The fight between Hamas and Israel may be an age-old, continuing feud over land, religion, and ancient cultural grievances; but for other nations such as China and Russia, this is part of the greater battle of rejecting American-led globalization and American power.

But first, a question: How do empires and civilizations fall? There tends to be a common series of events that lead to the collapse of a nation or empire. Beginning with the first empire– the Assyrian Empire, the end comes about due to a combination of the following things: delusional autocratic leadership and dysfunctional government, a loss of the tax base, demographic collapse (due to low birth-rates, disease, or plagues), a great divide between the rich and the poor, the military gets involved in too many wars, natural and man-made climate disasters destroy the arable land, they experience a breakdown in civil society (civil wars), they go financially bankrupt, they are invaded or attacked in a moment of weakness, and they collapse because of too much complexity.

Some empires can collapse and rise again multiple times (like Assyria, and Ancient Egypt), others disappear forever (like the Etruscans, Incas, and Aztecs), and some just shrink to become a modest state (Great Britain, the Mongol Empire, Spain).

Today there is one undisputed super-power in the world, the United States. No military or economy can truly compete—and that includes China. But it goes further than that. The world has been following the American blue-print of free-market economics, democracy, alliances with the United States, and inter-dependent economic connectivity all backed by American power (800 military bases in over 70 countries) since 1945. It is an Americanized global world order. The challenge to that (The Communist World) mostly collapsed in 1991. Even China became a capitalist power-house in the 1990’s. This was the third great era of globalization in history. It raised living standards, brought more peace and democracy than we have ever seen, and cut global poverty by more than 50%. Extreme poverty dramatically decreased, but it also created enormous divides between rich and poor, so that the middle class weakened in developed countries, and grew quickly in less developed countries like China and India. Most significantly to what is happening now, it led to new nations wanting to challenge and destroy the U.S.-led world order.

THE CHALLENGERS TO THE UNITED STATES

There are a number of nations and movements that really seek to end the so-called “American Century” since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

ISLAMIC FASCIST MOVEMENTS: The first overt challenge was Islamic Fascism and the world order alternative presented by Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden and Al-Zwahari were very clear prior to the attacks about what their plan was. It was a trap: “Let’s weaken the United States by drawing them into a long war in the Middle East, forcing them to overspend, go bankrupt, and isolate from the world while making many enemies.” The American world order would be replaced by an Islamic Caliphate running the world. While that’s attractive to a small portion of Muslims, most Muslim youth around the world are bored by that and want to be atheists, soccer stars or rappers. But enough joined to grow Al-Qaeda (especially in Africa), and ISIS. Both Hezbollah and Hamas share a common hatred of Israel and the United States.

CHINA: Newly “wealthy” and powerful China has aggressively tried to create a Chinese world order to replace the American one. This is one where China gets to remain an authoritarian state accountable to no one, but practices Capitalism with the rest of the world (minus the American penchant for inserting morality into foreign policy). In other words: “We Chinese don’t care who we work with, as long as they make us money and expand our economic reach. They can be communist, capitalist, terrorists, nationalists, European, Latin American autocrats, African…anything.” China will support anyone and anything that allows it to make money and weakens the US world order.

China’s problem is that it is a house of cards, far more fragile than people realize. It’s leader Xi Jinping is deeply unpopular and incompetent, it’s economic success was a mirage built on debt, bad loans, and over-construction. Dishonest banking practices, manipulation of numbers and corruption hide the real truth. Today, its unemployment rate is high, it’s consumers don’t spend, there is a housing affordability crisis, there are far too many men and not enough women so birth-rates are dangerously low, the family is breaking down, there are too many pensioners and not enough workers, it has an untested and over-rated military and China is prone to regular pandemics, , natural disasters, and suffers from severe environmental degradation. Those are a lot of the things on the list of how empires fall. China is a fragile nation, pretending to be the next United States. But people buy into their projected image. In reality, China looks like France in 1900 and Japan in the 1990’s: nations that were supposed to become the premier global powers and peaked too soon.

