I've heard it before....but most recently yesterday when a radio talk host....(one of the top three in the nation since Rush is gone)....mocked the Covid-19 variants....and said that 'liberty' or 'freedom'....(I can't remember which)....was all that he cared about. It was today on his show that he played a commercial where on it he himself recommended a financial wizard who had been right on stock picks in the past.....you know the story....so his latest advice might make you rich if you but follow it. It's one of those....'I want to share this great secret' type of commercials. So many of these people today....like this radio host....say that it is liberty and freedom that they so dearly love....but it seems that often it's really the opportunity to make a lot of money that drives their defense of 'freedom and liberty.' As for the church's involvement in this patriotic nationalism....only the pastors themselves could know....(and they might be blinded themselves)....if it was really for the preaching of the cross that they demanded that their churches remain open....or if the empty pews meant empty offering plates? The following is part of a March 2020 post.
"....I have not seen one bit of evidence yet that the leading ministers in our nation are warning anyone that God's judgments are increasing.....nor that the church in general feels any culpability....nor that we as a country have even a tinge of anything resembling guilt. I picked a book off the shelf in the basement today merely out of curiosity....it was Billy Graham's Storm Warning....from 1992....in which he wrote this...."TROUBLE AHEAD; PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD..." Precious few ministers dare preach this today. You surely remember the biblical scene....The Israelites were rebelling against God in the wilderness....and God sent fiery serpents who would bite them....and people were dying. Moses called out to God who told him to construct and raise a bronze serpent....and whosoever looked upon it after being bitten would live....for that symbolized Christ raised above the earth on a cross.....look to Christ and live....(Numbers 21)....but do you remember this....many centuries later Hezekiah took that very same serpent on a pole and broke it in pieces....for the people had come to burn incense to it! Have we today (fashioned) the cross....into that bronze bull in the financial district of Manhattan....Nehushtan? (2 Kings 18:4) Is this the real object of our worship today? Are we looking to this "mere piece of brass" in order to live? If so we need to put our trust back where it belongs....in the Lord Jesus Christ....look to Christ and live."
Addendum....I want to add a little to the preface of this post as it pertains to the closing of churches during the pandemic....and the response of many pastors to those closings. Nothing in the overall church today is absolutely the same...but generally the Lord's Day goes like this.....the congregation gathers before church with laughter and small talk....a sermon follows that may a few times a year actually contain why Jesus went to the cross.....but most of the time they are practical sermons on how to live the Christian life....and then the service ends....and the laughter and small talk continues. Do you agree with this? How then....was the temporary closing of some churches the great persecution and assault on the gospel that it was made out to be? What the church in general should have done is see what happened to our country in the pandemic....and considered the culpability of the church and all of us in what our country has become...and pleaded with God for mercy.....but instead we ignored self-examination....and instead proclaimed ourselves to be not only great patriots but persecuted saints.....because we could not....for a time.....continue what we were doing.....which was little help to the country....or anyone's souls....anyway.
