The Fresh Record
Opinion Pieces, Critiques and Essays on Culture, Faith, Politics, and the World
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell
All commentary published on this site is original. it is the intellectual property of the author of The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2022
Real Change Never Happens In A Vacuum
It may be difficult for most people to understand, but our personal conceptual understanding of the world is not THE WORLD. As we continue to fail in our well-meaning efforts to unify people under the mythical umbrella of peace, harmony and equality for all, the reasons why we fail seem at once crystal clear and vigorously convoluted. And thanks to a vast network of people and institutions that not only encouraged but rabidly empowered this disunion over decades―universities, newspapers, publishing houses, political parties and leaders, celebrities, and religious performance artists―the conundrum we now find ourselves in is no longer a problem to be solved but a poison to be excised.
We now exist in a world where people are perpetually outraged and offended. Identity politics, systemic racism, mass incarceration, gender neutral pronouns, masks, white privilege, and the effects of climate change are all resonant topics that require mass acceptance of a clearly defined narrative with no space for discussion or dissent. Over the last several years these topics have played out incessantly across the media landscape inspiring the rise of cancel culture, wokeisim, and countless Twitter-worthy sound bites and hashtags, but never a real solution.
Real world solutions for the truly horrific problems that plague us have always been in short supply. In America and in countries around the world, "solutions" to our problems have often been debated and decided upon by those who converge at the peculiar intersection of church and state. But government is riddled with corruption and religion isn't what it used to be.
Trust in our American political system and its elected officials, as well as our so-called religious leaders, has completely eroded. Four years ago, a simmering distrust and rejection of the status quo helped propel a reality tv star with no previous diplomatic or political experience to the Oval Office, making Donald Trump President of the United States and arguably the most powerful government official in the world. His personality, style, and take no prisoners approach to governance divided people in unprecedented ways not seen in the modern era. Whatever you think of the man or his politics, one thing will be clear now that he's gone: Donald Trump is not the problem. He never was.
In many ways, the Trump presidency was a powerful harbinger―and an unfortunate distraction. Our true existential threat is bigger than Donald Trump and it's been here for a while. The real threat is a system that has been constructed and obfuscated by questionable people in positions of power who don't deserve it and almost always misuse it to great personal advantage, while never finding ways to truly address the most significant issues facing our world: global starvation and poverty, homelessness, pollution, genocide, human trafficking, lack of education, access to healthcare, animal cruelty and ecocide, and War for Profit.
Unfortunately, electing Joe Biden President will not change this paradigm. You cannot change the paradigm by simply changing its face. Biden will use racially sensitive and gender fluid language while perpetuating the paradigm, but for the vast majority of us that won't make the same old agenda any more appetizing. Real change never happens in a vacuum.
Sadly, the most pressing problems we face as a human family remain unsolved and the most important questions of how to address them go unasked and unanswered.
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
Is Progressivism the New Church?
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." -JEREMIAH 29:13
Faith in God and the God Principals may be alive and well in the hearts of many Christians and God-fearing people of all faiths, but the traditional model of the community church that once peppered the American landscape is beginning to die on the vine. It's no secret that all aspects of organized religion began transitioning and transforming into something new some time ago. When racial and sexual identity politics began penetrating our vernacular in the 1990s, most mainline denominations did little to pivot from straight Christian doctrine toward fundamental change. As a result, they lost generations of post-boomers to more inclusive New Thought religious movements, Oprah-endorsed self-help gurus, and The Secret.
Now, in a unique effort to reach the gay community, minority groups, the unchurched, and those who refer to themselves as spiritual but not religious, once traditional churches everywhere are suddenly growing in bold new directions that may have everything―or nothing at all―to do with sharing The Word of God.
There have always been fundamental differences in the ways various sects of Christianity approach contemporary social and cultural issues. One of the most potent examples is the long-standing religious controversies surrounding homosexuality and same-sex marriage that left generations of gay men and women to spiritually fend for themselves. In America, some of the more liberal Protestant movements, such as the United Church of Christ, made early public statements denouncing the discrimination of people based on affectional or sexual preference, but the majority of churches did not support this stance and most vociferously opposed it.
Fast Forward to Present Day
In October 2020, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, startled the world when he broke with tradition and called for civil union laws for homosexual partners. Although he had vigorously opposed efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in 2010 while he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he explained his reasoning as a simple change of heart.
That's progress!
Or perhaps there are other, ill-defined reasons why the Catholic Church and smaller religious bodies with a long history of anti-gay animus (such as the Southern Baptist Convention) suddenly find themselves progressing and welcoming to the LGBTQ global community, a growing group of people who would be―incidentally―the fourth-largest economy in the world if they were a country.