RUSSIA: Russia has reached the point of no return as a country. It’s been called “Zaire with permafrost.” Aside from oil, some key natural resources and a low quality military that can only bomb and raze and commit acts of terrorism, its rusty nuclear weapons that may or may not work, are the only things that keep it relevant. Putin’s goal all along has been to restore as much of the Soviet Empire as he can. So far that has amounted to Belarus and from time to time, Kazakhstan being part of his newly-constituted “Eurasian Economic Union” which is supposed to compete with China, the E.U., India, and the United States. So far, it’s been a laughable failure because Putin is no genius. Putin’s second goal is to destroy the American World Order which means he will work with North Korea, China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or terrorist groups like Hamas if it hurts the United States. While no one is watching, he and the Wagner group have created chaos in Africa (removing the French and the government of Niger just last week), they are assisting a new war to come about between Azerbaijan and Armenia (while no one is watching), as well as in Malawi, Chad, and other regions. Russia is also buying political parties in democratic states, using troll farms and cyber-warfare on America and its allies, and as of this week, blaming the United States for the Hamas-Israel problem. Russia supports both Hamas, props up Syria, and supports the portions of Israel politicians that were starting a Civil War between the Israeli Jews themselves. In other words, Russia sowed many of the seeds of this current conflict by financing and supporting the two most violent rivals in Israel (hardline Jews and hardline terrorists). Russia understands it doesn’t need a strong military. It just needs to create dangerous fault-lines around the world that trip up the United States and the EU. This sadly works because disinformation campaigns work, bribery works, kompromat works, and people are very slow to stand up to a bully.

IRAN: Iran funds terrorism around the world. While the people of Iran are overwhelmingly young and in support of the United States (and hate radical Shiia Islam), the corrupt, theocratic mullahs of Iran have managed to maintain control of the nation since 1979 and are committed to causing problems for their 3 great enemies: The USA, Israel, and their Sunni Islamic rival, Saudi Arabia. The Hamas-Israel conflict is good for destroying Israel and weakening the US and Saudi Arabia, which they desperately want. Like Russia, their goal is to pay and supply terrorists but be removed enough to create plausible deniability: “Maybe they are using some of our weapons, and we’ve given them some money and advice, but we didn’t plan this thing.” Same tactic Russia and China are using (Chinese and Russian fingerprints will be all over this current Hamas terrorist attack, not just Iran).

SAUDI ARABIA AND TURKEY: Both are authoritarian nations that are fair-weathered allies of the United States. American military bases are in Turkey and Turkey (which recently changed its official name to Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) are part of NATO. But Turkey is run by a dictator who supports Islamic Fascism and genocide of the Kurds. He’s already come out in support of Hamas and protected Russia’s fleet in the Black Sea from the US Navy. Like Putin, Orban, Xi, and Netanyahu, Turkey’s President is all about weakening any institutions, judicial system, and legislative bodies that limit his total control. As for Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia gives the U.S. oil in exchange for security from Iran. Saudi supports Islamic fascist movements and terrorist groups around the world, including hardcore Islamic Fascist schools in Pakistan. But the US still depends too much on these two nations, both who have no real love for Israel or the United States. Both join Russia, China, and Iran in wanting a non-American world order.

EVERYONE IS TOO BROKE TO PAY FOR WORLD WAR III
Both China and the United States are technically broke (I’ve written about this extensively before on my blog). The world governments are currently carrying a debt of over $300 trillion, and more than 1/3 of that is American debt racked up since 9/11/2001. It’s over $500 trillion if you count corporate debt. In other words, countries like the USA can never pay back their debts. In fact, they cannot even afford the interest on the loans and its mathematically impossible to ever pay back the full debt. Basically, every major country from the UK to France, to Japan, to China is carrying unsustainable debt.

This is a huge problem for China and the rest of the world—and all were in bad shape financially before COVID forced them to spend trillions to prop up their economies during lockdown. Wars are expensive, pandemics are expensive, and no one has the money to pay for it. But here we are.

