We’re getting down to the wire here in the USA. We find a host of malcontents and anarchists on one side – a very vocal group, and on the other, an increasingly disgruntled class who want their country back. That means a return to civility in the public square, a modicum of morality and at least a little patriotism combined with a sense of community values and goals. This is what the Greatest Generation fought and died for.
This malaise happened while the great mass of American Baby Boomers were living the American dream and the standard Christian life. What went
The late Senator Jesse Helms (R. NC), not known for sweet speech, said this about the
Compromise, hell! That’s what has happened to us all down the line — and that’s the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?
https://www.azquotes.com/author/6533-Jesse_Helms
Helms’ slices were the loss of international bargaining power, the increase in entitlement spending, indulgences in wars and unwise treaties, and rising debt all of which impacts the family unit as a symptom of creeping socialism. Losing your nation one slice at a time can be applied to morality, the dumbing down of public education, the acid of inflation, loss of trust in our institutions, sports events and processes, even educational testing. Everything is on the skids.
There was a time of public formality when husband and wife addressed each other as Mister and Misses. Today small children come out with f-bombs at
The Christian Life plays by the rules
All this happened while Americans were living the Christian Life. But at the same time divorces increased, plus alcoholism, drug usage, reduced church attendance and even some Christian churches going rogue, dumping the Bible and personal moral behavior in order to match the personal lives of their parishioners. School demands deteriorated.
They raised their children to be good citizens, to finish their homework, to eat good nutrition, to attend a church, to learn the rules of an egalitarian society, to pay their taxes, to take vacations and live a balanced life. Parents were trying to keep the rules but they kept slipping out of their grasp. Living the Christian life by the book was not enough.
Obedience to God means getting your hands dirty
God’s command to us is to be change agents in a fallen world and when they did promote change they were seduced by compromise. Many who did run were gifted and well meaning, but they were lured by political forces into accommodating to others “to get things done.” It became a political stepping stone for ambitious people and the bologna was sliced a little thinner. For all the reforms they brought in, standards and consequently results deteriorated.
“Token” women, blacks and Hispanics, and more recently transgender and whatever, found themselves where they did not belong or where they could not be effective because the way we did business in every corner of life was politicized.
In contrast there is the obedient life.
The Obedient Life, in contrast, requires sacrifice such as Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi, or the brave little black kids who faced cat calls and possible physical violence entering a white school or college. Not all brave soldiers made the evening news; countless kids were fearful, and after the schools were segregated, all children also faced danger daily because so many people were resistant. Black and white parents were cautious and worried. The obedient life is not always open to public review; many suffered in silence.
The real Christian life costs you something. We look around for people to serve on committees or run for office or head important reform groups and we can’t find them. They’ll say “I’ll get the Kavanaugh treatment,” perhaps the most embarrassing drama to be seen on recent TV, which should be reviewed during every political season to expose the opportunists in Congress who showed their true stripes. (Bret Kavanaugh was publicly slandered without a shred of evidence from is critics, a major violation of his rights as a citizen.)https://www.theepochtimes.com/grassley-kavanaugh-probe-by-fbi-found-no-hint-of-misconduct_2678807.html
The word “to bork” is in the English language after Robert Bork’s reputation was dragged through the public mud, in spite of the fact that he had stellar qualifications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork_Supreme_Court_nomination
The Supreme Court is now the papacy of the secular humanism religion trading indulgences for votes from aggrieved groups.
How can we ask people to endanger themselves and their families especially when the basic tenants of jurisprudence were trashed in a torrent of accusations without a shred of evidence? Who would stand for office given that scenario? And yet that is just what Jesus would ask us to do.
Well we can, in Jesus’ Name we can. There is a
God said, “I sent someone to discover the cure for cancer but you aborted him.”
I wonder if God also has a sign that says, “I had candidates for office who would turn this country around but they refused to run. I had singers, and poets, and writers, who were willing to face public shame and humiliation to fight for the right but you would not support them, give them a job, or join with the crowd to
condemn them from some ill-defined sin.
And then there were those who said, “I’d rather not expose myself to that kind of public abuse.”
So God said, “How do you think Mary liked being thought a fallen woman when she had a baby out of wedlock, according to the gossipy women of her town? Don’t you think that hurt? That went on for years and then when Jesus died, they said, she deserved to lose her first born son for having that baby without a real father. She was an embarrassment to the Jewish faith and to Nazareth. And what about Joseph? Some men say, I’m not going to raise some other man’s baby. But he did not. He obeyed. It cost him something”
This is where we are now in 2019 America. Where are the obedient people to pick up the mantle of reform.