Author Tim Goeglein believes American young people are on a mission to cut through the “brokenness and unevenness” that have dominated the culture for too long in order to discover true faith and devotion.
“They no longer want inverted reality,” he told CBN News of youths. “They want reality, and I think that there is a way forward for them, and the church has a huge role to play.”
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Goeglein, author of “Stumbling Toward Utopia: How the 1960s Turned Into a National Nightmare and How We Can Revive the American Dream” and vice president of external and government relations for Focus on the Family, said he wrote his latest book to address a question he often receives about the current state of our culture: “How in the world did we get into this mess?”
“In other parts of U.S. history, you’d have to say, ‘Tell me more about what you’re asking,'” he said. “But I think everybody knows that, in 21st century America, left, right, center people know what we’re talking about. We are in a cultural and a spiritual crisis of the first order.”
Goeglein said “Stumbling Toward Utopia,” a project that traces today’s chaos back to the “social and moral revolution of the 1960s and 1970s,” seeks to answer this important query.
“America experienced its greatest convulsion spiritually, culturally, educationally, all across the board, politically, legally, educationally, in the 1960s and 70s,” he said. “And it was propelled by progressive utopians. They didn’t like the United States of America, they didn’t like our Constitution, they’re uncomfortable with our history, and they wanted to create a new America.”
Goeglein continued, “And in the 1960s, that’s precisely what they set out to do, and, unfortunately … in 21st century America, we are living with the malevolence of what they imposed upon our country.”
But while Goeglein tracks the roots of the mess, he said he believes America’s best days are ahead. In fact, he believes there are already positive signs that should have people rejoicing about where the situation is headed.
“We are already witnessing the seedlings of regeneration and renewal that are coming to fruition,” he said. “I think it’s very, very exciting, whether it’s the trans debate, whether it’s the school choice debate, charter schools — all of a sudden we have good movies, good television, good music.”
But understanding the path forward requires going back to understand how the situation took form. Goeglein said people must comprehend that many of the major institutions in the U.S. have experienced a “combination of a tsunami and an earthquake.”
“In ‘Stumbling Toward Utopia,’ what I demonstrate is that it was essentially a handful of very powerful, influential people, all well-funded, who were able to use this matrix of very bad ideas to fundamentally change the country,” he said. “And it seems to me, if we’re going to have restoration and renewal … we need to understand … where we came from, so that we can know where we are going. And that, to me, genuinely is the root of my optimism.”
From changing culture through entertainment to progressive ideology permeating churches in the 1960s and 1970s, he said the impact was profound.
Despite so much dysfunction, though, Goeglein sees a positive path forward for America.
“I believe that restoration is possible,” he said. “But what I don’t believe is that Silicon Valley, or Hollywood, or Wall Street, or here in Washington, DC … can somehow give us America’s restoration. It will begin in the churches, in the neighborhoods, in the homes, in the schools, and the places where God has placed us. And it’s time for men and women of faith to engage as never before. That’s how restoration happens.”
Watch above to see him explain.
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