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OAN Commentary by: Theodore R. Malloch
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
In Christian eschatology there are seven mountains (7M) of influence. They are Religion, Family, Education, Government, Business, Arts & Entertainment, and Media.
Capturing each provides for a restoration of God’s rule on earth. This theology was articulated down the centuries to establish Christian values in these spheres to promote a divine agenda and facilitate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The transformative actions of a “muscular” Christianity to take back or secure society based on the original Abrahamic Covenant were stated already in Deuteronomy 28. The faithful are called to be “Salt & Light” in Matthew 5, and as demonstrated in Acts 17, when Paul and Silas first brought the gospel to Thessalonica. This is the Christian “calling” in the world.
Marxists also have a long-standing theory about capturing the Commanding Heights of society, including the economy, as articulated by Karl Marx himself in Das Kapital. It is formulated again by the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, in his Prison Notebooks. There he develops a revolutionary strategy of radical politics formed in what was called, Critical Theory, and which urged organized activist, even violent, cultural domination and revolution. For him it was a “Long March.”
Let’s assess where we stand presently as regards these two diametrically opposed views and on each of the important spheres of influence. We could look at each country, Europe vs the US, or even do comparisons state by state. For the US as a whole, here is my objective analysis on where we stand.
On Religion
According to Pew Research, overall, in 2025, 37% of U.S. adults say they, personally, are members of some form of religious worship. These numbers have fallen since 2014 and dramatically declined since the 1970s. The 17-percentage-point drop in U.S. religiosity over the past decade is among the largest declines measured in a recent Gallup World Poll. The fastest growing group is None, when it comes to religious belief. The changing religious landscape is reshaping American identity and has political implications, with religious and secular groups aligning differently across major parties. These trends raise concerns about social trust, civic participation, and how communities adapt as traditional religion vanishes. Sociologist Christian Smith, at the University of Notre Dame, believes that these reams of stats, while helpful, do not capture what’s really going on.
Something more fundamental is at work: For a growing number of Americans, traditional religion, particularly Christianity, has simply become obsolete. The Left has fanned these fires and is achieving its goal, the extinguishing of religiosity completely from all of life – public and private. Christians are persecuted. Europe has experienced an even steeper decline in faith, so much so that religious practice there is now seen as dubious at best and quite retrograde. Occultism, New Age, and various forms of paganism and strident atheism are on the rise. Churches have increasingly been made into bars or discotheques. The battle against secularization is for the most part over even while there are some glimpses of renewal in circles as different as Charismatic movements, the Benedict option, and TPUSA.
The Family
The nuclear family and extended family, for time immemorial the bedrock of society, has been under unrelenting attack for eighty odd years. The result is astounding. Children are no longer encouraged and those born today are 80% likely to live with a single parent. More than 60% of all marriages fail. In some communities it is common to have 6 or 7 male fathers abandoning their offspring to be raised by one mother or by the state. The Left wants the destruction of mediating structures so that all power and money run through the government—which they control. 42 million people are on food stamps in the US this year and the abortion rate has now risen to 15% of all pregnancies. The Left ultimately seeks childless societies and argues it is wrong to bring children into a world and environment that is too fragile or toxic and experiencing climate change.
Education
Colleges and universities no longer educate. They indoctrinate in order of Leftist priorities and policies; they allow only their ideologies and seek to destroy all notions of truth, beauty, and goodness, as well as the traditional family and religion. Faculties are all of one stripe. At some Ivy League campuses Democrats outnumber Republicans 2000 to 1. Conservatives are not permitted to convene and are violently attacked if they do. Charle Kirk is not the exception. Marxist, Islamist, Chinese, and other Communist groups are applauded, funded, and rigorously defended. Confucius Institutes, Antifa cells, BLM, and Free Palestine organizations proliferate and are well funded. At the elementary and secondary level of schooling, Leftist teacher unions prevail and dictate both curriculum and policy. The only light seems to be a growing number of people who use vouchers or choose home schooling, abandoning public education altogether.
Government
In America, we are fortunate to have a Founding rooted in faith and a Constitution, abiding within the rule of law. Arguably, until the sixties, we never faced religious hostility or foreign invasion. The political party pendulum has swung both ways and freedom of religion and conscience have been sustained. That has come under attack as we see harsh polarization and diminishment of any form of bipartisanship. The emergence of a New Left, and then of so-called Democratic Socialism, has made the country ungovernable to such an extent that many see a coming civil war. Red and Blue states have radically different cultures, policies, and behaviors. National elections are close and the politics dirtier and more contested than in earlier eras. President Trump is trying to restore national sovereignty and greatness; while defending religion in public life but the opposition is crazed about him and conservatism of any sort, which they call dictatorial and fascistic. The former Democrat Party is on the verge of being taken over by radical Socialists-Communists.
Business
Business has been swamped with DEI, ESG, CRT and other Leftist ideologies in order to end capitalism or make the workplace woke. Since the emergence of shakeholderism at Davos, the role of free markets has been challenged and companies have, particularly at the larger end of the scale, succumbed to soft-Marxism, leaving profitability and entrepreneurship to the side. Blue states and cities have increasingly fomented anti-capitalist measures, higher and higher taxes, and made many businesses opt to move to the sunbelt where there are less regulations and lower taxation. Many CEOs have joined the Left or bent that direction in order to survive because they buy into elements of socialism, often referred to as corporate social responsibility.
Arts & Entertainment
The arts have generally tried to be avant garde and entertainment for the most part and its celebrities march to the drumbeat of the Left. A few examples and the Hallmark channel may prove exceptions, but art has become in the last decades pornographic, sexually repulsive, homosexual and transexual to the extent that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. One survey found thar while LGBTQ plus accounts for less than 3% of the population it is expressed in over half of all art and entertainment. On television these days every show and commercial appears to be outside of the old norms. Hollywood has become synonymous with filth, decadence, and dark pernicious abnormal behaviors, as evidenced in the Epstein files. The Left owns the whole value chain and pushes pedophilia, which they now term, ‘minor attraction’, sodomy, promiscuity, and anti-family values. The drift since 1960 has been entirely in one direction until recently when a few films have begun (not Disney) to appeal to wholesome or family values, as the market demands and begs for such.
Media
The media has been taken over in its mainstream by the far Left. The ‘fake news,’ called such because it is propaganda and untrue journalism, is beyond biased, as 95% of coverage is against anything conservative, anti-Trump to the point of derangement, and it has gotten worse year by year. Even so-called centrist media (Fox) is now generally bending to the Left. The few networks on the Right have small followings and there is a plethora of newer podcasts that cater to a diversity of conservative and even religious viewpoints. However, old evangelical stalwarts like Christianity Today, are now run by left wing individuals that would be unrecognizable to their founders. The Left controls book publishing, magazines, newspapers, and much of social media.
In my considered assessment, the traditional and Christian battle for dominion and influence has since the 1960’s, and the revolt of 1968 in particular, fallen far behind and we are losing or have lost significant ground on each of the 7M. The Left and its woke, neo-Marxist, and globalist elements have the upper hand today. The trends appear to all be moving in their direction. The term they use is “elite replacement”.
So, what are we going to do about it? If you recall, Christ’s disciples died violent deaths but suffered in faith and with grace, building His Kingdom.
We need a strategy and plan to seize all 7M.
(Views expressed by guest commentators may not reflect the views of OAN or its affiliates.)
Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, scholar-diplomat, strategist is the author of 18 books, most recently, GREATNESS, about the Trump Revolution and Coming Golden Age. He has held ambassadorial level posts and was a professor at Yale and the University of Oxford.
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