How Losing Christian Bookstores Hurt America

           

            I remember very well how critical I was of Christian bookstores because most of the merchandise was trinkets and wall coverings. There was surely some legitimacy in that critique....but now that these stores are gone....I can see how valuable they were.....and that is an understatement.
            Let me go a little ways back....1982.....as my wife was shopping at Penney's I decided to just browse the concourse of the strip mall.....walked into a Christian bookstore out of curiosity....and the next thing you  know there are twelve plus years of these posts. Well a few things happened in the intervening years.....but my point is that I wasn't really even an inquirer back then....just a browser. I walked out with Josh McDowell's....(whoever he was)....great classic Evidence That Demands A Verdict.
            It was almost like I lived in Christian bookstores since then.....even owning one for a couple of years in the 90s. The novella link that is to the left of this screen....Isaac Crockett....which I wrote back in those 90s.....is basically about a bookstore.....and now all those stores are gone....just about.....and America is dying in no small measure because of it. Let me explain.
           These stores were all across America.....maybe more so in some regions than others....but they were as common as shoe stores are today. Oh...we don't have any shoe stores anymore do we....well you know what I mean. I was at Barnes & Noble today for my weekly.....Tuesdays.....new releases day....and it is heartbreaking to me how pitiful they are in supplying the needs of the Christian. First of all the Christian section has been changed to just a Religion section. I once did a very basic survey of the books.....and there were over 1000 titles.....of which I might recommend a half dozen. They used to carry in their magazine section.....Christianity Today and Charisma and even the Christian Research Journal.....but today....in the stores that I go to....there is nothing.....but you can find some good magazines on witchcraft or Buddhism if you want.
             Looking back on it....these stores were our supply line in a way for reaching many people.....and also they kept the Christian up-to-date and informed on the books that were out. More importantly they offered a variety....a variety that included the very good books that were being published years ago. Today....the Christian might hear of a book on their Christian radio or television show....and order it on the Internet....and that's it. Many churches do have their own bookstores....but you are only going to get their theology. We are no longer even aware of the differences.....major differences in Christian belief. I bought many good books on the history of the Christian Faith back then...and some great biographies....when I previously knew nothing of church history or these ministers and missionaries....but who is even going to think about these kind of books today? Who is going to buy a bio today on John Bunyan? Pilgrim's Progress was in every store back then....and Pilgrim's Progress games for the kids.
             In my case....I was Pentecostal and Arminian when I came into the faith....because that's all there was in my mind.....but one day the bright neon orange cover of William Gurnall's The Christian In Complete Armour caught my eye....so I bought it. It had a blurb on the back by a Charles Spurgeon....whoever he might be....but also one by David Wilkerson.....whom I did know of by then. It moved me so that I began to buy other books with this little robed man on the spine.....Banner Of Truth books. All of this is gone.
              This....friends....is no small thing. We are in effect isolated. We had Billy Graham crusades on UHF television all the time back then. We had three major networks and UHF. Some people could not help but hear the gospel. Today....I don't even know how many channels are offered. We are drowning in liberty. A Gideon Bible was in every motel and hotel. Today our pulpits are dormant as to warning us of anything....other than losing our constitutional liberties. Donald Trump told us every time he opened his mouth how our best days were yet to come.....in this....."One glorious nation under God!" You would think our pulpits might at least mention this false prophesy. God help us! We need a winnowing so that we might better recognize each other....so that those who depend on princes and their own power.....might do their thing....while we become a peculiar people once again....able to both comfort with discernment....and be comforted in discernment.

What Did We Expect

                Mutually Assured Destruction....M.A.D....had been part of our defense policy since the Kennedy administration in 1962. Essentially it was that if both sides knew that a nuclear war might destroy the other side....but it would also destroy themselves....saner heads would prevail. There was no world war. We today live in a world of communist dictatorships with nuclear weapons and radical terrorist states that have the capability to start a world war.....thus our number one goal continued to be to avoid world war. Communist states and rogue terrorist states can cause smaller wars and great and significant problems for the West and for America....but hopefully not a world war. 
                Trump had always been a tariff person....because that meant prosperity and for people in his money bracket....but there was no ideological concerns at all on China. He was loving Xi Jinping in 2018...."He's now president for life, president for life. And that's great....maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday." John Bolton wrote that in 2019 at a summit dinner that Trump told Xi Jinping that China's economic capabilities to purchase agricultural products could aid his 2020 election effort.. Bolton said that he could give the exact words words that Trump used but the government edited them out for security reasons. Bolton also reported on Trump's encouragement on China's building camps for Uighur Muslims....but alas.....we on our side do not read books like Bolton's do we? So what went wrong with the great relationship of Trump and Xi Jinping? One speculative view is that China's great rejuvenation plans....and Trump's MAGA....clashed. Trump next turned to his other advisers and the tariff war was on. It was essentially a new cold war....that has already reaped severe consequences. The main goal of avoiding world war....(and war with China would most likely be a world war)....is no longer our focus. We gave communist China every break in the book in the last fifty years....because as we thought that a strong China economy would boost all of us....and possibly help avoid war....but when China became a monster....we found ourselves in a compromising situation. Our answer recently has evolved.....for economic reasons....to 'going for the win'....no longer 'going for the peace.' The following post is from March of last year:

