Battle of the Gods, April 16, 2025. Introduction. A few days ago, when the news about that huge

Hindu image of Lord Hanuman was first going around, my friend Joe Rigney inquired if anyone

knew whether at Michael Cassidy had anything

going on these days. Michael Cassidy was that publicly minded citizen who had redistributed the

image of Satan that had been erected in the Iowa Capitol building. As much as we might admire the

honesty of such messaging by our politicians, the detestable image still needed to go. Anyhow, Joe made his inquiry,

and his question excited some comment. Lord Hahnemann does raise some interesting questions.

Vandalism? Destruction of private property? Vigilanteism? Liberty of conscience? What is going on here?

I have decided to tell you, testing the limits. First, before we get into the

political theology of the thing, what we are looking at is a clear and naked instance of someone

testing the limits. It is a matter of practical psychology first. This is a universal human

phenomenon, and it goes on all the time. Pets do it, toddlers do it, sullen teenage girls do it, and large

immigrant communities do it. People naturally test boundaries. It is our way of finding out who is

actually in charge. Those who do the testing are the confident ones, and those who act the part

of the nonplussed are not. Please follow me carefully here, the confident ones. The question before

the aggressive ones is, how far can we push this before someone says no? The answer, at least to date,

is pretty far. When the strong gods come, the weak gods give way. Chesterton probably didn't say it,

but he should have. Those who don't stand for something will fall for anything. We are now in such

a state of civic disarray that we will fall for anything. These Hindus know what they believe,

and they have acted accordingly. Heartland Americans don't know what they believe, and wouldn't know

how to defend it if they did know. They feel like something is wrong with this whole thing somehow,

but cannot articulate it.

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