The steamrolling of America: Satan and the consensus establishments (pt 1)
How has our culture slipped to the point that a popularly televised event—the Grammys—would feature and elevate satanic ritual?
How could we be “steamrolled” by such an event?
What does this say about a nation that once designated itself as being “under God”?
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The answer: significant changes in what I call “the Consensus Establishment.”
Such a group of elites exists in every society. They come into agreement about what the worldview and values of the society should be, propagandize the culture with the concepts and practices that express the new belief system, and ultimately are able to go visual by public declaration in one form or another.
The elites who comprise a Consensus establishment are often people others want to emulate, from revolutionary leaders to celebrities.
In ancient Babylon in the period when Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were imprisoned there, the Consensus established was called “The Chaldeans” because of the strength, dominance, and influence in forming the society.
King Nebuchadnezzar called upon the Chaldeans to instruct Daniel and the other Hebrew slaves. He wanted them to be immersed in the culture, values, and worldview of Babylon and its ruling regime.
At great danger, Daniel resisted.
So there are “culture-forming Chaldeans” in contemporary societies, including America. In a past era, the Consensus Establishment consisted of the Church, the Family, and Education.
Decades of opposition have worn down that establishment so that these are weakened and pushed out of the public square. When such a process exerted itself in 18th-century Scotland, one of the nation’s leaders warned, “you will chip away and chip away until there is nothing left of what makes Scotland Scotland!
So we have come now in the United States that much of the best of the old values have been pounded away. Some of it, like racism and discrimination, needed to go, but the hammers have also thudded over into the worldview and values that once gave fundamental identity to the nation.
So what and who are the elites who comprise the nation’s contemporary Consensus establishment, and what are their functions? Who and what are the people and groups that seem to have the loudest voice in describing or reshaping the nation’s core values and worldview? Who gave them such power?
There are five powerful components of the present Consensus Establishment in American society (and most of the West):
- The Information Establishment and its elites
The primary role of the Information Establishment is to inundate the culture with the new Consensus so that everyone is faced constantly with its demands.
- The Entertainment Establishment and its elites
The major role of the Entertainment Establishment is to dress up and popularize the new and developing Consensus so that it seems irresistible, popularly acclaimed, and emulated. Many are the troubadours who herald the wonderful ways of the Consensus as the Grammys and other events—like the Oscars—present. (People of the stature of Kelsey Grammar and Kirsti Allie have expressed concern about the exclusion of conservatives from the Oscars events.
- The Academic Establishment and its elites
The role of academics is to give academic status and the sense of Intellectual depth and credibility to the worldview and values of the Consensus Establishment.
- The Political Establishment and its elites
The political Establishment has the ability to turn the worldview and values of the Consensus Establishment into law and forced compliance to what the Consensus Establishment demands.
- The Corporate Establishment and its elites
The Corporate Establishment monetizes and popularizes the values and worldview of the Consensus Establishment by merchandizing and creating trends and fashion reflecting the Consensus.
What can be done in the face of this steamrolling?
- The Church must recover its prophetic voice, and speak it loud and clear.
- The Entertainment Establishment must accept the importance of presenting the truth and beauty as part of its fare.
- The family must accept its role as primary in the education of its children.
- Educators must take seriously the importance of history and the classics.
- Journalists must recover the vision of the “golden age of journalism” to cover and write objectively and fairly all sides of an event or issue.
- Political leaders must defend the freedom of speech, but also embrace, model, and support the values and worldview that make those freedoms possible and the moral foundations on which the society securely rests.
- Corporate leadership must understand and take responsibility for what they monetize and popularize.
The list could go on and on. The reality is that it is the larger community that must be engaged in exposing the ugly dark sides of the propaganda foisted on society through the Consensus Establishments.
Above all, we must all pray that everyone comes to know the truth that makes people free of the imprisoning visions and designs of the Consensus Establishments.
Wallace Henley was born two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 5, 1941. After serving as a White House aide during the Nixon administration, Henley went on to become an award-winning journalist for the Birmingham News in Alabama. He is the author of more than 20 books, including God and Churchill with Jonathan Sandys, Winston Churchill’s great-grandson. Henley has led leadership conferences around the globe. He has been married to his wife, Irene, for more than 50 years. They have two children, six grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. His latest book, Who Will Rule the Coming 'gods': The Looming Spiritual Crisis of Artificial Intelligence, is available wherever books are sold.