What Did We Expect

            The plane that I was on left Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon on the same day that Air Force One landed in Beijing....February 21, 1972. This was President Nixon's attempt to make war with China less likely....or so he explained it as such. Four months previous....mainland China was admitted to the United Nations as Taiwan was expelled. Four months after President Nixon's arrival in China....burglers were caught at the Watergate Hotel. On April 30, 1975 the Chinese variation of the Soviet T-54 tank rolled onto Tan Son Nhut. China was admitted to the World Trade Organization on December 11, 2011....three months to the day after 9/11.
            Today our relationship with China is like a clematis plant that has climbed in and out of the wires of a trellis. As a matter of fact the whole world is the trellis as China's economy weaves its way up and around and through.
            China persecutes many of its people....and steals intellectual property....and its influence around the world has been spreading as an invasive plant. What did we expect? Its economy is said to need an annual 6% growth to sustain itself. We not only allowed this economic powerhouse to come about....we wanted it to grow....and we continued to feed it.
            If China's economy were to totally collapse....what would happen? Economists attempt an answer on the economic side....but its our intelligence agencies that attempt to answer the sociopolitical concerns....but what good would that be anyway....for President Trump doesn't believe  them. Well he may now with his own appointees in there.
            It would have been one thing if our economy had been suffering and people were out of work in great numbers.....but that wasn't the case as we were constantly told that we were the greatest economy in the history of the world. So why did we pursue a risky tariff war? Was it on principle? Does Donald Trump seem to you to be a man who acts on principle?
            China was being pressured big time. Their communist leadership was moving back to a cold war stance.....and then the virus hit....and if it subsides China will then be taken to task. The Pentagon announced just today that the Marines are changing their training and equipment to focus on a more likely 21st Century war with China.
            If one is building a giant skyscraper hotel....one might be able to go back and forth on almost a daily basis....'OK we'll do it this way" and then "No we'll do it that way". If you make a mistake....worst case scenario you're out a few million bucks...but in world affairs as serious as potential major wars we need consistency. We don't need a novice stomping around saying that he's the smartest man in the room. Do we want China to at least survive....or do we want it to collapse? Let's look to both the immediate and long-term repercussions before answering that.
             What has been getting in the way of common sense is the greed of profiteering....which is short-sightedness. The tariff war was ill-advised. The dispersions cast upon NATO were ill-advised....as were purging of experienced intelligence people because they were not a rubber stamp....and as was the arm-twisting of the Fed....as was a number of other decisions made only to increase profits that were supposedly through the roof already. Whatever decisions will be made on China have to take into consideration what the communist leadership might do if their backs are absolutely up against the wall.
             

Encouragement And Hope.....Are As Important As Material Opportunity

            We on the....'Right....as we defend the constitution....as we have always done....and stand on the principle that a man will be able to keep what he has earned....we need to look further and deeper than this most noble principle. We live the life that was afforded to us....and whatever we may have been born into....we improved....but there are multitudes of others who did not have our opportunities....particularly the minority Black population....but also indigenous Americans and the Appalachian-type communities. I've probably already turned you off....for we have been programmed to recoil from anyone telling us that we in any way may be privileged. This programming is the opposite that God's Word teaches us in the question....'what do we have that God has not given us'....but it is part of our default thinking....the factory settings of man so to speak....so it really doesn't take much to get us to embrace it.

