NeoZine

Christians go to war

It Happened 100 Yards Away!

Revolution changed the face of America in less than a decade not long ago.

Today is the anniversary of the student killings at Kent State. It happened at “the Grassy Knoll”, about 100 yards from where NeoXenos meets for Bible Study. Buildings were in flames because students were outraged that nobody would listen. The Ohio National Guard tried to crush student unrest with firepower, so they fired on a crowd of students.

When the smoke cleared, everything changed. Four students were dead, another eight seriously wounded, and the “massacre” as some called it became a pivotal turning-point in modern American history. The killings galvanized students across the country, and riots spread everywhere: a revolution was launched, and the incident became a symbol of tyranny that radicals rallied around.

The Revolutionaries were defiant and sassy: “When it gets down to it, soldiers are cutting us down!” they sang: “It should’ve been done long ago!”

Students who were merely onlookers were “born again” into agitators, speakers, financiers, writers, pamphlet-peddlers, and organizers migrating from one college campus to another. They lived in communes and were dedicated to “the cause” – not merely to end the VietNam War, but to redefine American culture. Morality was too black-and-white, they said, schools were too compliant, sex was too restricted, and Christianity was the reason; even worse, it was their parent’s religion.

In less than a decade, America was a different place.

Smashing Failures

Meanwhile, Church Institutions waged a war instead of leading a Revolution. Formidable Christian leaders, led by Francis Schaeffer in the 1970s, advocated political action as a way to turn America back to Christianity.¹ The Moral Majority, CBN and countless other organizations believed America should be Christianized through political action. They wielded formidable political power and were largely credited for establishing the Reagan era in the 1980s.

Their intentions and causes were noble and worthy, but their work became synonymous with “Christianity”, and this is where their work turned away from Christianity–because Christianity is the Body of Christ, not a political machine.

Now the roles were suddenly reversed: Christians defended “The Establishment”, and anti-Christians became “The Revolution.” Authentic Christianity was never enthroned within The Establishment, ever! Something was sacrificed in order to wage war against the counter-culture revolution, and it was the initiative. We went on defense, and we defended The System

Jesus never launched a war; he launched a Revolution.²

Christians Don’t Make Good Nazis

War achieves primitive and very deceptive victories. An invading army can seize power overnight, like the Germans did with Blitzkrieg in WWII, but seizing power cannot win the hearts of the people. The brilliant Nazi Blitzkrieg left them with a  headache of managing a vast slave-system in their conquered territories. Millions of slaves grew disgruntled, restless and eager to undermine the Nazis. With each victory, the Nazis grew weaker as their resources stretched thinner and slave populations grew. Resentment destroyed the Nazis.

This is war: brute strength smashing all opposition. War destroys. War has been a smashing failure tor Christianity.

Christian “Culture Wars” are fought with the brute-strength tactics of war.  National rallies gathering Christian armies and billions of dollars launched ad campaigns (“I found it!”) and built powerful political machines. Lobbyists moved to Washington, leading a vast army of Church Institutions swearing to “take back the country!”

Church Institutions were never close to “winning” America. Christians never owned America, but they were pushed into thinking they once owned it by the counter-culture revolution.

While Christians waged a war for political control, they grew more unpopular. While the Christian agenda dominated the political landscape, fewer and fewer people wanted to pray–much less-so in schools–and fewer cared to join the Christian cause. In other words, Christianity declined and resentment increased.

Satan will never allow Christians to take over The System. But more important, God is uninterested in taking over The System.

For a little while it seemed Christians were going to win, but only because we were better-organized and better-financed than the opposition–at first.

But Culture Wars never created Christians, and those early victories were deceptive.  A spiritual desert was beginning to grow.

Trench Warfare

Christians are tough people with exactly the right character to make the best revolutionaries: sacrificial, able to suffer, bribery-resistant, charismatic and warm, sharp thinkers, and very committed. Saturated throughout is Revolutionary Joy.

But when Christians stopped spreading The Revolution and started digging trenches, they built Church Institutions, and they marginalized themselves.

A generation of Christians was badly shaken by the  Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, and Christians were understandably scared. Today it’s difficult to appreciate how terrifying the “counter culture” was for Christians long-accustomed to a Christian-friendly world back then.  What Christians did not understand back then is how Christian-unfriendly the world really is.

Consider this fact: the Cultural Revolution struck with lightening speed and within 5 or 6 years it not only transformed American culture, it left an indelible mark on Christianity we now recognize as Church Institutions.  It all erupted in in San Francisco in the famous “Summer of Love”.

New year’s eve, San Francisco. Country Joe and the Fish play the final set at the Avalon Ballroom, ushering in 1967. That same night, Big Brother and the Holding Company, fronted by Janis Joplin, perform nearby in Golden Gate Park. Two weeks later, 20,000 people pack the park for the first Human Be-In – a foretaste of the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury. Timothy Leary, in a phrase of his own invention, tells the assembled tribe to “turn on, tune in, drop out.”‘ The Age of Aquarius is dawning in 1967…The year brought important breakthroughs in what historian Theodore Roszak later described as “the making of a counter culture.” – Rolling Stone Magazine.

Don’t ask me what a “Be-In” is. My older brothers were all about it, and one even wore a burlap potato-sack as a shirt (yes, it itched!), so I never could relate with the fruity aspects of the counterculture. (I did love “The Age of Aquarius” song, even if it was fruity.)

