This is a guest post by Bookslinger.
I’d like to recommend a book I found at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. Jezebel’s War with America, by Michael L. Brown, $4. It’s cheaper than buying used on Amazon, where it’s about $7 including shipping.
I bought extra copies to loan to friends.
I’m writing this review/recommendation for a general Christian audience, not solely Millennial Star’s intended audience.
You’re most likely already knowledgeable about the subject – the spiritual and culture wars going on.
The value I see in the book is in the extensive endnotes, and the connecting of the historical dots. It shows who the players and leaders of personal, family, and nation destruction were and are.
In case you’re not familiar with Michael L. Brown, he has a ministry, website, podcast, videos, etc.
From his videos/podcasts, I think his speaking style is a bit too over-the-top, too zealous/intense, a bit too Pentecostal, almost holy-roller-ish, for me. But his writing style is palatable.
And I have to admit, Brown makes good logical points in this book about the culture wars. He “connects the dots” in a very good way. The far left fringe of the left indicates where their center will be in a few years – the trend is obvious in hindsight.
He shows the connections, the progression, that the society-destroyers have made since the 1960’s. The far fringe wackos of the 60’s are now at the center of progressivism today.
And in Brown’s defense, the saying is true “If you’re not outraged by now, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
I think this book tones down the verbal/audio Pentecostal style of his videos/podcasts, so it should be palatable to believers of all stripes.
Another good recurring theme of the book is that the progressives are not the real enemy. They have mostly been duped and wounded by the real enemy. This parallels previous comments that I have made about Peter Kreeft’s book “How to Win the Culture War.” Kreeft says “they are our patients, not our enemies.”
This book may be a good wake-up call for your “go along/get along” Christian friends who are not fully aware of how bad things are, or how to push back. It may be good for parents of minors. It may be good for “asleep” Christians.
The parallels of modern progressivism/etc. to the Old Testament Jezebel are stunning.
Then he draws some parallels between Jehu and Trump.
Anyway, Brown’s O.T. scholarship seems legit. His research and source citations are extensive. He quotes many current and past Christian leaders, as well as a litany of leftist/PC activists and leaders going back over 50 years.
Chapter headings (paraphrased, not verbatim):
- Jezebel in the Bible.
- The spirit of Jezebel in America.
- Idolatry.
- The sexual revolution.
- The spirit of baby-killing.
- Radical Feminism.
- The war on gender distinction. (He traces it directly back to the extreme fringe of 60’s/70’s radical feminists. They actually went on record about it.)
- The rise of witchcraft. (Seriously.)
- Silencing the prophets/pastors/religious leaders.
- Jehu and Teump.
- What you can do.
- What we collectively can do.
If you have a Scribd.com subscription this book and the audio book is included in your membership.
Interesting – thanks for sharing.
I have a book out from the library currently which also looks very good, called ‘The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution’, by Carl R. Trueman. He writes very well. He’s a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the book is also written to Christians generally. I think it talks about similar things, but perhaps with some different causes. He shows how various trends – some starting a long time ago – have led, inexorably, to the current cultural craziness, focused on identity. I’ve only read the introduction so far, but it looks like it will be an informative, sober, fair and important book.
I like feeling more a part of the larger Christian world in these senses, where we’re combined in our concern about these trends and conditions, and our desire – and felt mission – to combat them.
@IaL, thanks. I just now downloaded the free Kindle sample of that book.
From reading the Amazon blurbs and the Table of Contents, I don’t see any calls to action or proposed solutions/responses. It seems that it’s all merely analysis of what went wrong — not a “how to undo/fix.”
But, even if the book points out that the root underlying problem is spiritual, as opposed to cultural, the bigger problem is that Mainstream Christianity — meaning Catholics and almost all Protestants except pockets of Evangelicals and Pentecostals — is asleep or dead.
Asleep Christianity, even asleep Restored Christianity, does not have the power to overcome the dominant culture.
IOW, Cultural Christianity has run out of social capital.
Mainstream Christianity doesn’t even have the power, or momentum, anymore to maintain itself internally — it is splitting, unraveling, and shrinking. Recursive schism and splintering is common among the mainline Protestants. And both Catholics and mainline Protestants are shuttering chapels/churches/parishes left and right in Western developed countries.
Only Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals and Pentecostals are building new/more chapels.
Here’s an edited snippet of what I wrote at another blog:
There needs to be some kind of transformative renewal or quickening or awakening in most wards and branches.
It can/could/might be inspired/instigated by leadership from above the ward/branch level, but to spread horizontally, it needs to catch some individual ward members on fire first. It cannot be sustained solely in a superior-to-subordinate manner of transmission. It has to also be organic, viral, and peer-to-peer.
It is not going to be (it can’t be) another “program” that people could robotically follow.
IMO, the majority of active/participating members in the US are actually asleep. Individually, we need to catch ourselves on fire, then catch our peers on fire.
In other words, it’s not just our sociality and culture that are off kilter, it’s the sum of all our individual attitudes and outlooks.
Perhaps it’s a case of “the tyranny of small decisions”; if so, then it looks like the vast majority of us are making incorrect small decisions.
I think, although we need to be involved in communities and nations, and this is very important, that the biggest way we can help in such decline – because it’s going to happen, whatever we do, isn’t it? – is to be a shining, shining example. That city on a hill. To do that, we need to truly become Zion. I think many are, perhaps, still as Elder Maxwell put it: one foot in the kingdom of God, and one in the world/Babylon. Often for what are thought to be very good motivations.
What I mean by Zion is a truly inter-connected, deeply-loving community in our local areas. Less divided into cliques (young single adults, young marrieds, middle marrieds, retired, popular families/church royalty, etc.), and more invested in helping each other become sanctified and becoming ourselves deeply loving beings.
Not sure how idealistic this is, but it’s in the scriptures. This is what the Church needs to become, to be what Doctrine and Covenants, and Revelation, describes: clear and terrible as the moon; the only place not at war within itself; the sole sanctuary for people seeking peace. We need to be that sanctuary, so people have a place to turn.
The Kindle edition of “Jezebel’s War with America” is currently on sale for $2.99 at Amazon. It will likely only last a few days.