Book Review: Dark Agenda

Have you ever wondered how our nation got to be so polarized? In this book David Horowitz, a Jew, traces the origins of what has become a campaign to silence the voices of faith that in centuries past shaped America.

Author Horowitz describes himself as agnostic, one who doesn’t know whether there is a God or not. So you know he’s not promoting a religious agenda. He’s simply noting what he observes. He compares the drift of our society away from free will for the individual toward totalitarian control by the government to the teachings of Communism, Marxism and socialism.

The book opens with a look at the New Atheists, those who condemned jihadists as religious fanatics but then lumped all people of faith together saying belief in God is irrational and unnecessary. He offers examples such as the 1997 Amnesty Lecture at Harvard where Nicolas Humphrey argued in favor of censorship so that children are not exposed to religion.

I was unaware of many of the examples Horowitz gave of anti-religious forces at work. For instance, in 2008 a U. S. Capitol Visitor Center opened, purporting to represent the history of our country. One panel gave the national motto of the U. S. as E Pluribus Unum, “Out of Many, One.” But our national motto established by Congress in 1956 is “In God We Trust.” References to God were stripped from the center. Even an image of the Constitution was photoshopped to remove “in the Year of our Lord” above signatures.

I was also unaware that in 2013 the Pentagon decreed that soldiers could be court martialed if they talked openly about their faith.

Horowitz describes the intent behind the development of such terms as “people of color,” a description developed to promote the idea that people of color (all nonwhites) are oppressed by the only people not of color, whites.

Those who wish to change society have turned the wall of separation of church and state, which was created to keep the state from interfering with religious expression, into a wall that suppresses religious expression.

Horowitz traces the current movement back to origins and lists people and court cases to show how Supreme Court justices have loosely interpreted the constitution to impose an anti-Christian agenda.

The book includes extensive end notes and an index. It also includes an “About the Author” page, which explains Horowitz grew up in a Communist household and was one of the founders of the new Left before he was transformed into one of the nation’s most important conservative intellectuals.