The US gets away with its high debts because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. This means the US has an extra 4th option that other countries don’t have. Option 1 is default and declare bankruptcy. Argentina does this pretty regularly. Option 2 is called “austerity” and means the government cuts back its spending on its citizens (pensions, schools, medical care, housing assistance, infrastructure, welfare programs). No government in a democracy survives that. The UK briefly tried it after the 2008 crisis and had to reverse course quickly as people’s anger mounted. Option 3 is a “Global Debt Jubilee” where the whole world decides to forgive each other’s debts and re-price everything. It requires tons of cooperation and there are big winners and losers. It’s a Biblical idea practiced by Ancient Israel, but hard to pull off in today’s complicated, integrated global economy. Option 4 is for the United States alone. Devalue your currency by printing money out of thin air. Artificially prop up the stock market, continually change the inflation markers, allow high inflation and high interest rates to slow the economy, let the value of the dollar shrink in real terms so that $100 will only buy $10 worth of stuff 10 years from now. This is the option the US is doing now. It’s an invisible tax that people are slow to notice or don’t notice at all. And this kind of extreme currency and market manipulation started with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and went into over-drive after 9/11 and the dot.com bust around 2004. Every President since then, Democrat or Republican (W. Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden) has been trapped into spending money that the US doesn’t have because the Federal Reserve created a manipulated (and very ironically, socialist) controlled, economy. American capitalists are thus completely dependent on socialism (for corporations). Even the rich are getting poorer in the United States, but they can afford to get poorer because they have such an enormous advantage and own valuable assets the Middle Class and poor do not. The Middle Class and the poor in the United States have been in decline since 1971, but only started to figure out they were in decline after the 2008 financial crisis. Hence the Tea Part (conservative), Occupy Wall Street (liberal), and the rise of militancy, racism, and demagoguery. The blame that should go toward highly-sophisticated and manipulative banking and economic fiscal policy instead gets channeled toward immigrants, Blacks, Jews, Republicans, Democrats, city people vs. rural people etc. Demagogues rise, democracy suffers, trust-levels in society plummet. That’s the process that has really accelerated in the USA since 2012.

HAMAS-ISRAEL CREATES AN OPENING FOR AMERICAN DECLINE
While the US has long promised to defend Israel and Taiwan (notice how the Hamas-Israel war forces the US to take its eyes and military off of Ukraine and Taiwan), the American nation shows many of the signs of a collapsing empire: dysfunctional government, enormous divide between rich and poor, flirting with autocratic leadership, divided in two and on the brink of a form of civil war, a shrinking tax base, demographic slow-down, and an over-stretched military involved in too many long-term wars. For Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Islamic-Fascist terrorist groups, the United States is just as fragile right now as Israel. And their hope is the same as Osama Bin Laden’s prior to 9/11. They hope that the U.S. overcommits, makes a new set of enemies, goes to war, goes bankrupt and falls into civil war and autocracy.

While China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey all enjoy trying to destroy the American world order, they all have a huge problem: They are all super crappy at running their own countries and haven’t provided a succesful economic world order to compete with the American-led post 1991 globalization world order. Their populations (particularly all the young generations) do not want to be disconnected from the globalized world. They want i-phones, Zoom, remote work, travel, and Taylor Swift. Their living standards will get worse in a post-American World Order. Young people and talented people have left Russia in droves, China has had to put travel restrictions on its people because so many Chinese want to leave China and store their money in the West. Saudi has an enormous youth unemployment problem, Turkey was the 11th largest economy in the world before Erdogan and today it is an economic laggard, and Iran is filled with a mostly young population that is pro-West and hates Islam. These nations may destroy themselves or fall into civil war in their effort to destroy the United States world order.

Interestingly, every country mentiond (including China and Russia) have a large population of Muslims that can easily be radicalized. Both China and Russia abuse their Islamic citizens, so sponsoring terrorism against the United States and Israel will probably backfire horrifically on China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. It’s a be-careful-what-you-wish-for situation.

At some point in the near future, Americans will have to come together and fight a common enemy (like Israel is having to do literally overnight after being on the brink of Civil War before the Hamas attack), or the US will choose to withdraw from the world (which is not possible in an age of satellite communications that we are all dependent on), or begin a long-term decline. To survive and thrive, the US will have to reinvent itself (which it has done 3 times before) and come together very quickly. Just as Hamas trapped Israel last week, the bigger players on the world have been working to trap the United States for 20 years and are in the process of finishing the job. The USA will have enormously consequential decisions to make from here on out that will either extend the American Century or end it rapidly. Right now Americans are too busy fighting and hating each other to see the forest through the trees.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the ancient civilizations (and that’s what they are…not countries but civilizations) of Iran, China, and Russia have been playing 5 dimensional chess, while American leaders both Republican and Democrat have been playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. Can the United States avoid the fate of other nations and civilizations that reached this point? It has before, but each time it required a level of selflessness and sacrifice that comes hard for a nation of radical individualists whose instinct is to put their own needs ahead of a common greater good.

[In my 4th and final post, I will highlight the most important things to keep an eye on over the next decade. A new world order is being created–the question outanding however is will it be a more free and safe world order, or a more dangerous and autocratic world order].

