Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, I want to explore the zeitgeist of the progressive mind, if we can call it a mind, and what makes them so odd to us, to me anyway, what makes them so disconnected from reality and really outright dangerous to those of us who want to live in a free, rational, and prosperous republic. And I have distilled this endeavor into our title, which is The Trap of the Tribe. The Trap of the Tribe.

Now, I am driven to understand the phenomenon of the progressive and his diseased worldview. And I've driven to do this for a number of reasons. First of all, as Sun Tzu so aptly put it in his classic, The Art of War, know your enemy if you will defeat him. And secondly, I have friends and family and neighbors. I live in Teton Valley, Idaho, which was only one of two counties in the entire state of Idaho that went blue in this last election.

So I have many friends, family, and neighbors who are hopelessly ensnared in the progressive mindset. And I want to understand them before trying to persuade them, really. And then thirdly, I feel like I'm presented with a puzzle, a mystery of the human condition, which is difficult of discovering and solving. I want to know the progressive mind, once again, for the sheer enjoyment of solving a difficult puzzle or mystery.

So, all of us concerned patriots, we are confronted with a host of irrational, absurd, and dangerous ways of thought and behavior and culture and politics, which, at the end of the day, are like what Winston Churchill said of Russian behavior, like a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. For many of us, that is the progressive mindset, right?

For instance, why is it a human person can think that by turning our boys into girls and our girls into boys, that is transgenderism, that we will have a subsequent generation to inherit our culture and then do it by butchering their organs and poisoning their hormonal physiology to achieve these ends? Or why is it that a rational human being can think that aborting their children in the womb is not genocide, and that anything like a cohesive subsequent generation can be bequeathed with abortion?

Why is it that a supposed rational human being can say any blasphemous lying absurdity that comes to mind in the name of free speech and the first amendment, while at the same time censoring and canceling any other voice that might disagree with or oppose them all in the name of disinformation or hate speech, right?

Or why is it that a supposed rational mind can maintain that disarming the law-abiding citizens of a free republic will make them safer in the face of a growing criminal culture, which only scoffs and flaunts at those laws in order to predate on the defenseless and that criminal culture fully armed with weapons denied to the citizen? That is not reasonable.

Or why is it that a supposed rational person can deny the foundational attribute of a nation that is borders and still think they live in a nation without treachery, treason, disease, poverty, and ignorance and contempt for the country, all of which border security is erected to filter out, right? Even Pollyanna, the benchmark metaphor for naivete, would have to say, come on, progressive, what are you thinking?

Or why is it a supposed rational citizen can countenance and enthusiastically endorse the criminal prosecution of other innocent citizens like President Trump or the January 6th defendants from 2021, grandmothers peacefully praying outside of abortion clinics, mothers challenging their school boards or fathers, their city councils, jailing conservatives on social media for supposed hate speech, and these same people think that they live in any form of a just society? Well, many metaphors have been proposed to define this riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that is the progressive mind.

For example, Elon Musk, famously calls it a mind virus, right? Which he trusts has been killed in the ascendancy of the MAGA movement, or Michael Savage famously labeled it liberalism anyway, a mental disease, and others have described the progressive mind as maybe brainwashed or cult thinking. But none of these labels have the breadth and depth of explanatory power that tribalism does. The website neural launch.com, for example, has a dense and pithy summary of tribalism in human evolution. And I quote, quote, tribalism at its core is the human tendency to form groups based on shared characteristics, beliefs, or interests.

It's a psychological phenomenon that has its roots deep in our evolutionary past. Our ancestors relied on close-knit groups for survival, sharing resources, and protection against external threats. This tribal psychology became hardwired into our brains, shaping our social behaviors and cognitive processes, unquote. A good, relatively brief definition of tribalism. And we have to say, ah, oh, dear listener, we are much more a product of our genes and generations than we ever suspected.

Insofar as we are unconsciously submersed in our particular tribe, we act not according to rational choice based on logical thought, but rather we act according to pre-established well-known norms that are cherished by the collective of the tribe. Tribal norms and rules and laws. Well, many other features of the progressive walking around in our land today will be observed. But there is a guiding principle which ties all of the seeming absurd beliefs and practices of the progressive into a cohesive whole. The trap of the tribe.

The trap of the tribe. Here is the key to understanding the pestilential worldview of the modern-day progressive. To begin with, what is a tribe? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines a tribe as a group of persons forming a community and claiming descent from a common ancestor, or one of the three political divisions of patrician orders of ancient Rome, or a race of people, a class of persons, unquote. Early in our development as a species belonging to a tribe increased one's chances of survival in an otherwise brutal, lonely world.

