Is It Any Wonder Our Once Biblically Based Culture Has Collapsed?
George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and other so-called celebrities in support of gun control financed a “student-led” march in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2018.
With gun control being just one of many tenets of religious secularism, other articles of faith include guilt-free abortion up to the moment of birth as well as idolization of same-sex intercourse and marriage, euthanasia and transgenderism. All these are to be accepted without second thought or protest.
Just in case such supposedly peaceful demonstrations fail to secure secularism’s ideals and beliefs about life, Black Lives Matter and Antifa will be on hand to torch, loot and vandalize America’s cities. Property is destroyed and cars set on fire, fomenting widespread, systemic violations of law without any fallout.
Former President Barack Obama and his U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder were two-faced virtuosos at instigating this brand of Marxist-type violent group acts replete with riots, protests and uproar in order to undermine and subvert unity and stir up racial division and class warfare.
It’s a fair question to ask why nothing has been done about the burning and looting of American cities. Solomon’s Proverbs 4:16 provides a likely answer: “The wicked cannot sleep unless they do evil, and they are deprived of sleep unless they make someone stumble and fall.” Jewish Hebrew scholar Michael V. Fox puts it in context: “The wicked have a need to cause harm; their ‘peace of mind’ depends upon it … they have a strange need for corruption for its own sake.”
Malevolence and depravity are among the key characteristics of those holding sway over the spiritual, intellectual, educational, economic, vocational and cultural levers of power in America. Over the last 75 years, public education has been responsible for cultivating such nefarious traits in America’s youth.
America’s Founders gave Scripture a central place in education. After the Bible was removed permanently from public education in 1963, present-day vices and transgressions became generally accepted and regarded as normal. These include the murder of pre- and post-born babies [Roe v. Wade; 1973], the seedy activity of sodomy [Lawrence v. Texas; 2003] and the absurdity of homosexual marriage [Obergefell v. Hodges; 2015].
American Christendom exists in a perennial state of slumber. That the conflict in America’s public square is spiritual in nature can be easily demonstrated by pointing out that half of Christians are not registered to vote, and that half of that half [25%] only vote in presidential elections. Compound that with the fixation on attendance, holdings and portfolios as the yardstick for defining success in ministry and the problem becomes crystal clear. Is it any wonder that the once Biblically based culture has fully collapsed?
The Reverend Dr. Joseph Boot, cultural theologian, pastor and leading Christian apologist astutely set forth in his magnum opus, “The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society,” that when sweeping changes are made to the perception of iniquities—like those mentioned above—a change in social values is the inevitable result.
When then also the rules and laws regarding crime and malfeasance are altered or lowered, we’ll have a foundational switch to “other gods” and thus a new source of sovereignty.
This brings us to the January report on the FBI’s Richmond office and its pernicious probe of “radical-traditionalist Catholics,” perversely pretending that those who attend the Latin Mass adhere frequently to “anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.”
If this is the sanctioned scenario for the targeting of “extreme” Catholics, it won’t be hard to imagine what the FBI and Deep State bureaucrats have in mind for those they label Christian nationalists. However, despite increasing and unwarranted governmental censorship and persecution, the church dozes away its time.
Professor Emeritus of political science at Indiana University Charles S. Hyneman (1900-1985), and professor of political science at Houston University Donald S. Lutz edited the two-volume work titled, “American Political Writing During the Founding Era, 1760-1805.”
“The importance of public virtue for a self-governing people, and the importance of religion for public virtue,” they wrote, “were constant themes during the founding era.”
The most cited work in early American political culture was the Bible, in particular the Book of Deuteronomy. The Apostle Paul was mentioned as frequently as Montesquieu (1689-1755), the French judge, historian and political philosopher whose masterpiece, “The Spirit of Laws,” reflects on the separation of political powers, and the need for checks on a powerful executive office, being still considered one of the most influential studies in the history of political theory and jurisprudence.
Yet, the average modern American is basically unacquainted with the Old and New Testament. In light of the supreme importance of the Bible in America’s founding, this is a woeful development that doesn’t bode well.
As regards the fifth book of the Old Testament, Dr. Bruce K. Waltke, America’s soon to be 93-year-old foremost living authority on the wisdom literature found in the Old Testament, wrote in his 2008 Christian Book of the Year, “An Old Testament Theology”: “I do not [ever] recall hearing one sermon on Deuteronomy, although Jesus quoted Deuteronomy more often than any other book in the Bible.”
Consequently, unless spiritual men and women evidencing a close relationship with God, and a thorough knowledge of His Word, move into America’s public square, the future of the nation looks dim. To speak to secularized America about communion with God, the lifting of the actual weight of the burden of sin, the existence of heaven and assurance of being there, the presence and sense of the Holy Spirit, the real struggle with carnality, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is “like reasoning with a blind man about colours, or with one deaf about musical harmony.”
Yet, there is good news, Gideon’s and Rahab’s are now entering the public square of America … and they will fear nothing with mortal breath. “Behold, there is a cloud as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” {eoa}
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David Lane is the founder of the American Renewal Project.
