Religious Liberty
Age of Dictators
I intended to write this week on dictatorships that are growing in our world.
Then, Russia invaded Ukraine–and upped the ante as to what’s really happening.
Suddenly, this looks hauntingly like a redux of World War II–except we have ten nations that possess nuclear weapons. That means the tactics of war and the stakes are quite different.
There’s no doubt we live in an age of dictators and maybe the beginning of a new world war.
Here’s my view.
The Mask of the Beast
I am not going senile in the title. Yes, I know that in the Last Days, the Bible talks about the mark of the beast. Here’s the famous reference:
“Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon… Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666″ (Revelation 13:11-18).
A. Fauci (Dr. Anthony Fauci) contains 6 letters, and he was born on June 6. That adds up to “666.”
Just kidding.
But I have been thinking of a parallel–the mask of the Beast.
Verbal Fascism
I remember vividly the cultural turmoil of the 1960’s highlighting the importance of free speech at the U.C.-Berkeley and other campuses. Though I strongly rejected the youth rebellion and its focus on drugs, free sex, and hatred of the police, I agreed with one tenet.
Free speech.
It stood enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and seemed as American as apple pie. I thought the radicals simply wanted equal time. That’s fair in a free society.
I was wrong.
Those same radicals now control many of the leadership positions in government, the media and higher education in the United States. We now know what they wanted all along.
Control. And how do you gain it?
Verbal Fascism.