The Rolling Stone historian gives a good picture of this time, which helps understand its impact:

We should remember 1967 not as the time the nation turned on and tuned in but as the moment the United States began hurtling toward a nervous breakdown, driven by conflict that would change the country and the world forever. It was the beginning of an era of intense polarization – one in which, arguably, we are still living. – Rolling Stone

It all went to hell: riots erupted everywhere, led by “freaks and hairies, dikes and fairies” advocating free sex, gay sex, group sex and a rejection of old-fashioned morality. (What is morality if not someone’s imagination?)

Everyone hated the WWII generation, and the old folks reacted in-kind. Communists infiltrated the government, they said, and “The Reds” were leading the student organizations that burned ROTC buildings and American flags.  The institutions of “higher learning” became hotbeds of Communist revolution, they said, and liberal professors like Timothy Leary were teaching the kids to renounce all morals. The WWII generation resented being ostracized when they should have been honored for preserving American freedoms.

Then drugs suddenly poured into the streets (from Communists, they supposed), and suddenly their children were sucked into a seamy underworld of crime and drug trafficking. My older brother Dennis was busted growing a field of marijuana, and it made top-headlines in Columbus, Ohio in 1968: “Hippies Have Invaded Columbus!”

Then the music went bonkers! The doo-whop-bee-bop happy groups and church choirs were drowned out by treasonous music, like “Sympathy for the Devil”. The musicians ridiculed Jesus Christ, and John Lenin claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus (read: “greater-than-Jesus”). Subliminal messages were planted in the music (play “Revolution” backwards, and something’s there). Heroes of the counterculture like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others were dying like flies from drug overdose, but the kids still worshipped drug songs like “Purple Haze” and “Sister Morphine.”

It was also the heyday of Liberal Protestantism which swallowed whole denominations across America, creating great rifts among Church Institutions and seminaries.

But the idealistic part of the counterculture was fading away when I entered High School in 1970, so it was mostly about the drugs and music and anti-war protests.  Be-Ins were replaced by “Smoke-Ins” (which made more sense to me). The Midwest wasn’t inundated with the drugs until I entered high school, and by 1975 the VietNam ware was gone and the entire revolution was quickly fading away. Fortunately, I was only affected by the counterculture during the most vulnerable and formative years of my life.

One thing we do know about Church Institutions: they create traditions. And history proves Church traditions change with great difficulty, if ever. A tradition of antagonism and alienation between Church Institutions and the counterculture (i.e., Post-Christian America) was firmly established.

Make Love, Not War!

The point to this history lesson is to explain why Church Institutions are so alienated from the culture. Their monopoly on cultural norms was decisively severed by 1975, and America entered the Post-Christian era.³ Church Institutions are still entrenched and perpetually warring against non-Christian behaviors: handicapped by the shock of Culture Shock.

The “war effort” simply doesn’t work under God’s authority. Christians only lost more ground when they escalated things with gobs of money and banded together to “take back” American politics.

Here’s a radical idea: let’s reach more people for Jesus Christ and see if that helps. Let’s get so excited about The Revolution that we start throwing everything at it, like the students did with the counterculture, and revolution changed everything in less than a decade. Why be reserved about the Risen Christ? Is there any reason to think he didn’t give us The Revolution?

Let’s abandon Trench Warfare and get past our Culture Shock.  Americans won’t respond to threats or political ploys from Church Institutions any more. It’s impossible to hide from the Post-Christian culture: it follows us into our living rooms. The most effective way to deal with it is through Revolution.

But Americans love Revolution!

Christians grew timid about their Revolutionary heritage because Christians are the good people who don’t cause problems. Revolutionaries are those bad people like Communists, Hippies and Yippies.

Why let The Revolution get hijacked and redefined by other groups? Christians once had the initiative in the arena of Revolution.

Won’t you join us? Help spread the word about The Revolution. That’s all it takes.

When counterculture revolutionaries attacked Church Institutions it made sense: they saw Church Institutions as another industry like GM or Ford, and they hated “The System” in all its greedy forms, especially Church. The image continues still today: polls show that most people are suspicious of Christianity because it’s all about the money, it seems.

Christianity shares far more in-common with the revolutionaries of the 60s than with Capitalists of Wall Street. It’s time to quit building Church Institutions and build The Revolution instead. When this happens, eyes light up and people get interested again. Christianity doesn’t seem so passe.

They once said, “Make love, not war!” It’s a good slogan (for a number of reasons), and Christians should use it, because that’s what The Revolution is all about: revolutionaries who really care about the plight of non-Christians.

Leave us a comment!

Footnotes:

1. It could be argued that Rev. Martin Luther King actually started the trend, but Rev. King did not try to “Christianize” America. [↩]
2. Although Jesus used military language like “I came with a sword to divide…” he was also clear it was an metaphorical “sword of division” among family members. This happens when a family member becomes a revolutionary: it happened during the counterculture revolution in my own family, between the parents and first three boys. [↩]
3. It’s highly debatable Christian Institutions ever monopolized anything in America; the institutions themselves are too diverse and disunified. Catholics and Liberal Protestants traditionally supported Democrats, while Conservative Protestants typically supported Republicans. But there was a “Christian concensus”, which is best defined broadly as an agreement that Christian principles were good and nobel; the Christian concensus was much-despised by the counterculture movement. [↩]

---