When did World War II start? Americans usually answer that it started in December of 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Europeans say it began in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland. But for Asians, the date is July 7th, 1937 when Japan attacked China in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident which started WWII on the Pacific Side. In other words, World Wars start at multiple times and places until they merge into one big global conflict. The attack on Israel by Hamas is probably our 1939 moment. In other words, World War III has probably started, but we are now at the point where most of the world is on the verge of admitting it.

IS THIS WORLD WAR 3?
Probably. When historians look back on this time, they will probably say that the seeds for World War 3 were sowed in 2008 when the global economy went into recession, nations took on unsustainable debt, social media became toxic, and the culture wars led to a decline in democracy and the growth of autocratic leaders. That describes 2008-2020 with a pandemic thrown in.

When did World War 3 actually start? They will probably say it began in 2014-2016 when Russia began overtly using cyber-attacks on democracies and weaponizing social media. Phase 2 will be viewed as the nearly invisible weaponizing of Space which has been occurring behind the scenes (between the USA, Russia, China, and India). The goal is not really to get to Mars, the top priority is to have the capability to destroy your enemies’’satellites, take down their internet, disconnect them from the global and electronic world. Space today is a crowded, busy, dangerous place filled with space junk, satellites, and weaponry. It’s so dangerous anyone going up in a spaceship has to seriously worry about crashing into something as you leave the Earth’s atmosphere.

Phase 3 of World War III will probably the invasion of Ukraine by Russia which pushed China, and Iran into more overt cooperation. It also ushered in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia’s desire to displace the US Dollar. It united and divided NATO, and encouraged China to ratchet up its belligerence toward Taiwan.

Phase 4 will be the Hamas-Attack on Israel, where suddenly, a modern nation and significant world power is on the brink of complete collapse, invasion, or destruction. It’s also the moment that the world wakes up to the fact that Israeli and Chinese surveillance technology is not the ultimate impenetrable weapon. Like 9/11 with the box-cutters, Hamas has destroyed Israel’s high tech safety perimeter.

HAMAS HAS SET A BRILLIANT TRAP

It looks like Hamas has brilliantly executed a plan to completely box-in Israel and possibly destroy the nation. The trap seemed to involve a number of ingenious moves. 1) They pretended they were fighting with each other, bickering, and in desperate need of economic assistance from Israel desiring work permits. Israel bought into their fake drama and believed they were weakened and humbled in light of Israel’s high -tech surveillance. 2). They took advantage of the fact that Benyamin Natanyahu had massively weakened Israel splitting it in two using the culture wars (conservative, hard-right orthodox jews vs. the more secular Jewish establishment). It won him elections narrowly, but divided the nation, the military, and led him to start destroying Israel’s checks and balances by weakening its key institutions, like the Supreme Court. Israel had leadership that talked about War against Iran all the time, but was actually doing everything it could to weaken its own nation in order for the Likud Prime Minister to keep winning elections amidst many scandals. 3) They gave up using technology to communicate and went back to old school face to face communication, they got drones from Iran, and re-armed themselves right under Netanyahu’s nose. Netanyahu’s anti-terrorism blabber was shtick to win elections. The real threat wasn’t the culture wars or Iran’s nuclear bomb, it was Israel’s occupation of Palestine. For this Netanyahu will eventually be removed in disgrace once we get passed the initial unity phase.

But the most ingenious part of the trap was taking hostages and moving them to Gaza. In my next post, I will share why Hamas’ Gaza-based war and their hostage taking has made it impossible for Israel to respond without horrific consequences, and why this accelerates what will be a time of disruption like World War II. Initially, all the nations will try to pressure Israel and Hamas to settle this quickly. They might give Israel 3 months to attack without much condemnation, and then ask them to let sleeping dogs lie. But the moving pieces that have been set in motion will not make this a conflict that is localized and ends quickly. Instead, it will unleash a geo-political shift that will mean certain world powers that exist now, will collapse. Other nations that exist now, will be absorbed into other nations. And some countries and peoples that are weak now, will emerge as new powers on the scene. It will be a pivotal hinge of history that no one will forget.

In further posts, I will talk about the economic consequences, how the culture wars have enabled this fragility, what the USA, China, and Russia will most likely need to think about, and why apocalyptic movements increase, amongst other things.