When God condemned Cain, for example, to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth for the murder of his brother Abel, Cain appealed in despair. He said, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground and from your face. I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

Oh, a tribe of men hunting together, for example, could more likely bring down game for the group than an individual. Or a tribe of men could more likely defend the members of the group against other predators and enemies than an individual. And to be banished from the tribe, put outside the camp, as the Bible puts it, meant certain death in a hostile wilderness. It was a harsh punishment in ancient Israel to be banished from the tribe.

Ezra chapter 7, for example, says, Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment, or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment, unquote. The man banished from the tribe lived an ignominious twilight existence if he managed to live at all. Forgotten by the tribe, this man was a desperate non-person at best and a bleached skeleton in the desert at worst. In many respects, to be separated from the life of the tribe was a fate worse than death.

On the other hand, the individual human being, as he evolved over the millennia, derived his positive self-worth and his identity from his belonging to his tribe. Even the humble apostle Paul, in brandishing his credentials as a sterling Israelite, he bragged in Philippians chapter 3, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, unquote. And secular wise, Julius Caesar, for example, was a descendant of the Julii clan of the tribe of Alban. Related families were aggregated into clans which were congregated into tribes.

Julius Caesar's very name, Julius, was an identity statement of his roots in one of the founding tribes of Rome, the Julii clan of Alban. He was therefore of a high patrician class and had a claim on power and authority in Rome, a claim that he wielded for all the advantage and leverage he could muster, right, becoming dictator of Rome. Well, even today, the egalitarian American, right, ostensibly dissolved in the great American melting pot. This American still likes to wistfully brag on his tribal roots, maybe, right? The proud Scotsman displays his family crest or his tartan weave.

The Comanche Native American has the horse in almost every representation of his tribe. And various African tribes have their own distinctive adinkra symbols. Oh, these are fascinating to look at and to get into. The African adinkra symbols that communicate profound names and meanings and traditions from Africa. Well, you know, I'm Dutch, for example.

I'm Dutch and where I come from, Western Michigan, if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much. Well, dear listener, we are hardwired to think and feel and respond to tribal culture, for better or for worse. Consequently, with so much riding on the success and survival of the tribe, conformity to the tribe's norms and traditions by the individual is vital. Any deviation from tribal standards threatens the larger tribe and its existence. Consequently, right, if you want to fish while the tribe hunts buffalo, you pose a potential threat to the tribe.

If you want peace while the tribe seeks war with other tribes, you pose a threat to the tribe. If you want to migrate north while the tribe prepares to travel south, you are a threat to the well-being of the tribe. Even the simple matters of custom and practice, things like clothing or language or manners and civil behavior towards other members of the tribe or religious tradition within the tribe, all of these must be of a cohesive whole if the tribe is to function smoothly and live to the next day. And those elders then, those elders who know the rules of the tribe and enforce them, they become tribal leaders, tribal chiefs.

And deviation from tribal norms by the individual risks severe sanctions, right? As Ezra said, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment, unquote, right? One of my favorite movies, Platoon. At one point, Sergeant Barnes says, when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain't going to allow that in any of you.

Not one, he says to his men. Now, Barnes was an instinctive tribal leader. When the tribal machinery breaks down, the tribe breaks down. And no chief, no chief worth of salt is going to allow that. That's why across the millennia of time, there are few loyalties as strong as tribal loyalties.

That gives us an insight into today. Because over the course of history, and I'm telescoping a lot of this, as cultures and societies grew more and more sophisticated and complex, as they did in the West, primitive tribal psychology became a hindrance to progress, all these things we've mentioned. Survival in ancient times, but a hindrance to progress in modern times. Especially during the period of the Enlightenment, mankind began searching for universals, that is, principles that transcended the mere colloquial thinking of the tribe. One of those important universal principles was that of human reason, dear listener.

Yes, employing reason's power to science and human relationships. Tribal divisions and hostilities could be better overcome. This was a principle well-established in both Greek and Roman culture. For example, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, he is a true fugitive who flies from reason. Yes, but it was the period of the Enlightenment, really, when we finally began applying this faculty of reason to the human mind to the human mind in universal expectations.

All men could meet on the playing field of reason and logic and solve universal problems and make science work for all the tribes of mankind. In fact, the entire period became known as the Age of Reason. And reason became the structure of thinking for many of her philosophers. The great philosopher John Locke said very poignantly, logic is the anatomy of thought. I like that.

