Lux Lucet

2020, a Brief Overview of Where We’ve Been

It’s hardly news to you that 2020 has been an eventful year.  Certainly, it wasn’t a year in which topics were hard to find.  The opposite was the case, really.   There was Coronavirus and the government’s overreaction to it, resulting in lockdowns, mass unemployment, accelerated governmental deficit spending, unprecedented Fed money printing, bailouts, business closures, and mask mandates. As a result of the actions of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, the United States saw what was, perhaps, the worst period of civil unrest in its history.  Pictures of looting, assaults, and monuments being destroyed filled out cell phone and TV screens.  The physical and spiritual damage done to the nation was terrible.  Underlying all this violence was the unbiblical, Marxist ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT), an idea most people had never heard was the intellectual basis of the riots of physically destroyed much of the United States, while leaving citizens in a state of low-level civil was with each other.  In November we had what was, in my opinion, a clearly stolen presidential election, which still has not been settled, despite attempts by the establishment to assure people that Joe Biden is, in fact, the legitimate President-elect.

One of the most disturbing developments of 2020 was the rise of online censorship.  This issue has been building over the past 4 years, but it seemed to explode to a new level in 2020.  It has gotten so bad, that doctors and Ph.D. epidemiologists have had their posts and videos taken down by various social media platforms if they dared offer an opinion on Covid that ran counter to the received wisdom of the WHO or Dr. Fauci.  This stifling of debate is medieval and has no place in a modern, free society.  There is some good news on this front in that many new social media platforms have sprung up to challenge the dominance of Google, Facebook and Twitter.  We wish these new platforms the best of success in their endeavor to make speech free again.

Almost as if to top things off for the year, on the morning of Christmas, a large bomb went off in downtown Nashville.  Thankfully, the blast killed no one, but such an action is disturbing, especially coming on the heels, as it does, of a year of violence.     

And the above covers events only in these United States.

Overseas, we saw the ratcheting up of the globalist program as the World Economic Forum (WEF) further unveiled its plans for the “Great Reset” and the Vatican under the leadership of Pope Francis continued to push its globalism, most notably in a new encyclical from the Pope titled Fratelli Tutti, Brothers All.  Tensions between the United States and China have continued to boil.  There have been what appear to be some major diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East between Israel and several Arab nations, but tensions continue in the region. In a win for those who support the Protestant Westphalian World Order over against the Romanist New World Order, Brexit was settled on terms that long-time Brexiteer Nigel Farage called “not perfect…but still progress.”        

2021, a Look Ahead at Where We May Be Going  

One of the recurring themes of this blog in over the past several years has been the ongoing struggle between the historic, Protestant Westphalian World Order and emerging technocratic New World Order, ultimately led by Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church-State.  Expect this fight to continue and ramp up in 2021. 

Generally, this conflict is presented in the media as between nationalism, on the one hand, and globalism on the other.  While framing the issue as a fight between nationalism and globalism is not wrong, it fails in that it does not pinpoint the source of the conflict between these two opposing view or offer a compelling reason why Christians should support one side rather than the other. 

In an article from February 2, 2020 titled “Brexit, The Protestant Reformation and the Treaty of Westphalia,” I quoted an article from the Washington Post with the headline “Catholics like the European Union more than Protestants do. This is why.”  According to the Post article, two political scientists looked at the differences in attitudes toward the European Union between Protestants and Roman Catholics.  The former, as it turned out, tended to be Euro skeptics, whereas the Catholics tended to view the EU in a positive light.  The two political scientists wrote,

But in 2001, we started looking at Eurobarometer data, and it’s very clear that Catholics, controlling for all other factors, favor the E.U. more than do Protestants.  These attitudes were forged in the Reformation, with the development of two different approaches to governance in Europe. Catholics see Europe as a single cultural whole that ought to be governed in some coordinated way. Protestants, on the other hand, have seen the nation state as a bulwark against Catholic hegemony, and they have been very reluctant to give it up, even as religion has become less important.

The reason Protestants see the nation state as a bulwark against Catholic hegemony [and, I would add, against secular globalists as well] is that the modern nation state is a product of the Protestant Reformation.  More specifically, the modern nation state is a product of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, in which the Protestant allies defeated the Catholic forces that were attempting to continue to subject Protestant nations to the rule of the pope. 

Although the European Union (EU) presents itself as a secular technocracy rather than a return of the Holy Roman Empire, which in the opinion of this author is what the EU actually is, the foundational treaty of the EU, signed in 1957 and effective as of January 1, 1958, is known as the Treaty of Rome.  Also, the popes have historically supported not only the EU, but the continuing erosion of national sovereignty throughout the world.  For example, Vatican News ran a story on May, 10 2020 with the headline “Pope calls on Europeans to uphold core EU values.”  To the surprise of no one, Pope Francis is quoted as encouraging further support of the EU.   

