The evening in question was in either late 2000....but more likely early 2001.....before 9/11 at any rate....and at fifty years old I went back to college in a graduate program in Higher Education. I was obviously the oldest in the cohort. We met for four hours every Tuesday evening. I loved every minute of it.....for as time passed we all knew each other and could speak freely....in classes that promoted participation. The topic was something in current events....I cannot remember exactly what it was....and although when speaking we usually remained seated....I stood up for emphasis....and looked around the class....speaking slowly also for emphasis....and told these younger cohort members that a division was coming to America....something we could not even imagine. I felt it in my bones.....this at the time was after thirty years of observing poiltics and society....and almost twenty years of putting it on a grid of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm sure that no one saw that of which I was warning. I want to give you two older posts here....No Wisdom..No Vision...No Problem from December of 2015....and A Very Natural Temptation from April of 2019:
Preface to the post:
Life is a cabaret,
Old chum
Come to the cabaret.
Come hear the band,
Time for a holiday
Start celebrating,
Right this way
Your table's waiting.
No use permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Cabaret....The musical was a hit on Broadway starting in 1966....and the 1972 film garnered 10 Oscar nominations....winning eight. I first saw it in one of its many incarnations in the Stephen Foster Memorial theater on the Pitt campus in....probably 1973....but as I posted a number of times in the past....the theme has had a continuous unsettling effect on me....as we today increasingly resemble the Weimar Republic's hedonistic culture and extreme ideological divide.
No Wisdom....No Vision....No Problem....December 22, 2015
Friends, do you see now your country falling apart? Surely you must! Can you finally feel the tremors in the earth beneath your feet. Do you not often gag at the pungency penetrating both the olfactory and the mind? Has not your confidence been shaken so that you lie awake with grave concern for what tomorrow will bring to our nation?
What do you think.....would it be best to know or not to know of impending disasters? The Apostle Paul thought it better while writing to the Thessalonians to advise them of the persecution that was about to occur... even some of our more prescient politicians today go boldly in this where our ministers fear to tread.
There are a succession of scenes from David Mamet's 1999 film The Winslow Boy that show how affluence can vanish in a family's life. The film is great but its not the topic here, rather the message from the original play written by Terence Rattigan in the 1940s. Arthur Winslow's youngest son is accused of a crime and the entire play resolves around his father's accumulating legal bills for the son's defense. Furniture might disappear here or a painting there as items are sold off to support the household. See this film if you get the opportunity.
American lifestyles are about to change. Whether it be that the return of Jesus Christ is near or not, we cannot continue as we are. We are an inglorious mess here in the United States. When you have tens of millions of voters ready to vote for Hillary Clinton....you are an inglorious mess. When your colleges and universities have billion dollar endowments but not two nickels of wisdom to rub together you are an inglorious mess. (and today when you celebrate Donald Trump's tweets....you are an inglorious mess)
Our television has become an electronic replica of the Weimar cabaret where you can get anything that you want. We no longer have the will to defend ourselves anymore for there has to be some kind of unity and we don't have it. The only kind of unity that we are close to is in stupidity.
We have no vision as a people. I don't mean a vision for the future but rather vision of the present. If we did we would be sitting right now with our face in our hands, praying to God for mercy. If we did....church sanctuaries on a Sunday morning would be as quiet as a hospital intensive care unit. If we did....pastors would be entering their pulpits thinking that this might be their last sermon for the congregation may refuse to let them give another with so bleak a picture of America's future.
We would be a laughing stock to all, but those who see the consequences of what we have become are far more likely to shed tears of sorrow than of laughter. God help us... for we have fallen so far. This present insanity cannot go on. Morning follows every New Year's Eve party and the reality that will face the revelers this year will be at the very least stark, the months ahead treacherous and the seasons fraught with instability.
A VERY NATURAL TEMPTATION....April 24, 2019
As we all know the reparations demanded of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles were unbearable for the German population who were fiercely defensive of their homeland and German heritage. The Weimar Republic which came about at the end of World War I was weak....and hated. It wasn't going to last....but what would replace it? The future of Germany depended on its church which was unified in that the German people believed that the state needed its church....and the church needed its state....but there was little unity beyond that.
A 'German Church' movement developed that entwined itself around the powerful ideology of National Socialism....a movement that was going to lead Germany back into prosperity and power. A 'Confessing Church' movement formed to stop in its tracks the state's intrusion into all church matters....but the Confessing Church itself was divided between those who just wanted the state out of the church....and those who knew that there were big problems with National Socialism.
Martin Niemoller....you may have heard about him....represented those who at first thought that National Socialism was a great thing if kept in its place. Dietrich Bonhoeffer....you certainly have heard of him....saw the horrors of where this extreme nationalism could go. Niemoller spent years in prison and concentration camps before finally seeing the mistakes that he made before the war. Bonhoeffer paid for his discernment with his life.
We are getting too close to having an 'American Church' movement.' President Trump again....this time at a West Virginia rally.....used the phrase "One glorious nation under God." We are not one glorious nation under God....and Donald Trump's god is not our God. I've written various themes on how I love this country for decades....but they will never take the place of or become equal with the gospel of Jesus Christ....and in this we must be vigilant.
It is a very natural temptation......especially in times like this as America is being pillaged and plundered....to confuse a return to greatness with a return to God. Patriotism can be devotion to justice or it can be devotion to just us. Capitalism can be a God-send....or a god in itself. We are already compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to accommodate 'Make America Great Again'....and it can only get worse as we will seek to be more inclusive of policy that opposes God's Word and exclusive of dictates in His Word....all so that this glorious 'revolution' can continue.
Addendum....June 13, 2022: All of these concerns that I had have come to fruition....and then some....for a false prophet came into the church....turned us from Christ....and still to this day holds us in bondage. The pandemic did nothing to awaken us....and now not even the near liklihood of a world war stirs us to fall on our knees. We are adamant....we are stubborn....and as I posted recently.....we want to go back to the 80s.....to Reagan....a coffee table book on his life is displayed in our home.....but not Billy Graham's warnings....a coffee table book on him displayed right next to it.
