Why Celebrate America?

 This article was first published in 2021.

Oh, wonderful July! Fireworks, barbecues, and community parties welcome this hot summer month. My heart beats with pride as I listen to patriotic music. I recently added two new CD’s to my patriotic collection: American Jubilee by the Cincinnati Pops and For God and Country by Dolly Parton. How wonderful to be an American and live in the land of the free.

My wife and I try to instill in our children a taste of the incredible heritage we have as citizens of the United States of America. That heritage is one to be embraced and valued. A careful look at our Founding Fathers and their documents reveal an overwhelming bias toward biblical Christianity.

Fifty-five delegates attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which produced the Constitution of the United States. The religious sympathies of this core group of men shaped the foundations of our republic: 28 Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one unknown, and only three deists. So, 93 percent of the attendees were self-proclaimed Christians.

The American Patriot’s Bible shares, “While much has been written in recent years to try to dismiss the fact that America was founded upon the biblical principles of Judeo-Christianity, all the revisionism in the world cannot change the facts. Anyone who examines the original writings, personal correspondence, biographies, and public statements of the individuals who were instrumental in the founding of America will find an abundance of quotations showing the profound extent to which their thinking and lives were influenced by a Christian worldview.”

High View of God

America’s Founders shared a high view of the Lord.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, “With us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people our institutions did not presuppose Christianity and did not often refer to it and exhibit relations with it.” 

And U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote, “One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations.”

Strong Belief in the Bible

The New England Primer, America’s first textbook, taught the ABCs to children by memorizing basic biblical truths and lessons about life: "A. In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. B. Heaven to find, the Bible mind. C. Christ crucified for sinners died. The Founding Fathers stressed the relationship between a sound education based upon biblical absolutes and the future of the nation." 

Noah Webster wrote, “The moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.” 

In 1791, Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration and Constitution, Surgeon General of the Continental Army, and leading educator, argued why the Bible should never be removed from public education: “In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them.” 

In his Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical, he wrote, “The Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life… [T]he Bible… should be read in our schools in preference to all other books because it contains the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.”

George Washington, addressing the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1789 shared that national morality could not prevail without religious principle.  To try and remove the religious influence is to “shake the foundation of the fabric” of our country.

Chief Justice John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Vice-President of the American Bible Society, understood this reality.  He wrote, Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. 

Many years later, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, shares in his book A Nation Like No Other, “The Founders’ distinctively Christian faith is well documented, as is their conviction that government must be infused with Christian principles.”

Judeo-Christian Ethic

The Founding Fathers’ documents shaped the genesis of this nation, springing from a common understanding, or what we today call “worldview,” of how the Creator designed life to work. This approach to life is known  as the Seven Principles of the Judeo- Christian Ethic, rooted in values from the Old and New Testaments.

1. The dignity of human life. God made every person in His image, and thus every human has certain “unalienable rights.”

2. The traditional monogamous marriage. The biblical family unit is the basic building block of our society.

3. A national work ethic. Working hard represents dignity, and our free enterprise system encourages it.

4. The right to a God-centered education. Our forefathers intended an education system that taught the Bible, Creationism, and moral obligation.

5. The Abrahamic Covenant. Covenantal theology understands that obedience to God yields blessing for a nation or individual.

6. Common decency. America is great when her people follow the Golden Rule, treating others as they want to be treated.

7. Divinely ordained establishments. God established the home, civil government, and the church.

The founders of America understood the constitutions, laws, and agreements of federal and state governments depended on the acceptance of these basic ethics.

 

Remember Correctly

It grieves me the more I hear pastors who do not want to include patriotism in their churches. 

I believe the church is the best place to celebrate and remember our national heritage. To let our great American special days pass by hardly recognized by the local church is an opportunity lost.

In years past, Baptist congregations celebrated our nation’s birthday with gusto. Churches like First Baptist Jacksonville, Florida, Belleview Baptist Church in Memphis, First Baptist Columbia, SC, First Baptist Atlanta, First Baptist Dallas, TX, and Thomas Road Baptist Church enjoyed extravagant God and Country services, recognizing our Armed Forces, saluting the flag, and singing good old American songs.

