Comment: I agree with his laudatory comments on the virtue of placing

God-among-us "emanuel" Christ above earthly governmental artificial temporary powers.

BUT his concluding remark, "As we enter into 2013, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, hangs in the balance", seems to designate only westerners as the beneficiaries of Emanuel.

I would like to remind that Christ's New Covenant ("hesed") made ALL nations, including muslims, buddhists, atheists & all others, CHOSEN SONs & DAUGHTERs of GOD. ALL peoples were called to join the hesed covenant. (This is the main theme of the New Testament, but even in Old Testament Psalm 87, for example, people from "Egypt, Babylon, Philistria, Tyre and Ethiopia" are invited to join the CHOSEN God-children relationship.)

In other words, we humans are ALL equally individually chosen and LOVED by the source of the Universe :-)