Though the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, conservatives and others on the Right should not take solace without recognizing the massive cultural shift forthcoming. The Left’s vise-like grip on education has indoctrinated generations of students with left-wing propaganda that demonizes the virtues of Christianity and propagates ideas antithetical to traditional American ideals.
The platitudes of the Left, such as diversity, equity, and transgenderism, have replaced Judeo-Christian values from which our country is based, and there’s no end in sight. This has led to the creation of the American “atheocracy” — a term coined by former Attorney General William Barr while speaking at a recent conference.
“We are going through a fateful crisis in western civilization. This is the deepest crisis we’ve faced in my mind since Christ,” Barr said. “That’s because our whole civilization is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that tradition is under sustained attack by increasingly militant secular forces.”
The unique American self-government system is predicated on a population largely adhering to a set of virtues — virtues developed largely through a commitment to religious principles. When religion is removed, so too are these virtues which threaten the entirety of our existence, Barr said.
Religion (or “the divine for which all men long,” as Homer put it in the Odyssey) keeps people balanced with a sense of morality. Reaching for that which is higher and striving for an ideal beyond one’s self teaches restraint necessary to prevent humans from constantly pursuing gluttonous and hedonistic pleasures, a necessity for a sustainable human society. Using history as a guide, former human civilizations have taught us there are only two ways to implement restraint: internally and externally.
Internal restraints come as a result of one’s personal honor and virtuous devotion, established typically through religious principles. Internal restraint guides assimilation into society, whereas external restraints are those implemented by the state. In this scenario, the government regulates restraint. It imposes its morality onto the people and deems what is or is not acceptable.
People “are subject to powerful passions and appetites, and, if unrestrained, are capable of ruthlessly riding roughshod over their neighbors and the community at large,” the former attorney general said. “No society can exist without some means for restraining individual rapacity.”
“But, if you rely on the coercive power of government to impose restraints, this will inevitably lead to a government that is too controlling, and you will end up with no liberty, just tyranny,” Barr said.
This is the future that the Left has created with its assiduous Christophobic attacks in our schools, typically under the misguided claim of a separation of church and state. By removing religion, schools had removed the foundation for human morality, he said.
Generations of students have been brainwashed to show faith and allegiance to the state rather than the Judeo-Christian principles on which our nation was founded. Schools have dictated their moral compass, not religion — hence the cult-like following of left-wing social justice issues by the younger generations.
“Personal and civic moral systems don’t just sort of hover in the air. They have to rest on an explanatory foundation, a metaphysical foundation,” Barr said. “So the extent to which an education seeks to contribute to a student’s moral formation, it necessarily invades the space of religion when explaining what the moral values are and how they should be inherited.”
Additionally, the erosion of religion in the United States parallels the precipitous rise of many of the societal ills plaguing our country right now — at a time when the number of people who believe in God is falling in the U.S. Barr, like many others, argues that this is no coincidence.
“Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground. In 1965, the illegitimacy rate was 8%. In 1992, when I was last attorney general, it was 25%. Today, it is over 40%. In many of our large urban areas, it is around 70%,” Barr said in 2019. “Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic.”
Schools have eliminated God so they could become the de facto deity. These “atheocrats” have molded our education system into progressive indoctrination camps. They use these to shape children’s moral foundations — foundations that adhere to contemporary left-wing political orthodoxy in place of religion. Unless these actions are remedied, with generations of students having their ethos shaped by disciples of secular and progressive fanaticism, our country is soon destined for its very own clash of civilizations.