You can watch the "Look Up, America" celebration from First Jacksonville in July, 1986, here.

Today, some Christians call such celebrations bordering on idolatry, and a growing number of pastors shy away from including God and Country in our worship gatherings.

The Old Testament Law and Prophets repeatedly warned of the tendency to forget – or to not remember correctly. In different eras, generations arose that forgot their heritage and did not remember what God had said or done.

Today in America, we face a growing tendency to forget our godly, Chrisitan heritage – and to not remember our history correctly. The Left consistently libels America as fundamentally flawed, racist, and in need of massive change. They perpetuate the lie that to remember our Founding Fathers is "structural racism" - another attempt from the Left to reshape our thinking. And I believe the Left is not only influencing the world wrongly – but parts of the church.

July 4^th, among other American holidays like Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, are opportunities ripe for teaching and remembering correctly. It is a time to remind ourselves and our congregations of the Christian foundation upon which we stand. Take the time to remind people that Christianity is one of the main reasons America became great.

And, it's a time to call God's people to return to God on behalf of the nation in repentance and faith.

David Lane recently wrote, “Secularism was inaugurated as America’s official religion by eight U.S. Supreme Court Justices in the mid-20th century. And with that they tore down the American Founders’ Christian bulwark of liberty and autonomy that had been responsible for 350 remarkable years of American history.”

If the church refuses to celebrate our covenantal national heritage and leaves it to the secular world, we abdicate our responsibility and privilege to remember and pass on those foundational concepts to others. And the country will continue remembering incorrectly.

As Christian parents, pastors, and Americans, may we instill in our children a love and respect for our nation. And may we proudly proclaim together, “In God we trust!

The Family Research Council and their Watchmen on the Wall ministry offer excellent resources for pastors to do what I suggest in this article - lead your people to remember our godly heritage. See Stand Courageous here and  Call 2 Fall here.

Here is a resource specifically about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

See related resources:

Three Cs That Made America Great: Christianity, Capitalism and the Constitution  Mike Huckabee

America's Godly Heritage

The American Heritage Series

Building on the American Heritage Series

The American Patriot's Bible from Thomas Nelson

A Nation Like No Other by Newt Gingrich

Christians: Engage Politics and the Public Square

Pictures used by permission from Pixabay.

Greg Laurie: The Jesus Revolution

 

4 Signs of Christian Revival

What my generation called “The Jesus Movement,” Time magazine called “The Jesus Revolution.” They were right. Revolution involves a dramatic change, a return. The same can be said of revival. Simply put, a Christian revival is a return to New Testament Christianity—the way we who follow Jesus should always live.

We need another Jesus revolution, and I believe we will see one in our lifetime. But to experience revival, we must first wake from our sleep.

So many in the church today are spiritually asleep. They are settling for a watered-down form of the Christian faith. This is not the form of the Christian faith that changed the world in the first century—the faith that changed families, countries and cultures. As evangelist and Bible scholar G. Campbell Morgan once stated: “Organized Christianity that fails to make a disturbance is dead.”

Read the entire article here at Decision Magazine.

Learn more about the movie here.

A Cultural Civil War

 

John Davidson writes in his article, We’re In A Cultural Civil War. It’s Time For Conservatives To Fight Back, “If you think what’s happening in America right now is crazy, you’re not alone. It’s true that something’s changed, that we’re in the middle of a crisis, that a cultural civil war is underway and escalating.

But it’s not true that this is a majoritarian movement. It’s not true that America fundamentally changed overnight. The hordes of protesters, impressive as them seem, don’t represent the country at large.”

Leftists infiltrated many of our American universities decades ago, systematically indoctrinating our culture with deadly ideologies:

(1) The jettison of absolute truth

(2) The “don’t offend anyone” narrative

(3) The “every idea is equally valid” falsity.

(4) The “America is fundamentally flawed” rhetoric.

Lawyer and talk show host Dennis Prager calls our modern battle America’s Second Civil War. He writes that in the Second Civil war, “one side has been doing nearly all the fighting. That is how it has been able to take over schools — from elementary schools, to high schools, to universities — and indoctrinate America’s young people; how it has taken over nearly all the news media; and how it has taken over entertainment media.