Logic is the anatomy of thought. But for the best men of that period, reason was not divorced from religious faith either. Reflecting on that time, the great G.K. Chesterton says, reason is from God. And when things are unreasonable, there is something the matter, unquote. Reason is from God.

That is precisely why the thinking of the progressive defies reason. Oh, it is unreasonable to think that men can have babies. It defies reason that biological men should compete in women's sports. It flies in the face of reason to suppose that an entire economy can be predicated on the endless horror of war in Ukraine, for example. It is also unreasonable to suppose that a nation can exist without well-defined, well-defended borders.

And one cannot be rational. And suppose that a citizen can be well-defended when he's unarmed, and the police are being defunded and degraded, and the criminal in society is armed and emboldened and growing by the day. But those who think this way, and then act on that pattern of thought, are not simply brainwashed or victims of a mental disease or infected with a mind virus. No, the scope of irrationality here is much larger. They are captives in the trap of the tribe.

It's a whole cloth fabric of culture, if you will. The tribal chiefs who determine the norms and behaviors of the progressive tribe know exactly what they're doing, too. They reward the faithful tribal member with an endorphin rush of clicks and followers and blue checks and retweets on social media. They conversely keep the tribe in line with fears of being canceled if they post the wrong opinion or say a positive word for a banished one or say negative words against the tribal chief on social media. The average tribal member in progressivism is profoundly incurious, too.

Satisfied with what he hears on CNN or Fox News or gleans from Apple News. He or she gets their marching orders in cliches from profound thinkers like Alexandria Kizzi or Cortez or Nancy Pelosi or Bill Gates, who all in turn are told what to say, think, and do by the tribal chiefs. Those same chiefs are increasingly masters of the financial spigot, too, for the progressive, whether government welfare or jobs at Amazon fulfillment centers or Starbucks baristas or writing code for Microsoft.

Increasingly, the members of the tribe find themselves able to afford their daily bug protein and cell phone, but not enough to buy a home or pay for car insurance. Now, I'm painting with a very broad brush here, but I trust that you can discern that the progressive tribe is functioning not as some freakish aberration of the human condition, no, but rather in a well-oiled, highly tuned, ancient mode of behavior anchored in our genes. The tribe, the architects of our destruction, know precisely what they are doing here also, dear listener. They are deliberately aggravating tribal conflicts in order to divide and conquer us.

Yes, they are, at the end of the day, tapping ancient fears. Straight tribe versus trans tribe. Vaccinated tribe versus unvaccinated tribe. Immigrant tribe versus American tribe versus American tribe. Pro-choice tribe versus pro-life tribe.

Anti-gun tribe versus Second Amendment tribe. Never-Trumpers versus MAGA Americans. Pitting us against each other at every opportunity. Yes, the architects of our destruction are playing on ancient tribal fears, and they change norms and expectations at will to moving the goalposts to deliberately confuse and control the members of their tribe. All the progressive tribe used to be anti-war.

They are now pro-war. The progressive tribe used to be anti-big pharma and big government and big ag. Now, the progressive is pro-big pharma, pro-big government, pro-big ag, right? Oh, the architects of our destruction tap the tribal impulse in order to divide us and to make us fight one another instead of them. So, dear listener, recognize the trap of the tribe for what it is.

It is a play on your ancient genetic code to make you sink into conflict with your fellow American when reason and faith should be your guide, those universal principles of humanity. There is now one tribe, for example, that is the body of Christ. For our eternal and spiritual life, there is now one tribe, a free American for our temporal, physical life here on earth. Oh, the apostle Paul put it this way in terms of that eternal people of God now, one tribe, if you will, one people in Christ. Paul says in Galatians chapter 3, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

Unquote. We are all of the tribe of Abraham, if you will, now in Christ Jesus, people of faith and the framers of our constitution, men like Jefferson and Adams and Madison, they envisioned it not for a specific ethnic group, our constitution, or race of men, or tribe of men, but they intended it for all men who cherish freedom and liberty.

The preamble itself reads like this, we the people, not we the Dutch, we the English, we the French, no, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. So, dear listener, do not succumb to the trap of the tribe. Call those who are entrapped in the tribal mentality and tribal thinking to come out. Indeed, reason with them, show them the way out, and pray for them.

And make sure that you do not succumb yourself, but live your life in the true liberty and freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ, first and foremost, and secondarily, as a free American. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and we at New Geneva are free from the trap of the tribe, and we meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And I encourage you to visit us. Drop by, you'll have a friendly welcome, and you'll find a place to worship in spirit and in truth, and to come out of the trap of the tribe as well.

And you can call us for more information or more feedback at area code 208-523-0196. Call us at area code 208-523-0196.