           I came from an early life where we did not have money....and I would not have had opportunities had my mother not found a place to rent on a street where everyone else owned their house....and were encouraged by their surroundings....by merely living in a community that was on the high side of middle class. In other words....I was fortunate. It is not the same to be born deep into an urban community where financial problems are everywhere and every day....and encouragement is rare. Encouragement and hope are as important as material opportunity....yet this culture which we are indeed responsible for.....makes many people ultra-rich....at the expense of the poorer of us being lured into spending their limited money on toys and entertainments.....that we....who don't even miss the money that we spend on the same things....partake of and therefore are complicit in the problems of society.
          We constructed these communities over the centuries....and now we somehow just want to tell them to live and improve their own situation! We like it how the cards were dealt. There are no complete answers to this national problem....certainly not in the horror of communist thinking....but we should know this....the starting point is not thinking ourselves as to having been wise and hard working....and others not to have been.....whether they be minorities or not.
          Democrats....this new Democrat....by their radical words and actions....drives us to this reactionary stance....of releasing ourselves from all responsibility. We go way too far in this. There is little to no love left in us....not for Blacks or indigenous Americans or Appalachian poor or families crossing our southwestern border. Ayn Rand dominates our thinking today.....even though we may not even know of her. We in the Republican Party need reformed. We need to retake the high ground. We need to humble ourselves. We need to repair to God's Word....to renew our minds....to come to conclusions....not go to some talk show for answers....or a political leader whose very existence arose out of our failure to go to God for His counsel.

We do not have to compromise conservative policies that we know to benefit society....but we have to bring them in line with God's commands to us. The other side is going to continue to act as they want....our correcting our own failures is what we have to do....not responding in kind to what the other side does....which makes us no better than them.

The Day The Earth Stood....Silent

                Ultimately we should be thankful for all of these news stories on UFOs. It is rather amazing what is happening....and coinciding as it is with everything else going on in the world....particularly how gender and sexual orientation is in the process of obliterating any semblance of a God-fearing culture that we once possessed....and add to this how evangelicalism in America has fallen head over heals for a genuine biblical false prophet in Donald Trump....the prophetic implications of many of the things that are happening should encourage us to hope for the coming of our Lord more than any generation other than the one that Paul's and Peter's and John's letters were hand delivered to....and to look to that day that the prophet Habakkuk described...."Let all the earth be silent before Him." (Habakkuk 2:20)
               No....there is no life anywhere else in the entire cosmos. If you even question this then you need to examine the faith that you claim to have. It is that serious! These sightings can either be the product of man's technology....or they can be demonic....there is no other alternative.
               These now documented and admitted to sightings may very well serve as a winnowing fork to the church....where those who know what Scripture teaches about creation might recognize each other more easily. We may become....'a....peculiar people'....once again....albeit a much smaller contingent than most believe exists....and I believe that it might become somewhat evident that many of those who are excited about the possibility of alien lifeforms....are the same people trusting in Donald Trump.....in other words....lacking in discernment everywhere....while those of us who have been as vigilant as we can in examining everything....almost expect delusions like UFOs. We know what the Shepherd's voice sounds like....and run to it....and away from the flattering voice of wolves and false prophets.

