RACIAL RAGE AND
THE COMING CHAOS

INTRODUCTION

As we indicated in our articles, "Cultural Wars - Civilization Conflict," and "Racism And Right-Wing Christianity," the Bible speaks of ethnic conflict as one of the most pointed and distressing signs of those events leading up to the "Beginning of Sorrows" (i.e., the first half of the Tribulation and the appearance of the Antichrist as a messianic savior) - the creation, as it were, of what Paul Hockenos calls in his book Free to Hate, an "action-reaction spiral" of one ethnic group "raging" against another. This is the kind of pathology which produces fascism; and it's out of the fascist nexus that Antichrist will emerge. Moreover, as we indicated in our previous articles (see above), it's not just in the Caucasus, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc. that this "action-reaction spiral" is taking root. The fact of the matter is, it's happening right here in our own backyard. The truth is, there is a "Civilization War" raging in this country, and there is little that can be done to "compromise" the differences between the two sides involved. In reality, it's not one war, but two: one which is being fought out in the open (a Culture War), and a second which is being fought out in the shadows (a Race War).

The first war - the Culture War - involves a war over culture and pits the older, European, Christian-based culture of "traditional America" against the "diversity" and "pluralism" of today's newer "multicultural America." The second war - the Race War - pits radical elements of the white majority against radical elements of the black, Latino, Asian, Jewish, and "native-American" minorities. The Race War is much older and more primeval than the newer Culture War, and the contestants in the one are not necessarily the contestants in the other - although that is becoming less and less true as the two wars heat up and intensify.

In our article "Culture Wars - Civilization Conflict," we spent a good deal of time describing the Culture War that is now raging in the United States - and to a large degree, not only in the United States, but throughout the "Western World" [i.e., North America, Western Europe, Australia, South Africa, (where the "West" has been essentially dislodged), New Zealand, etc.]. This article deals with the Race War that is also being waged alongside the Culture War - not, as we have just explained, out in the open, but in the background and in the shadows.

RACISM: A NIGHTMARE THAT WON'T GO AWAY

Most Americans, of course, would scoff at the idea that racism could ever again be a "player" in the American political arena. The thought that, after thirty years of integration and racial progress, the country could again be plunged back into open racial conflict seems to most Americans absurd. But what they fail to realize is that almost one-third of the nation is already engaged in just such a conflict. It's being fought right now in the gloom and despair of America's economic backwaters; it's a war shrouded in obscurity and one which has been purposely hidden from our sight, and while most in the elite media are aware of what's going on, they refuse to report on it, believing - perhaps - that the less said the better. But just because no one is reporting on it, and most middle-class Americans don't know anything about it, doesn't mean that it will go away any time soon, and that it doesn't have the very real potential of breaking out of the shadows and eventually encompassing all of us in violence.

The fact is, like a nightmare that won't go away, like a cancer that goes into remission - feigning a cure - only to reappear again in some other part of the body in a more virulent form, racism is resurfacing again, this time under the guise of a return to "morality" and the tenets of "Western Civilization" - a "civilization" and "morality" which, at its height fifty years ago, denigrated Jews, blacks, Indians, Asians and other minorities, and enslaved them all under the rubric of "religion" and the "White Man's Burden." This is what Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's Bell Curve is all about (which we reported in our last journal, "The Bell Curve: Laying the Intellectual Foundations for an Attack on America's Minority communities by America's Majority Community"), and in its pages one can easily trace the pathway racism is using to re-emerge on the human stage.

Liberals, of course, don't believe that this can happen; they think that the "race issue" has already been decided. And that's the problem with "lefties:" they seem unable to fathom the fact that "progress" in these matters is not always on their side. They are bedeviled by the notion that the history of man leads ever upward (i.e., towards a multicultural world in which matters like race, ethnicity, "civilization consciousness," etc. don't matter) - with them in the lead showing the way. To liberals, the issue of race was fought and won in the civil rights struggles of the last thirty years; that's settled history now. There's no going back to revisit these issues. Ground once taken and occupied by "liberals" can never be retaken and reoccupied by "conservatives" (by which they mean, "racists"). Lefties believe that to think otherwise is not only wrong, but it's "unfair." Such is the idiocy of the left - and the defeat of communism has not "wised them up" at all on this matter.

WE CAN'T STOP PROPHECY; WE CAN'T STEM ITS FLOW

Racism, of course, is NOT what well-meaning Christians anywhere want - conservative or otherwise. Most Christians are not racists; even those who attack our ministry are not racists - at least for the most part. The fact is, many of those who say we are wrong in taking a stand against the church's involvement in the political process do so precisely because they want to involve Christians in the political process to stop racial bigotry and intolerance. The truth is, Pat Robertson isn't a racist! Ralph Reed isn't a racist! Tim LaHaye isn't a racist! Jerry Falwell isn't a racist - and the effort by some in the minority communities to say so is shameless. None of these people are racists, and most of them would do almost anything they could to stop the re-emergence of racism as a political force in this country!

Still, there's not much they can do. They (we) can't stop prophecy! We can't pray it away - as some Dominionists like Rick Joyner and Mike Bickle think. The naked reality of the matter is, the Bible predicts a return to "ethnic warfare" in the "Last Days," and there is nothing that we can do politically to stop it; if we try, the likely outcome is that we will get caught up in these currents ourselves - such is their force in today's political arena. The great mistake that many of us are in danger of making is to overestimate our ability to avoid being swept away by these currents, and to underestimate how swiftly those currents are really flowing. To step into these currents - even for the best of reasons - is to risk being politicized ourselves and being, as a result, caught up in them.

WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS ALL ABOUT

This is what this article is all about: to bring to your attention just how swiftly these currents are running. We approach this subject from a "white perspective" - and that's because most of our readers are "white evangelicals." But what we say with regard to whites, could just as easily be said from the perspective of the black or Latino communities (or, for that matter, the Asian community). Racist currents are flowing strongly in all ethnic communities (and all nations of the earth) today. [Please, if you have not done so already, we urge you to pause now and read our previous article, "Racism & Right-Wing Christianity: Laying the Intellectual Foundations for an Attack on America's Minority communities by America's Majority Community."]

DON'T GET CAUGHT

The only way we can avoid being caught up in these currents is to begin walking in the light of God's Word, specifically that Christ's Kingdom has nothing to do with this world ["... My kingdom is not of this world ..." (John 18:36)] - and that out political involvement in it will not make it a nicer place in which to live; all it will likely accomplish is to pollute us. Christ's Kingdom is a heavenly kingdom whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10) - and it is only there that the reality of Galatians 3:28 can be truly lived out; it's only there where there is -

"... neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

In this world, such distinctions will remain, and there is nothing we can do to alter that fact. Our job while we remain here on earth (and it is, in the final analysis, a pretty short stay) is not to reform the earth (it is fit now only for judgment), but to get as many people out of it as we can. As the words of that old Baptist hymn of long ago declare, our home now is with Christ in the heavens:

"This world is not our home, we're just a passing through, Our treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue, The angels beckon us from heaven's open door, And we can't feel at home in this world anymore.

"Oh Lord you know, we have no friend like you, If heaven's not our home, then, Lord, what will we do, The angels beckon us from heaven's open door, And we can't feel at home in this world anymore."

