A hero to Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, Anglo-American intellectual Thomas Paine was a radical pamphleteer, political theorist/ propagandist, and activist. Paine, the young Lincoln, and Obama (all three) are sons of the Enlightenment. On behalf of a group of men who wished to convey a message to humanity, a peculiar monument known as the Georgia Guidestones, or America’s Stonehenge, was commissioned in 1979 to recognize Thomas Paine and to etch in stone his enlightened viewpoint.

10 Commandments; 29 Programs

Engraved in eight different languages on four giant stones that support a common capstone is a specific message to humanity summarized in Ten Commandments that, when aligned with the President’s recent State of the Union address, outlines an agenda for establishing the coveted age of reason. Its four themes follow: (1) global governance, (2) population control, (3) man’s relationship to nature, and (4) new spirituality.

Global Governance

The group that commissioned the Georgia Guidestones is likely one of many similar groups working together to establish a new, geo-political world order under elitist rule. One Guidestones’ commandment is to “avoid petty laws and useless officials.” In Obama’s words, “the greatest nation on earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next. … The American people have worked too hard, for too long, rebuilding from one crisis to see their elected officials cause another.” This regrettable dilemma signals need for “soft law” at the global level. Hence, if a useless Congress won’t act, Obama will (via executive order).

Population and Reproduction Control

The Guidestones’ first commandment calls for exceedingly drastic population control, to which Obama nods by (1) thrusting women of childbearing age into combat, (2) sanctioning “sustainable” gay marriage, and (3) minimizing seed-planting as a sign of manliness (pronouncing rightly that fatherhood requires more). “If you work hard and meet your responsibilities,” Obama promises, “you can get ahead, no matter … who[m] you love."  Indeed, the Violence Against Women Act expands funding to same-sex couples and, for the first time in history, unconstitutionally allows tribal jurisdiction over non-tribal men accused of abuse.

Man’s Relationship to Nature

As freedom in the Global Commons is said to bring ruin to all, radical environmentalism proposes a form of neo-feudalism, enforced out of "necessity” to prevent humanity from becoming (in the words of Guidestones) “a cancer on earth.” Leaving room for nature, Obama insists, “We must do more to combat climate change.” Several of Obama’s proposed programs affirm a Guidestones’ command to “balance personal rights with social duties.” Specifically, the President’s proposed Energy Security Trust and his challenge to cut wasted energy in half promise to “speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

New Spirituality

According to the Guidestones, one must “rule passion, faith, and tradition with tempered reason.” Case in point: When initially sworn in as president, Obama identified America broadly as “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.” Obama’s highly publicized speech to the United Nations promised to “unite humanity with a living new language,” for (says Obama) “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Indeed, the emerging Global Civic Ethic promotes illumined groupthink; “black-and-white” Bible fundamentalism simply doesn’t cut the mustard. Syncretism distinguishes America’s rational, duly tempered new spirituality stripped of Judeo-Christian “passion, faith, and tradition.” “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition,” explained Obama. “Instead, they overlap and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Cradle-to-Grave Indoctrination

That most Americans have never heard of the Georgia Guidestones reflects the degree of control over what they think. Dramatic paradigm shift requires cradle-to-grave education (better, indoctrination); and Obama aims to deliver. Today’s public education purposes to pinpoint, nurture, and place illumined, group conscious, politically eco-correct world citizens in the global work force. To this end, Obama proposes (1) preschool for all at the earliest possible age and (2) redesign of America’s high schools.

Conclusion

Historically, the impact of the Enlightenment has been profoundly felt; however, not without divine counter: When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. Throughout the decades of America’s history, revival and renewal, coupled with salt-and-light ministry of a faithful remnant church, have shed light on darkness.

Arguably, Lincoln's ever-evolving faith shaped the course of America. Thankfully, his journey with God eventually brought Lincoln to biblical appreciation and understandings. Toward the end of his life, Lincoln’s concern was not whether God was on the side of the Union, but rather whether “this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” Today’s State of the Union depends more on our national response to this challenge than it does on twenty-nine new programs reflective of an enlightened age of reason.

Empowering plutocratic global oversight in the name of “the common good” may well complement Thomas Paine’s core message – “My country is the world; my religion is to do good” – but it undercuts “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Only when our nation experiences a new birth of freedom under God will she escape socialist global governance. Otherwise, her lot is to perish from the earth.