21 Jul How Can We Understand Our Current Political Upheaval?
Men have forgotten God
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for literature, was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and communism, and as a result, spent years in the Soviet Gulag, a forced labor-camp system. Through worldwide political pressure, he was eventually freed, and allowed to immigrate to the United States.
Shortly after he arrived, he was invited to speak at a Harvard University commencement ceremony, where he famously identified the problems facing the world: “Men have forgotten God.”
It was a sentence heard round the world. It was an embarrassment to Harvard and a repudiation of secular values that were tightening their stranglehold on American higher education. But it was true then, and it is even truer now.
The problems we are facing in the United States are not merely political problems, they are not merely cultural problems, they are, at the root, spiritual problems. The conflict and division we are seeing now is unprecedented, because the degree of our abandonment of God is unprecedented.
A biblical perspective
As news broadcasts were reporting a transition from attacks on confederate generals and other figures of US history, to stories of Christian statues being desecrated, and churches being attacked and even burned, best-selling Christian author Eric Metaxas was asked in a recent television news interview what he thought was driving the latest attacks on Christianity.
He replied that he thought there was something very dark behind it, that it could not be understood merely by political motivation, but was actually a reflection of a hatred of God, a rejection of all authority and was satanic in origin. Quite an unusual statement to be heard on a national news broadcast.
Having said that, I think he is right.
In James 3:15-16, we see that wisdom produced by self-will is “earthly, natural, and demonic.” I remember years ago reading that passage and being hit for the first time with the word “demonic.” I could see “earthly and natural,” but “demonic?!?” I was surprised. But there it was!
This wisdom, rooted in “self-will” and which is “earthly, natural and demonic,” produces “disorder and every evil thing.”
When we watch the newscasts of the rioting, vandalism and insurrection around our country, it certainly qualifies as “disorder and every evil thing.”
Are there other reasons to believe Metaxas’s conclusion that what we are seeing is satanic? Well, of course, we already know that Christians face continuous spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, and then lists an apparent hierarchy of demonic forces that are our true enemy: “rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.”
This seems to mesh with the Daniel 10:10-13 passage where we see Daniel being visited by a very powerful angel from God who came in response to a prayer Daniel prayed. The angel said that he would have come sooner, but he was prevented from coming by the prince of the kingdom of Persia.
It seems that the “prince” of Persia was a very high demonic power who had satanic authority over the country of Persia. Perhaps a “world force of darkness?” This prince of Persia had been sent to fight against the angel from God to keep him from coming in answer to Daniel’s prayer.
We learn in verse 20 that Greece had a prince, as well. Another “world force of darkness”? Most evangelical scholars agree from this that there are very high and powerful demons assigned to countries to advance the devil’s will. It seems likely, then, that there is a prince of the United States, cooperating with other demonic forces to advance a worldwide satanic agenda that opposes God.
Conclusion
All this causes me to conclude that the political and cultural upheaval that we are seeing affecting, not only the US, but nations all around the world, is an apparent coordinated satanic attack. I believe our political and cultural upheaval can only be understood if it is seen as a physical manifestation of a massive spiritual war going on between Satan and God. It makes no sense whatsoever on a purely logical basis.
So, should we work wisely within our democratic political system to oppose the unbiblical upheaval? Yes.
Should we vote next November for those who will help uphold biblical values? Yes.
But more than anything, as 1 Timothy 2:1-8 tells us, we should pray.
This is a battle that must be won, not merely by wise political activity or discerning voting, but by prayer.
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