The Bible says that we are "partakers of a heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1) having nothing to do with the affairs of this earth. Paul declares that all those who wish to serve God must consider the world as alien territory, and they themselves as only "sojourners" in it - people who are merely transiting through it on their way to another land - a heavenly country whose "builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10); and that while here on earth, there is a necessity laid upon them to continually remind themselves of their "alien status" by -

"... confessing (both in word and in the way they live) that they are strangers (foreigners) and pilgrims (travelers, wanderers, wayfarers) on the earth ..." (Heb. 11:13)

DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD

The Bible says:

"Do not love the world, or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world ... comes not from the Father ..." (1 John 2:15-16)

and -

"The whole world lieth in the evil one." (1 John 5:19)

As God's children, we have been called out of the world. The church is a "calling out" from the world (John 15:19; 17:14-16; Gal. 6:14; James 4:4) - she is called out to witness that she is not of this world, but of heaven; that she is united to a glorified Christ in heaven (Eph. 1:18-23; Eph 2:6), and not of this world, even as He is not of this world (John 18:36).

The world - including, as a simple extension of logic, the United States - is like some great passenger ship which has struck an iceberg; it is sinking; the damage is of such a nature that the ship is beyond repair and doomed. As Christians, we have not been called to busy ourselves in the hopeless effort of repairing the damage, but instead we have been called to get as many people off the ship as is possible before it sinks. The ship itself is doomed! We are to jump into the lifeboats and get as far away from the sinking ship as is possible, lest we ourselves get caught in its undertow as it sinks.

Thus, while it's true that God has anointed the church to be a shining example of righteousness and holiness in the world, He has not called upon it to participate in its political activities - which activities are controlled by Satan. We are to be examples of righteousness and holiness, and by doing so to contrast the light of the church with the darkness of this world. It is this - and not the church's involvement in the political process - which has acted as a preservative of righteousness in the world.

The power and influence of a good and righteous example - humbly portrayed - is far more effective than the force of any political process. Men will never be convicted of their sin by the church taking sides with the state and placing guns to the heads of those who refuse to conform; but countless numbers of sinners have renounced their sin and turned to Christ because of the living example of humble and holy men and women of God. We are, therefore, commanded by God to abstain from the affairs of this world; to not get involved with them. True, we are to "occupy" until He comes (Luke 19:13); but this means only that we are to vocationally sustain ourselves and not be a burden on others while we pass through - and that's all it means. In no way can this verse be construed to mean anything else. Moreover, not only are we not to involve ourselves with the world, we are not even to be "friendly" with it. The Bible says:

"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

God's advise, then, to His people - the church - is to stay clear of the political currents that are being unleashed in the "Last Days." If we don't, we will be surely swept away.

ETHNIC MOBILIZATION IS A POPULIST PHENOMENON

Getting back to the matter of race - and the "ethnic mobilization" that is now occurring in the United States - it is important to understand that "ethnic (i.e., racial) mobilization" is not an elite phenomenon; it is a "populist phenomenon" (at least in its initial stages). It is a "grassroots" affair which is driven from the bottom up, not from the top down. In this kind of a situation, elites are powerless to stem the radicalization process because the rage that is driving the process is a "people rage." Thus, the usual elite response of imprisoning group leaders won't work - others will just step in and take over, and there are simply not enough jails to hold everyone. Moreover, should the elites take too much of a stand against the ethnic majority, or imprison too many of its leaders, they may be swept aside just as surely as other elites in similar circumstances have been swept away in the past.

Racial mobilization in the West has usually led to the development of fascism in the white majority. In this respect, fascism is a mass phenomenon, and - as a result - must be differentiated from the "garden variety" forms of dictatorships common in Latin America or even Asia which rule only by recourse to military might and brute suppression. Fascism, on the other hand, is a popularly supported phenomenon.

Unlike socialism with its roots in the "proletariat," fascism is rooted in the middle-class and, consequently, can take root only in the more advanced nations of the earth which possess large, wide-spread middle classes. It is, therefore, a phenomenon relatively unique to the Western World because it is only in the West where such large middle classes exist. It is a phenomenon born of "white pride" and cultural arrogance, and while it has nothing to do with Christianity (it is, as Constance Cumbey has suggested in her classic book, Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, a "New Age" phenomenon), most fascists tend to wrap themselves in the mantle of Christianity; even Hitler did so, claiming in 1933 on the occasion of his takeover in Germany -

"Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ... We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ..."

FASCISM IS A RAGE BORN OF ECONOMIC DISLOCATION

As we indicated in "The Bell Curve: Christians Had Better Be Careful," fascism (racism) is an idea born in the hearts of disappointed men. It is a phenomenon that takes root in men and women who feel they are being thwarted from their legitimate destiny by "lesser people." In Germany, where race-thinking became official doctrine for more than a decade, the surrender of the German people - even German Christians - to the appeal of racism originated in despair - a despair born in the belief that they were in danger of being overrun by "lesser people," particularly people from the east (just as today white Americans feel threatened by "brown" Latinos streaming up from the south, black Haitians washing ashore on the beaches in Florida, and "affirmative action" programs designed to push them aside in favor of what they consider to be less "mentally equipped" minorities). Put simply, fascism is an alternative to madness for people who feel balked in what they consider to be their legitimate ambitions. It is a faith rooted in the consciousness of a thwarted self-worth and confirmed by the Tertullian principle of "Certum est quia impossible."

And the fuel which drives this phenomenon? - it's not necessarily "moral outrage" (the dynamic that drives the Culture War), it is economic dislocation (i.e., "bad times"). More than thirty years ago, Professor Seymour Martin Lipset of Stanford (now of George Mason) reasoned convincingly that white, middle-class economic dislocation is the gas which feeds the flames of fascism - economic dislocation that whites blame on the minorities.

Most white Americans who are reading this article would, of course, retort, "What economic dislocation? These are the best times Americans have ever had." A great many who are reading this study would probably find little trouble in agreeing with a June 1998, Fortune Magazine article which said that the U.S. economy is "stronger than it's ever been," and with a recent Merrill Lynch report which headlined: "Paradise Found: The Best of All Possible Economies." And if that's the case, we're in no danger - there's no fuel to feed the flames. Maybe not from their perspective, but from the perspective of those who are not participating in the magic of today's economy - about one-third of the population - it's something else altogether.

It's there, in those portions of the population that have been depressed economically, that ethnic mobilization is taking place - and most Americans remain totally ignorant of it. And why? - because, again, "ethnic (racial) mobilization" is a bottom to top phenomenon, and most members of the media simply have no real contact with that portion of the population (the bottom one-third) where this "mobilization" is taking place - this in addition to the fact that it is not in the interest of the elite media to report on this phenomenon, at least in any meaningful way. It also explains why most white evangelicals are so ignorant of what's happening.

AN ECONOMIC TIME BOMB THAT MOST UPPER-
CLASS WHITES ARE NOT AWARE IS THERE

Let's take you, for example. The chances are, if you are reading this article it probably means you have a computer and you are "hooked into the internet." And if that's the case, you probably are, economically speaking, fairly well off - at least well off enough to come up with the extra cash (or credit, something not available to the bottom two-fifths of the population) to buy a computer (not exactly a "necessity" like rent, utilities, gas for the car, clothes, etc.) and can afford the monthly access fees to get onto the internet. Most likely, you find yourself in at least the top reaches of the middle one-fifth of this country's economic pyramid, and many of you can probably even be numbered in the top two-fifths of the population, economically speaking.

