“We’re not in Kansas anymore!”  This familiar line from the Wizard of Oz has, of course, become a shorthand way of indicating that something around us has fundamentally changed … that, in one way or another, we’re no longer living in the same world we were before.  More and more, I believe this is an apt description for the cultural circumstance we Americans find ourselves in recently.

Once again January 22 approaches, reminding us of that infamous day in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Roe v. Wade. It was a decision which tore our nation apart as it falsely declared that some human beings are unworthy of life simply by virtue of their age. But, thanks be to God, that ruling was overturned in the Dobbs case. But what does the date, January 22, signify today?

As the current societal struggle between those who hold a traditional, Judeo-Christian based view of America and those who hold one running counter to those beliefs intensifies, it becomes increasingly obvious that, here in Minnesota, the primary locus of this showdown is our schools, and, by extension, our kids.

One would be hard pressed to find anyone, regardless of political persuasion, who wouldn’t acknowledge that our state and nation have been, and remain, in a state of turmoil. From the COVID crisis … to the climate crisis … to the transgender crisis … to the education crisis … to the crisis of loneliness … and on and on. No sooner has one issue grabbed our attention than an even more disturbing one is being forced onto the societal stage – it, too, demanding our immediate attention. The net effect is nothing less than an unrelenting state of social chaos, leaving an increasingly large number of people, especially young people, bewildered and, sometimes, despairing. Indeed, it’s been an unsettling phenomenon we’ve been experiencing for years now. 

Geographically, we Minnesotans still occupy the same physical space - the same part of God’s good creation - we always have. Culturally and politically, however, one could make the case we no longer live in the same state, or even the same world, we did even a few years ago.