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Our Political Vietnam
by James Robison  Thomas Jefferson: No man shall be restrained because of his religious beliefs. | Every day, it gets more critical. The church really needs to step up and impact our country. Not only does our society not know good from evil or right from wrong, we are at a point where we can't even tell who our enemies are! Those who argue that we lost the war in Vietnam (and I am not making that argument here), would agree that an inability to properly identify the enemy played a key role. I can at least say that this made the war much more difficult and cost many Americans their lives. When you don't know who your enemy is, not only are you vulnerable from all sides, but you simply cannot fight. You will be hurt unless you can properly identify those who want to hurt you. A Democrat congressman from Florida literally took the floor of the House and said, "If you get sick, America, the Republican healthcare plan is this: die quickly." Pointing to large charts, he emphasized it again, "That's right, the Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick." Clearly, he was playing the class clown, but instead of admitting it, he has continued to repeat his lies. As a result, there are people who believe (or at least claim to believe) that he is not only serious, but correct. Republicans want to kill people, he says. Not radical Muslims, who proclaim, "Death to America!" on a daily basis. Not a North Korean dictator who starves his own people while building nuclear weapons. Not a maniacal Middle East leader who boldly declares his intention to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Not even the Central and South American drug cartels that flood our country with a deadly addiction while terrorizing innocent people in their own countries. The enemy, in his mind, is a segment of the people's representatives. That same congressman, along with our president and many of his appointees, has been recently labeling a news outlet as the enemy. Not the so-called preachers who proclaim, "God [expletive] America!" Not the tax-funded community organizers who encourage underage prostitution. Not the White House Communications Director who calls the mass murderer Mao Tse Tung one of her "favorite political philosophers" and someone "that I turn to most." In their minds, it's a cable news channel. The church must shine the light of truth or we could be in serious trouble. We know who the enemy is, so we must stand and fight. Of course, there are many who believe that the church itself is the enemy of freedom and they have gone through great lengths to make our Constitution a "living, breathing document," so that they can transform it into something new. Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition and current founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, recently told me, "There is a great misunderstanding about the history of the idea of the separation of church and state. That was not invented by the A.C.L.U. It was invented by Baptists in Virginia who didn't want to pay taxes to support a church whose theology they didn't agree with." Most people believe that "the separation of church and state" is in some foundational document, even though it's not. A "separation clause" does not exist. What exists is the First Amendment, which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Somehow, that has mutated into children being kicked out of school for carrying a Bible or uttering the words "Jesus Christ." We have been duped into believing that a cross on public land somehow establishes a national religion, but the destruction of that cross does not prohibit the free exercise thereof. Thomas Jefferson, who supposedly inspired this notion, did, in fact, write the great Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779, which reads, in part, that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Simply stated, religious beliefs should be openly shared, not muzzled, and do not adversely affect an elected official's ability to lead. But this great statute is not repeated nearly as much as the mysterious "separation clause." On the idea of separation, Ralph Reed said, "The purpose is not to protect government from faith. That's not what the founders believed; that was never the objective. The purpose was to protect the church from bureaucrats. So that, I believe in. But what I do not believe in is that faith poses any threat to democracy. " This is why people of faith need to be encouraged to stand up and speak the truth. We know that our enemy is not a political party or TV channel. We know that our true enemies are "principalities and powers." No, that is not a reference to elected officials; it is a reference to the spiritual forces behind the ideas that steal, kill and destroy the lives of people. Ralph Reed brilliantly pointed out, "John Adams.was looking at the constitution and somebody said, 'Well, what do you think about it?' He said, 'This constitution was designed for a moral and religious people only. It is wholly unsuited for any other.' "Now by that did he mean you can't be a citizen if you don't go to a particular church? No, he didn't mean that. Did he mean you couldn't serve in government unless you were a member of a particular denomination? No, didn't mean that. What he meant was that a government limited in size and scope and which devolves most of the power to the people and to local government can only work if there is an internal code of morality that causes people to do the right thing, not because there is a cop on every street corner [or] a soldier with a gun, but because it is inside their heart. When you get right down to it, James, democracy doesn't really work at all unless there is a citizenry animated by a moral code that derives from their faith in God. That's what makes the whole thing work, because otherwise, the government has to tell everybody what to do." Much of our country and many of our leaders have little or no moral code because they have no faith in God. This is why we are hearing so many ridiculous, crazy and unsettling things. Christians need to stand up and address the real enemy, but understand one thing (and this is extremely important): Those people who are deaf and blind to spiritual things will probably not understand anything you say if it is couched in spiritual language. This is why Jesus Christ talked about farming, fishing and pottery-making. Christians must learn to convey spiritual truth in terms that spiritually-ignorant people can understand. Singing to a deaf person or waving to a blind person does no good. It just makes you look foolish. We need supernatural wisdom to effectively address the unwise human mind. The Bible says, "The god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbeliever," and, sadly, too many believers. In the book of Isaiah, God asks, "Who is so blind as my own servants?" America is in its political Vietnam. We're confused, many of our nation's leaders are misguided, and dangerous threats surround us. It will take a spiritual surge to survive. The church - that remnant of true believers - must lead the way.   |
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