Lanterna Rally

Author: Miles Huntley Hodges

Publisher: WestBow Press

Published: 2020-04-30

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1973689286

This volume looks at how, as America went through the 1960s, its achievement of superpower status invited both deep “Progressive” political changes at home (Johnson’s Great Society) and aggressive “Democratic” involvement abroad (Vietnam)—in both instances resulting in social catastrophe. The narrative continues, describing the battle to hold America’s traditional Christian political-moral foundations (based on the American family and local community) against the urge of Congressional Progressivists, a Liberal media, idealistic academics, a Boomer generation, and federal judges to rewrite those same standards along more Secular lines. It covers Nixon’s diplomatic successes abroad—yet his humiliation at home (Watergate); the resultant collapse of all social order in Indochina with the retreat of America from the region; Carter’s discovery that diplomatic “niceness” is not a good substitute for real power; the restoration of American national pride during the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton years (thanks to strong but carefully measured policies); the disaster that hit when Bush Jr. decided to “democratize” Afghanistan and Iraq; the deep “Change” that Obama attempted to bring to a centuries-old traditional America; and finally the arrival of Trump, deeply contested by political adversaries. It looks at the moral-spiritual character (rather universally Christian) of America’s national leadership since 1960 and how that had its own impact on the country, even during this distinctly “post-Christian” period. The narrative concludes with a review of the various political-moral lessons we should draw from America’s own national narrative—particularly the necessity of getting back into an all-important Covenant relationship with God.