Viral country singer Oliver Anthony calls on Americans to return to their roots and give up false idols.
“I am just there to remind you that we do not need our false idols,” said Anthony, whose real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford is, during a speech on Tuesday at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London.
“We no longer have to rely on politicians who bend money to manage our city or our states. We have to find the real leaders everywhere and authorize them,” said Anthony.
(Oliver Anthony/Instagram)
Anthony, whose hit number from 2023, “Rich Men North of Richmond,” reached the number 1 place on the Billboard Hot 100, said American society has become soft.
“Our modern society is (a) handy, comfortable, fragile, little often exist on the back of these self -proclaimed nobodies,” he said. “And forgive my generalization, but in the modern world we are so busy aligning the real nothing of society, the self-centered celebrities, spinless politicians, clickbait, social media influencers.”
Anthony added that “It seems from my perspective that these people often lead a comfortable small lives, while many of our real heroes are through the mud and have never given a thank you for it.”
Anthony, who in a YouTube video of 29 October 2024 announced that he left the music industry to concentrate on a ‘traveling ministry’, also shared his concern about how social media and the digital era influence society.
“What is bad is the lack of control and freedom of choice that we have about these systems, and without realizing it, we will be programmed and our culture is being produced,” said Anthony. “That is why the more time we spend on these digital information systems, the more we return to the means of one of a fixed set of wide internet cohorts. In other words, the more time we spend online, the more concretized our culture, the more tribal Our psychology, and how vulnerable we become. ”
Christopher Anthony Lunsford, who is called the artist name Oliver Anthony, warms up next to a loading dock behind the buildings along Main Street for a surprise show at the Rock The Block Street Festival on 26 August 2023 in Farmville, Virginia. (Getty Images)
A self described “nobody,” said the 32-year-old That America Is addicted to screens.
“We are currently in an era of Snel digital immersion“He said.” The current average American teenager will have spent about 30,000 hours by the time they are 30 on social media. The average American spends on devices six to nine hours a day. ”
What gives him hope, said the former country singer, is what he has seen in the West North Carolina In 2024 when the local population responded to the floods and landslides caused by Hurricane Helene.
“Volunteer veterans with cadaver dogs that I had met had taken 15 bodies from a single stack of rubble near the KOA campsite in Swannanoa,” said Anthony. “The number at that time had to have been good in the hundreds. I believe that the number that the governor used that day was 28. In fact, there was a reefer truck that was full of bodies for two days because the Morginues were crowded.”
He said what he saw helped him hope for the future of the country.
“Volunteers worked 16 hours a day and took stocks on everything, from horses to helicopters. It was humanity there before my eyes,” Anthony shared. “And it was in North Carolina in those seven days that everything changed for me. It was people who save people.”
His new focus, said Anthony, brings Revival to ‘Rural America’, in a mission called the Rural Revival Project, aimed at bringing innovation to forgotten agricultural cities and communities.
Farmville, Virginia – August 26: Christopher Anthony Lunsford (2nd left), who goes the artist name Oliver Anthony, warms up with his guitarist Joey Davis (1st left) while friends and family stand next to a loading lake behind the buildings. Main Street for a surprise performance at the Rock The Block Street Festival on August 26, 2023 in Farmville, Virginia. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty images) (Samuel Core / Getty images)
“Don’t worry about those who are bad or are jealous of those who are doing wrong, because just like the grass they will soon wilt, like green plants they will soon die away, said Anthony.
‘Trust the Lord and do well. Live in the country and enjoy safe grassland. Get enjoy the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. And so I see you on April 5 in Spruce Pine, North Carolina for the first official meeting.
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