If that's the case, "good times" probably are a reality to you - but, again, it also means that you most likely have no real idea what's happening in the rest of the population - for these people, times have never been worse. The fact that you may not realize this only indicates how large the gap has grown between the top two-fifths of the population and the bottom two-fifths of the population (and remember here, the vast majority, numerically speaking, of those who inhabit the bottom two-fifths of the population are working-class whites) - what "establishment types" (i.e., "centrist" Democrats and "centrist" Republicans - there is, after all, very little difference between "moderate" Democrats and "moderate" Republicans) call "poor whites" or "trailer park trash."

The truth is, despite the statistics that are everywhere trumpeted by the mainline media in this country suggesting that the 1990s have been a time of unparalleled prosperity, this prosperity is not a prosperity in which most have shared. It has been a prosperity in which only the top two-fifths of the country's population has participated in; for the rest, it has been a time when both husband and wife in the middle one-fifth of the population have been forced into the workplace just to stay even, and where the remaining two-fifths of the population - those who are at the bottom of the economic pyramid - have actually lost ground, a lot of ground. Increasingly, we are facing a situation in which there exists two Americas - separate and unequal - which uneasily exist side by side with each other, and there is little indication that the growing division of America into two classes will end any time soon. The so-called "American Dream" is vanishing for millions of heretofore middle-class, white Americans. As Bartlett and Steele have said,

"... if you work for a living and if you are in the middle-class income range ... the chances are that your standard of living is falling or will do so in the coming years ..."

These people, as a result, are furious! Of course, most blacks and Latinos have been experiencing this for years. But this is something new for a good many whites - and the strain of all this is slowly producing an Angst in them with frightening fascist (or Nazi) undercurrents - precisely as Lipset predicted it would - this is why there has been such an upsurge in hate crimes directed by poor whites against minorities throughout the country. These crimes aren't being committed in Brentwood, Grosse Pointe, or Chevy Chase, but in white, "blue collar," working-class neighborhoods. You ask, How bad is the economic dislocation in these neighborhoods? - it's very bad! And it is getting worse!!

"RADICALIZATION" AND "BAD TIMES:" RURAL AMERICA

The fact is, as Alexander Cockburn has written, inch by inch, day by day, America [or at least the bottom one-third) of the population which occupies the lower and middle rungs of the economic ladder in this country] is becoming a nation of casual laborers, earning not enough to live on, with no job security, no benefits and no future. And - again - the vast majority of these "casual laborers" are whites. For many years, this array of part-timers was confined pretty much to agriculture, where for decades underpaid farmers survived only by combining their meager incomes with food stamps and medical benefits from the government. Joel Dyer has documented the tragedy of what's been going on there. [Please see our article on this phenomenon, "A Growing Rage in America's Heartland."] Dyer reports that, unbeknownst to most Americans, rural America has been -

"... collapsing like a black hole, pulling an entire way of life down with it."

- and almost all of these people are whites. Dyer writes,

"Norman Rockwell's version of rural America is dead ... What's left in the 90 percent of the landmass that is designated "rural" is massive poverty and despair ... Rural residents are drowning in a tumultuous sea of circumstances beyond their control. The millions of rural Americans still trying to tread water are being pulled under by the callous decisions emanating from corporate boardrooms ... [in distant cities like New York and Chicago (and even Tokyo and London) with very little real connection to the cultural values and mores of rural America and)] they (i.e., rural Americans) have grown angry."

According to Dyer, the pandemonium of the new "agricultural globalism" that multinational companies like Cargill, Con-Agra, Archer Daniels Midland, etc. have unleashed on rural America is responsible for the loss of over 1 million small to medium-sized farms since 1980. Indeed, in one twelve month period in the late 1980s more than 1 million people were forced from their land. In 1996 alone, 10,000 families in Oklahoma (one-sixth of all farm families in the state) lost their farms through bankruptcies and foreclosure. And it's not just that; for those who manage to hold on, it often means holding on in grinding, unending poverty and a constant struggle just to meet the day-to-day necessities of life. The fact is, while only 20 to 25 percent (depending on who one counts as "rural") of the U.S. population live in rural areas, 38 percent of all people living in poverty live there. Sixty-seven percent of the nation's substandard housing is rural, and 27 percent of the children in rural America are growing up hungry, forced to live in destitution even though the parents of most of them work. (Please see our article on this subject, "Rural Rage.")

It is precisely here - in populations like this - that "ethnic mobilization" is taking place! It's no accident that rural America is the place where the militias got their start, that "common-law courts" were first convened, that anti-tax organizations initially took root, and "sovereignty groups" first sprang up. Dyer writes,

"I've attended a number of antigovernment meetings in ... (rural America). In many ways, they have become the center of social activity in their respective communities. Meals and casual conversation are often part of the experience. Women gather in the back of the room to talk about children, schools, and recipes ... while the men exchange hunting stories or talk about crops and weather. You would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between one of these meetings and a Kiwanis Club get-together, that is, until the meeting is called to order. Then things get deadly serious."

Dyer believes that a vast revolutionary, fascist-type movement has taken root in America's rural heartland, and most Americans know very little about it - a movement which is, in both its breath and scope, far greater and much more massive than urban Americans have been led to believe, and one which is unalterably committed to a "race-war" with blacks, Latinos, Jews, radical feminists and the so-called gay and lesbian communities. [The 1994 movie "Betrayed" gives a glimpse of what's happening there; we strongly recommend those who have not seen it to see it - it will shock you! You can rent it at most video stores.]

Dyer warns:

"Bill Heffernan, dean of rural psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, shared his fears with me about the future of America. Heffernan compared our current rural uprising to several of the countries in South America where he's spent a fair amount of time. He said that unless something is done to stop the decline of rural America, there will come a time in the not-so-distant future when it will no longer be safe for people to move about freely. Heffernan sees a time when just driving across the country will be hazardous. He said that if the decline continues, we could become like other places where the gaps between rich and poor and urban and rural have become so large that people must fly from one city to another, knowing that if they drove through the rural areas they would be stopped by bandits or guerrilla factions composed of economically radicalized people."

BAD TIMES ARE SPREADING THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY

Cockburn writes that this army of poor, underpaid Americans is now spreading across the country and reaching into urban areas - and for every person you see carrying one of those "will work for food" signs there are a thousand others with that same sign tattooed on their souls. Take, for example, what happened a year ago with the strike against United Parcel Service by the Teamsters Union - a strike which brought into sharp focus what has been going on in the lives of countless numbers of ordinary urban Americans, Americans who - like their rural counter parts - are stuck in the bottom two-fifths of the economic ladder in this country.

UPS claimed that it ran the tightest ship in the whole shipping business and every one knew the quality of those brown-uniformed men and women, the envy of other employers and the delight of those who use UPS. As Cockburn explains, we are all accustomed to seeing the brown truck pull up and an intelligent, efficient driver hop out on the double with a good attitude and a can-do demeanor. What we don't see is that for every 100 full-time, $20-an-hour drivers that UPS has, there are 150 or more $8-an-hour employees working three hours each in the middle of the night, scrimping together a part-time life, with part-time food, part-time self-respect, no-time medical or vacation or retirement or future.

The UPS contract that was battled over was the largest private labor contract in America. It was rivaled only by the General Motors contract and covered about 200,000 workers. Only the U.S. Postal Service has more employees. But today, only 80,000 of those workers are the full-time, $20-an-hour UPSers we see and know. The rest are part of the invisible army, working at night in the vast, cavernous air hubs where $24 a day is all you get for three hours toil on the sorting belt. These workers aren't handling mail or widgets but a stream of packages that can weigh up to 150 pounds each. When UPS raised its weight limits, it made no alterations in the sorting and delivery systems; it merely changed its "rules" and let the workers figure out how to deal with the new situation.

