If you are a student of history, you see how civilization fluctuates between extremes just like people do. The story of our U.S. government is fairly consistent, moving politically from the left and then back to the right. This is not necessarily a bad thing—an eagle needs both a left wing and a right wing to fly. Even so, if you are trending in one direction, moving to the left a little more each time than you do to the right, you will end up turning left overall. The same is true if you trend to the right.

     If you put the United States on a 1 to 10 scale politically with 1 being extreme left and 10 being extreme right, we are about a 6 as a nation. This is why you often hear that we are a center-right nation. This is remarkable with about 85% of the media and 80% of educators being left-center or even further left. After we have been pushed hard to the left such as we have been recently, expect a hard push back to the right. When these trends become more and more extreme, they create very serious dangers, some of which we must understand to understand the times.

     About 30% of the people identify themselves as liberal or progressives in America, and about the same percentage identify themselves as conservatives. Usually, political battles are for the 40% in the middle. That middle can drift just a little in either direction and affect its outcome. Barack Obama won the election by about 6% of the vote, which means that if there had been just a 3% swing in the other direction, he would have lost. If you follow the public opinion polls during election cycles, you will quickly learn that a swing that small can happen in a day.

     Other signs can be illuminating barometers of where a nation is. When the Cordoba Mosque was seeking support for building near the site of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, 70% of Americans stated opposition to it. When the charges of Islamaphobia were spewed out by the media, the percentage opposing did not cave to the accusation, but rose further to 73% or 74%. This would be remarkable on any issue, indicating that the entire center and some of the hard core left even opposed it. Why?

     America has been educating itself on Islam as is indicated by the way books on the subject have risen on the bestseller lists. Those who have been studying it knew what Cordoba meant—that this was the Islamic victory in Cordoba, Spain where the doctrine was promulgated to build a mosque in the places of major Islamic victories. So to name this mosque Cordoba was an especial offense to America and all who still grieve over the tragedy of 9/11.

     There were moderate Muslims opposed to this mosque as well. There are moderate Muslims who are opposed to jihad and Islamic extremism. Most Muslims around the world are opposed to Shariah law. However, most of these are afraid to speak out because Americans and Europeans have been so naïve that it appears that the jihadist are going to ultimately win. There are American Muslims who are glad to see Americans getting educated about the jihadist and waking up to how much of our media and education systems are being used, and in some cases controlled, by those who would ultimately destroy us.

     Regardless of what the Western media wants us to think, the Palestinians who live in Israel do not want the Palestinian Authority to form a nation and take over the parts of Israel they live in. They overwhelmingly favor staying Israeli because they have freedoms in Israel that will be immediately lost if the PA takes over. If you ask them personally, they will almost all say that they want to remain a part of Israel, but if you ask them publicly, they say the opposite because they are afraid of reprisals.

     Our present media is now so skewed and deceptive that to really understand the world you have to see beyond its message. The U.S. media does have a message and an agenda that colors not just what they say but even what they will cover. For example, when the controversy over the Obama Administration trying to force the Catholic Church to provide benefits to employees that violated their basic doctrines, with the exception of Fox News, Drudge, and a few other outlets, the media did not even bring this up for over two weeks! Some do better than others at trying to be objective, but we have to see the world through different eyes than our media if we are going to see the world the way it really is.

     When I was at The World Public Forum on Civilizations and Religions in Rhodes, Greece, politicians, academics, and religious leaders were from virtually every people group. This is one of the most amazing gatherings in the world and maybe in history. Being an evangelical American Christian, I was in the extreme minority, but I was amazed at how I found camaraderie with some of the Muslim extremists on some points.

     If that caused you to raise your eyebrows I understand, but let me explain. A main reason why they believe they must kill all Americans is because of the moral and spiritual pollution coming out of our entertainment industry, and that they consider us to have become a homosexual nation dominated by the homosexual agenda. They think the perversions of the West are spiritually polluting the planet and that we are now so deep into it we are incorrigible. When they found out that as a Christian I was also deeply grieved by the perversion perpetrated by our entertainment industry and the sexual perversion now dominating our culture, they were surprised. They thought these things were the result of American Christianity and seemed to have no idea there were American Christians opposing them.

     I learned a lot from everyone I talked to there. I think they did from me too, but one of the most amazing things I think every delegate to the WPF was in agreement about was that there was no media in the world reliable for getting accurate information.

     As the kingdom of God begins to take definition on the earth, I expect the “holy nation” to develop a media that is trustworthy with the truth. This is one of our goals with The Oak Initiative. If the church was mobilized, and we had some trained in every congregation who would be true watchmen and not just reporters, able to get to the truth about every major situation and event, soon the world would be beating a path to our door for this accurate information.