Recently, a friend invited me to his Sunday school class at a prominent church in our community. The teacher was a retired physics professor who gave one of the best lectures on the biblical account of creation I've ever heard. He explained that the Bible, while alluding to both science and history, is about neither. It is about a loving God who offers salvation for mankind. Those who become wrapped up in the physical detail of the creation story miss the point.
There are few things more inspirational than listening to a learned person who makes us think outside the box and urges us to study and learn more; however, something else made me think that morning. I realized what an incredible group from our community was assembled there. Of the 50 or so people, there were retired military officers (one four-star general), doctors, nurses, teachers, attorneys, real estate developers and community leaders.
Roger SmithThey were unabashedly Christian, patriotic, hard-working and disciplined in their lives. They were intelligent and confident. And the paradox is that such people are despised by the leftist elites in our country - elites such as those at the recent Tony Awards who wildly applauded the "[expletive] Trump" comment by a very liberal actor.
However, the pendulum is swinging. The left's condescension for traditional American values reached a crescendo during 2008. Candidate Barack Obama boldly asserted when conservatives are faced with difficult situations, "they get bitter. They cling to their guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." His would-be successor, candidate Hillary Clinton, doubled down in 2016, describing people with such values as "deplorables."
But truth, like cream, eventually rises to the surface, and so it is in our country. Why am I optimistic? Because people like those in that Sunday school class are thinking and writing and speaking out instead of cowering into corners away from formerly accepted half-truths and lies of political correctness. The evidence is twofold: first, in the plethora of best-selling new books, not by far-right pundits, but by respected academicians who refute the reckless boldness of the left; and, second, in the election of President Donald Trump.
Consider "The Demon in Democracy" by Polish professor, philosopher and politician Ryszard Legutko. He points out dangerous similarities between the objectives of tyrannical regimes and liberal democracies who crave big government programs. In "The Virtue of Nationalism," American-educated Dr. Yoram Hazony, an Israeli philosopher and scholar, explains why political correctness is the nemesis of free societies.
In "Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos," Toronto University professor and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson decries the liberal attack on moral and religious institutions. He writes, "The Bible is, for better or worse, the foundational document of Western civilization." He goes on to say our essential understanding of right and wrong springs from the Bible, and in tossing aside such foundational elements, the Western world has no moral compass.
But he incredible accomplishments of President Trump have lifted my optimism more than anything else. When people are allowed to freely worship their God, practice their faith, exchange ideas freely and pursue their dreams without government interference, there is cause for hope. I sense that hope in our nation more than I have in a long time. If that's what it means to be a member of the Trump "cult," a derisive term used recently by one of our Tennessee politicians, then count me in.
Roger Smith, a frequent contributor to the Times Free Press, is the author of "American Spirit: The Story of American Individualism."