When UPS began to build its air hub system about 30 years ago, it was using only college students for the part-time jobs, and indeed required these workers to provide proof that they were still going to college. It was the thin end of a very long wedge. Today you can go to UPS' Louisville, Ky., hub, a converted military airfield, and see 5,000 part-timers and only a sprinkling of full-time employees. It's the same story at Ontario, in San Bernardino County: 1,000 part-timers and only a handful of regular jobs. As recently as the late 1980s, the ratio of part-timers to full-timers was about 50-50. If this proportion was still in force, there would be 20,000 more $20-an-hour jobs. Cockburn says that these good jobs were lost to greed.

UPS is a management-owned company with no public sales of stock, with the managers organized into a pyramid scheme that sucks most of the profits up and ever upward into the pockets at the top. The last serious resistance to this trend was in the late 1970s, but in those days the Teamsters Union was still a strong union; today, however, the Teamsters and other unions in America are only shadows of their former selves. Free trade and unrestricted immigration have all but destroyed the union movement in this country - leaving countless numbers of American workers alone to face the ugly greed of Corporate America.

WHAT "FAMILY-LIFE" IS ALL ABOUT FOR THE
BOTTOM ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION

In this kind of world, everyone works - sometimes even the kids. Mom and dad hold down not just one job, but two or three "temporary" jobs with no security, no benefits and no possibility for advancement. Now think for a minute what this means: mom and dad both work a midnight shift at UPS (they have to leave the two kids with mom's sister at night) - that brings in $50.00 a day (with no benefits) [a little less than 190.00 a week after subtracting for FICA - that's 790.00 a month]. The father then works construction (no possibility for union work here - everything is "subcontracted" out, i.e., it's "piece" work) until the late afternoon (when he can find work), and the mother works as a cashier at a Circle K in the afternoons.

Together, these "afternoon" jobs bring in another $800.00 a month. That's about $1,600 a month. That's $19,200 a year - about 2,000 less than the poverty line for a family of four - and that's after combining the incomes from a total of four different jobs over the course of a year. Now subtract at least $800 a month for rent, $250 for utilities, $450 for food for themselves and their two children, $150 a month for gas for the car and you are already $50 over your monthly budget - and we haven't taken anything out yet for childcare, medical (remember, there are no benefits connected to the four jobs mom and dad hold), nothing for clothing, no entertainment (of course), the car is uninsured (no money for insurance) and unregistered (the car was too old to pass the smog test) [all of which means that if they ever get stopped, the car will be impounded], no money for furniture (all the furniture they have is "attic contemporary," i.e., junk), etc. But that is what's happening to these people - the so-called "working poor" - in this country today. And heaven help dad if he ever gets stopped for having the car unregistered - he has two "outstanding warrants" for driving without a license; his license had been suspended for having a "fender bender" with a Lexus at a time when he didn't have insurance on the car (which, of course, was always). It means jail this time, in addition to losing the old junker - a 1975 Ford hatchback with 250,000 miles on it.

Not much prosperity here - but it's amazing how many of those who "populate" the top two-fifths of the economy are oblivious and / or indifferent to all this. And remember, these aren't "welfare bums;" they work hard for their money, probably a lot harder than those who "inhabit" the top two-fifths of the economic pyramid today. Brian O'Reilly, writing in Fortune Magazine, explains what's going on:

"Suddenly millions of Americans worry not merely about staying employed, but about staying employed in jobs that will support anything close to their current standard of living. That's why ... the general level of economic anxiety in the country has climbed to unprecedented heights ... Declining incomes, or the fear of future declines (is everywhere rampant)."

Just how serious is the job situation? "Very serious," says O'Reilly. According to Labor Department data, the fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. - a group that includes paralegals, medical assistants, and computer repairers - will generate a total of 694,000 new jobs between 1989 and 2000. Among the other careers that will provide the greatest number of new jobs during the 1990s, says the Labor Department, are janitors and maids (556,000), waiters (551,000), and hundreds of thousands more receptionists, hospital orderlies, and clerks. These are minimum wage (often part-time) jobs which force families to hold down three and even four jobs just to stay afloat. The financial stress of life at this level is extremely debilitating, and there is no sign that this stress will abate in the foreseeable future.

THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NEW POOR

Just how much this stress has contributed to the general malaise affecting working-class American families was demonstrated recently by an econometric model developed by the University of New York. The study documents in stark terms the social impact of job loss, and the resultant poverty which inevitably follows, on American families. The report was the bureau's first systematic analysis of social and economic conditions under which households were created and dissolved. The report states, "Poor two-parent families were about twice as likely to break up as were two-parent families not in poverty." Donald J. Hernandez, the Census Bureau demographer responsible for the report, says that "... stresses arising from low income and poverty" appeared to contribute substantially to the breakup of two-parent families.

"Over the last decade or two, there has been a lot of emphasis on the rise of one-parent families as a cause of poverty," Hernandez said in an interview. "But this report shows that the opposite process is also important." Hernandez observed that "many poor one-parent families formed within the last year were already poor before their two-parent families broke up." That was true for 26 percent of white families and for 39 percent of African American families.

Hernandez says,

"When you look at one-year transitions into poverty, most of them are associated with job losses and income reductions, not with major changes in family structure, such as the breakup of two-parent families."

Similar correlations can easily be demonstrated between economic stress, on the one hand, and child neglect, spousal abuse, alcohol and drug addiction and other moral failures on the other hand.

This is the kind of economic dislocation that fuels the fascist rage that Professor Lipset was talking about - the kind that produces "racial radicalization." Take, for example, what happened to Robert Dornan in California's 46th Congressional District.

RADICALIZING WORKING-CLASS WHITES

The 46th Congressional District used to be a typical Southern California area populated by working-class whites who labored in the thriving aero-space industry. Most were "moderate" Republicans, as one would expect from working-class people whose livelihoods were dependent on an industry that was tied to the "War on Communism." The area was neat and clean, with little or no crime and no racial problems whatsoever - it was all white.

But beginning in the early 1990s things began to go bad for the 46th District as the aero-space industry began collapsing in on itself as the result of the disintegration of communism (the raeson d'être for much of Southern California's aero-space industry), and as countless other industrial sector jobs were shipped south of the border to Mexico. The district began to take on a "seedy" atmosphere, and poor Latinos (mostly aliens - legal and illegal alike) began moving in. Those whites that could, got out. Those that couldn't were forced to remain behind in neighborhoods where Spanish rapidly began displacing English as the predominant language. Affirmative action was at its zenith then (which had the net effect of barring working-class whites from the few good paying jobs that remained), and there was little chance that most whites would be able to replace the jobs they had lost with jobs which paid anything close to what they were used to.

In addition, "subcontracting" (or "outsourcing") became a way of life in the 46th District - a ruse where big companies in the construction industry and related trades (including publicly owned utility companies) began firing their regular employees (mostly whites), and subcontracting out to "labor contractors" (who hired mostly aliens - legal and illegal) who paid their employees minimum wage. The bonanza reaped by the contractors in wages saved was colossal - but it was devastating to whites who were left out in the cold.

