Just like many people around the globe will likely never read this article (internet access), many will never see the signs which warn of America’s potential demise. But like the legend of Camelot, America’s end seems to already be on a foreboding-horizon. It’s written in the self-evident stars of present trouble as much as in the seriously troubled humans now ruling a once-great nation.
There comes a time when human beings must take stock, reflect on their reality, and acknowledge their present. Nations are no different. To ignore this is to accept an otherwise escapable doom. America’s time for this generation-defining introspection has come. If it doesn’t, more than its own Camelot will fall; it’s likely all the earth’s kingdoms will tremble.
Inevitable ends
If the last few years teach us anything, it’s that even the greatest kingdoms can fall—and in more than a few dismally-spectacular and painfully-ironic ways. History shows that physical falls are usually preceded by moral ones, and America’s leaders now exhibit an immorality and compass-spinning delirium as foundation-destroying to its identity and security as its once ‘Camelot-like’ greatness.
The signs are impossible to ignore.
Since President Trump began his wild-ride, norm-busting presidency, both sides of the American political divide have become more akin to ideological tribes duelling to the death than leaders working together its citizens’ common good. The leaders of the free-world and its people have become those who are now even struggling to agree on how they’ll lead themselves.
Besides its leadership, America’s very democracy is being assailed by a president that tweets conspiracy theories, election debates that have become arenas-of-insult, and by both Republican and Democratic parties which demonise every move and word of their new-sworn ‘enemy.’ The meaning of the famous phrase ‘Enemies foreign and domestic’ has taken on an entirely new and alarming reality.
Nowhere has this division and internal-battlefield become more evident than in the weeks since the US election. Despite President Elect Joe Biden winning a historic number of votes (about 81 million) and winning the popular vote by more than 7 million, America’s democratic foundations are being assailed like never before. Claims of widespread voter-fraud, over 30 (now-failed) lawsuits, and a current president who at the time of this writing is still unwilling to concede defeat, have undermined not just Biden’s presidential transition, but the very idea of America; a nation built on the belief in what mankind could be; an enduring beacon of Godliness, liberty, and prosperity for itself and the world.
The Glory of Camelot
America’s current predicament is not unlike the one which once challenged the greatness of the legendary kingdom of Camelot. Although the veracity of its historical origins are debated, a prevailing belief remains that Camelot embodied a mixture of the greatest kingdoms of world history. From its glorious beginning, the story of Camelot echoed America’s—and much of the West’s—highest and noblest aspirations and ideals.
Camelot was the centrepiece city of the realm of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. Popular history paints it as a towering castle-like city perched proudly atop a great mountain of stone, surrounded by glistening blue waters, and gloriously triumphant against all who dared challenge its splendour and might.
As keepers of the realm, the story goes that King Arthur created a knighthood of 150 men, 12 of whom made up the fabled round-table. The knights kept the peace of the realm, pursued chivalric quests, and strove to keep themselves morally pure, unified, and fiercely devoted to one another. From its very beginning, Camelot began with a noble ideal to become a kingdom like no other.
The Holy Grail
Legend has it that Camelot’s greatest quest happened 453 years after the resurrection of Jesus. The knight’s quest for the Holy Grail was the cup that Jesus once drank from before His death on a cross and subsequent resurrection. Mirroring the blessed life Jesus lived and died for, Arthur’s knights believed that finding the holy cup would also bring eternal happiness, youth and prosperity.
For a time, their pursuit achieves their highest ideal. In discovering the Grail, Heaven is revealed to a handful of the knights. In that moment, Camelot’s blessedness seemed like it would never end. Not long afterwards however, the knights turn on each other. Even their best knight, Lancelot, succumbs to betraying his own morals by having an affair with his King’s wife, Guinevere.
When King Arthur’s own son Mordred betrays, leads an army against, and ultimately kills his father in battle, the dream and idealistic glory of Camelot dies along with its eternal quest to live, prosper and reign forever. All that ultimately remained of Camelot’s story was a dead king with “The Once and Future King” inscribed on his tomb; a message of hope for a day when the failings of human kingdoms would one day be swallowed up by an eternal Camelot with a King Arthur-like ruler.
Hope beyond the doom
Just like Camelot’s end was assured by the moral failings and division amongst its own knights, so is the threat of America’s end now rising on the horizon of our future. Despite the Holy Grail of its noble quests, pure intentions, and high ideals, the last four years has shaken it to its core by the very thing common to all of humanity—just that, its humanity.
Despite its idealistic constitution, great castle-like defences, and knight-errant leadership, moral corruption, power-struggles and division give ominous warning to monumentally stormy seas ahead. The winds of trouble are blowing, and its fall has likely already begun from within.
The one hope America has is the king that once embodied all that was great about King Arthur—King Jesus. Just like the salvation he once brought mankind, he still lives today in Heaven and hears the prayers of his creation. As a King he is gracious and wise, and stands ready to help, heal, and rescue nations and all those within them.
Whereas Camelot’s king died, and all its highest ideals and prosperity along with it, this world’s king has already been resurrected, and with him the hope, not just for America’s future, but for a glorious coming global kingdom that will never fall and never end.