It Must Be A Spiritual Delusion....A Biblical Spiritual Delusion

               This is pure opinion....but opinion based on a half century of following politics. Senator Ted Cruz....and this is only the first example.....is basically finished as far as a serious conservative candidate for president. I backed him for a lot of years.....wrote a glowing post on his senate filibuster speech....and  remember oh so well when Donald Trump entered the Cleveland arena early....on purpose....(as Cruz was giving the traditional runner-up speech)....to embarrass him. Cruz still says the same things....defends the same causes.....but has lost all of his stature....this because he succumbed to Donald Trump's madness.
                Lindsey Graham is no longer the same. I could see him going back and forth....and back and forth....for a long time.....well he finally made a decision....and it was the wrong one.
              Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan were at one time conservative heroes sort of....on the Freedom Caucus....especially when Trump threatened to primary the whole Freedom Caucus....the most solid members we had in the congress...and Trump threatened them.....because they would not just sign on to his fake Obamacare Repeal and Replace. What reason....other than a spiritual delusion....a biblical spiritual delusion....could have turned them into what they are today?
             I guess that Kevin McCarthy was about to assume a strong role for us.....but that is all gone now with his 180 on the insurrection. Many other republicans just followed......blindly.....and now sound no better nor more ethical or more trustworthy than Schumer and company....just as Fox primetime cable and Internet are no better than CNN. 
              It was a Trump rally in Phoenix....2017....and Franklin Graham gave a beautiful and humbling prayer.....as I typed as fast as I could for a post....so thankful that these words of national repentance were being heard. Rev. Graham finished.....and the arena was silent as he walked off the stage. Vice President Pence was introduced as the next speaker....and before you could say likety-split....the crowd was chanting USA...USA...USA. I posted what happened under the title....If Only Our Pulpits Would Preach This....but wondered if Franklin Graham even discerned what transpired....as the word of God was given a few minutes at the mic....and then it was raucous time for the Stones again....and Macho Macho Man.....and Queen. In retrospect....I don't think he understood at all.
              Hannity and Levin and the rest are all gone as to believability. I've been a talk show listener for that half century also.....and these guys certainly at one time were extremely valuable to us....Levin wrote great books....and Hannity worked tirelessly for our military and veterans....but that is all gone now....as there is not a word now that will be spoken in criticism of Trump....and not even a fair word offered to Biden.
              Mike Pompeo has been the greatest disappointment. Mattis and Bannon and Priebus and Tillerson and Sessions and Barr and Kelly and Kellyanne...shall I go on for another forty or fifty people....they have all taken hits to their life's work simply by being around Donald Trump....for he is a destroyer.....destroying purposely those who do not bow down to him.....while others are destroyed simply by flying too close to his flame....and this is what the Republican Party is fighting to continue.....amazing.....utterly and fantastically.....amazing!
               Have you ever noticed how many people around him have fallen in one way or another. It would be far easier to count those who are still standing. This group led by the Florida Governor are a new group....DeSantis took Rudy Giuliani's place.
              I had....DeMint For President....on my hardhat for a long time. This is a man who was once the lone Senate vote in a 99 to 1 vote....because he believed that was the right thing to do! I never figured him to be one that would not see a bad situation....and speak out on it.  Mike Pence is still there....having broken the yoke....and Senator Ben Sasse never put it on....and Cheney and Kinzinger have refused to be silenced.

Make Sure You Have That Certificate

              We're going to do it our way. We're not going to do it God's way.....for to do it God's way we would have to humble ourselves....to place ourselves in a position of having to learn something from someone....and we're not about to do that. I'm referring here to salvation. This has to be the single largest contingent of people in America. It matters not what our chosen method of salvation might be called or what church it might or might not be aligned with....the common denominator to all here is that we have assessed the situation of our life....and long ago.....quite naturally I might add....for this is the de facto salvation in mankind....come to the conclusion that God will look us over and because of our virtues....or the absence of major vices....accept us into whatever it is that lies ahead.

              There is a stubbornness involved here....and the older one gets the harder it becomes to admit that a mistake was made. We enter into a one-sided conversation.....where we address God....or refer to God in conversation with others....as if He is pleased with our decisions....and since there can be no response....and we do not go to His word to check on our decisions....then we....not God....legitimate the decisions that we made. Since He is not present....we answer for Him....casting the proxy vote....in our favor.
               We don't know what lies ahead....because we didn't want to know badly enough....for we would have to rely on His word to tell us that. You see this is really only an eternal life insurance policy that we want....as we are in no way certain that God even exists.....but if He does exist....we need to be....insured....it's just common sense. The eternal problem though is that ignorance is no excuse....which is why Bunyan named such a fellow in his Pilgrim's Progress....at the end of his book.....Ignorance.....who had an answer for everything during his life....and was quite confident until he stood at the gate of the Celestial City....where his explanations....of which he always had at the ready if questioned....were not even wanted....only his certificate.....of which he had none.
                 Derek Thomas is probably the finest teacher to take you through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress should you wish....and he once concluded a sermon on Pilgrim's Progress....specifically on the fate of the character Ignorance....with this...."Make sure that you have that Certificate. Make sure that you're building your life on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and saying....'Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling'."
              

Saturation Of Outrage

              The case against Donald Trump has to be full-orbed....and relentless....but the mistake that is constantly made....and has been for years....is that his opponents focus solely on the latest issue....whether it was the Mueller Report or the Ukraine or January 6 of this year. Liz Cheney is doing this right now. Meanwhile the High Command is pushing for the party to...."move on." If this issue of Donald Trump's leading the Republican Party is not addressed now....and enough time passes....then they will be able to say that it's too close to the election. That's the plan...that's Trump's plan.