The conservative side has lost on every one of these fronts because it has rarely fought back with anything near the ferocity with which the left fights.”

Taking Right Ground

Lawyer turned evangelist Charles Finney wrote in the 1800’s, “The Church must take right ground in regards to politics . . . The time has come for Christians to vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them . . . .

God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for, unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God . . .

God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics.”

Respect for law and order, for policemen, for the Constitution, for God, for the Bible, for people of different races, for the sanctity of human life, and for the people of America is constantly challenged.

Davidson writes, “It’s long past time to fight back. That won’t be easy, in part because the radicals are largely in control of messaging. They have the sympathies—if not the outright allegiance—of the mainstream media, big tech, and corporate America. They also more or less control the Democratic Party and much of the petty bureaucracy, including public schools.”

The Redemption of Culture

Twenty-five years ago, many churches across the nation embraced Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Church concepts, promoting that there are five purposes to the church: worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, and missions. Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship and The Colson Center for Christian Worldview said at the time he always wanted to tell pastors to add another biblical purpose: the redemption of culture.

Colson wrote in his excellent book, How Now Shall We Live?, “The only task of the church, many fundamentalists and evangelicals have believed, is to save as many lost souls as possible from a world literally going to hell. But this implicit denial of a Christian worldview is unbiblical and is the reason we have lost so much of our influence in the world. Salvation does not consist simply of freedom from sin; salvation also means being restored to the task we were given in the beginning – the job of creating culture.”

The Lord’s Great Commission is linked with His cultural commission!

Colson goes on, “The same command is still binding on us today. Though the fall introduced sin and evil into human history, it did not erase the cultural mandate. . . .  When we are redeemed, we are restored to our original purpose, empowered to do what we were created to do: build societies and create culture – and in doing so, to restore the created order.”

It's past time for people with a biblical worldview of reality to engage the public square and make our voices heard.

Believers must not be silent.  We must speak.

Pray. Love your neighbor. Speak Up. Speak Out.

Pictures courtesy of Pexels and Pixabay

 

STRANGE NEW WORLD

 

Looks like a great read by Carl Trueman.

STRANGE NEW WORLD: HOW THINKERS AND ACTIVISTS REDEFINED IDENTITY AND SPARKED THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION

"He explains just how the West's preoccupation with a navel-gazing concern for emotional 'authenticity' has crippled our ability to think - and is consequently undermining the future of our civilization."

Trueman confronts the current era of "expressive individualism," showing readers how to engage in a culture that's often hostile to Christian beliefs.

Access it here.

Country Star Tops Chart with New Anti-Woke Song

 

Country star John Rich is shooting up the charts with his new song “Progress,” and it has one clear message: Most Americans don’t want what the left calls “progress.”

One half of the successful country music duo Big and Rich, Rich has a clear message for President Joe Biden and the Democrats. From the very outset, the song is effective in delivering this idea.

“There’s a hole in this country. Where its heart used to be,” Rich began. “Old Glory’s divided, on fire in the streets.”

Read the entire article by Grant Atkinson at The Western Journal.

The Silent Majority: 4 Ways to Speak Up to Change the Culture

 

THIS ARTICLE IS A FOLLOW-UP TO MY ONE CALLED 7 LIES AMERICANS ARE BELIEVING, WHICH WAS VIEWED MORE THAN 29,000 TIMES IN THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF POSTING.

The majority of American conservatives have been taught to be nice and fair. The Left – as opposed to classic liberals and classic conservatives - has been taught to be sneaky, using force and slander.

So it’s easier for small groups of leftists to take over larger groups of conservatives, because conservatives are hesitant to roll up their sleeves and fight. The Left uses fear and mob rule.

Leftists use underhanded tactics that conservatives are hesitant to use. That is true socially, politically, and in religious circles.

I’ve seen it in churches for years. People who want to take over a local congregation and wield power will work behind the scenes for years and be very sly and political. The rest of the people just want to enjoy each other and the experience, and they often realize too late that the manipulative ones have been working behind the scenes to gain control.

