Righteousness exalts, elevates, dignifies, ennobles, whereas sin does the opposite: it disgraces, degrades, lowers, sullies. Proverbs 14:34 mentions this in connection to a nation, but it applies equally to a state, a city or an individual.
San Francisco is on the verge of implosion following its spiritual departure from the faith of its founders.
“Once one of the most beautiful cities in America, San Francisco is now a bastion of progressive lunacy,” according to a SaveSanFrancisco video posted to YouTube. “The law is basically ignored, the homeless are encouraged to camp out, convicted felons are given jobs over honest citizens, our military is hated and disrespected and droves of gay activists walk the streets stark naked. Public decency laws, federal immigration laws and plain common decency has been replaced by a city that no longer respects itself or others.”
A bulwark of self-indulgence and wantonness, San Francisco has long been a magnet for radical secularists. It is today a place where present-day prophets of Baal are prevailing in their contest with biblical God Jehovah. The high toll of such a subculture will be apparent by now. Secularism’s status and position are entirely in the hands of her devotees.
The beautiful Bay Area tells a terrible tale, terrible in what it tells about life without the godly restraint of God.
For its improvidence, San Francisco’s past progressive mayoral leadership could be in for a reckoning.
When God withdraws His sustaining hand, “the madness that is in our hearts by nature at once asserts itself, gains the upper hand, and leads us into a course of folly,” A.W. Pink writes in The Life of Elijah.
“God cannot be at peace with guilty rebels until the claims of His throne have been met. Only upon a righteous basis can peace be established,” Pink says.
Providence founded, nurtured and advanced an experiment that became known as the American experiment, to discern if a people could self-govern. The key question was whether a moral and religious people would be governed by conscience when in the possession of a Constitution based on religious liberty and free speech. Could this be buoyed by the pillars of “morality and religion as indispensable supports,” as George Washington suggested in his Farewell Address, September 19, 1796?
The battle in California rages between two great faiths, two religions, Christianity versus secularism. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Lord of life, established true Christianity. Secularism, on the other hand, is not born from God.
Under the sway of pietism, Christians abandoned the public square over the last 75 years. Pietism rightly stresses the importance of an individual’s relationship to God, but wrongly reduces “the scope of the Christian’s concern to his or her personal life, family life and the affairs of the church as an ecclesiastical organization.”
Because of this, the foundation of a godly nation has not been maintained.
“Indeed, it was permitted to be well-nigh destroyed. So the Constitution and its Christian principles [are] increasingly ignored in practice. Hence, the size and scope of civil government [has] increased; power [has] centralized in the national government; and the rule of law was abandoned in favor of the arbitrary rule of men,” Dr. Archie P. Jones writes in Foreword to The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States.
Which brings us to Gavin Newsom. In March 2000, 4.6 million California citizens voted to ban same-sex marriage (Proposition 22 – 61 percent – 39 percent). The Act added Section 308.5 of the Family Code, which read “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
In February 2004, newly elected San Francisco Mayor Newsom elevated himself above the law and God by “turn[ing] City Hall into [a] wedding chapel for 4,000 couples by authorizing same-sex marriage against state law.”
A single San Francisco politician thus bestowed upon himself the right to override the vote of 4.6 million Californians. His tenure as San Francisco Mayor presents clues as to how he will lead the state if elected governor in November.
The San Francisco Chronicle cheered, “Gavin Newsom can’t wait to get back in the driver’s seat.” More than anything else, the year 2004 showed Mr. Newsom’s true face. Besides abandoning the rule of law, he committed adultery with his best friend’s wife.
Universal health care is yet another of California Lt. Governor Newsom’s pet projects. Newsom’s boisterous endorsement of universal health care for the Golden State might just evoke another gold rush, this time of medical tourists and residents from other states swarming in to take advantage of the medical freebies. It goes without saying that California doesn’t have the way or means of becoming a hatchery welfare state for the world’s 7.4 billion population … regardless of what spin Mr. Newsom puts on it.
“Government has made California unsustainable. $1.3 trillion in debt is the amount to which California governments admit. Other studies believe it to be more. Indeed, one study says it is actually $2.3 trillion and a recent Hoover Institute stated that there is over $1 trillion in pension liability alone, or $76,884 per household. Incredibly, there are 4 million current pension beneficiaries, a number that continues to grow and that exceeds the total population of 22 states.”[7]
“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,” as Margaret Thatcher aptly summarized.
Californian evangelical and pro-life Catholic Christians have come to their providential kairos moment for decision and action.
Pink says in well in Exposition of the Gospel of John: “The one who has found mercy with the Lord is now put to the proof: his faith, his loyalty, his courage must be tested. The profession of our lips amounts to nothing at all if it be not confirmed by the character of our lives.”
California’s Gideons or Rahabs must begin to stand.
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