“A hundred years from now, there will be history professors who specialize in the study of one quarter of the year 2020.”
I remember instantly thinking, “Yeah, that’s about right” as I read that a few weeks back, on Twitter I think. It’s a paraphrase, but you get the idea: We are living in an amazing time – the kind of time when things shift into a crazy high gear, unleashing changes of great significance in a quantity and at a pace that seemed unthinkable just a short while back.
A certain Lenin quote leaps to mind in this context, especially with so much of the craziness unfolding now having its roots in the Marxist/Wokeness vibe that has been metastasizing in the land (and its churches) for generations: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
We are living in one of those high-octane, open-the-floodgates times now.
This is an exciting point in history in many ways, and as I write here in the late evening of Saturday, July 25, 2020, I want to find a way to convey the excitement, happiness, and confidence that I have even against the backdrop of a whole lot of dark drama and flat out craziness swirling about and seeming to intensify by the week, if not by the day.
I’m excited because of the opportunities that are now coming into focus – opportunities so great and numerous that it’s hard to believe.
I’m happy because of the good things that will soon come through the dark times we face now, even though there will no doubt be great pain along the way.
I’m confident because I know that all of this apparent chaos is ultimately purposeful and will benefit God’s people – and this confidence doesn’t linger up in the clouds of that concept at the macro level. Rather, it’s rooted in the knowledge that King Jesus is actively engaged at this very moment in the process of redeeming his creations of economics, politics, education, art, and everything else in every vivid, infinitesimally small detail, and that me and my family, if we’re taking Him at His Word and are guided by His Spirit, can expect to find incalculably valuable detailed information in that Word as to how we can play a very real role in the redemption of those areas of His creation in accordance with His Gospel-fueled Great Commission.
So yeah, I’m excited, happy, and confident that the zombie apocalypse is on the horizon, if not yet completely upon us.
Bring it on.
Now back to the Twitter and Lenin quotes…
These remarkable, historic times in which we have been providentially placed have inspired me to shift, plan, and prepare new schedules and new strategies for new adventures that I hope will be beneficial to the cause of advancing the Kingdom right here and now in the middle of Hurricane 2020 (likely to be followed by an even larger Hurricane 2021).
This vibe had taken root in my life and home a little while before I shared the post entitled What I want my kids to know about how I saw the world on April 4, 2020. Since sharing that post, I’ve been prepping new projects and material (some of which I will write about soon), but all along the way I’ve been feeling a pressure to record and share some thoughts on the different areas of madness/opportunity blowing up all around us.
So here I am now, composing what will surely be much more of a stream-of-consciousness deal and less structured of an article than I usually aim for, asking for your patience as I touch base on some items that I think are noteworthy in the moment, hopefully with a thought and/or prediction attached that will make them at least slightly less boring than a bullet point list of obviously crazy things about the Year of our Lord 2020.
I’m also viewing this as a sort of quarterly installment on how I see the world and where I think things will go from here, perhaps having been prompted by that tweeted line to offer up real-time, in-the-moment thoughts for those professors to kick around a hundred years from now.
More to the point, I really want to preserve these thoughts for my children, grandchildren, and the future generations that flow through them, so that they might get a taste of how crazy, brilliant, prophetic, and/or clueless I was “back in the day”…July 25, 2020, to be precise.
So with that said, here we go…:
- Politically Obsessed Herd Narratives – One of the most remarkable things to me about this point in time here in 2020 ‘Merica is the way that so many people have been completely sucked into a purely political approach to things. By this I mean that political narratives have become the everything-defining lenses through which increasingly lockstep herds on both the Left and Right interpret and understand things. The way that so many people can’t even talk about things like Coronavirus or face masks apart from the very narrow Herd Narrative to which they’ve attached themselves has been odd and more than a little creepy to witness.
