We Must Work Harder Than the Atheists

In the past few weeks I’ve written on the growth of atheism in America and how we must counteract it. I’ve also shared about the Asbury Revival–signaling possibly a growing Jesus Revolution in our nation.

One or the other is going to prevail in America in the coming years. The atheists will either guide us into social chaos and economic collapse–leading to tyranny. Or an awakening of the Church will sweep the USA and renew our foundations. “Who wins” boils down to this question:

Which group wants it the most and will work the hardest?

We Must Work Harder Than the Atheists

Jarrett Stepman wrote a recent article on how atheists have marched through the American “institutions” in the past three generations to change America for evil. They’ve worked harder than the Church for a long term vision of destroying faith-based America.

God is sovereign, but he works through people. Will we cooperate with him to save our nation?

I will quote extensively from Stepman’s article. It’s called “Why Only 16% of Gen Z Are Proud to Be an American and What We Should Do About It?”

Only 16% of Gen Z are “proud” to live in the United States.

That finding comes from a recent poll, which assessed generational attitudes about the United States. The poll shows that there has been roughly a 20-percentage-point drop of pride in country every generation since the Baby Boomers, 73% of whom express pride in the country (Gen X – 54%, Millennials 34%).

Many on social media noted with exasperation that those who say they have no pride in country are in no hurry to move somewhere else.

It’s true, our success as a nation has apparently led to a great deal of ingratitude and navel-gazing. However, the poll points to a deeper problem.

If only sixteen percent of young Americans believe in and love their country, then the future could be very bleak. Stepman shares these consequences:

• A weakening of the “international order” and inability to recruit soldiers and defend our nation.
• Less attachment to country means growing division. Jesus said that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12:25). 

He then analyzes the growing detachment:

We’ve failed to re-institutionalize “informed patriotism” in this country. That’s what President Ronald Reagan called for in his farewell address in January 1989, and what was clearly most important to him. In the 1980s, the U.S. was riding high, the economy was booming, patriotism was returning, the Soviet Union—an evil empire, if there ever was one—was just a few years away from collapse. It was morning again in America.

However, Reagan warned that while the policy victories he achieved during his presidency were good, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Reagan said that “younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.” But it wasn’t just parents. For those who created popular culture, “well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.”

He warned that while our “spirit” was back, we hadn’t “re-institutionalized it.”

Reagan was right. Worse—as it’s now become quite clear—we have institutionalized something quite different from “informed patriotism” and love of country. We have institutionalized the ethos of the new left, of the woke, of the purveyors of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Stepman goes on to detail the ideas that have taken over the minds of Gen Z:

Concepts such as critical race theory and radical gender theory are quite real, but they aren’t new. They’ve been floating around academia for more than half a century. What’s new is that these ideas have reached a critical mass, and they have pushed traditional American ideas out of every institution they’ve taken hold of.

Many Americans have no idea what the details of these concepts are, but they absorb and internalize them because they are continuously reinforced. The modern elite university is the temple of this new, dominant ideology, but its tentacles reach into everything, from colleges to K-12 schools (both public and private) to media and entertainment, to the corporate world, and certainly to government.

At one time, the managerial class merely promoted its interests; now, it promotes this quasi-religion, too. To remain a member of the elite in good standing, you must acknowledge your faith in the new creed [atheism]or risk losing your career, being canceled, and personally attacked.

Most comply. Those who don’t believe do so quietly, secretly for fear of risking their status and livelihood.

Stepman points to the Reagan era as a time of renewal of spirit and pride in America. That view is a center point of my autobiography due out this summer. I believe I was born for “that moment”–the Washington For Jesus Rally (prayer awakening) and the Reagan Revolution.

Here’s his take:

Reagan also said that every generation had to reaffirm our American principles, or we would someday have to tell our children what it was like when people were free. Victory in the Cold War, a moment of triumph for the United States and the West worthy of celebration, nevertheless concealed the rot within.

In 2020, when mobs hit the streets and statues fell, the institutions of our country showed their true colors. They joined the mob and pulled down what the rabble missed. Jacobins in the street joined Jacobins in government agencies and air-conditioned boardrooms. The pride flag and the BLM flag replaced the American flag as the symbols of the new regime.

Jeremy Carl wrote at The American Conservative, “the transgressive has become not just mainstream, but the establishment itself.”

So, for those who didn’t join the revolution, who may be dazed by, and disbelieving of, the transformation that’s taken place, we must acknowledge that our cause is currently one of dissenters. It’s the people versus the institutions, and many people now side with the institutions.

But we are not without hope. Nations and institutions can be changed, renewed. We may not see it in our lifetime, but we can plant the seeds out of which great societies can be reborn.

If the Left can transform America from the inside out through a long march, so can the rest of us. It begins with informing ourselves and our children. It gets serious when we organize and use real political power to shape and change the institutions that have become corrupted.

The woke think they have the right to be the gatekeepers of all debate, speech, and pedagogy in this country. Let’s show them otherwise.

Mobs and unelected bureaucrats don’t have a right to rule; you do. If we go on the offensive, we will likely find that there is a whole lot more common sense in this country, even at this late hour, than one would think, given the slide of the past several decades.

To win this battle, to restore pride in country, and prevent the United States from slipping into a dark age of decline and possible dissolution, we must make a sustained effort to retake institutions now.

We must do this while there are still Americans left who know what it was like to live in freedom and who wish to hand that down to posterity.

To roll back the advances of atheism, we need to work harder than our cultural enemies to awaken the Church, invade the “institutions” with light and truth, and bring the transforming power of Jesus into every area of American life.

We need to aim high (national revival) and shoot long (multi-generationally).

If we work harder than the atheists, we can renew our nation.