Living Stones Series: First Published in All Around Old Bridge Publication – July 2022

Nostalgia is defined as a "wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for or return to some past period or irrecoverable condition," according to Webster's Dictionary. In Wikipedia, nostalgia is described as a "sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations."

Nostalgia plays a prominent role in shaping a person's or nation's worldview. One's beliefs may become ingrained in past emotions, though the reality of the past no longer exists today. Romanticizing the past, we can unknowingly be influenced by what we perceive as the truth rather than the actual fact. Where we get objective reality then becomes most important!

Early American education was built upon the foundation of the Bible, with churches wanting to ensure people could read and understand the Bible. Today some make it sound like biblical thinkers were backward and uneducated, hindering progress. Yet, with all the concerted efforts to undermine the pages of Scripture, many still have a renewed appreciation of its accuracy and importance. Like Hitchens and Dawkins, other wanna-be intellectuals boisterously make vast claims of how untrustworthy the Bible is with little evidence. In his book, "Is Atheism Dead," Eric Metaxas takes these once-popular speakers to task, exposing their loose handling of proof due to their bigoted hatred of Christianity. One-time atheist Detective J. Warner Wallace applied his skills in his book, "Person of Interest," showing conclusively that no person in history has had an impact even close to Jesus. Sadly, manufactured accounts abounding in disinformation, hidden agendas, and blatant anti-God indoctrination fills schoolhouses across the country today.

How far we have changed in just seven years since same-sex marriage was legalized! Though not covered in the media, even many old-school "LGB" folks are shocked at how far the "TQ+" has derailed our culture with gender confusion. Vast experimentation of the sexual indoctrination of children has swept public schools, and parents' views are being suppressed. Some parents have expressed their convictions in school board meetings but have been labeled domestic terrorists for speaking up. Unless this present administration repents of its anti-Christian stance or is replaced with those without a global elite agenda, we will face darker times ahead.

Nostalgia seems to be influencing many parents to think that the changes in our public schools are not that bad. They hold onto unrealistic hopes that their children will experience the type of school experience they remember having. But from sports to proms to field days and dances, most realities don't even resemble what the parents of these children experienced. What was once good is now termed evil, and what was once evil is now deemed suitable!

Perhaps it is time we awaken from our dreamy, nostalgic remembrances! There is a significant departure of good teachers from public education due to the forced gender-confused curriculum and lack of common sense discipline this state and nation are propping up.

Biblical knowledge today is at an all-time low, even among many Christians. Children not discerning right from wrong is causing great confusion and resulting in the demoralization of a generation. In the American-Marxist strategy called "the long march through the institutions," atheistic and amoral ideology has replaced any biblical framework. Anti- Biblical Woke-ism, Critical Race Theory, and Identity Politics have also marched through many large corporations. This purposeful distortion and ideological subversion have altered reality to the extent that people hold fast to these distortions despite the evidence exposing them as false.

Slogans like "safe places" and "pro-choice" create an illusion of a positive experience despite the sheer destruction of morals and life. Is this an example of the "lie so big no one could imagine it to be a lie"? An old American slogan well worth remembering states, "Freedom isn't Free." We can fight for physical freedoms and win, but lies become chains stronger than most prison cells.

In many ways, nostalgia has become the barrier to the truth as many are unwilling to face reality. And worse, many others are fired up with unrighteous anger, believing the lie.

Jesus said in John 8:32, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." and in John 17:17, "(His) word is truth!"

Jesus came and died to rescue us from the greatest evil—sin. And when people discover the cost He paid to save them, they realize how valuable they are to God. When they believe the truth and walk in it, there is freedom in a much deeper sense that comes—spiritually. When the Truth sets you free, you are no longer enslaved to sin.

A leader in the nation of Israel, appointed to bring God's people into the promised land after their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, Joshua proclaimed this bold statement before the wavering nation: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Choose today whom you will serve: the ever-changing philosophies of man or the unchanging, eternal truth of God revealed in the Bible.