As we head toward a world that is increasingly dominated by technology, we should expect a rise in people who are atheists. Science, technology, and the “rational” material world will seem far more logical and promising to many than the superstitious realm of religion. However, we should also expect to see a counter-action of people turning toward belief in aliens, the supernatural, magic, and the occult. As I’ve been monitoring these trends, I’ve been shocked to see that many of the most effective new atheists, pagans, and Satanists are products of the Evangelical church. They grew up in Christian homes, went to Christian Sunday school and youth groups; they believed everything they were taught about the Bible–usually until their early ‘20s–and they know the Evangelical culture inside and out. They know every canned response to any theological question they ask; they know “Bible-speak” and use the verbal cliches and are familiar with every manipulative slogan or passive-aggressive theological statement the church can throw at people. They’ve heard it all, their questions were not taken seriously, they were wounded in the church, and they are ready to expose the hypocrisy of many Christian communities through atheism, paganism or Satanism.

The first track of this new resistance that I followed was a new wave of anti-Christian apologists. I wrote about them previously on my blog at getyourworldon.com. These are ordinary people who are arguing against Evangelical Christian interpretations of the Bible and doing an excellent job of exposing textual issues, contradictions, and texts with blatant misogyny, sexism, racism, slavery, and infanticide. They went from doing a deep dive on issues around Noah’s ark and Genesis to a deeper dive on issues of morally questionable divine commands. As former Evangelicals, they are familiar with all the defensive arguments Evangelicals will make and are ready to dismantle any cliche answer. Furthermore, quite often they understand the Bible’s history and nature as an Ancient Near Eastern Scripture far more than most Evangelical pastors. Debates between these former Evangelicals and current Evangelicals usually end up in a bloodbath, with the Evangelical getting more incoherent and contradictory by the second. These former Evangelicals are far more effective than the Richard Dawkins’ or Sam Harris’ of the world because they come from within the Evangelical culture.

The second track I’ve followed is the rapidly increasing interest in paganism, witchcraft, UFOs and alternative spiritualities. Unsettled times often bring a rise in spiritualism as well as apocalyptic cults and sects. People look for simple answers to increasingly complex situations. The world is currently at a pivot point where it will go from extreme complexity to hyper-complexity (fueled heavily by artificial intelligence becoming totally mainstream and accessible). Today, there is a dramatic rise in those who consider themselves to be witches, Wiccans, heathens, or nature worshippers. More and more people are getting involved in full moon rituals, taking pilgrimages to geologic marvels such as the rocks and mountains around Sedona, Arizona, and establishing alternative worshipping communities. Even more fascinating is the increasing number of Black Americans leaving the Evangelical church to practice traditional African tribal religions. These are indigenous African religious practices that have a lot more in common with pre-Christian religions and include spells and potions. Most do not view it as evil but aim to do good and find it more pragmatic and authentic than “White” religion. Traditionally, Black Americans have been very loyal to the Christian church. In the 1960s, during the Civil Rights era in the United States, many moved toward Islam as a way of dealing with the silence and passivity of the White Anglo-Church. While there were Christians on the frontlines of the battle for racial equality, there was a very substantial number arguing against it Biblically. Today, a similar thing is happening in the post-George Floyd era: a rediscovery of African indigenous traditions totally disconnected from the colonial, racist history of many Christian denominations. This is leading to a split in the generations with many under-40 Black American Christians wanting to distance themselves from White Christian institutions and denominations, go in a completely different spiritual direction, or embrace atheism. The speed at which this is happening has surprised even me, despite the fact I’ve been predicting this exodus away from the church for quite a while. Once again, it’s remarkable how many of the leading figures in the rising pagan revival come from deeply, committed, Evangelical homes.