And now this has happened in America.

 

A Cultural Civil War

John Davidson writes in his article, We’reIn A Cultural Civil War. It’s Time For Conservatives To Fight Back, “If you think what’s happening in America right now is crazy, you’re not alone. It’s true that something’s changed, that we’re in the middle of a crisis, that a cultural civil war is underway and escalating.

But it’s not true that this is a majoritarian movement. It’s not true that America fundamentally changed overnight. The hordes of protesters, impressive as them seem, don’t represent the country at large.”

Leftists infiltrated many of our American universities decades ago.

The Left has systematically indoctrinated our culture with its deadly ideologies:

(1) The jettison of absolute truth

(2) The “don’t offend anyone” narrative.

(3) The “every idea is equally valid” falsity.

(4) The “America is fundamentally flawed” and is not great lies.

And the Left uses fear and punishment to scare people into silence. Read the article here, Fear of the Left: The Most Powerful Force in America Today.

 

Forceful People

Jesus Christ described people who grow the kingdom of God: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12 ESV).

Ellicot’s Commentary for English Readers explains, “The ‘violent’ are men of eager, impetuous zeal, who grasp the kingdom of heaven—i.e., its peace, and pardon, and blessedness—with as much eagerness as men would snatch and carry off as their own the spoil of a conquered city.”

Unfortunately, we have not done a great of teaching people in our churches to be such “violent” citizens. Christians have often thought we have to be the “nice guy” instead of the forceful one.

The modern era includes the fallacy that the church and pastors should stay out of and stay silent about politics.  One result of such a stance is the church's weak influence on society.  While secularists and godless men and women worked feverishly to reshape our nation (after their own lusts and idols), the church often claimed that politics was not their business.  Instead, they should only care about saving souls.

Such a stance does not reflect a biblical worldview.

Lawyer and talk show host Dennis Prager calls our modern battle America’s Second Civil War. He writes that in the Second Civil war, “one side has been doing nearly all the fighting. That is how it has been able to take over schools — from elementary schools, to high schools, to universities — and indoctrinate America’s young people; how it has taken over nearly all the news media; and how it has taken over entertainment media.

The conservative side has lost on every one of these fronts because it has rarely fought back with anything near the ferocity with which the left fights.”

Lawyer turned evangelist Charles Finney wrote in the 1800’s, “The Church must take right ground in regards to politics . . . The time has come for Christians to vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them . . . .

God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for, unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God . . .

God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics.”

Davidson writes, “It’s long past time to fight back. That won’t be easy, in part because the radicals are largely in control of messaging. They have the sympathies—if not the outright allegiance—of the mainstream media, big tech, and corporate America. They also more or less control the Democratic Party and much of the petty bureaucracy, including public schools.”

Respect for law and order, for policemen, for the Constitution, for God, for the Bible, for people of different races, for the sanctity of human life, and for the people of America is constantly challenged.

This country became great because of its Judeo-Christian values, and it will become great again as we protect the freedom to nurture those values. The progressive Left showed the country in the Kavanaugh hearings – and now in the domestic terrorist assault on our country from the Black Lives Matter movement -  what to expect if they rule - mob law, gross deception, massive character assassination, no regard for the rule of law, and as Hillary Clinton authenticated - no civility.

We live in a day where the church must speak truth into the culture.  Christians must communicate into the national and political processes.  

Believers must not be silent.  We must speak.

What actions can normal Americans take who love their neighbors, their freedom, and their country?

1. Pray

Our current climate is one where the church needs to pray with fervor and steadfastness. This is also a time when we need to be adding fasting to our praying. The Lord said that some problems only experience deliverance through fasting and prayer (Matthew 17:21).

Abraham Lincoln and President Ronald Reagan both said the United States was the last best hope of the earth. No, not in terms of theological salvation, but in our modern era America has been the bastion of freedom and religious liberty for the world.

Today a great battle rages for the soul of this nation – and it is not only a battle between people. A spiritual battle rages in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). When such wars erupt, God’s people must not only fight in the worldly realm – but fight with prayer and fasting.