. - Loud/Firm Opinions Combined With An Open Aversion To Research – Another interesting, sad, and related (to point #1) development over the past few months is the way that so many have embraced a peculiar (and inherently destructive) combination of: 1. Having a solid, set opinion as to what a thing is (or isn’t), while at the same time, 2: Being openly committed to avoiding any information that might challenge their preferred Herd Narrative as it relates to that thing. Again, face masks and Coronavirus are prime examples of this, but they are only two examples – two symptoms of a disturbing fog rolling over the land. I’m talking more about the mode of thought taking root in people’s minds, rather than the way that mode intersects with a particular subject.
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This increasingly common combo of “I am convinced of _______” + “I have no interest in researching _______ in any way that might lead me away from what I’m convinced about _______” strikes me as just the sort of Romans 1 nuttiness one would expect to see captivate a culture as it circles the drain. Even though I know in my head that a culture under the judgment of God would be increasingly prone to such behavior, it’s very weird to watch it unfold so starkly all over the place, even in “Reformed Christian” circles or other similarly conservative groups that pride themselves on their reasonableness and serious, systematic thought. Watching so many of these folks avoid waves of info that conflicts with their pet Narrative while lunging for any article or nugget that supports it – all while claiming to be fans of consistent, logical, and systematic approaches to reality – has been one of the more surreal developments of 2020, from my perspective anyway.
. - Strange Denials of (What Should Be) Obvious Signs of Systemic Economic Meltdown & Change – Also related to point #1: The obvious, slow moving derailment of our present (and very much temporary) economic system. This is something that I’ve written about for years and plan to cover in much more detail from here on out, precisely because of the profound opportunities that this shift will make possible for people, families, and communities that act upon what is clearly happening now and is completely in line with a well-defined course charted generations ago.
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For whatever reason(s), those who should be most prepared and well positioned to educate, prepare, and inspire God’s people to navigate through what we’re seeing so plainly presented on the economic front, don’t seem to be bringing much systematic thought or analysis to the situation. The broader American evangelical church is almost completely clueless about both the details of our present (and explicitly unbiblical/anti-Christian system) and the details that the Word of God has to say on the subject of economics. Even the supposedly more systematically inclined subgroup of Christians that includes many Reformed churches is only slightly better informed. They might have a general, reflexive (and quite healthy) appreciation for gold or silver as “sound money”, but that’s about it. To be heading into a once-in-multiple-lifetimes period of economic convulsion, carnage, and opportunity without detailed knowledge of our perverse economic system and how it relates to God’s creation of economics in detail is a tragedy. It’s heartbreaking to see such (temporarily) blissful ignorance permeating the Christian scene even as the stage is being set for massive strides forward for those who take Him seriously in detail on the subject of economics.
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This situation is motivating two projects that I’m working on now and will share soon. In the meantime, and to (hopefully) add a bit of fun to this post, I’d like to offer up some predictions…
. - Economic Prediction #1: Not only will there be another massive $1 Trillion+ “stimulus” package passed and signed by President Trump in the coming week or two, but we are likely to move into some form of Universal Basic Income in the United States by year’s end. While the transition may not be stated so clearly, the practical reality will be established by things like perpetually renewed “stimulus” and unemployment bonus benefits.
. - Economic Prediction #2: There will be a massive stock “market” crash in the August-October timeframe. (I put the word market in quotes because it is no longer a market in any meaningfully positive sense of the word due to the Fed’s now clear, open, and utterly insane commitment to keep it from going down by any means necessary.)
. - Economic Prediction #3: President Trump is basically “running up the credit card before filing for bankruptcy” where U.S. finances are concerned. This will become increasingly plain as the coming months unfold and will contribute to the ultimate demise of the dollar as the global reserve currency. But even that, if it happens at the right time, could fit well into a Trump plan to tackle/kill The Fed during a second term.
. - Economic Prediction #4: Pensions and retirement funds kept in dollars will be hammered to the point that mass despair will sweep the culture. This is not decades away. This will likely happen very soon.
. - Economic Prediction #5: Americanized Christians will be as unprepared as garden variety pagans for the consequences of a rapidly devalued dollar due to, among other things, the negligence of church leadership on the subject of economics. The failure of professing church leaders to take King Jesus seriously on the subject of His creation of economics will result in massive economic distress and despair within the professing church.