The third track I’ve followed is the origin of the modern Satanic Temple in America. Part of my childhood took place in San Francisco, which at the time was known as the place that actually had a Church of Satan headed by Anton LaVey, the author of the Satanic bible. LaVey himself grew up in a Midwestern Baptist church and was influenced as much by Ayn Rand as occult literature and history. Much like many modern-day Satanists, the “Satanism” practiced is almost a form of performance art against Christian overreach into government.  The American Christian’s refusal to accept the Constitution’s insistence on the separation of church and state fuels many Satanists to get involved in a movement trying to point out the hypocrisy of Evangelical Christians and stop the march toward theocracy. In some cases, they are much more motivated to prevent the Ten Commandments being welcomed in schools than they are interested in practicing the dark arts. They know, as we all know, that American Christians would never tolerate the Koran being taught in schools, or Muslim prayer meetings, or taking over the Capitol building in the name of Allah. The modern Satanic Temple spends a lot of its time trying to force American Christians to see their own double standard, because they are the children and grandchildren of Evangelicals. Why can Evangelicals put statues of God in their state capitols, but other religions cannot? Why can Christians use the language and rituals of “blood” and “flesh,” but others cannot? Why can they claim authority over the bodies and decisions of non-Christians but won’t tolerate wearing masks or Covid regulations closing their churches? And that is at the root of the involvement of so many former Evangelicals in Satanism, the occult, and atheism. One Satanist suggested he felt bad about the failure of their march in Boston demanding equal rights and it made him want to quit. But then he thought about how the Archdiocese of Boston enabled the evil abuse and molestation of Bostonians for decades and realized that his Satanic temple was a way to fight the evil. Ironic, isn’t it? It’s certainly tragic on multiple levels.

Many of these former Evangelicals were told by their churches to not ask questions about the Bible. They saw Christians preach love and yet embrace racism, sexism, and seek privilege and political power. They saw manufactured emotional events and sometimes felt forced to participate and shamed if they did not experience some “spiritual” moment. They may have been told to get rid of their intellectual tendencies, or sexual tendencies, or non-Christian influences. While some were exposed to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in the church, others just grew tired of sermons of damnation and being a part of a group that is constantly identifying itself against “the other.” Sadly, they have found a more accepting community in Satanism, the occult, or in atheistic groups than they have in the church.

My own feeling is that Evangelical Christianity’s blatant pursuit of a position of privilege (a classic case of overreach) is the leading reason (but not the only reason) for the backlash from formerly-Christian people. The United States was intentionally founded to break the connection between religion and government which had been such a catastrophic failure in Europe. That move by the Founding Fathers actually created a more vibrant, entrepreneurial religion that ended up culturally dominating the United States. Approximately 93% of Congress identifies as Christian, yet Evangelicals have portrayed themselves as a hated, oppressed minority that needs more power and representation in order to practice their Christian faith (ever heard of the Apostles, you guys?). That is absurd, of course. Anyone who has actually spent time working with persecuted Christians around the world, as I have, finds this laughable and embarrassing. In comparison to any other Christian society on Earth, American Christians have the most freedoms, resources, and acceptance of anyone. Consequently, Evangelical Christianity’s pursuit of a Christian theocracy (an officially Christian government) has created an enormous backlash from people who clearly see this for what it is: a desire for an even more privileged position in society; something Jesus did NOT preach about.

A second key reason why many Evangelicals are leaving the church and choosing extreme options is, ironically, because “Bible-believing Christians” know very little about Scripture. While the church has done a somewhat decent job of memorizing out-of-context Bible passages and using the Bible as a weapon in arguments, it has done a terrible job of teaching its people the nuances, complexities, artistry, and sophistication of these ancient Near Eastern texts. Consequently, it doesn’t take too much study for any lapsed Christian or atheist to surpass the average “Bible-believing Christian” in understanding the complexities of the text as Scripture. Many of these hostile anti-Bible ex-Christians are actually more fascinated by the Scriptures than ever before because they see that the church never bothered to teach them how to read the Scriptures in the way that Jesus and the people in Jesus’ time would have read the Scriptures. It’s an ironic shame. The poor behavior and anti-intellectualism of the church actually drives searching people out and into Scripture (minus the faith community). Bible-believing pride combined with Biblical illiteracy by those very same people is leading the children and grandchildren of Evangelicals to head for the door at record speed. And the fact that so many churches have become places of toxicity, intolerance, and hostility to any kind of dialogue is exhausting pastors, many of whom are rapidly heading for the door (or counting the days to retirement). The church is no longer safe for many pastors, let alone parishioners. Seminaries will continue to see attendance drop.