              I understand why Cheney and others do this....for common sense would say that any of those issues....and many more....should be enough to say good-bye to Donald Trump forever.....but that is not only not how it works....it makes the situation much worse....for two reasons....first....concentrating on the latest issue essentially releases Trump from dozens of previous issues where he has proved himself unfit to be President....or to lead the Republican Party....as if these things never happened! Second....this new Republican Party is so in chains by Trump....that his 2015 prophesy is proving true....that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue....and would not lose any voters. None of these issues....by themselves....will break his stranglehold on the party....but a relentless full-orbed mission of reminding people what the entire past four years were really like....would not so easily be erased by the latest comments by Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy or Mark Meadows.
              I admit a problem here....for there has been so many lies and so many mental disorders on full display....dozens of them.....that saturation of outrage has long ago set in....in other words.....Donald Trump has been such a complete disaster.....consistently.....over four years.....that the more continuously egregious things that he does.....actually benefits him.....for it is difficult and near impossible to keep even a small percentage of them in the minds of the American public....but we have to try....because we need freed from this overwhelming cult of personality....able to think for ourselves once again....and maybe to see our own culpability in what we see before us every day....what we have become....and what is surely ahead.

If I Had Checked The Weather....I Would Have Known What Was Coming

               It's just about a year....May 30 of 2020 to be exact....since I was typing a post on our patio....with my feet up....enjoying the warm spring weather. There was probably a scent of lilac wafting around me....as I planted that lilac bush for just that purpose....and it is blooming right now....and then the storm came seemingly out of nowhere. I grabbed everything up real quick.....and with the power out....continued typing on my iPhone....like a reporter in a hurricane. The following is the last paragraph before the storm hit....the preface that I added after the storm....and the impromptu reporting that interrupted my post:

There is not going to be a nationwide awakening in America....at least not one that changes the course of the country for decades....and certainly not a making of America great again. Our hope should be that God might have mercy on enough of the people of this land that we might look to Him as these judgments unfold. There is surely a winnowing ahead for the church....where those whose salvation is real....whose hope in that salvation is only in the merits of Jesus Christ....(here is where the storm hit)

Preface added later: This is an odd post. I started out just relaxing on my patio in beautiful weather and typing my thoughts on God's warnings to America.....not even sure that I would wind up posting it....when at 2:50 the weather started to change....and fast. After checking the ominous radar scope....I switched to describing the change in the weather. This whole episode lasted fifteen minutes max. My power came on at 8:00.....and after cutting up the limbs I'm adding this paragraph....and completing here where I left off....where a winnowing is coming in the church....because if the Lord's return is near....as we usually use the word near....then the delusions will just be too great unless one is firmly in the hands of Christ....born again....not just recruited....not just religious....and even here it is only Christ who has the power to keep those who trust in Him....and it is only trust in Christ that will keep.

I'm going to digress here for a few minutes. We have a storm warning in our area due in the next fifteen minutes. I look up and the sky is blue other than white clouds passing rather fast. I'm on my patio...and can hear soft thunder in the distance....and darker clouds are moving in swiftly from my left.....the northwest. The temperature dropped a few degrees since I started this paragraph. The winds were picking up but they stopped altogether as the wooden chimes that were knocking wildly against each other but are now hanging limp. I took the opportunity to check the local radar....and a deep burnt orange mass is a few miles away. The wind has suddenly picked up and within a two minute span we have a deluge moving horizontally. We lost power....tree limbs are everywhere. It’s fifteen minutes later and I.....and all the neighbors....are surveying the damage....as sirens are heard all around us. I’ll hopefully look this post over later when the power is back....as I'm posting this on my iPhone.

We Are Not Interested In This Question Anymore

                Hamlet pondered the thought....'is it better to live in this world of troubles....or die'....."To be, or not to be..." Should one just choose on their own to leave? Ah....but what is next wondered Shakespeare's character? Better to stay....for he did not know. The Apostle Paul thought that it would be better for him to leave.....according to God's will....not our own....but it was better for others....and for God's glory....for him to stay.
                C. S. Lewis was a chief figure in the development of evangelicalism as I came into the faith....and well before it. As lost as the American culture may have been in the 60s....we pondered things like the existence of God....and many were poets although they didn't even know it....(hmm)....and we can see this in the lyrics of so many songs....and how we responded to them. I've related a few times in these posts how a Pulitzer Prize book....The Denial Of Death....and a classic The True Believer....were topics I was considering as I was lost....this about 1980....but among other books.....God used Mere Christianity to address my lost but inquiring mind....probably the chief book at the time for someone pondering if God did really exist.
                 We are not the same people today.....as our make-up seems to have changed significantly....as well as the paradigm of life that surrounds us. We don't seem to ponder life anymore....to ask those questions that we had at least asked in those infamous 60s. As we read the daily news of some of the violent around us....it appears that they could not care less about Hamlet's consideration on what comes after death.
                  The Progressive certainly does not know for what he fights....for if he did....he would have second thoughts. As for us....we have become coarse....in our language and in our thinking. It reminds me of where a nation can wind up if it is not careful....Germany in the early 1930s for one....where the communists fought with the anti-communists....with the established church compromising what they had left of the gospel to join in. The former won out in Russia....the latter in Germany.....but alas both lost everything.
                  Judgment is coming....and is already here....that is for certain....and this not an impetuous response by God.....but after a half century of increasing warnings....and much time for us to reconsider our ways. Will He awaken our pulpits....and move upon the hearts and minds of many of us in the process....in order to deal with what is ahead.....or will we remain a small remnant in Vanity Fair? What will God do at this time.....that is the question. 
                