Identity politics is a term originally coined in the 1970s but it's being used more broadly now to describe peoples of a specific race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic class, or political party and how these minority groups develop agendas to combat the real or perceived oppressions that affect their lives. Progressivism and identity politics aren't exactly the same thing but in this context they're connected and they feed off of each other in ways that are insidious in their inauthenticity.
Over the decades, the liberal church model and New Thought ministries have been pretty consistent in their approach to social justice causes, but as America moves into an era of unprecedented division even these supposedly all-inclusive groups are beginning to alienate and move to exclude and expel those whose political and social views diverge even slightly from the established liberal narrative. Sadly, it's often the very elderly―a vulnerable group most likely to cling to more traditional beliefs―who have become collateral damage.
It isn't unusual for religious groups to occasionally go off-script in an effort to make room for more diverse ideas and interpretations of God's Word. The truth is there are good people in all churches and most of them are motivated by a deep desire to understand our human condition, help others, and connect with Spirit. How that level of enlightenment is realized or achieved and who is "qualified" to receive it depends upon who you ask but no matter who you ask someone somewhere seems to fall by the wayside. It's a dangerous approach. It's dangerous because it reinforces adherence to a specific church doctrine, a set of rules fueled not by God's love but by the political and cultural bias of a small group of leaders within the organization.
It's time for a reckoning with "religion."
God First
God and the spiritual principals of God's love are as important and relevant as they ever were. Our road to "enlightenment" will become easier to navigate when we learn to accept the Universal Truth. We don't need a religion, a church, a priest or a pastor to receive the power and comfort of God's grace and love. And we never did. God's love is inherent. It's for all of us who seek Him. ALL OF US. It is a gift and a privilege for all people. It is His Promise and His Alone. It can't be given or taken, only found.
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A Few Ways To Change Your Concept of Church
Find a way to be of service to your community and to the world in a way that is pleasing to God and life-affirming for others.
Use your gifts to benefit humanity as a whole, not one specific church, group, ideology, or political party.
Rethink your concept of tithing. Redirect your financial gifts by donating to your local food bank or purchasing groceries for a neighbor in need.
Visit seniors in assisted living facilities. Many of them are lonely and have been completely forgotten.
Volunteer in a homeless shelter. There is no better way to interact with a more diverse group of people and to develop understanding and compassion for people who are different than you.
Help a child.
Find ways to appreciate, beautify and respect our environment.
Work to end animal cruelty and ecocide in all its forms.
Put down your phone and engage with people in real, substantive ways.
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
Censorship in America and The War for Information
In a perfect world, all information would flow freely and easily. We would all have access to knowledge and facts free from corporate bias and media interference and based on those facts we would be able to make the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our businesses.
This is not a perfect world!
There was a time in America when the familiar journalist presiding over the evening news was unimpeachable, the most resolute and trusted source of information in our country. Sadly, that is no longer true. Now, ordinary citizens in search of transparency are suddenly in a war where the prize is information ―and a truth not restricted, remixed or altogether changed by corporations, tech monopolies and their government shills.
We are in the midst of a cultural crisis of unprecedented civic distrust. Our first instinct should be more clarity and communication, not less. The urge to quiet dissent or opposing points of view is not only anti-American, it's dangerous. It crushes the importance of freedom of thought. It eradicates the intellectual advancement of the individual. And it creates an inauthentic human experience, fostering an environment where we no longer belong to ourselves or each other, but to a system that wants nothing more than to destroy our ability to refuse its attempts to interfere with every aspect of our individual liberty.
The kind of overt censorship and fascism we see under oppressive regimes like the Chinese Communist Party is a completely foreign concept for most native born Americans to grasp. Nevertheless, there are elements of wokeism and the cancel culture phenomenon that share the same unseemly attributes of totalitarianism, and these shifts to control and suppress news and how we use language is making it more and more difficult for some of us to speak frankly about the issues that are important to us.
We need fundamental change in our government and in our world and that will not happen without civil strength and well-being. We need clear and open communication among all people. Everyone with a valid point of view should have a seat at the table and a voice. The collective voice must not be drowned out by social justice movements and the media or impeded by virtue signaling, censorship and political ideology. Real solutions spring from common ground. The information we share and receive should never be hijacked by one particular group's agenda or journalistic propaganda.
True or false, the story we tell becomes the world we live in.
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
The Great Reset
On October 23, 2020 TIME magazine dedicated an entire issue to a radical, intricate globalist mission known as The Great Reset. What exactly is The Great Reset? And how did the World Economic Forum (WEF) use the pandemic to push the plan―as well as a once obscure conspiracy theory―out of the shadows and into the very real arenas of public policy and economic control?