2. Love your neighbor

For years, schools taught The Golden Rule – Jesus’ instruction to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

One of the reasons America is basically good is because her people generally treat each other with goodness. Since all of this Anitfa and Black Lives Matter movement have shaken our country, I’ve made  a habit of noticing how people in public treat each other. I see people of all races, ages, and both genders showing respect, civility, and kindness to each other.

Our family visited Nashville, Tennessee, recently. A black waiter generously told us at lunch, “You don’t need to fear being outside in our downtown. This city is very safe. We have police on every block, so you don’t need to be afraid.

We experienced that very thing, and I made it a point to stop and talk with policemen several times and say, “Thank you for your presence here. We appreciate you. We feel very safe here.”

This is the time to not hold back in loving your neighbors, serving each other, and showing other people the real substance of America.

3. Resist the cultural narrative

John MacArthur writes, “To be a Christian is to swim against the flow of the world, to go against its grain, because the adversary-Satan, his demons, and the world system-are extremely powerful. Those who enter the kingdom of grace through faith in Christ do so with great effort through the sovereign power of the convicting and converting Holy Spirit.”

There was a time when values espoused by the American media, public education, entertainment industry, political parties, and “polite society” generally coincided with Christian, biblical values. Today, much of the cultural narrative is controlled by the Left, which has gradually gotten control of the media, the entertainment industry, and much of public education. And many of those values stand in contrast to a biblical worldview.

For years, the three centers of influence – Hollywood, New York, and Washington, D.C., have been out of touch with the values of average Americans.

The Bible reminds believers, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2 NLT).

The JB Phillips translation adds this emphasis: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

4. Speak up.

The Left has consistently pushed their ways forward on our culture for years. They have worked to monopolize the airwaves and use fear tactics to make people afraid to disagree with them.

Suddenly, many good, average Americans realize their country is being systematically taken over.

The Black Lives Matter movement, along with their bully force Antifa, use force and fear to topple our democracy.

This is not the time to just be the nice guy. This is the time to speak up and challenge the narrative.  But it means several things that most Americans don’t like:

+ You may offend people.

+ You may lose “friends” or the respect of certain people. An English professor approached a friend of mine years ago at our liberal religious college and said, “Gene, the things you believe are not accepted any more be polite society.” My friend, who is now an evangelical missionary, responded, “Dr. so-and-so, with all due respect, I don’t care what polite society thinks. One day, I will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and give an account to Him of my life, and He is the One I aim to please.”

+ You may be attacked by people – especially on social media. But keep this in mind. Antifa has vowed that after they wreak havoc on our major cities, they plan on going into the residential neighborhoods. What that means is they plan on going into your suburb where your children play and ride their bikes, where people swim at the community pool, and where your family eats, sleeps, and lives, and they will spray paint or burn down your houses, beat up your older people, and kill some of your younger ones.

In Italy, Germany, Cuba, and the U.S.S.R., the Left started by ridiculing people for their beliefs and values. Eventually, when they had enough power, they jailed, beat, raped, tortured, and murdered people. And that could happen here.

+ You will have to learn how to logically challenge the thinking of the Left. You will have to learn to think through and discuss why you disagree with some of what your children hear from Hollywood elites, late night talk show hosts, prime time sitcoms, CNN, and some of their high school teachers or college professors. You will have to learn how to THINK – perhaps like never before.

 

Here are a few suggestions for where and how to speak up:

1. Make sure and start in your home and talk with your children about why you believe what you believe. Provide them an intellectual framework to think from your kitchen table.

2. Speak out – with respect and love – but with truth - on social media. Don’t let social media be overtaken by the Left. Remember, sometimes truth divides – and it cuts. When you need immediate open-heart surgery, you don't get offended if the doctor cuts into your skin.

3. Write letters to your local newspaper – or post articles on your favorite blog sites.

4. Contact your centers of influence and let your voice be heard. This includes, but is not limited to, the following: national and state Congressmen and representatives, Governors, mayors, city and town councils, local school boards, state Supreme Courts, etc. Believe me, the Left is and has been making their voices heard to these entities. It’s time for the average American to be “forceful.”

