Articles from March 2017

“Everything rises and falls with leadership”

– John Maxwell

I don’t agree with everything leadership expert John Maxwell espouses, but his statement concerning the nature of leadership is spot-on. Leadership is one of the key components to rebuilding a Christian civilization. This in no way diminishes the place of the saints of God, grassroots activism, or the energy of the individual believer. The key in my analysis is that leadership, whether it be pastors or civic leaders, is the catalyst which will bring theory into reality. But therein lies the challenge. It is difficult to find leaders in either category which have the basic foundational understandings of biblical worldview and comprehensive Christianity. Hence, the regular frustration we feel when it comes to candidate selection and election. We (evangelical, conservative, Christians) accept the every election cycle testimony of numerous candidates who promise to be attentive and concerned about our values, but then find ourselves with elector’s remorse as those same candidates forget us and our priorities when they occupy the office. It’s analogous to the girl who gives herself away to the boy in the back seat of the car on the promise that he loves her and will make her his bride, only to find out later she was simply used for his own selfish purposes. Conservative Christians have been “used” by the political right for almost a generation now. It is time we woke up to the fact that no one is really taking us seriously.

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I was a pastor of a local church when two significant moments in church history took place that exposed Christian’s mentality about the future. The first was the release of Edgar Whisenant’s book, “88 Reasons Christ will Come in 1988”. The second was Y2K (The proposed computer blackout transitioning from 1999 to 2000 on the calendar.). Both of these events had similar fruit as they exploited people’s eschatology and their fears of the future. The stories I could tell of people’s panic would both amuse and sadden the reader. I watched as people made decisions that were not only foolish, but actually devastating to their families, bank accounts, and personal credibility. Normally smart people were putting their lives on “hold” as they were paralyzed by the thought of the impending disasters just around the corner. Of course, the hype of these two events made the authors of books concerning these apocalyptic moments incredible amounts of money and it embarrassed hundreds of believers. More importantly, it revealed that one of the Achilles heals of the evangelical church is the fact that our view of the future is all too tentative. We are easily convinced that our time on earth is short and any long term planning is futile with regards to reformation and cultural change.

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I have found that to suggest and use the phrase “rebuilding a Christian civilization” causes no small degree of consternation in secularists, religionists, and even sincere believers of Jesus Christ. The general populace has been so thoroughly indoctrinated by Babylonian education and media with popular myths like “separation of church and state”, “civic neutrality” or “theocracy” that to conceive of a civic government honoring God and implementing His precepts specifically given for civic rulership is incomprehensible. A recent conversation with a well-meaning, Christian political activist underscores this very dynamic. While discussing current political philosophy with regards to elections I suggested that Scripture might have a template for us to follow in order to select better candidates for office; after all, if the Bible is a revealed book from God outlining His thoughts for all of life then it should not be a fantastic leap to think that a voting precept might be tucked inside of its pages. My statement sounded incredulous to this activist who by their own admission fervently maintained that the Bible was their sole authority in life. Their incredulity was rooted in the thought that I was trying to establish a “theocracy” (as defined by secularists) and that was unacceptable. If this is the response of evangelical Christians to a simple step in restoring America to her Christian roots, then the reader can understand why the Church has been ineffective for years concerning the direction of government and the culture. We have no vision for what we are longing for, in fact, we are double-minded. We say Jesus is Lord of ALL, but really have no idea how that might look or be expressed in civic government.

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The end of eight long years of secular, godless, humanism would make any righteousness, loving Christian do a happy dance. No one was happier than me to see the Obamas (and then the Clintons) ushered off the civic government stage. There were no tears saying good-bye to the perpetrators of the rainbow tyranny and the slaughter of innocents. One might assume that with that introduction that I am a rabid Trump supporter, however, as many of my friends and readers are aware, I was not convinced that Donald Trump was the answer or the election strategy. I will stipulate and say that since his election he has done some things for which I can cheer, other things for which I am puzzled, and a couple of things which are clearly unscriptural. I will watch him carefully and analyze his presidency according to the Scriptures and not the zeal of party partisanship. You may ask, “Why the hesitancy? When so many evangelicals are giddy with their praises and adoration over the President, why would you be cautious?”

The answer is amazingly simple…

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