Concerning History (A Pastor's thoughts on the current statue controversy)

[SavedByGrace1981]

8 hours ago, SavedByGrace1981 said:

Just curious - were the crosses, the stones and the flag removed as a result of community consensus; or as a result of someone taking matters into their own hands and removing them in the dead of night?

 

7 hours ago, Neighbor said:

Ha, I don't know the KKK just was gone. I suspect it was a matter of economics, the land's best and highest use was no longer to instill the fear from  the KKK, it was to put money in the pocket of the owner and  to develop the property. That would be my quess. As to the battle flag it is a part of what  the country is lamenting over and trying to resolve. The decisions end up  being  based upon morality, but also economics. Economic-morality, hmm-

I guess I misunderstood - I assumed the crosses, stones and flag were on public land.  Since they were on private land, it's up to the owner as to what should be done with them.  And you're probably correct - it's a matter of economics.

 

8 hours ago, Neighbor said:

May many saints rise up boldly  to declare enough of your monuments to this shortlived cause and that one, let none stand, instead praise God alone and thank Him for all that is provided us. And share one with another, not hoard away for self.

Monuments can serve a legitimate purpose.  But the healthy perspective a mature Christian possesses should prevent us from putting them before God.

Blessings,

-Ed 

[SavedByGrace1981]

23 minutes ago, Cobalt1959 said:

I cannot speak to the education system post-WW II since I was not alive at the time.  I began high school in '73 when it seemed that the Hippie movement was pretty much dead.  It wasn't dead, it just worked tirelessly in the background in a different way for 30 years to really begin to achieve it's original goals.  And the movement has succeeded beyond it's adherents wildest dreams.  This is the main reason why the Left is so apoplectic right now.  I am not a Trump supporter.  I make no secret of that, and I am in no way ashamed of that.  But the reason the Left is so scared of this man is that he represents, to them, a huge road block to them finally achieving their 60's dream of a socialist, amoral Utopia.  Whether or not he will actually cause the progress they made to go retrograde and whether or not he will actually deliver on his promises is academic to them.  They view him as an impediment to final victory and as such, he has to be removed. 

You're just a few years younger than I, so most likely - if you went to public school - you were exposed to 'progressivism' in your education.  The teachers that you and I had likely graduated from teacher's colleges in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

John Dewey - a controversial figure to say the least - was a progressive 'humanist' who was very influential in education in the early to mid 20th century. From Wikipedia:

Quote

As an atheist^[41] and a secular humanist in his later life, Dewey participated with a variety of humanistic activities from the 1930s into the 1950s, which included sitting on the advisory board of Charles Francis Potter's First Humanist Society of New York (1929); being one of the original 34 signatories of the first Humanist Manifesto (1933) and being elected an honorary member of the Humanist Press Association (1936).^[42]

His opinion of humanism is summarized in his own words from an article titled "What Humanism Means to Me", published in the June 1930 edition of Thinker 2:

What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good.^[43]

Whether 'progressivism' or its modern day sibling 'globalism' came first is - in my opinion - immaterial.  It's kind of like a 'chicken or egg' situation.  Which ever one came first, their goals dovetail and have merged.  Their influence - particularly in public education - has increased exponentially over time.

So called 'visionaries' tend to think long term and Dewey was indeed a visionary (though an evil one, in my opinion).  It makes perfect sense (from their point of view) - if the goal is to 'fundamentally change society' into some Socialist Utopia, that it would be necessary to start with the children.

That is what I base my contention that education was gradually taken over beginning in the late 40s and onward.  And we're seeing the results.

Blessings,

-Ed

 

[missmuffet]

1 hour ago, Cobalt1959 said:

I attended a private Lutheran grade school.  Which was somewhat of a headache because we were Southern Baptists.   Taking Catechism twice a week is extremely tedious when you are supposed to learn stuff you already know you do not believe in.  I attended a public high school but no, I did not notice any kind of overt progressivism.  70's Arizona was not known as a bastion of liberalism.

I agree that they start them young.  That is how all political movements operate.  It was just not prevalent in the area I grew up in at the time.  In the 80's I worked at a Community College running their warehouse and even though it was small, there was no doubt that even in a backwater Northern Arizona town, there was a lot of progressivism brewing.  A good deal of that was the town trying to transform itself from a former mining/railroad town into an "artsy" community along the lines of Santa Fe.  And the "artsy," "avant garde" crowd is almost always liberal as well . . . 

I attended a Lutheran church for about 20 years. I really did not grow in that Church. My kids were confirmed in that church as well. We do not attend that Church any longer.