The blitzkrieg of secularism, along with the competition for ideological supremacy and control of resources by secularists, is not a “generational struggle.” It’s a moment of truth to settle whose values are going to reign supreme in America.
Christians must decide to live in a pagan nation imposed by those with a godless worldview or bring revolt, revolution and repentance to a once- Christian nation established by America’s founders.
The Wall Street Journal says, “Southern Baptists [are] a leading conservative voice in cultural disputes over abortion and gay rights.”
Christians to a great extent have established a subculture, isolated and sheltered downstream from culture. Unlike the muscular Christianity of the Founding Fathers that created a counterculture in America, Christians are largely AWOL.
If America is to turn, it will begin at the local level. City council, school board and even the parks and recreation are where pastors need to focus, not at the national level. Go local and take care of your own backyard.
As to politics, a Sunday sermon is not a denomination of political currency. Sermons are for worship and instruction of the body of Christ.
For example, my pastor (and Thousand Oaks City Councilman) Rob McCoy offered this insight the Sunday following last November’s election:
Our pastors educate their people to do nothing, and they say flippantly, “Vote for a third-party candidate” because it’s a moral statement. It’s stupid; it’s fatalistic, apathetic and lazy. It makes me upset.
God calls us to be the salt of the earth. We sit in apathy and moral relativism and think somehow that we’re effective.
1 Timothy 2:1-2 says, “Therefore I exhort first of all that you make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life …”
I say this to pastors, “Can you please tell me the names of the school board members you’ve been praying for by name? Oh, you don’t know them? Well, this is a pastoral epistle of exhortation to Timothy from Paul. You’re a pastor, and you don’t know them?
“Can you tell me the council members you’re praying for? Could you tell me the top five issues for the school board, and for the city council, that you’ve been praying for wisdom for them? Oh, you don’t know them?”
Because we don’t understand politics, we’re doing an awful job at bringing biblical values to the public square.
Press conferences, press releases and getting a shout-out on FOX News are public relations: useful for boosting your reputation, improving your image and promoting yourself.
The two largest denominations of currency in the political arena are: 1. How many votes can you bring to the table? or 2. How much money can you bring that brings votes to the table? Squandered.
If America’s founders wanted to establish Christianity as the official religion of America, why didn’t they just say so? They did. Study the 13 original state constitutions: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. See the details here.
The present mess in America stems from the fact that we evangelical and pro-life Catholic Christians are disconnected from Main Street. Therefore, we are no longer the preservative we are called to be by God’s providence and design for our nation.
The crisis is not a call to panic, but a call to reestablish prayer in America’s churches—led by the senior pastor.
A.W. Tozer wrote these words nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Yet note how relevant they are for this day:
In this day when shimmering personalities carry on the Lord’s work after the methods of the entertainment world it is refreshing to associate for a moment even in the pages of a book with a sincere and humble man who keeps his own personality out of sight and places the emphasis upon the inworking of God.
It is our belief that the evangelical movement will continue to drift farther and farther from the New Testament position unless its leadership passes from the modern religious star to the self-effacing saint who asks for no praise and seeks no place, happy only when the glory is attributed to God and himself forgotten.
Within the last quarter of a century, we have actually seen a major shift in the beliefs and practices of the evangelical wing of the church so radical as to amount to a complete sellout; and all this behind the cloak of fervent orthodoxy. With Bibles under their arms and bundles of tracts in their pockets, religious persons now meet to carry on “services” so carnal, so pagan, that they can hardly be distinguished from the old vaudeville shows of earlier days. And for a preacher or a writer to challenge this heresy is to invite ridicule and abuse from every quarter.
Our only hope is that renewed spiritual pressure will be exerted increasingly by self-effacing and courageous men who desire nothing but the glory of God and the purity of the church. May God send us many of them. They are long overdue.
There is great news though. Although mostly unseen at this moment, many Gideons and Rehabs are beginning to stand. {eoa}
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