. - Cultural Prediction #1: Government-run child indoctrination systems will crumble as home education thrives. Home education options will multiply and flourish across the otherwise dying and distressed culture, but not primarily because church leaders finally repented of their support of explicitly anti-Christian State-run child programming factories (aka “schools”) as viable approaches to teaching children. No, the surge in decentralized, home-based education will come in spite of most church leaders’ continued support of such culture-warping monstrosities. God is even now using Coronavirus to accomplish what an army of wormy, spineless church leaders have refused to do for generations.
. - Cultural Prediction #2: The sheer depravity of ruling elites will become even more apparent. This will take place in many ways, but one of the greatest will be a large scale awakening to the long-running and systematic economic rape and pillaging of the masses for generations under a fiat $lavery system that empowers a tiny elite to create wealth effortlessly out of thin air so that they can use it to effectively own and control everyone and everything beneath them. This awakening will continue to fuel massive protest movements, rebellions, and revolutions across the globe (some of which will be rooted in evil/Marxist worldviews, like BLM, while others are rooted in completely sound, biblical approaches to justice, freedom, and economics).
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#JusticeForBanksters #EpsteinDidntKillHimself #EndTheFed
. - Cultural Prediction #3: Decentralization, decentralization, decentralization! Many of the oldest zombie dinosaur systems and approaches to government, business, economics, and education are about to go down. Hard. And that is a beautiful thing!
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I have and will continue to chronicle and encourage this in various ways, but for now it’s enough to say that decentralization is the concept that will most define the next 5-10 years (at least).
. - Cultural Prediction #4: The center will not hold for the United States. For all the talk of “civil war” (which is a distinct possibility, especially in light of the massive civil unrest that is already underway and seems likely to escalate) and the fantasies and/or delusions of secession harbored by some, the more likely scenario seems to be that the DC-center simply unravels or implodes, setting its subject states or regions free to pursue whatever it is they think will work best for them. The writing on the wall on this is about as thick and emphatic as any has ever been: The Empire is over. Psalm 2 is no joke. The gig is up. King Jesus is not, and has never been, playing around. Welcome to reality.
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Very soon questions that were once heresy will become openly entertained and thoughtfully pursued. Is [insert your home state here] better or worse off under the control of Washington, DC? This sort of question will take on an entirely new flavor once the dollar dies and DC can’t type into existence the funding needed to keep its massive zombie Welfare/Warfare/Big Brother state lumbering on anymore. Once the power is stripped from Uncle Scam’s Bankster buddies and the countless massive programs upon which we’ve been made dependent can no longer be funded, will states and regions continue to submit and attach themselves to the insanity that now routinely flows from DC? Why would they, if the “money” is gone?
. - Cultural Prediction #5 – Normalcy bias and other reality-avoidance devices will give way to facing truth head-on…eventually. This could have (and perhaps should have) been the first prediction or point that I made, but I saved it for last in order to put it in position to help emphasize the attractiveness of denial in a time when foundations are in serious flux and seemingly on the verge of complete collapse. Wanting things to be “normal” or “like they were” is understandable, especially if things were going well for you prior to 2020. Wanting to believe that the dollar won’t really die because it hasn’t died yet is understandable, if foolish. Wanting to pretend that because the weight of God’s unbreakable Law hasn’t crushed an openly prideful and rebellious culture yet, it won’t do so in 2020 or 2021 is also understandable, even if it is also quite foolish. Wanting to trust in the anti-Christian systems of economics, government, and education upon which we’ve become dependent is also understandable. And also terminally foolish…as we will soon see with increased clarity that will lead to increased awareness and, Lord willing, increased conviction, repentance and restoration.
I could go on, and I look forward to sharing and interacting more with you in the future, but I’ll pause here and hang it up for the night.
