America Is Fallen, Is Fallen...

 Long before the Persian King Cyrus “the Great” overthrew the Babylonian empire in 539 BC, the wise prophet of Israel, Isaiah, discerned that the empire was nearing its peak and would rapidly descend into destruction. As Christopher Benek observed, “Being prophetic is not about looking into a crystal ball and predicting the future. Being prophetic is about observing trends and connecting the dots of how they will impact the future.” Steven Charleston and Richard Rohr commented, “Prophets are an early warning system to culture…Power, money and war and phony religion is what they aim their arrows at because this is corrupting culture.” Isaiah recognized the trajectory Babylon was following and declared, “‘Babylon has fallen, has fallen!’” (Isaiah 21:9). Though it would be over a century before the mighty empire would collapse, Isaiah could see that the die was cast and what was to come was inevitable. Centuries later, the prophet John would evoke this very language to make the same declaration concerning the rapidly crumbling Roman Empire (Revelation 14:8; 18:2). 

As many have said before, history is the roadmap of the future. One does not need divine guidance to perceive the road ahead, and all signs point to “America has fallen, has fallen!” The war hasn’t been fought — though a “cold” Civil War has begun — and the blood hasn’t been shed, the cities aren’t in ruins and ash, but the commonly held principles that made these states united, no longer bind us together. Disagreement has always existed, contention has always ruled — in fact, that tension is part of what has made us consistently stronger as the years went by — but what we see today isn’t disagreement, it’s division. You simply cannot have united divided states. We don’t just disagree with our neighbors, we don’t even consider them Americans, citizens, or, in some cases, even humans. It runs deeper than divided states, it’s a divided populace woven through all the states. There is no Mason Dixon line separating North from South, or “us” from “them”. People within the same household consider the other, well, “other”. They are something other than an American. The vitriol spewed on those who disagree with how best to handle or resolve some issue is laced with irrational hyperbole that lusts for violence. Debate that was once welcomed for the value it provided in rooting out the wisest solutions, has descended into a zero sum game where I must win at all costs and you must be destroyed no matter the consequence. Partisanship has so splintered this Union that elected officials are willing to abandon the Constitution, rule of law, and the foundational principles upon which the United States was founded, just to advance a political agenda or impede the oppositions. From all points on the political spectrum destructive language is lobbed like ballistic missiles. The other side is comprised of: animals, vermin, fascists, cannibals, cult members, communists, socialists, Marxists, monsters, pedophiles, rapists, invaders, psycho’s, lunatics, and losers. 

In the long ago, another Hebrew prophet asked, “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). I don’t think Amos was suggesting that unity is only possible if we always agree on everything, but we do have to at least agree on the direction we want to go. Historically, the answer to that question has always been “forward” but increasingly it feels like the answer has become “our separate ways”. More and more state leaders (I’m looking at you Texas and California) casually toss out the idea of “seceding” and forming their own sovereign nations, or refusing to contribute taxes to the federal coffers for the benefit of the Union. Threats are being tossed out about National Guard units from one state being deployed to “police” another state. Statewide voting district maps are being rewritten, solely to benefit the political party in power, disenfranchised voters be damned. The Jewish prophet Jesus once cautioned that a house/city/kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25). This is why I say, “America is fallen, is fallen.” 

Poets and prophets have always said it best, so I’ll end with the summation provided by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings in their song, “The Day the Mighty Mississippi Died”. In his Substack “The Hurst Review”, Josh Hurst described the lyrics as a song that uses a dried-up Mississippi River as a metaphor suggesting the death of the river represents the crumbling of social institutions and the broken state of the American union. The song uses the image of a dried-up Mississippi, a river that connects the north and south, to symbolize a deep despair and disappointment in the current state of the country. It reflects on personal and societal struggles, tying together past struggles of a divided nation with present-day disconnects: 

Now the truth is hard to swallow, it's hard to take

But I do believe we've broken what we never knew could break

I'm just so disappointed in me and you

We can't even argue, so what else can we do?

Now the other day, I saw a living picture torn from Hell

Taken down in Kensington, a place you all know well

I saw demons laughing, breaking people just for play

I cried at the table, then I put my tears away

I dug my hands deep into the black Mother Earth

Tried to raise my spirit up for what it's worth

You laughed and said, "Aw, honey, now what did you expect?"

Not these tears and nightmare years where madness goes unchecked

Oh, fill 'em up once again, boys

Fill 'em up and over the brim, boys

There's whiskey, but the water's done run dry

Oh, we're drinking to the end of a long-long friend

And the day the mighty Mississippi died

And the day the mighty Mississippi died