RACIAL RAGE

Dornan's constituency was precisely those working-class whites who had been left out in the cold. Dornan, a popular, white, fire-breathing, hard-right anti-Communist ideologue typical of those older, white aero-space employees he represented in Orange county, began seeing his support slip away as whites left and Latinos moved in. By 1996 the whites who could leave were all gone. The ones who remained were stuck - and they were angry. And the Latino influx into the 46th District continued without letup. In 1996, Loretta Sanchez, a left-leaning Democrat with strong roots in the Hispanic community challenged Dornan for his Congressional seat in a hotly contested campaign and won. The campaign was filled with racial rhetoric on both sides. Dornan accused Sanchez of using the votes of Mexican resident aliens (non-citizens) and illegals to win. Most commentators said he was probably right.

In a red-hot rage to "set things right," Dornan entered the 1998 Congressional race against her. Most Republican Party "moderates" (i.e., those Republicans in the more affluent section of the district - the kind that live in walled-off, gated communities) wanted Dornan to bow out, believing that Dornan's inflammatory rhetoric was only making matters worse - a fact that had allowed Sanchez to paint Dornan as a "racist." The Lincoln Club, one of Southern California's most exclusive "moneyed interest" clubs asked Dornan to do so - as did virtually all the other "moderates" in Orange County where the 46th Congressional District is located. They believed that Dornan would win the primary - because primaries are dominated by party ideologues - but lose the election to Sanches in November because of the defection of so many affluent, white "moderates" to Sanchez - "moderates" who wanted nothing to do with someone who had been labeled a "racist." "We feel Bob Dornan is our best weapon," said Lee Godown, Sanchez's campaign spokesperson. "All we have to do is allow him to be heard, and he is self-explanatory."

Dornan, who once referred to feminists as "lesbian spear chuckers" and revealed a fellow Republican's homosexuality on the House floor, didn't care! - and he continued to use inflammatory rhetoric against Sanchez which almost got him into a fistfight on the House floor with Hispanic Democrats. He called Sanchez a "stalking horse" for Mexico's takeover of Southern California - and in doing so forced racial issues into "play" that "moderates" wanted to see ignored. These kinds of issues lose elections - at least in the "short run." But radicals like Dornan don't care about the "short run." What they care about is the "long run," and they are prepared to lose elections as a result if in losing the election, the "radicalization" process is pushed forward.

Naturally, just as "moderates" had predicted, Dornan lost and Sanchez won - again; but in doing so, she became ever more dependent upon radical Hispanic elements in her party - the kind that wave Mexican flags in downtown San Diego and Los Angeles - elements that now will probably force her to take unpopular "Hispanic issue stands" in order to placate her radical Hispanic constituency. This, in turn, will only serve to radicalize more whites who had not been previously disposed to Dornan's rhetoric. And so the process goes, ultimately pushing the so-called "moderates" in both parties out and radicalizing those who remain. It's the same "action-reaction spiral" that took hold in the former Yugoslavia. It's irresistible, and "moderates" are helpless to stop it once it gets started. [Dornan now hosts a conservative "radio-talk" show in Southern California where he regularly rails against "illegals," "lesbian spear chuckers," females in the military, etc. - a fact which now makes many liberals believe it would have been better for them if he had beaten Sanchez, he's making more "points" against them with the general population now on his talk show than he ever did while he was a member of Congress.]

THE INTRACTABILITY OF THE "RADICALIZATION PROCESS"

Winning or losing politically is not the main issue for ideologues i.e., radicals)! Standing on one's principles - win or lose - is what counts for them, a mindset that well-off "moderates" find impossible to fathom. Indeed, it is precisely this pathology which was at the root of the impeachment fight in Congress during most of last year - an impeachment fight which found the entire black and Latino caucuses (as well as all those beholden in any way to the "gay and lesbian" community, the Jewish community, and the feminist community) in both the Senate and the House in lockstep with the President without any real regard to the actual facts of the matter. The truth is, these communities felt compelled to rally to the President's defense out of a very genuine fear of what their adversaries in the so-called "Religious Right" would do to them if they won - and "to hell with the truth of the matter." To liberals, there is little difference to be remarked upon between "racists" and the "Religious Right" - they're all the same to them.

On the other hand, it did not escape the notice of many of the president's foes in the impeachment battle that their most vocal opponents on the "liberal side" had been Jews, blacks, Latinos, and "gay and lesbian spear chuckers" - a fact which cannot help but force "race" even more "into play" as the "radicalization" of the electorate continues down its inexorable path.

Ken Branch, a Republican "moderate," said in dismay with regard to the ideologues in his own party after it was all over:

"Some (in this case, "Religious Right" conservatives) regard losing with their virtue intact as preferable to winning ... The Religious Right doesn't want to win. This is their secular version of God coming down and lifting up the virtuous before the end of the world. (But) it has nothing to do with politics."

The same could be said with regard to liberal radicals on the Democratic side. Well, it may not have anything to do with politics the way it is practiced by "moderates," but it has everything to do with "radicalization" - which is precisely what ideologues want. And back and forth the process goes - left to right; right to left - back and forth, first with one side gaining the ascendancy then the other.

THE LEFT MAKES IT EASY FOR THE RIGHT
TO INSERT "ETHNICITY" INTO THE STRUGGLE

To be sure, those in the Racial Right who are pushing "racial radicalization" have to "tip-toe" around the issue of race by using code words like the "ACLU" for the Jews, "unrestricted immigration" for Latinos, "affirmative action," "quotas," "crime" and "gangs" for the blacks, etc. - but this is made all the easier by the "race politics" of many in the liberal-left - after all, how does one explain away the race-rhetoric of a Khalid Muhammed (of the Nation of Islam)? What does one say when a spokesman for Khalid introduces him at the Black Holocaust Nationhood Conference in Washington D.C. (1995) with the following words? -

"The Caucasians (i.e., whites) and the Government are arrogant, telling us how to suffer. (White) America should be glad that every black man is not on a killing spree for all the suffering they have done."

"We want to bring on the former national spokesman for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan... We want to bring on a man who gives the white man nightmares. We want to bring on a man who makes ... (whites) pee in their pants at night... My big brother, Dr. Khalid Muhammad!"

And how does one explain away to working-class whites the increasingly virulent "race politics" of such Latino groups as La Raza, La Familia, etc. in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc? For example, take what happened in San Jose recently when "flyers" appeared out of "nowhere" that flooded the entire "south bay area" declaring California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc. part of Mexico: in addition to a lot of hate-filled rhetoric directed against "white Anglos," the "flyers" announced "null and void" the Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo and urged all people of Mexican descent to rise up and take California back. Naturally, not a word of this appeared in any of the area's newspapers, though obviously a lot of money and outside coordination had gone into the effort. But it appeared instantly on the internet and within a matter of hours it had been reported on by talk-radio - enraging working-class whites throughout the South Bay and contributing immeasurably to their radicalization.

The fact is, increasing numbers of working-class whites believe that if they don't do something quickly, they are going to be engulfed numerically by Latinos from Mexico and Central America, and Haitians and other blacks from the Caribbean and Africa (to say nothing of new hoards of Asians coming in from across the Pacific) - all of them breathing slaughter and hatred against whites as the come, intent on wresting control of the United States from the whites. Whites who are living in "safe areas" may laugh at all this and call such thinking the insane results of an out-of-control paranoia; but you won't find many whites - "moderates" included - in San Diego, Los Angeles, Brownsville, San Antonio, Miami and south Dade county who are laughing any more.

