In particular, government: kingdoms, democracies, dictatorships, republics – governments of every kind ultimately fail because they are of man, a flawed creature. Granted, the republic that was founded in 1776 came as close to perfection as any form of government past or future, but it is failing now because even a republic such as ours is only as sound as the character and integrity of the men to whom it is entrusted.

My hope is found in this: Though the dark forces of evil currently reign in this world, they were defeated more than two thousand years ago. Because these forces of darkness have free reign for the moment, the times will get worse before they get better – but Judgement Day, when the Kingdom of God, the perfect form of government having been established at Creation and reigns for all eternity, is coming.

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and your indulgence.

Until next time…

1. “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.”
–Revelation 12:7

2. https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
”In 1932, the USPHS, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It was originally called the ‘Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male’ (now referred to as the ‘USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee’). The study initially involved 600 Black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants’ informed consent was not collected.”
The USPHS was the predecessor to the CDC.

3. https://www.pcabookstore.com/samples/11589.pdf