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The Big Lie Americans Tell Themselves |
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Every Four Years |
| by Craige McMillan |
| "This election will fix everything!"
I wish you well with that belief. Please make sure you add psychiatric coverage when you renew your Affordable Care health insurance later this year! Evangelical Christians may be the biggest group of people to hold this view. Lumping the many evangelical denominations together still garners a lot of support in the voting booth for one or another political candidate. Unfortunately, once the ballot is marked and sent on its way, the relationship is over. Most church denominations don't send lobbyists to Washington, DC to follow up on their candidate after he or she is elected, offer advice, and line their pockets with cash for the next election (the Catholic church being a notable exception in at least some of these areas). I say what follows with a good deal of empathy, because for much of my life I believed that the actions outlined above would stem the rush to the bottom of the intellectual and cultural pond that is pulling America beneath the surface into the cultural quicksand that surrounds us. It didn't work then and it won't work now. The American Evangelical Church (I speak of that because I know it so well) has relegated the power of God and His agenda to the by-and-by in the sky. With God absent from this world, the church is left to wage the culture wars propagated by Satan. In hindsight (always perfect) the result was predictable. The Christian church came into existence following the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The New Testament is littered with miracles, which are encounters between the natural and supernatural worlds. (In fact, God's existence is purely supernatural. These encounters are only miracles to us.) Do we really believe that the early Christian Church grew in the face of religious and secular persecution because of great preaching alone? The early church grew in the face of a hostile world because the believers at Pentecost dispersed and did what Jesus had told the disciples to do: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give" (Matthew 10:8 NIV). In fact, the Christian Church grew so successful that by the time of the Emperor Constantine, he made it a part of the government. The church traded God for government. And that is where the church was until our day. Now government has expelled the church from its midst and withdrawn its power. The church is but one competing voice among many demanding its due in the halls of government. Yet the great question of our day remains: Will the Christian Church once again humble itself, take up the great, eternal agenda of God, and rely on His power to accomplish His Will? Photo courtesy of Public Domain |