5. Speak up in your centers of influence: your church, your home owner’s association, your local PTA, your sports club, your alumni association, etc.

6. When you see our basic liberties – like the freedom of speech – being taken away, speak up. Speak out. If we do not, we will lose them for good.

7. Consider running for office at the local or state level – or get behind some godly, conservative people who will. Ask your pastor(s) to consider running for these positions. The American Renewal Project is a good resource. 

Prager writes, “This is likely the last chance liberals, conservatives and the right have to defeat the American left. But it will not happen until these groups understand that we are fighting for the survival of America no less than the Union troops were in the First Civil War.”

Remembering Jesus' reference of John the Baptizer, instead of just trying to be the nice guy in the room, maybe it's time to be the forceful one.

It's time for Christians and conservatives to come out of hiding and re-engage the public square.

Liberty is at stake.

 

See also my article, 7 Lies Americans are Believing.

See my article, America: Where Most Blacks and Whites Don't Hate Each Other.

Pictures used by permission from Pixabay.

 

 

 

One Hundred Years from Now . . .

David Lane of the American Renewal Project offers an excellent commentary this week on the state of world and national affairs . . .

"Last week at the 2022 NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle swimming championship in Atlanta we finally may have arrived at a bridge too far to cross. During this championship a biological male, who moved from a ranking of #554 in the 200 yd freestyle in men’s swimming to #1 in women’s swimming, won the women’s 500-yard freestyle swimming Championship.^5,6

Revelry kicked into high gear throughout the secular state, among its custodians and factotums, and its allies in Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Media, and Big Government as they worshipped secularism’s golden calf, elated at the successful conversion and induction of the last 3-4 generations of young Americans into their irrational, idolatrous ideology.

America is currently in need of those who can decipher what God is saying to His church and her current moral and spiritual need. According to pastor and ‘modern-day prophet’ A.W. Tozer [1897-1963] this requires 'the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God’s position, and to tell us what is actually going on.'"

Read Lane's entire article here.

Picture used by permission from Pixabay

Debunking the 1619 Project? Is America Fundamentally Racist?

 

Watch historian David Barton tell amazing stories about the role of black Patriots, evangelists, and leaders in early American history - as well as 8 talking points as to why America is not systemically racits.

The Church’s Lane is the Whole Cosmos

"Recently, a denominational leader said to me that the best thing that the Church could do to handle the challenges of this cultural moment would be to 'stay in its lane.' That the so-called 'culture wars' have been grueling, and the Church is
primarily called to spread the Gospel. That when it comes to the most controversial issues, the best strategy is non-confrontation and to focus on what is most important. 

I think I know what he meant. There’s certainly truth to the idea that Christians overemphasize politics. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, politics makes a lousy worldview. In a culture without better answers to life’s biggest questions, politics too easily assumes the place of God, determining everything from our values to our sources of truth to who we’re willing to associate with. When Christians embrace a political identity rather than a Kingdom identity, the riches of Christ are exchanged for the porridge of political gamesmanship. 

However, telling the Church to just 'stay in our lane' and out of politics is an equally unhelpful answer. Typically, the 'stay in your lane' mandate is only applied to unpopular issues, like abortion, marriage and family, or religious freedom. No one ever tells the Church to stop fighting against sex trafficking, or to no longer dig wells for communities without fresh water, or to cease sustainable economic development in impoverished nations. Christians should absolutely engage worthy causes because the Lordship of Christ and the implications of the Gospel demand it, not because they are deemed culturally uncontroversial. 

Read the entire article by John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander here at BreakPoint.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

Why Are So Many Good Things Being Destroyed?

 

Two-Thirds of Voters Want Congress to Investigate 2020 Riots

 

Now that House Democrats have created a committee to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot, most voters believe Congress should also investigate the Black Lives Matter protests that sparked violence in major cities last year.