Along these same lines, in his annual Christmas message Urbi et Orbi (Latin for “to the city and to the world”), historically given from the central balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, but this year given from inside the Vatican, the Pope attacked national sovereignty – national sovereignty, aka “Westphalian Sovereignty,” is simply the idea that each nation state has the right to conduct its internal affairs free from outside interference by other nations, perhaps, and most especially, from interference by the pope – individual liberty and capitalism, the economic system of the Bible.  None of this is surprising, but the degree of papal hostility directed at these institutions of liberty still manages to shock me every time I read papal attacks on them.  But just as disturbing as the papal hostility toward personal and national liberty is the ignorance and indifference of many Protestants to the clear and present danger of the papal attacks on them. 

It is my prayer that in 2021, faithful Protestants will again come to recognize the threat that the Office of Antichrist and Mystery Babylon represent to their cherished religious, political and economic liberties.  These liberties are our patrimony, our heritage from the 16^th century Reformation.  Let us defend them with all zeal.     

A second trend to be aware of in the coming year is the continued deterioration of national, corporate and individual finances.  One measure of the seriousness of the situation is that the supply of US dollars increased by about 25% in 2020.  This is the very definition of inflation. Inflation is not, as is commonly thought rising prices.  Rising prices are one effect of inflation but are not inflation themselves.  Inflation is the rate of growth of the money supply over and above the rate of growth in wealth output.  Put another way, if the US economy shrank in 2020 – according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the economy is still 3.5% below its pre-pandemic level – and the money supply expanded by 25%, you have inflation north of 28%. 

Of course, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the official measure of “inflation” in the U.S. which defines inflation as rising prices, shows prices going up at 1.2% annually, nowhere near 28%.  But the CPI is not designed to measure actual cost of living increases.  It’s designed to fool people into thinking prices are going up slower than they are. 

Other measures of price inflation, such as the widely watched Chapwood Index, show inflation running at an annual rate of over 10% in the first half of 2020.      

According to government officials and the money printing economists who haunt the halls of the world’s central banks, all that’s needed to rescue the economy from Covid lockdowns is for the central bank to print money.  But money printing is no substitute for economic production.  As Says Law tells us, products are paid for with products.  Put another way, you first must produce something of value before you consume.  Or as the Apostle Paul put it, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”

The Covid lockdowns have managed to accelerate the economic deterioration of the West that has been in place for over a century.  At some point, perhaps in 2021, we will reach what economist Ludwig von Mises called the “crackup boom.”  A crackup boom is an artificial economic boom brought on by money printing which in the end results in the collapse of the currency as the sheer amount of the newly created money causes people to lose confidence that it will hold its value over time. 

We already have an over extended stock market at record highs due to massive money printing by the Fed, all the while the Main Street economy continues to suffer.  This is the boom.  Will we see the crackup in the dollar in 2021?  That’s hard to say.  Many economic observers are astounded to see how far the central planners have been able to extend the life of our current economic system.  They, as well as this author, are amazed that the current system is still standing.  With that in mind, I decline to say whether a crackup in the U.S. dollar is in store for 2021.  With that said, it’s reasonable to assume that the Fed will continue its rapid money printing in 2021.  From our perspective, this means rising prices and a dollar that will continue to buy less and less. 

Politically, it seems that no matter what happens, 2021 will be a contentious year.  Many have commented that they have never seen the nation so divided politically.  This is my sense of things as well.

From my perspective, I have been shocked at how fast “woke” social justice ideology has overtaken nearly all of society.  Once confined to the fever swamps of the universities, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has made the leap into the mainstream.  In case you are wondering, CRT – I’ve borrowed this definition from writher and podcaster Colin Flaherty – is the idea that black people are the victims of white racism all the time, everywhere and that explains everything.  What is more, white racism is permanent.  It cannot be eradicated from the individual white person.  Any gap, real or perceived, between the performance of black people and white people is exclusively and only the result of white racism.  If blacks are arrested more often than whites, white racism is the only allowable explanation.  If blacks have lower test scores, white supremacy is at fault.  If blacks earn less or have less wealth than whites, its white racism and white racism only that is to blame.  To close these gaps, therefore, various governmental initiatives are needed such as reparations for slavery, which involves giving trillions of dollars of free stuff to blacks at taxpayer expense, and restorative justice, which essentially gives blacks license to commit crime without fear of punishment.

So far as I can tell, there are no institutions in America, including conservative Evangelical churches, that have not to some degree bought into this line of thinking. 

Regardless of who controls the White House after January 20, this issue is not going away, and it is reasonable to see the trend toward this kind of thinking continue in 2021. Critical Race Theory is an ungodly philosophy of blame shifting. To the extent that it is believed and implemented by policy makers, to that degree all Americans of goodwill – regardless of their ethnicity or race – will suffer loss. Christians must speak out against it.

