Turnings
John 1: 14 (MSG) Jesus is the incarnate God who put on skin and moved into the neighborhood.
Standing on Saddam’s palace in 2006, it was night. Half a mile away on the other side of the fences, lights, and security patrols, we observed two high rise apartment buildings. Built in parallel, they once housed the workers and families who maintained Saddam’s palaces that surrounded us. Shortly after the sun went down, gunfire and tracers erupted between the two buildings. Intel guys told us that the group in one building were former soldiers and Baathists in Saddam’s Army. The other building contained multiple Jihadi terror groups. It was deadly, sad irony that they should be working together to restore their nation. Yet, nobody ever said common sense prevails in a gun fight. That takes a lot of training. I eventually left the roof and made my way to the containers where my unit resided. Those firefights went on all night. Every night.
In the morning, there would be body bags and bodies wrapped in sheets lying next to the road that went by the buildings. Even from a distance with binoculars, we could tell that many of the bodies in bags, or wrapped in sheets, belonged to children.
Arriving home after my tour in Iraq, it was a huge relief to kiss my bride, hug our kids, and go to church. Mortars and rockets were not dropping on us every three days, and the images of fire fights between two buildings, bodies laid in neat rows the next morning, slowly faded into my memories. It took a while to learn how to sleep through the night. Sometimes I would jerk awake, thinking I heard a rocket explode, and reach for my body armor. But usually, it was just thunder from a storm, Jan slept next to me, it was quiet, and still night. For me, that is the difference between Combat and Shalom – Violence and Peace.
Could that kind of national disaster come to my city, my church, and my family? I’m not a prophecy – conspiracy dude, but I used to find it humorous to study them. Here we are in 2022 with almost mandatory vaccinations, after Masks Phase I, the coming of Masks Phase II, attempts to keep the faithful from worship, Critical Race Theory rampant in our schools… And studying conspiracy theories is not fun anymore. That question is back. As a retired Army officer, I’m watching rapid changes in the military. They range from relaxing run and pushup standards on the PT test to Marxist culturalism being taught at West Point. Add in all the collectivist mantras and divisions that are as old and failed as Nazi Germany, Russia, China… All the way back to Athens and even Babylon.
Journey
We want to take students and readers on a journey that ranges across seven turnings. First will be seven turnings in the history of Israel, the first six in ancient Israel and the Seventh today in parallel with the seventh turning of Western Civilization.
From the Reformation to today, Western Civilization has survived six Awakening / Crises turnings. We are in the 7th Crises of Western Civ, that followed out 7th Awakening in the 60’s and 70s. Let me explain that because there is a swirl of confusion around the terminology and concepts of Turnings and Awakenings. I know because my wife and I have discussed this with great rigor, and I really appreciate her wisdom, but was not convinced there was a problem. Eric Metaxas had dinner with us in our home, and while discussing this book, asked the same questions, convincing the stubborn historian at the table… me… to think hard on explaining this confusion. We will do that later in this chapter.
Four stories are woven together in the Bible. They are Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. [1] The 7 turnings in Israel and the 7 turnings in Western Civilization majestically reside between the bookends of Genesis and Revelation, revealing those four stories.
BOTTOM LINE: Our purpose is to synchronize the Bible and History to help students be like the Sons of Issachar as we step into the seventh crises turnings of Israel and Western Civilization.
Extract from chapter 1 of Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin: The Writing is on the Wall. To be Published in summer of 2022
[1] Stonestreet, John, A Practical Guide to Culture, David C Cooke, 2017, p. 65