In my 2010 book Mosaic: A Journey Across the Church of God, I traveled the world and chronicled the numerous pressures quickly weakening Christian denominations and organized religion in general. Thirteen years later, this demise is more accelerated and obvious than ever. In my 2014 book, In God We Trust: A Challenge to American Evangelicals, I warned that if American Christians used the church to pursue political power, they would see a massive decline in Christian belief in the country. That is what is happening. Churches that “succeed” will increasingly be preaching to the choir. They will continue to grow because already committed Christians are just switching churches–probably to the one with the best childcare and family programs. Retaining youth and twenty- to thirty-somethings will be increasingly difficult. Churches that actually grow with people discovering or re-discovering the beautiful tenets of Christianity, will have to be wildly out-of-the-box and practicing a radical reformation (the kind that occurs in Christianity every 500 years). I certainly don’t expect this process to go smoothly, and I fully expect a rapidly expanding civil war within the Evangelical church in particular, and an overall weakening. Much can be done to begin to rectify the situation. But we are in this situation because the church is very slow to admit mistakes, acknowledge when things are not working, and take responsibility for many of the losses of people it has incurred. While the Christian church was designed for flexibility, many Christians are inflexible. The disillusioned masses leaving the church are right about one thing: So long as the church is not a safe space, there’s not much room to find a way forward. The American Evangelical church must stop thinking it is “standing up for truth,” when in reality it is on a quest to position itself and its people as the most privileged, protected, and unquestioned power in the United States.

 

 

Patrick Nachtigall received his Master’s Degree in Religion from Yale University and is the author of six books dealing with religion and globalization including, “In God We Trust: A Challenge to Evangelicals” and “No Religion Required, a Memoir of Faith, Doubt, Chocolate Milk, and Untimely Death.”  He lives in Italy.

 

 

There have been a number of high-profile teen suicides in the U.S. news lately as well as a couple of different surveys showing that kids are more depressed and suicidal than in previous generations.  But this is not just an American phenomenon.  Teenagers around the world are facing uniquely stressful situations that other generations have not had to face.  Older generations may protest that today’s kids are “soft”  and how materially-blessed they are now–even in many underdeveloped countries.  Do kids have a case that their lives are unusually stressful, depressing, and meaningless?  I believe they do, and here are a few reasons why.

It’s true that life for most people throughout history has been “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” to quote the old, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.  For many generations, even making it into your teen years without dying was a significant accomplishment.  Even in poorer nations, today’s teenagers have more access to material goods and comfort than they ever have.  What about the generations that had to go off and fight World War I and II?  “You didn’t see them complaining all the time,” one might argue.  But I think that’s a simplistic response.  In fact, this is such a different age that we live in, I have to write as briefly as possible on this crucially important subject because most people don’t have the attention span to read through more than 3 paragraphs.  I’ll probably lose half the readers in the next paragraph just because of the length.  Neither can I just post a link to my blog because that is one-click too many for most people.  This is not normal.

For starters, one things human beings have always been good at is establishing communities; a network of family, friends, and tribe that look out for each other and provide some sort of identity and moral compass.  The modern world (especially post-internet) has become extremely atomized.  The rise of sprawling cities and suburbs were an example of how isolation started to become “how we live.”  Not knowing the neighbors–so to speak.  Massive urbanization (a very new phenomenon) relocates people away from their tight-nit communities to one where ties have to be more artificially created or are never replaced.  What the internet has done has fragmented and “suburbanized” our mental and emotional life.  Teenagers will literally text each other instead of talk to each other when they are in the same room (that is if texting is still a thing).  The I-phone has centralized a lot of our work and socialization toward a machine.  That’s an odd thing when you really think about it.  One object (the phone) that we carry around all the time connects us to every facet of our life.  If we could hug each other through the phone we probably would.

Social media encourages things that are deadly to the spirit, to mental health, and to happiness:  thinking about yourself all the time and comparing your life to others.  It also allows (through comments and likes) another soul killer:  non-constructive criticism without love.  And when in our lives are we most likely to be focused on our identity, compare ourselves to others, and to bully others?  As teenagers.  These social media products are algorithmically-designed to keep us addicted to our most soul-killing behaviors.  You may say, ‘well, isn’t it ironic that you are using social media now to write this essay?”  Actually, that proves my point:  it’s become exceedingly difficult to do anything in the modern-world without a mobile phone, the internet, and a social media account. The transition to the cyber world is the exact opposite of what humans have done for millions of years–moving us away from interacting with nature and communicating with humans face to face.  Our brains and nerves are not wired for this and we are stressed by the over-stimulation in areas designed for a slower, more reflective life.  It’s no coincidence that severe anxiety and depression is a global issue and that yoga and meditation are on the rise.  Our bodies want relief.

Our body, mind, and spirit also long for meaning.  Today, many religious communities which once provided that kind of meaning are not much different than the world of social media.  They are filled with toxic people, constant debating about who and what is right and wrong, criticism, and abusive behavior.  They are not safe places and they are not places for searching and finding who you are.  They are a place to learn dogma and rail against those that don’t think like you.  Well, we have Facebook and Twitter for that, thank. you very much.