And speaking of politics, the issue of who will be sworn in as president is still not fully settled.  In my opinion, Joe Biden is far and away the most likely person to assume the presidency on inauguration day.  That said, Donald Trump is still out there fighting.  He gave an address on 12/22, an address completely ignored by the mainstream media, in which explains that he is determined to explore “every legal and constitutional option available to stop the theft of the presidential election.”  He then goes on to enumerate the reasons why he believes the election was stolen.   The statement is about 14 minutes long, and I highly recommend you watch it.  This is an extraordinary address, one probably unlike anything before it in American history.  In my opinion, Trump makes a strong case that he was indeed the rightful winner of the election and the victim of an attempt by Democrats to steal the election. 

On top of all the fraud that the President lays out in his address, another reason for believing the Democrats stole the election is that they are corrupt in a way and to a degree that is truly astonishing.  As has been noted in this space numerous times in recent months, the Democrats are, and have been for a long time, the party of “rum, Romanism and rebellion,” to borrow the memorable alliterative turn of phrase of Presbyterian minister Samuel D. Burchard. Of course they stole the election!  That’s just how the Dems roll.  As Ann coulter pointed out, “Democratic machines have been stealing elections since before the civil war.” It’s how they got JFK, the first Roman Catholic president in office, and it’s how they’re going to make Joe Biden the second. As Earl Mazo, a journalist with the New York Herald Tribune, who investigated charges of Democrat election fraud in the 1960 election put it, “There’s no question in my mind that it [the 1960 presidential election] was stolen. It was stolen like mad.  It was stolen in Chicago and in Texas.” The Democrat’s guiding philosophy seems to be that when all else fails, when the chips are down, and when you don’t know what to do, cheat!  As the political home of the Roman Church-State in the U.S., it is in no way surprising that the Democrats are as corrupt as the Church-State herself.

This author fully backs President Trump’s efforts to get a fair hearing for his allegations of election fraud.  So far official Washington has turned a deaf ear to him. But whether Trump is inaugurated on January 20^th, or Joe Biden is, this nation is headed into a period of political conflict.  Indeed, we are already there.  If Trump manages to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, expect more of the riots we saw last year.  If Biden gets in, expect a hard-left agenda based on globalism, environmentalism, socialism and Critical Race Theory.  Our First and Second Amendment rights will be in serious peril.  Lockdowns and mask requirements will be amped up.  How much of this the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump will take is hard to say.  But Biden, and more specifically, the radicals who are riding to power on his coattails, hate the historic American nation and seek to remold it in a more woke, more globalist, more socialist form.  This seems poised to lead to serious conflict. 

Regardless of whether Trump gets four more years or Biden becomes the 46^th president, our economic situation will continue to deteriorate.  We simply cannot continue locking everyone down and bailing everyone out with printed money.  Even if we stop doing this, we still have a currency, the U.S. dollar, that is on life support.   The damage has already been done. Not just in the past year, but over the past century.  The current financial system is breaking down.  And this would be the case even without all the foolish and evil Covid-related policy decisions by our politicians over the past nine months. The answer from the globalists is a great reset, in which the masters of the universe at the World Economic Forum have they absurdly promised that “by 2030 you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” If these evil men get their way, you’ll definitely own nothing, they will own it all, but you certainly won’t be happy.

The Biblical answer is, of course, ending the tyranny of the central bankers, the IRS, the Pope, the Roman Church-State and all the other freedom killing globalist institutions that have done so much to choke out our lives and our liberty.  But its hard to see how this could happen without a new Reformation and a large fight to boot.

Closing Thoughts

I realize that much of what I’ve written has been sharply negative.  It is not my intention to be a pessimist.  Indeed, as a Christian, I know how this ends:  Satan loses and Christ wins.  But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be significant suffering along the way.

As we know from Scripture and can see in extra-biblical history, evil sometimes does triumph, and at times triumphs for long periods of time. As John Robbins wrote in his essay “The Religious Wars of the 21^st Century,”

The Protestant Reformation is indeed over; the respite of peace, freedom, and prosperity it afforded the West from the long history of human brutality is drawing to a close; and the world is about to enter a new Dark Age of slavery, brutality, and war. Only the second coming of Christ or an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit can prevent religious totalitarians from imposing their will on billions of people.   

My purpose in writing this brief look ahead to 2021 is to give you a glimpse of some of the major forces that are shaping the world around us.  The trend is not our friend.  How are we to respond as Christians?  Let us begin by remembering the words of Christ, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” he said.  It was true then and it is true now.  All of history has been directed by God for his own glory and for the good of his people.  Second, knowing this, let us hear the words of Proverbs, “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself; The simple pass on and are punished.”

Don’t be simple.  Be prudent. 

There are good reasons to think that difficult times are in the offing.  Let us, therefore, pray and get to work as the Lord leads us.  He has preserved his people in past times of trial.  He will do so again. 

In closing, I wish you and your family a blessed, happy and prosperous new year. 

Pages: 1 2