Conservatism Itself Will Save No One

The following preface is from 2018....the post itself....2012. Conservatism has changed since I posted this preface....for the worse....as has evangelicalism. Our conservative beliefs are indeed now dictated by opinion polls....and pride....as political pragmatism now rules us....no longer our conscience. We are today more concerned with the 2022 election.....and even the 2024 election....than what God is this very hour warning us of: 

Preface:
        There are certain issues that are non-negotiable to many conservatives. Most pertain to religion and Biblical truth but some revolve around our Constitution.  Is it unreasonable to hold to non-negotiable opinions....opinions that do not change with the fickle fleeting passions, pragmatism and desires of modern man? It's our belief that the God who brought this universe into being out of nothing also brought this nation into being through an assortment of diverse and imperfect men....and that should we deny this and thus reject God....then this nation would proceed on its own....and into oblivion.
        Our beliefs will not be changed by opinion polls and we place no hope in military might without God's favor, for as the mouse can frighten the elephant so we could be routed by the seemingly most insignificant of enemies if we deny Him who has sustained us up till now. We also know that no enemy is too great, no mountain too high and no valley too deep should God will us to succeed. We would choose to lose in the political arena before we would we deny Him.....and therein is the rub.....we are willing to lose in this life while others are only willing to lose in the next.
         The following post is from April of 2012....we have made absolutely no movement back to God since then...in fact we in the church have become even more political. The message in this post is the same message on 'politics and the Christian' that I have given for ten years in these posts....and in other writings for a lot longer than that. We continue to look to presidents and people in congress and Supreme Court justices. There is only One who is faithful. When will we learn that?

Conservatism Itself Saves No One

         I agonized for a long time over how the Christian is to deal with politics. I read books on the subject and certainly went to Scripture. I've been on both sides of the issue. Edmund Burke wrote "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Burke was not a Christian, and I am not "good," but the concept and the logic still hold weight.
         Our nation is crumbling fast and most of us are the proverbial frog in the kettle. The local news from the metropolitan city that I live near started their telecast last night with three different killings among young black people. Yesterday's paper had a picture of two beautiful young children joined at the head while the surgeons were dismayed that nothing could be done for them. Every day the sufferings of people are there to remind us of the fallen condition of this world. We say that we yearn for Jesus to come back but do we?
         Martin Luther once said when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." In the final analysis, we cannot quit on this nation. If people's sufferings are to be alleviated, if we are to return to at least being a "God-fearing" nation we have to seek God's mercy and try our best to be good and responsible citizens.
         This blog title has the word "conservative" in it to get the attention of who it is meant for but conservatism itself will save no one! Our hope is not in princes or their military power. Christians, who have been relegated to being part of the "religious right," must remind themselves of this every day. This does not mean that we do not support a political party or ardently work for its success but it does mean that we never alter our ethical beliefs or compromise that which is our only hope, the gospel of grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
         We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are social gatherings with political causes meant to assuage our guilt of not knowing who we really are in Christ. Our pulpits mention Jesus every week but rarely preach His cross for they have lost faith in the power of preaching Christ and prefer to give biblical advice on how to live. I stumble into church every week to hear the atoning power of the blood of Christ and of what He has done for me and how He will keep this poor wretched sinner despite my gravitation to dally with the world.
          More than anything, we need to pray that ministers enter their pulpits, look over the congregation and set forth to lay out the glories and majesties of Jesus Christ present in every book of the Bible. Only having done that can they begin to exegete the passages on how we are to live.