Conservatives in both the church and state seem to be living off the interest of their ancestor’s investments while unwilling or unable to build on the principle. We eat the harvest, fight to protect the harvest, but we cannot remember how to plant. We fight for free speech, the right to bear arms, free markets, but we aren’t free ourselves. We’ve lost the God from whom these freedoms originate. We no longer have confidence in the power of the whole Word to lead or direct us in the building of culture or the fighting of culture wars.
We fight culture wars but have no culture. It’s all one big Alamo showdown and “Please, Jesus get us out of here quick!” How is it that Evangelicals are about 34% of the population and we can’t elect Christians to rule over us? How is that I’m not sure I’d want most ministers serving as magistrates? Do I want my general wearing skinny jeans? Do I want my mayor wearing a faux hawk and a jean jacket that exposes his mid-riff? Would we want our judges to have minds of sentimentality and cliches instead of justice, law and truth? Can the Church’s marginalization and irrelevancy get any more embarrassing? The enemy shames us and we think it’s cool. God judges us with the removal of our wisemen, and we think it’s relevant.
But, why is/was communism, progressivism, Islam and even Naziism so popular? Why so many young people flock to these ideologies? For one, they have hope. They have an eschatology. They have a vision for where this earth is headed. This is the stuff that moves hearts. They aren’t hunkered down behind the fortifications with their fingers crossed. They are evangelistic, engaged. They know how to make disciples, how to fight. They are in the fight and they all know there can only be one left standing– winner take all.
We KNOW who the Winner is. Don’t we? The meek shall inherit the earth. Christians will rule the world (1 Cor 6:2). And yet, we have no vision. Hal Lindsey once said that christians should live like people who dont expect to be here much longer. And, it seems to me that’s exactly what were up to. Meanwhile–like the prodigal– we spend the interest of our father’s, and call it faithfulness. We’ve got our freedoms and prosperity and we’d better fight to conserve it! But, the money will soon run out.