The Great Reset is a term that has been gaining momentum in recent years. Simply put, it refers to a set of ideas or ideals put forward by the members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that will move our society toward a massive cultural and economic restructuring that will change the way we live and do business. Despite the widely held and reported belief that the term was coined only recently by economist Klaus Schwab, who founded the WEF in 1971 and is currently its CEO, the term has been around for decades and is sometimes associated with or referred to as The Big Reset, Inclusive Capitalism, or the New World Order.
One of the earliest examples of a great reset agenda in the modern age began after World War I with Woodrow Wilson, the US president from 1913 to 1921. Wilson, who openly spoke of promoting world peace through the creation of a global institution under one inter-governing umbrella, formed the League of Nations (LON). A kind of precursor to the United Nations, LON functioned as an interconnected global government organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Although the organization dissolved in 1946, the ideas put forth during its tenure continued to ruminate in the minds of policy makers and leaders as the world populace grew and changed over the generations. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Barry Goldwater's New Right movement, and more recently the Green New Deal championed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are all examples of reset-like agendas that move to change the way a society functions at a particular moment in its history.
Although extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, radical change in a society can be frightening, especially when it occurs quickly and with very little warning. Fears that arise in people during times of change are often precipitated by uncommon events such as war, economic collapse or a pandemic, all potentially catastrophic occurrences that are always reconciled by governments, powerful corporations, wealthy individuals, and crisis and narrative managers.
The conspiracy theory surrounding The Great Reset isn't new and it didn't come out of nowhere. Government secrecy, propaganda, and a lack of transparency from our leaders have led to the rise of conspiracy theories of all kinds, and not just among fringe audiences but in mainstream mass media circles as well. Even in the pantheon of legendary conspiracy theories, the suspicions surrounding The Great Reset are particularly foreboding, running the gamut from religious and philosophical fears regarding the anti-Christ and transhumanism to the belief that the idea masks a more sinister plot to control the masses by disrupting our access to food, money, and services.
However unfounded some of these theories, personal beliefs or suspicions may be, one thing seems indisputable―the COVID-19 pandemic handed the WEF (and an elite group of associated globalists) a golden opportunity to launch the most ambitious effort yet to normalize an agenda that at its core aims to fundamentally control the way we live, move and operate as free people. As Klaus Schwab famously said, "The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world."
To understand the depth of his words, one must understand the scope of Schwab's ideas and goals, all of which can be verified via the official World Economic Forum website and in his speeches across the internet. In this particular moment in history, when a complete disruption to economics, politics and how we conduct ourselves in our everyday life have already impacted our freedoms in unprecedented ways, Klaus and his colleagues believe now is the perfect time to implement the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a master plan to change how we think and how our societies are run. In spite of its cleverly worded tenets describing a perceived new world of income equality and ecological harmony, the building blocks of Klaus' "morally ethical" reset dream are rooted in wholly un-American ideals of totalitarian control including the use of social contracts and government mandated coercion to limit the medical freedoms, purchasing power, and personal behaviors of private citizens.
History has shown us time and time again that most systems eventually outlive their usefulness or fail altogether. When they do, the people who had the power are discarded. And those who assume the power, those people whose names we never knew, often bring with them something we never expected―or asked for!
Klaus is right about one thing. We do need a reset. But it must start by removing the vast majority of our leaders and holding them accountable for the generations of damage and corruption they have heaped upon this earth and all of its inhabitants, human and non-human alike.
If Klaus' "answer" to humanity's problems is more control over the Everyman, we should all think very carefully―very carefully―before we buy into his ideas and dreams for a "better and more equitable future."
In moments of crisis, the snake oil salesman is the first to come calling.
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021
Manifesto
We reject any situation, idea, narrative, person, or cultural condition that moves to boycott an individual's right to question, debate, and share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas openly, respectfully, and honestly without fear of retribution or cancelation.
We believe in transparency. We believe that all people―everywhere―have a right to information and a true understanding of what is happening in their world free from censorship, propaganda, and government secrecy.
We do not prioritize the opinions of one group over another based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, or political ideology.
We believe in the concept of one human family under God, not under government or the umbrella of religion. We view God as The Divine Intelligence that supersedes all things. We recognize and respect that you may relate to the God concept in a totally different way or not at all, and we accept you as you are.
We don't pretend to have the answers, but we support our right and yours to ask the questions and acquire knowledge through critical, independent research.
We understand that what we often perceive as Truth may not always be factual, but an idea or emotion rooted in and driven by an individual's beliefs, fears or experiences.
We believe in sovereignty, not as a force for aggression, but as a way of promoting peace by establishing boundaries.
We celebrate everything that is beautiful about America and The World, while hoping for deep, fundamental change that will better and make right the conditions of all people, and non-human animals everywhere.
The Fresh Record. All Rights Reserved. ©2021