A new national telephone and online survey by the National Police Association and Rasmussen Reports finds that 66% of Likely U.S. Voters think Congress should investigate last year’s violent protests, in which more than 2,000 police officers suffered injuries in the line of duty. Twenty-one percent (21%) don’t think Congress should investigate last year’s protests, and 13% were not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The survey found strong voter support for law enforcement on issues ranging from display of the “Thin Blue Line” flag to prosecution of so-called “quality of life” crimes.

Read the entire article at Rasmussen Reports.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Court Says Law Mandating Trans Pronoun Use A Violation Of Free Speech

 

A California appellate court ruled Friday that a provision in a state law passed four years ago mandating that certain health care workers use transgender pronouns is a violation of free speech, protected by the First Amendment.

CA’s Third District Court of Appeal upended SB 219, which in part forced nu
rsing home workers to use preferred transgender pronouns and names for patients.

Notably, violators of the law “could be charged with a misdemeanor and subject to punishment of a $1000 fine, or even up to one year in jail,” according to California Family Council.

Read the entire article by Amanda Prestigiacomo here at The Daily Wire.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

A Monumentally Poor Decision

"Before long there will be no monuments, memorials, or United States history left in America, as textbooks will have to be canceled as well ...

Commenting on France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to those seeking to cleanse France of its history, Mark Steyn said: 'President Macron of France is not my favorite chap - he’s a sinister globalist for one thing. But he made an admirable stand when he announced that not one French statue would be taken down and not a single French street name would be changed, because they are all part of French history. And ‘Bingo!’ ... the statue toppling and street-name changing in France went away.'

If only America had valiant and judicious political leaders.…"

Read the entire column here by David Lane.

 

Image used courtesy of NextVoyage at Pexels.

The Boy Scouts: A Case Study in Compromise

Gone is the Judeo-Christian ethic that guided scouts back in Teddy Roosevelt's day. Now, it's moral free-for-all that's been reduced to: believe whatever you want -- just be nice to people. Back when the BSA made their first concessions, the organization's leaders promised to stay true to their mission. But, as Rob pointed out, every scout pledges, "'On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and to my country.' What kind of honor is there in an organization that for decades has refused to address pedophilia and sexual abuse in its ranks? And what kind of honor is left when you have compromised your basic mission of defining what good manhood is, what leadership is, does character matter? These are things that have been abandoned."

When the pressure started coming for the scouts to walk away from their biblical roots, the organization lost the courage it spent a century teaching. If they'd have abided by their own oath, they would have told the bullies in corporations and on the Left, "We're going to stand for what's right. And if we lose, we'll go down fighting because we're men of principle. And principles don't change." Instead, Rob shook his head, the very thing that made scouting unique -- its sense of conviction and principle -- was tossed aside for the sake of appeasing a crowd who, ironically, cannot be appeased.

Now, having alienated everyone, the Boy Scouts are financially ruined and publicly scorned. And for what? An increasingly irrelevant organization that can't even define its own terms. Just this month, the scouts' nosedive continued when it agreed to one of the largest sex abuse settlements in American history -- another humiliating chapter in a decade of disasters. When all is said and done, even the Boy Scouts won't have the survival skills to weather this kind of storm.

And unfortunately, that's the destiny of any Christian who takes the naïve view that the world can be placated. It can't. True love, I Corinthians 13:6 tells us, is truth. It's being salt and light in a draining, unforgiving culture. "Come out from them and be separate," Paul said, because he understands that in the end, it's not our sameness with the world that transforms people. It's our distinction.

Read the entire article by Tony Perkins here at the FRC.

Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Agree - Salute the Flag!

 

"If you’re competing in the Olympics to represent the USA and you disrespect our country by disrespecting the flag or our national anthem, that should automatically disqualify you from the team. No ifs, ands, or buts. Gwen Berry is a self-defined athlete activist who turned her back on the American flag when the national anthem began playing after her qualifying trials this Saturday. This is not the way, the time, or the place, for activists to protest. Most athletes are deeply honored to represent the United States of America, still the greatest nation on
earth to live in."

- Rev. Franklin Graham

Activist Gwen Berry was standing on the podium after receiving her bronze medal in the hammer throw when she turned to face the stands, not the flag. Read the article here at Fox News.

Picture used by permission by Pixabay.