There are only two directions before us in this civilizational moment. We will either experience a true revival and recovery of those eternal principles and foundations in the Gospel or we will lose them in this generation as our culture commits the Romans 1 folly of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
Many of you, like me, have been watching the chaos unfold at our nation’s top college campuses for some time. These struggle sessions aren’t once in a blue moon but daily occurrences. The old expression that “the inmates are running the asylum” has come full circle. The woke virus has metastasized at full strength and is now infecting virtually everything it touches at these institutions.
This certainly is true when you consider the top brass at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania not being able to give the most basic and clear denunciations to the vilest expressions of hatred and antisemitism.
Today, CHAZ-style encampments fill the campus of Columbia University. The occupiers are shouting, “Kill all Zionists, long live Hamas!” But this isn’t just at Columbia. From New York to California, blue cities and blue campuses are erupting with the most prejudicial, vehement, and vilest expressions of hatred towards the Jewish people that America has ever seen.
It is by no means isolated; in fact, it’s alarming just how widespread it’s become. According to Pew Research, most Americans under 30 sympathize with the Palestinian people, and it comes as no surprise that their Palestinian sympathies are often accompanied by antisemitism and expressions of hatred and violence.
Some of you might be thinking: They said they wanted these campuses to be “safe spaces”— but these campuses don’t look safe at all. And you would be correct.
However, the demand for safe space was only ever a tactical maneuver for political correctness to supplant equal opportunity, equal rights, and equal protections under the old system and replace it with intersectionality, critical consciousness, and Marxism under a new system.
Right now, administrators at Columbia are trying to negotiate with pro-Hamas protesters instead of establishing order and civility.
What is happening did not happen overnight. It started back in the 1930s when the Frankfurt School — a group of German philosophers who applied Marxism to a radical interdisciplinary theory of society — finally landed at Columbia University and began its work in the United States.
Herbert Marcuse, the group’s most high-profile leader, promoted the breakdown of Christian morality and culture, along with the traditional family and western freedom. He promoted cultural Marxism and critical theory. What we are seeing today is some 90 years in the making.
Now, Columbia University wants to suspend residential classes and adopt an online model until peace and civility can be restored. Parents and donors are naturally outraged; parents are demanding a refund.
In a viral video circulated on X this week, Columbia University professor Shai Davidai, a Jewish man, could not enter his own workplace. He had his security card deactivated by Columbia’s chief operating officer. According to Columbia University, this was in the name of public safety as the elite institution with a $13.6 billion endowment could not guarantee the safety of Jewish students or faculty members. That’s actually what happens when you kowtow to the left. Play games with the left and you win leftist prizes.
But how should Christians think about this? Here’s the point: Lest we forget that October 7 was one of the most horrific events in Israel’s history and for the Jewish people: 1200 people were massacred and over 200 were taken hostage by Hamas. Right now, over 100 hostages remain in captivity. It is by no means over.
In America, the cultural rot is easily seen, but not easily remedied. As Christians, we recognize that the seeds of destruction have been sown for a long time. It’s the fruits that we are seeing today. But evil cannot perpetuate itself permanently. Remember, this is the world that God created and Christ has overcome it. He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. But as to our cultural moment and its rot, C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man:
“And all the time — such is the tragi-comedy of our situation — we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more drive, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or creativity. In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Lewis was right, and only Jesus Christ can fix the mess that we’re in. It actually starts with Christians first believing the Gospel we say we believe in. Second, we need to make clear about what is happening politically. We are at a civilizational moment, and there is no balance between good and evil. Evil must be defeated, pure and simple, therefore good must win.
Are you on the side of good? Then act like it. Don’t play the sideline critic. Play the field and take the hill. There are only two directions before us in this civilizational moment. We will either experience a true revival and recovery of those eternal principles and foundations in the Gospel that once made America strong, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, or we will lose them in this generation as our culture commits the Romans 1 folly of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
Christians cannot afford to be silent in this moment. Faithfulness demands obedience. As the Apostle Paul said, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5, ESV).
We must stand for truth and righteousness and we must take the hill. It is the most loving thing that we can do.
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