To get an idea of the hate all this is engendering in white, working-class neighborhoods, one has only to listen to their music. Take Guns N' Roses, for instance; it is a white rock band that appeals to "underclass" whites - though there is a great deal of evidence which seems to suggest that its appeal is far broader than that, after all, it isn't underclass whites who can afford the $20 - $40 for a single ticket to a Guns N' Roses concert. Its breakthrough record was a hate song called "One in a Million," which came out in 1989 and targeted blacks, gays, and immigrants with lyrics which declared:

Don't need to buy none of your gold chains today ... Immigrants and faggots They make no sense to me. They come to our country - and think they'll do as they please Like start some mini-Iran or spread some fu---in' disease

THE "BLACK AND LATINO WOLF PACKS"

According to those in the Racial Right, what these groups seem to be saying to whites is, "We're going to get you! - and when we do, look out, we are going to butcher you and throw you to the dogs!!" This threat is made all the more genuine by the growing presence of what really are extremely dangerous black and Latino gangs in many of the country's urban areas. Whites are frightened! - especially working-class whites; "moderate" whites who live in safe neighborhoods can afford to ignore this kind of rhetoric, but working-class whites can't. They see these gangs everyday, and sense in them the deadly malice of a wolf pack which is seeking to devour them simply because they are white.

Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam is right! - all this really is causing working-class whites to "... pee in their pants." But it is also doing something else - it's beginning to propel the "Joe Six-Packs" of these neighborhoods to embrace racism - and to a degree that is seriously being under-reported by the mainline media. Fear has a way of galvanizing people who feel they are threatened - in this case, working-class whites - of making them crowd together, and then catapulting them in directions they never before thought possible.

THE VANDALS ARE COMING

The fact is, countless numbers of working-class whites now link the rhetoric of Khalid Muhammad to the entire black and Latino minority communities. While they won't admit it out loud, they are beginning to see both communities as nothing more than a vicious and rancorous cabal of "do nothings" which slinks about in the inner cities and older suburbs, stalking hard working whites and devouring them - and "scholarly" books like The Bell Curve don't help ameliorate this perception much (please see our article, "Racism And Right-Wing Christianity"). They see these communities as a riffraff. A mob! A rabble. They are the losers, the failures, the ner-do-wells, the excuse givers; the welfare recipients that are "... too lazy to get off their fat rumps and get a job;" the ones who, as Herrnstein and Murray imply in the Bell Curve, "make children" and little else. They are the junkies, the dope dealers, the "denizens of darkness" which live off the hard work of whites. They've taken over the old public parks and playgrounds; they control the public schools; they prowl the inner cities and increasingly the older suburbs. These are the rapists, the muggers, the prostitutes that would just as easily kill whites as look at them. They are the Uzi-toting Mexican and Colombian gang enforcers; the cracked-crazed moms of the inner city who abandon their children.

And what about the offspring of these ner-do-wells? - teens, and even preteens - who seem to treat weapons like household toys; and who ruthlessly gun down their peers on crowded playgrounds. Children without pity like teenager Anthony Knighton who shot Schanell Sorrells, a pregnant 13-year-old girl in Deerfield Beach, Florida because she wouldn't give him a nickel; or four teenage girls who doused 12-year-old Sandra Sharer with gasoline and burned her alive because she was "trying to steal the affections of another girl;" or two teenage sisters in Los Angeles who allegedly killed an elderly neighbor last year while another sister played a stereo to drown out the screams; or student Khalil Sumpter who police said pulled out a .38-cal revolver and shot Tyrone Sinkler and Ian Moore at point blank range at Thomas Jefferson High - a school located in a neighborhood of boarded up row houses on New York's east side - while they were standing in a corridor not far from where the mayor was waiting to lecture them on "self-esteem."

Reporting on what's going on in many of America's minority communities, Tom Morganthau of Newsweek writes,

"... (it) is a vast residential cage in which most of the population is held prisoner ... To ride through ... (it) on a busy Saturday night is to watch the real-life version of Blade Runner. The cops rush back and forth in their black-and-whites, sirens blaring, while helicopters clatter through the night sky to pinpoint the sources of intermittent gunfire with their searchlights. Law-abiding citizens cower behind locked doors and barred windows, fearful of going outside ... ."

It's a world of Mad Max, the Road Warrior and Thunder Dome; out of control; lawless; armed to the teeth; swarming with defiant youths. A seething, smoldering witches brew; foaming with rage and misery ... ready," as John Singleton, the young director of Boys N the Hood, has said "to boil over at any moment." A world of broken glass, smoldering buildings, the whine of police sirens, gunshots in the distance, abandoned cars, trashed apartments, and liquor stores - and which today is no longer confined to the central cities, but is spreading outward and encompassing many heretofore untouched, clean, white, blue collar neighborhoods and older suburbs. What's going on here - and in South Dallas, South Philadelphia, the Bronx, etc. - has whites everywhere scared. Increasing numbers of them see the minorities as out of control and seemingly beyond the reach of any form of authority - a kind of lawless "rolling anarchy" directed against whites.

Murray and Herrnstein see these communities as places where basic human values - the values of work (welfare is so widespread in these areas that there is no longer any stigma in receiving it, it has become a way of life), love, personal growth - have broken down. These are places where - as Wellesley College political scientist, Wilber Rich, says - are reverting back to "... a state of (animalistic) nature in the ... Hobbesian sense." The social contract is breaking down and the war of all against all has clearly begun. This is the world that set Los Angeles aflame in the spring of 1992: a time bomb that is also ready to explode in every other major city in the United States. And when it does, whites are scared that it will propel the flotsam and jetsam of these communities into their neighborhoods, like the Vandals and Huns that terrorized and eventually destroyed the old Roman Empire - and that's the point of the matter. The fact is, growing numbers of whites are beginning to see the black and Latino populations of this country as modern-day Vandals and Huns who are camped just outside their neighborhoods waiting to break in, bringing chaos and pandemonium as they come. After all, what are they to think when black rap singer Sister Souljah tells the Washington Post -

"... if black people kill black people every day (in the ghetto), why not take a week (off) and kill white people (in their neighborhoods) too?"

As these kinds of perceptions take "front and center," even those who had at first put little value in their ethnic identity are pressed towards ethnic mobilization. The opportunity of choosing between a "moderate" (multicultural) identity and an ethnic identity slowly disappears as the rhetoric becomes ever more heated - forcing more and more individuals in each ethnic group to adopt ethnic identities. More importantly, ethnic identity is often imposed by the opposing group, specifically by its most radical elements. This is what happened in the former Yugoslavia; for example, take what happened to one "moderate" (multicultural) Bosnian Muslim school teacher as the "action-reaction spiral" of ethnic conflict began to take hold there. She laments:

"We never, until war, thought of ourselves as Muslims. We were Yugoslavs (i.e., multiculturalists). But when we began to be murdered, because we are Muslims, things changed. The definition of who we are today has been determined by our killers."

WHAT IS OUR ANSWER TO ALL THIS GOING TO BE?

Whether we like it or not, there are "forces" at play today which are compelling us to take on an ethnic identity - regardless of how we might feel. As that Bosnian school teacher said, "The definition of who we are today has been determined by ... (others)." Now the question arises, What is our answer going to be to all this? Get involved politically? Where do we start? Tell blacks and Latinos to back off? Tell working-class whites to quit grumbling and go out and get a third job? Preach to the poor - working-class whites as well as blacks and Latinos - the "magic" of the "Free Market?" Tell Mexicans to stay home in Mexico and work at the maquiladores for $60.00 a month? Tell blacks in the ghetto to get off their fannies and go out and get a good job? - when there are none to be had. Tell Latinos to forget about California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. - after all, we stole these territories "fair and square." Tell blacks that they shouldn't feel demeaned by the "Confederate battle flag?" or tell Southern whites that they should give it up? - along with their heritage. Where do we begin?