Lord willing, I’ll be following up soon with additional details on other projects aimed at tackling the opportunities that God is placing before us at this point in His creations of time and history. In the meantime, have a great weekend, a wonderful Lord’s Day, and remember: He has us right when and where He wants us.
Soli Deo Gloria…and let’s roll!.
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1. I think your economic predictions and observations are spot on, except I'm not as confident in your timelines. We must reap what we've sown at some point, and our breaking of God's economic and moral laws will have serious consequences.
2. In regard to cultural prediction #1, it has the opportunity to be good or bad. With all the unrest and declared emergencies, the governments could give themselves power to police what's taught in the home. Just because it's at home, it doesn't mean it will be good. Though, it's automatically a blessing to keep the family more together, potentially minimizing negative, external influences that stir up disunity.
3. Cultural prediction #2 I think can also go many directions. For believers, the evil will become apparent. For others, the consequences of evil leaders will become apparent, but I'm not sure that they have the discernment to truly tell what is good and evil. This risks tempting them to entrust another evil individual or group to bring stability and rescue them from this chaos. Order out of chaos has been used by past tyrants to grab power from those that are desperate for peace, security, and stability.
4. Cultural prediction #3 I think this is unlikely, though definitely desirable. In my pessimism, I'm inclined to believe that people will clamor for government centralization for the greater good. It really depends on the spiritual condition of the populace. Will they see the devastation and repent, or will they see the devastation and dig in their rebellion against God as those seen in Revelation 6 or in Jeremiah before Babylon invaded? In most churches, I see preachers aggressively pushing their congregants to rally around statist Republicans. Churches like Robert Jeffress dominate evangelical Christianity and it's view on governance.
5. Cultural prediction #4 – I agree that the Empire is over, in the sense that it won't function with the facade of intended goodness to its subjects. We're a nation in decline and denial. However, I'm not sure that even if people ask about the relevance DC that DC will let them out from under its wing. The unCivil War is proof of that. Once in the Union, you're expected to stay in it or die, at whatever costs to the nation and its people
6. Cultural prediction #5 – I agree with the prediction that people will have to come to realize that things will never be "normal" again. I'm just not confident about your prediction of a proper response. Based on what I see in those calling themselves "Christian", I expected a shock that hardens the heart instead of softens it. I think many professing believers are truly lost, because of the easy-believism and mega-church influence. The masses believe that sin doesn't have consequences, and if it does, it's someone else's fault and sins. America has literally preached itself into being inoculated to the truth. "Reprobate" comes to mind.
I genuinely hope your predictions are accurate and mine are not, but I just wanted you to consider an equally-plausible set of alternatives.
I have a current event email letter that I send out. All of the readership are from a denomination called IFB (Independent Fundamental Baptist). The majority of those readers are full, in-the-tank, Trump supporters, and it's treated like a sin against God to not back him by voting 3rd party or abstaining from the general Presidential election. They love the state and power more than God.
I read this column and may be a little concerned. Growing up in the US and living under our economic system was what we just did. We financed our house and still have a loan on it an one other loan and no other debt. We pay our legal theft to he government via property taxes. Homeschooled our daughters and purpose to maintain a biblical worldview however in the economics front what is a family suppose to do differently when we work within a system we have no control over? I’m not understanding how we should live outside or even what outside of the financial system our government has set up to live under would look like.
Have you written other articles specifically mentioning this? I want to be ready for this collapse but am really not sure how to implement such a, foreign to me, plan.
I have been anxiously waiting for your take on all of this because of other articles you have written about America and it’s idols being torn down and seeing it come to pass as I see the Wuhan virus pull down the Hollywood culture, NFL, NBA, MLB and the schools. Lots of “entertainment” centers have taken big hits and been closed for months because of the Wuhan virus like bars, pool halls, tattoo parlors, and such. Now strange enough it’s the left who are calling for the schools to stay closed. This is a win to me.
Also pulling down statues? Threatening to pull down statues of Christ and Mary which Jesus warned about not creating an image to bow down to, are being vandalized. We are living in so interesting times.