Straightforwardly, History Repeats Itself

Donald Rumsfeld once stated a truism that to this day rings as true as it did in the past and will continue to do so in the future. “There are known knowns: the things you know. There are known unknowns: the things you know you don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the things you don’t know you don’t know.”

The last-mentioned category can be the most perilous, in war and in life. Israel didn’t know that it didn’t know that Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist's military wing was preparing for the October 2023 incursion that killed more than a thousand Israelis and changed the course of the Middle East. Hezbollah didn’t know that it didn’t know Israel was weaponizing pagers to kill many of its pugnacious Hamas myrmidons and aspiring underlings. The U.S. didn’t know that it didn’t know al Qaeda would execute a massive terrorist attack on 9/11.

It's bad enough when we don’t know what we need to know. It’s worse when what we think we know turns out to be wrong, such as Israel’s certainty that Hamas did not have the capability to stage the October 7 invasion. And it’s even worse when we know parts of the truth and are therefore inaccurately but categorically convinced that we know the truth. 

A true expression of freedom is not acting on self-seeking impulse but committing our lives to serving the greater good and standing up for what is right. Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what is necessary or appropriate.

Does not the Word of God lend credence that validate the mentioned truism? Looking through the lens of Ecclesiastes 3 and Ecclesiastes 1:9 we see an illustration that shows the breadth and depth of God's sovereignty over time and the events of life. To picture this more clearly, we must perceive time as a moving reality. It is as though it is coming toward us and moving away from us simultaneously.

Though time is involved in this statement, the emphasis is more on the events that happen within time rather than time itself. We can perhaps understand this verse better as saying that what is happening right now, already happened in the past, and what will happen has already happened. It is a way of saying that, in one sense, time cannot be broken into parts. Time and the events happening within it, of and by themselves are a whole. Thus, the Word of God is essentially saying, “Past, present, and future are bound together.” In what way is this so? Time and the events happening in it are parts of a continuous stream. Solomon's point is again that only God is in perfect control of both time and its events, and He can seek out and bring back into existence in the present what happened in the past. Thus, Solomon's comment in Ecclesiastes 1:9 is a parallel: “What has been, what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”  Straightforwardly, history repeats itself.

A Reasonable and Natural Time to Contemplate America's Past, Present and Future

Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul was writing to a wayward congregation of Christian believers in Corinth, inquisitively enough, his words still capture the epochal change that may await us just over history’s horizon. “For now, we see in a glass, darkly,” he wrote. “Now I know in part, but then shall I know fully.”  Indeed, mesmerized by a present filled with spellbinding events ranging from elections to wars, we too gaze into a darkened glass unable to see how the future might soon unfold before our eyes. 

The end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 is a reasonable and natural time to contemplate what happened in the recent past and could very well happen sooner than later.  I think back over the year that was. Like the seismic activity of an earthquake fault that too often opens itself and cuts loose with repellent force, a deep deposit of hate, anarchy, antagonism, one-upmanship toward a targeted political party’s leadership, ethnic group, religious faction...  The result of which was and remains absolute chaos manifested in the arise or emergence of the following: crushing inflation and spiking energy costs; facilitating the breakdown of law and order resulting in skyrocketing crime, to include an influx of foreign gangs and adversaries; facilitating the chaos of unchecked illegal immigration; empowering our enemies and alienating our allies; threats of terrorism on the Homefront, antisemitism protests, traditional and social media censorship, lawfare being used to achieve political objectives, racist hucksters peddling reparations for past wrongs, warfare in Europe and the Middle East, and multiple assassination attempts of prominent public figures... pushing gender ideology on children; sapping our military services and corroding our institutions  with Divisive, Extreme, and Intolerant (DEI) initiatives and Critical Race Theory; making LGBTQ evangelization a central aim of our foreign policy; deconstruction of our institutions; parents detained for speaking out for parental rights at school board meetings; Christians arrested for peacefully demonstrating and praying outside abortion clinics while the abortion clinicians dispatch the innocent unborn at the rate of nearly “one million” babies annually. And smearing political opponents as Nazis, book burners, and garbage doesn’t resonate with most Americans of any color, creed or gender. Who would have known?

Question! Is not America a nation, founded by Christians? Question! Has today’s America and much of its leadership somewhere along the line lost its way? Question! Is today’s America presently grappling with increasing polarization and a worrisome decline in trust in our governing institutions? Along with these issues, our nation’s global leadership is facing challenges from authoritarian regimes and terror organizations striving to shape a world that serves their interests.

God willing, we as a nation will let this year be an opportunity to recommit to one of the central principles that America’s Future stands for: to renew, revitalize, regenerate the role of faith in our lives, our communities and our country. More than ever, America needs all Judeo-Christian churches and their congregants to speak up and stand-up for the Biblical Judeo-Christian values that America was founded upon. If America’s future is to survive as one nation under God, it begins with faith and donning the Armor of God: the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, and the belt of truth. Lest we forget, each piece of armor is designed to protect believers from the “wiles” of the devil and the spiritual forces of evil that threaten their faith and purpose.