Today’s teenagers have also been over-protected by parents.  Although well-intentioned, over-protecting children produces anxiety because kids don’t develop confidence in their abilities and resiliency.  I remember growing up in Costa Rica and being a 6 year old that would walk out of the house on my own and go to the Central Park a few blocks away.  Playing “army” outside and staying out until 10PM with other kids during the summer.  Most of us were far more independent than today’s teenagers, and that’s mostly the result of parenting, but also a cyber-world which encourages people to not conquer nature or the outside but to stay indoors (I’m a very indoor creature myself now and trying to change that because I know it’s not healthy).

Yes, it’s true that today’s youth are more aware of their feelings and speak a lot more openly about their emotional wounds.  They are a generation of Sigmund Freuds constantly analyzing how they feel and reporting on it.  Is that why the surveys show that so many kids contemplate suicide?  I don’t think so.  These kids live in an unusually polarized time with instruments that allow more polarization on a massive scale.  Education costs and entry requirements have become much higher in most countries.  The pressure to get into Ivy-league schools (and now prestigious pre-schools!) is insane.  In the U.S. school shootings have become so common, tiny 1st graders have to practice shooter drills.  It has to be demoralizing for American teenagers to see that no amount of school tragedies changes the culture.  Instead, the architecture and security plans of the school have to change because the kids’ life are not worth much.  How a society treats its kids says a lot about a society’s soul and priorities.

Then there’s the fact that most kids are growing up in an economy that has peaked and is in a downward trajectory with no end in sight (India is one of the few countries where that’s not the case.  Although social media has created a lot of problems for Indian teens and the country as a whole).   I’ve written previously about the global debt program, but even in countries like China, teenagers are depressed because economic opportunities are not what they once were.  Our kids been taught that socialism was a failure before they were born, about they know they are living in an unfair society and witnessing late-stage Capitalism (or crony Capitalism).

A couple of final issues: whether you believe in climate change or not, today’s kids are worried about the environment.  And they don’t see anything that mobilizes or brings people together.  Not storms wiping out people and crops, not religion, not politics, not even a possible war between 3 “superpowers.”  World War II brought the U.S. together.  It’s hard to imagine anything moving our modern societies toward togetherness.  Our most consistent friend and partner is our phone.  The search for meaning and transcendence is routed through microchips, screens, wifi, and websites.  “We are all cyborgs now,” said Elon Musk (the famous entrepreneur and nutty social media character) referring to our dependence on our phones.  That de-humanization is what today’s youth feel.  Unfortunately for them, it’s not about big ideas, community, spirit, protecting the next generation, the environment, citizenship or any other higher good.  We process reality and interact with nature through the machine.  People falling off cliffs on nature walks because they took a selfie is a powerful metaphor.

What can be done?  That’s a subject for another time, but the gist of it is that we need to de-construct this artificial world in childhood.  In Finland, they start to teach kids to identify poorly-sourced online information in 1st grade.  Brilliant. Kids should be taught before they are teenagers about algorithms, marketing tactics, and the artificiality of the world of Tik Tok and Instagram. “You are not your profile.” Schools need to up their game in critical-thinking skills and probably take place more outside in nature and with group-learning.  Governments have to produce policies that clearly show that kids are the top priority (not business and profits).  Churches, mosques, and temples have to be places of refuge and silence from the hostile world–not extensions of its worst characteristics.  Everyone probably needs to learn meditation skills before puberty.  All of these things are attempts to reverse the artificiality of this technically-saturated world.  Obviously technology has lots of benefits.  But we fail to talk in depth about the existentially-powerful dark side of a tech world driven by profit-motives.

Our teenagers sense this, but cannot articulate it.  There is an overall atomization of society and a dehumanization of every individual.  You are now the sum-total of your online self, a product, and an unimportant entity disconnected from the natural world.  Maybe instead, we make kids our top priority.  Maybe we give teenagers a break when they are struggling or acting out.  Maybe we begin to have compassion and understand they are facing unique anxieties that no generation has ever faced.  I hurt for today’s kids.  They literally are the future of our world.

Patrick Nachtigall is the author of 6 books including his latest “No Religion Required: A Memoir of Love, Faith, Doubt, and Chocolate Milk.”  He has lived and/or worked on 6 continents and currently resides in Italy.