IS THERE REALLY A MORAL MAJORITY?

Politically minded Christians, of course, believe that all these things - the kind of things that lead to "racial rage" - can be sorted out if we could only elect "men of good-will" to office in this country; that an appeal to the "Judeo-Christian" ethic could solve all our problems. That's what Tim LaHaye thinks. That's what Ralph Reed believes. That's what Lou Sheldon and Jerry Falwell suppose. They believe that there exists a "moral majority" in this country, and that if it could only be awakened, everything will turn out "OK." Of course, that pre-supposes the existence of a "moral majority" in this country. But is this a reasonable assumption? Is it biblical? Is there really a "moral majority" in America?

No! - of course not! Human beings are not moral beings - at least not in any biblical sense. What are Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, etc. thinking about here? - they seem to have forgotten what the Bible says with regard to this matter! The Bible declares:

"... There is none righteous, no, not one: "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Rom. 3:10-12)

And again, the Bible says,

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ..." (Rom. 3:23)

The Bible says that sin has a hold on mankind; that man is caught in its grip; that he is a prisoner of it - and not only that, the Bible teaches that man enjoys his sin, and -

"... who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Rom. 1:28-32)

The reality is - and many Christians seem unable to fathom this fact - unbelievers take pleasure in their sin, and they like to be in the company of those who enjoy it as well - and they don't want a bunch of Religious Right "nannies" running around telling them what to do and what not to do. The fact is, most people -

"... (do) not (even) like to retain God in their knowledge ..." (Rom. 1:28)

The truth of the matter is, despite all the effort of people like Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell, W.A. Criswell, John Whitehead, Robert Simonds, Pat Robertson, Rousas John Rushdoony, Gary North, Billy McCormack, Ralph Reed, Beverly LaHaye, Lou Sheldon, etc. to say otherwise, Americans are not going to rush in to embrace "biblical principles" or the "Judeo-Christian" ethic because of some "inner prompting" of the spirit or for the sake of their consciences.

CAN WE FORCE "RIGHTEOUSNESS" ON A PEOPLE?

There are some, of course, who say that while that may be true (i.e., that men love their sin), we can at least implement "Christian (biblical) principles" and force people (i.e., the "unsaved") to live by them.

Naturally, this means that we would have to give up on democracy, because if most men love their sin [and this is what the Bible plainly teaches (Rom. 1:28-32)], then it is certain that we can't count on them to "vote in" such a state. We would have to create a "police state!" - and force morality on the people. This is what Reconstructionists want. This is what Dominionists desire. This is what Calvin tried to do in Geneva; this is what the Puritans attempted to do in England under Cromwell. The "Righteous" forcing righteousness on the "unrighteous." As one follower of R.J. Rushdoony said,

"The only hope for the United States is the total Christianization of the country at all levels ..." [And by "Christianization," the followers of Rushdoony mean forced "Christianization:" "In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used." (R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes).]

This means, of course, the "righteous" taking up the "sword of righteousness" against the "unrighteous." But who among us is righteous? Who among us is worthy of "casting the first stone?" (John 8:7) Have any of us, as yet, reached such a state of perfection that we are capable of "casting that first stone?" - and we should bear in mind here,

"... with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matt. 7:2)

How many of us would be willing to face Christ ON THAT DAY and have the judgment we dished out to the "unrighteous" dished out to us? And remember here, we will be judged not only by what we have done, but by every thought we have ever had. Do we want mercy on that day? Or do we want judgment?

Yes, as Christians, we have the righteousness of Christ imputed by faith to us - but not because of what we have done or who we are, but because of what He did for us on the cross. But that's Christ's righteousness, not ours. Yes, no doubt, He is worthy of setting up such a "Christian state," and He is worthy of "casting the first stone," but as of yet, He has not done so, choosing instead to put judgment in abeyance "for a season," not willing for any to be lost, but that all should be saved! - for once judgment falls, it is too late for the unsaved to be saved. As a result, the Bible says that He is -

"... longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)

THE RECONSTRUCTIONISTS AND THE DOMINIONISTS -
BLACKS , LATINOS AND ASIANS SHOULD BE AFRAID

There are, no doubt, some Christians (i.e., the Reconstructionists and the Dominionists) who have the titanic arrogance and utter blindness of spirit to believe that they are "worthy" to set up such a kingdom; that they are worthy to stand in the place of Christ. But I certainly would not like to be a part of such a kingdom. The pious sanctimony that would be necessary to the maintenance of such a kingdom; the dissimulation, the "display," the pretense of virtue, the "make-believe," the double-dealing, the hiding of one's true self - the HYPOCRISY of it all! No! - better to fall into the hands of the "secular-humanists" than into the hands of a Rousas John Rushdoony who says, as we just indicated, that -

"In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used."

The unsaved had better be frightened of such people. It's little wonder that blacks, Latinos, Jews, the gays and lesbians, etc. felt so compelled to rally to the President's defense during the impeachment fight. They were acting out of a very genuine concern and anxiety of what the so-called "Religious Right" would do to them if they won. As we have said before, such fears have a way of galvanizing people, of making them huddle together, you can believe that - and "to hell with the truth of the matter."

You say that such fears are misplaced? Oh, really? Well consider what Rushdoony has to say about the minority communities. For example, take what Rushdoony has to say about the necessity of maintaining the purity of the white race. In The Institutions, he writes:

"Clearly history has witnessed genetic deterioration. Selective breeding in (white) Christian countries has led to a degree to the progressive elimination of many defective persons (i.e., people of mixed race) ..."

On blacks, Rushdoony writes:

"The white man has behind him centuries of Christian culture and the discipline and selective breeding this faith requires [and heaven only knows where he got such an idea, certainly not from the Bible, maybe from some genetic handbook left behind at Aushwitz by Joseph Mengele - editor] ... The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his heredity has been governed by radically different consideration."

Elsewhere, Rushdoony writes:

"The background of Negro culture is African and magic ... Voodoo, or magic, was the religion and life of American Negroes. Voodoo songs underlie jazz, and old voodoo, with its power goal, has been merely replaced with revolutionary voodoo, a modernized power drive." [And notice here, Rushdoony - in using the word, "revolutionary" - is plainly playing to the fears of whites that blacks are out to get them.]

On black slavery, Rushdoony writes:

"The law (i.e., the "law" that Rushdoony and his cohorts would set up in their idealized "Christian state") here is humane and also unsentimental. It recognizes that some people (i.e., blacks and "lesser sorts") are by nature slaves and will always be so. It both requires that they be dealt with in a godly manner and also that the slave recognize his position and accept it with grace."

David Chilton, another Reconstructionist, believes that "... even Southern Slavery was not as unbiblical as many have charged." Chilton argues that slaves should be well tended and eventually freed if they are Christian. [What does that mean? - that whites have the right to hold people who are not Christians in slavery. The multinationals would love that. That would certainly end their perennial search for "cheap labor." And you can imagine how the multinationals would treat evangelists if "conversion" eventually meant that they would have to "free their slaves." That would certainly be bad for business.]

