The Coming Liberal Crack-Up (or is it Already Here?)
by Gary DeMar

Two news stories I read yesterday (October 17, 2005) struck me as indications that the morally relativistic worldview of modern-day liberalism, materialism, and naturalism is headed for a crack up. The first story was a report that appeared on Matt Drudge’s site about Madonna who now believes that modern culture is corrupt. She describes it as “the beast.”

“The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion, that we think is real. We live for it, we're enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing,” Madonna explains in her new documentary film, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret.1

It was not too long ago that the former “Material Girl” was contributing to the cesspool culture she now disdains and wants to keep her children from. She made her fortune debasing all that was holy and good and now she won’t let her children watch television or eat ice cream.

All of a sudden Madonna has gotten religion, the religion of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism that has been made fashionable for modern secular audiences who are down on religion, is the newest celebrity faith movement, second to Scientology in media prominence. Even so, Madonna understands something: In order for the world to work, there must be a fixed standard that’s greater than us. Roseanne Barr, once a loud mouthed sit-com star, has turned to reciting Kabbalah meditations. “To think about something bigger than yourself is so cool, to get out of your own ego and stuff.” A good starting point, but there is no personal relationship established.

Like so much that comes out of Hollywood, there is little that’s substantive in the world of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah, as practiced by Madonna and her growing number of religionists, is a modern form of Gnosticism that dismisses the world as less than real. If we distance ourselves from the world, the Gnostic claims, then we will live a more spiritual life. In biblical terms, our problem is not in things, but how we value things. Getting rid of things will not turn us into saints. Paul dealt with the Gnostic heresy nearly two millennia ago:

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourselves to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’ (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence (Col. 2:20–23).

Given time, maybe Madonna will see the inadequacy of reciting meditations that dissipate into thin air after being said or thought about. And if she doesn’t, I’m more than willing to take the multitude of material possessions off her hands to save her from herself.

The second article described how a 38-year-old Pennsylvania woman using a razor blade tried to cut the “fetus” out of a woman who was nine months pregnant. In the first paragraph of the article, the word “fetus” is used to describe the object of desire of the razor-wielding woman. The title of the article as it appears in USA Today reads “Charges: Pa. woman tried to steal fetus.”2 But as soon as the “fetus” was delivered by emergency cesarean section, he’s called a “baby boy.” What biological miracle happened that an eight-month “fetus” became a “baby boy”? Was the boy any less a baby when he was enjoying the warm comfort of his mother’s womb?

As stories like this make the rounds, abortionists will not be able to sustain the charade of “fetus language” to camouflage their bloody business. The time is not too far off when enough people will say “enough.”

2. Reported in the “Nationline” section of USA Today (October 14, 2005), 3A.