By Tom Klocek and Brent Ramsey

“When individuals are responsible, society prospers; when they lose their sense of responsibility, society decays.” —Fr. John Catoir

While humanity continues to attempt to exert its own control over creation, with a resultant loss in spiritual guidance among too many, it has also lost the sense of dignity proper to them. Under the guise of concern for all and their dignity, in 2023 it endorses and is a proponent of undignified actions and lifestyles, including emphasizing sinful actions as good and good actions as wrongs (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, LGBTQ+, gender transition for minors, etc.).

There is a concerted effort to suppress religion and free speech and to destroy the family. The Movement for Black Lives (with Black Lives Matter the most prominent among them) publicly advocates destruction of the family and destruction of capitalism yet received billions of dollars in support from businesses and individuals believing they were supporting something good. How different from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who in his landmark speech said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

This is the world today, and it is a time of encroaching darkness. There are still conflicts occurring throughout the world, some more bloody (Ukraine) than others (China/Taiwan). At times, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be closing in on us. But there are points of light — not everyone has succumbed to the darkness.

Voltaire said, “So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religions and otherwise, to put shackles on sleeping men.” The oft-used quote, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” is variously attributed to Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, or even Leo Tolstoy and captures what we are up against.

This essay is part of an effort to bring that light out of the darkness and make it known to others so that those who have concerns for the future, the “aware but not engaged” and the “apathetic,” will awaken and come to the defense of this great nation. Our nation has blessed the world for over 200 years with its progress and strength, and, with the blessings of God, wrenched the world out of two world wars and continually aided people suffering from conflicts and catastrophes all over the world.

Yes, like all humans, we are flawed. But we continue to look to the light. There are those who would deny God, saying He has no place in the governing of nations. Yet history has shown that those nations that believe in God and rely on Him have done the most for the world.

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. … It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in;’ aim at earth and you will get neither [emphasis added].” —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Our national motto is “In God We Trust.” God is on our money and is part of our founding documents as stated in the Declaration of Independence. It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes. When face to face with one’s own mortality, humans often turn to their Creator, the same Creator mentioned in that Declaration. Founder John Adams stated it unequivocally: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Denying God, denying science in the name of science, totally ignoring the need for responsibility for one’s actions in the name of “freedom,” and using racism to “fight” racism are not answers. They all contribute to the problem. The woke ideology undermines the basic principles that bring this nation and any nation together. Using disunity (divisiveness) as a method to promote unity will not work. Benjamin Franklin reminded the founders, “United we stand, divided we fall.” Our nation is one. E Pluribus Unum — out of many one. This statement is also on our currency and on the Great Seal of the United States. We need to fight against those efforts to divide us. “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand” (Matthew 12:25).

Woke ideology breaks down unity as each individual becomes his own determinant of what is important. It makes everything relative to oneself. The individual becomes more important than the whole. And in an oxymoronic sense, the nation seems to be leaning more and more toward communism/statism (the ultimate goal of socialism) in which the individual is unimportant beyond what it can do for the state.

We need to awaken the sleeping. We need to inspire our fellow citizens to look to the words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and act: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”