"More than three weeks after its namesake was beheaded on campus, and following pressure from its own professors, George Washington University finally acknowledged [after three weeks] the criminal act [of beheading the statue of George Washington] with a brief statement."
In Portland, "Demonstrators pulled down the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of Jefferson High School"
A college news organization polled students at George Washington University, asking if they support the nationwide riots and looting. Overwhelmingly, students said that the riots and looting are "justified." One student said, "If change is gonna come, there’s gonna be some violence."
"In one widely publicized episode . . . assembled students [at Evergreen College] shouted down the university president for gesticulating normally as he addressed them. Some students found this threatening. Someone yelled, 'Stop pointing, George!' The president, George Bridges, appeared momentarily stunned and then obeyed, meekly announcing, "My hands are down." The crowd burst into applause and laughter. Bridges held his hands up as if to say, 'I surrender.'
"In another incident [at Evergreen College], protesters surrounded the library building and barricaded the exits with furniture. Some of them interrupted a faculty meeting inside and stole a cake about to be served in honor of retiring professors. They carried it out and handed pieces to their fellow demonstrators. Others gathered outside the president's office and refused to let him leave the building. Clearly, many of them relished controlling and humiliating others, especially authority figures."
"Everyone is reading from a tired script . . . settling into a calcified habit of saying things like"We don't feel safe' and "Stop hurting us!' It's too late to stop the normalization of this behavior. It has already become essentially institutionalized at universities and, increasingly, elsewhere." (Spencer Case)
"This fall at Washington and Lee University (removal of Lee pending), students will learn reading writing, arithmetic — and 'How to Overthrow the State.' As riots have continued in Portland for almost 100 nights, students at the Virginia university named after George Washington and Robert E. Lee will study Marxist revolutions in the Global South, complete with role-playing regime change."
"Writing Seminar 100-18, “How to Overthrow the State,” will award each student three credits toward graduation. This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society,”
SOLUTION?
What's going to stop all this violent, academic nonsense? Rational discourse? Assigning book reports like "Washington at Valley Forge"? Maybe a reading of "The Federalist Papers"? How about a classroom showing of the movie, "The Patriot"?
Let's get real and in getting real, a look at the Old Book can point the way. The Bible states in story and in statement that there are people who can reach a point of no return; there are people who cross the line of rebellion and become people with whom you cannot reason (Romans 1 et al.).
We find the classic case of such a person in the account of the first king of Israel, Saul. We watch him cross the line in his years of interactions with David. As David begins to ascend to hero status, Saul begins his descent into madness.
It may not have been a wise move on the part of the women of Israel to compose a song that hit number 1 on the charts, but that's what they did. We read, "It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. The women sang as they played, and said,
“Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands.”
"Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?” Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on."
Then we read that Saul attempted to murder David, but his aim was bad; the spear with which an enraged Saul wanted to pin David to the wall missed its mark. Then we read of David on the run from Saul as Saul and the military tried in vain to hunt him down and kill him. For at least 7 years David hid in caves as a frothing at the mouth Saul chased him all over Israel. The might of the government wanted David dead. Sometimes Saul was sorry, "I have played the fool and erred exceedingly," he said. But later, he was right back on the hunt.
There was a point that Saul reached in which there was no reasoning with him, no Bible verse you could give him, no scathing denunciation that would change him. Even the remonstrances of God's anointed prophet Samuel fell on ears of stone; come what may, he would have David's head on a pike or he would die trying. There's no reasoning with evil.
Saul had rid the nation of the mediums, the people were not to consult them. But, Saul, to whom the rules didn't apply and were for the common people, but not him, went to consult one. By divine intervention he's told that in the battle the next day, he's going to die. Knowing that, he still goes into the fight and winds up like Hitler, a suicide so the enemy wouldn't take him alive. Instead of his pinning David to the wall, the Philistines took the slain body of Saul, cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan.
You can't reason with a Saul because "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." And because "If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet." (Proverbs 29:9)
Thousands in the younger generation have been raised in a culture and nurtured in an educational environment from kindergarten through college of ideological kerosene in which there is no fear of the Lord ( a positive response to God and His Word). We're seeing their graduation party.
As with Saul, there is no reasoning with them. They've crossed the Rubicon of no return. What else should we have expected having removed God's Word from every nook and cranny of our society, having ridiculed those who proclaim it, having shamed, slandered, and ruined those who sought to live it? The ideological kerosene has done its work. The flames in our cities have felt its heat.
In view of this, four texts of encouragement roar to the surface.
II Timothy 1:7--"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."
Matt. 19:26--"And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
John 16:33: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
Psalm 2: "Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? . . . And the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them."
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