HOW WIDESPREAD IS THIS THINKING

And just how wide-spread is Rushdoony's ideals in the evangelical community today? - very widespread, indeed. Rushdoony has appeared frequently on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, according to Christianity Today and The Wall Street Journal. Gary North, another Reconstructionist, has also appeared numerous times on the 700 Club. Both North and Rushdoony have been repeat guests on televangelist and religious right organizer D. James Kennedy's television broadcasts, and Kennedy has called their biblical commentaries "essential" works.

The Traditional Values Coalition and Citizens for Excellence in Education have advertised "Rutherford Institute Seminars" in which Rushdoony was a featured speaker - along with Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead. Rushdoony was described in the advertisement as a "theologian ... who represents scriptural framework for building orderly structures in society ..."

Herbert Titus, the founding dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School, has said that the school has used Rushdoony's and Gary North's works as course texts. Regent public policy professor Joseph Kickasola has written for a Rushdoony publication. Kickasola and Regent adjunct professor Gary Amos were teamed with Rushdoonyites David Chilton and Peter Leithart, among others, in a three-day theological debate - "The National Dialogue on the Kingdom of God."

While many evangelicals say they don't agree with Reconstructionism, they continue to welcome them at their conferences and hire them in their seminaries. For example, George Grant, a notorious Reconstructionist, is a very sought-after speaker at Christian Coalition conferences. Grant's work was part of a series of four reconstructionist tracts edited by North that Jerry Falwell, a leading evangelical, has described as "a tool Christians need" for the difficulties "that confront society."

This is just the tip of the iceberg - and you say that there is no reason for the minority community to be afraid of the Religious Right? I would be if I were in their shoes - and so would you!!

As racial radicalization continues down its dogged and inflexible course, white evangelicals are ever more being drawn into this kind of thinking. You say that won't happen to you. Oh, really? - well that's what countless numbers of good German Christians said about Hitler's race politics. When push came to shove, what happened to them? If Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc. are beginning, willy-nilly, to buy into it, what makes you feel you can be that far behind? Racial radicalization makes monsters out of us all - and all in the name of God.

THE LAW CANNOT SAVE, ONLY CHRIST SAVES

Rushdoony and his ilk are wrong! The law can't help us. In the end, it only makes an impossible situation more impossible. The Bible says:

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through (i.e., because of) the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." (Rom. 8:3)

The law does not save us! Christ saves us! What the law does is prove to us that we are indeed sinners in need of a savior; that there is something desperately wrong with us; that there is a "principle of sin" operating in us, and we are powerless to free ourselves from its grip. We need a savior! This is the very basis of Christianity. All the law does is excite sin all the more in us. The Bible says:

"But sin, taking occasion by the commandment (i.e., the law), wrought in me all manner of concupiscence (i.e., lust, debauchery, lewdness). For without the law sin was dead." (Rom. 7:8)

What does this mean? - it means this: tell a sinner not to sin, and he will sin all the more! Why? - because the Bible says that man is "... carnal, sold under sin ..." - and the more he is told not to do something, the more he will want to do it. (Rom. 7:14)

Reconstructionists are wrong! Dominionists are wrong! Law cannot create a just society; a society free from evil - at least not on any meaningful basis. Yes, the law is good, but man is not. At best, he might be able to contain sin for a while, but ultimately, it ALWAYS breaks out again.

The very real fact of the matter is - despite all the laws that have been passed in the last thirty years - racism is worse today than it has ever been - and it's getting worse (and this is not our opinion, but the opinion of most civil rights groups in the country).

RECKONING OURSELVES DEAD IN CHRIST

So what's the answer? Insofar as the world is concerned, there is none!! But insofar as the Kingdom of Heaven is concerned, there is hope. Why? - because in heaven there is -

"... neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

And how do we appropriate this reality for ourselves? - by reckoning ourselves dead to this world and by living in that reality. And this must not be a matter of simple doctrine, but a matter around which we actually organize our lives. That's what the act of baptism is all about. And that's why the Bible indicates that it should be a PUBLIC act carried out not just in front of other Christians but the unsaved as well. Baptism declares that we are dead to the world and its concerns. If we really reckon ourselves dead to the world, should the political affairs of this world concern us any longer? Do dead people demonstrate in front of abortion clinics? Do they vote for Religious Right candidates? Are they concerned with school vouchers? No! - they're dead!! And just as they are dead, we too are dead in Christ. Just as these things no longer concern them, they should no longer concern us - we are dead to them. The Bible says:

"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death ..." (Rom. 6:3-4a)

Death brings us freedom - and in doing so, it brings us freedom from racism. Once we die, we lose our old identities. When we die, we leave them behind. We acquire a new identity. The Bible says:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor. 5:17)

In Christ's Kingdom we are no longer male or female, we are no longer black or brown; we are no longer Asian or white; we are no longer Americans or Russians; Chinese or South Africans - but we are instead citizens of a heavenly kingdom "whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. 11:10)

THE CHURCH IS GOD'S EXPRESSION
ON THE EARTH TODAY, NOT THE STATE

We get a foretaste of this reality in the church - or at least we should! Until Christ comes again, the church, not the state, is God's expression on the earth today - or at least it should be. It is in the church, not the state, that we can begin to experience these things as reality, so -

"... that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:3b)

"In whom (i.e., Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: "That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, "Which is the earnest (i.e., "down payment") of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, "Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, "Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, "Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things TO THE CHURCH, "Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. (Eph. 1:11-23)

WHAT RACISM IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

As we have previously indicated, racism is an idea born in the hearts of disappointed men who see themselves as having a stake in this world. It is a phenomenon that takes root in men and women who feel they are being thwarted from their legitimate worldly destiny by "lesser people." In Germany, where race-thinking became official doctrine for more than a decade, the surrender of the German people - even German Christians - to the appeal of racism originated in despair - a despair born in the belief that they were in danger of being overrun by "lesser people," particularly people from the east (just as today white Americans feel threatened by "brown" Latinos streaming up from the south, black Haitians washing ashore on the beaches in Florida, and "affirmative action" programs designed to push them aside in favor of what they consider to be less "mentally equipped" minorities). Put simply, fascism is an alternative to madness for people who feel balked in what they consider to be their legitimate WORLDLY ambitions. It is a faith rooted in the consciousness of a thwarted self-worth and confirmed by the Tertullian principle of "Certum est quia impossible."

Are you a disappointed person? Do you feel that you have been thwarted from the worldly destiny you feel is legitimately yours? Do you feel that you have ever lost a chance at a better house, a better job, a better anything in this world because "less endowed people" were handed it as a result of "affirmative action?" Do you believe that America is in danger of being "overrun" by "lesser people?" Do these things anger you? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you are a candidate for fascism! - and that's the truth of the matter.

You say, however, that these are causes for legitimate anger; they present real dangers. But we say, Not to dead people!

DO YOU WANT SOMETHING TO DO?

Do you want something to do? Do you want your life to count for something? Do you really want to stop racism? Do you really want to make sure that your friends and loved ones escape the ethnic strife that the Bible says is coming? Then don't get caught up trying to reform the world. It will never work! Get involved in the church - and if you can't find a good one, then we recommend you read the following: "The Jesus Revolution: the Search for 'Community' And The 'Church-Life'." Please, take the time to read it. Do it now! Yes, it is a very "revolutionary" tract - but it may very well change your life forever.

Remember what prophecy is all about: it warns of things to come before they come; because if you wait until events overtake you, it will be too late to do anything about it.

God bless you all!

S.R. Shearer