So here we go again…
Tomorrow is Election Day in America.
Republicans are expected to do very well, almost assuredly re-taking the Senate and extending their majority lead in the US House of Representatives.
But will this mean the end – or even the beginning of the end – of Socialism in America?
Nope.
Quite the contrary, sadly.
Has any previous “conservative” Republican sweep into power ever actually removed any of the gigantic Socialist programs that now define our culture?
Is State-controlled children’s education a target for elimination by today’s resurgent G.O.P.?
Or is it a prized, cherished and actively defended idol? (An idol that just so happens to come straight out of the Communist Manifesto…yet is still adored and defended by modern “conservatives”.)
How about Social Security?
Medicare?
Did any of these overtly Socialist programs have a near-death experience the last time “conservative” Republicans rolled into power in Washington DC?
How about the time before that?
Or the time before that?
Do you see the problem?
Do you want to?
Or is the game just too fun, the distraction just too soothing, and the reality just too terrible to face?
For far too long, “yes” answers to all three of those questions have defined the attitudes and actions of the vast majority of politically active Americans – including most politically active professing Christians.
This is how we’re gotten to a “conservatism” that is built upon the abomination (see: Proverbs 11:1) of Monopoly money economics and the implementation of multiple culture-shaping planks of the Communist Manifesto in the name of “doing it for the children”.
This is how we’ve gotten the ultimate KGB/Stasi/Gestapo/Orwellian Surveillance State right here in the “land of the free” and the home of the NSA.
This is how we’ve gotten perpetual war abroad in the name of peace and perpetual surrender of individual freedom and liberty at home in the name of…preserving our freedoms and liberty.
We have systematically, purposefully been led (and allowed ourselves to be led) for generations now to the doorstep of tyranny.
All of this culture and civilization destroying rot has been enabled and encouraged first and foremost by professing Christians who have abandoned the Great Commission. As was posted here last month, Judgment begins with the Church…not the Democrats.
Once we (or our grandparents, or their grandparents) decided, en masse, to abandon Scripture as the basis from which we proceed to consider and test any significant course of action, we were destined for what we are experiencing now. While there are many reasons for and consequences of this sad present reality, the one point I’d like to focus on here is how we as Christians have been hoodwinked, spun, and converted into tools of the enemy by buying into a man-centered, Gospel-dismissing political worldview.
As Christians, our political worldview – our approach to actually, practically changing things for the better in a true and lasting way right here and now – must begin with and center on the Gospel.
The top-down approach that we have been pitched (and inherently love) cannot and will never work.
Only when people are raised from spiritual death into life can they then, in truth, actively desire and pursue good, God-glorifying lives in practice.
Sound, lasting, stable, and beautiful economics, politics, law, and arts cannot come to be by the strong arm of a government (even if run by moralistic Republicans) working against the very nature of the vast majority of people being governed.
The only way that we have been given to increase the number of people who will truly desire and do the right things for the right reasons is by way of the supernatural Gospel of Christ the King – the King whose Nature is essential to all good things in any life, family, or nation – and the King whose Nature is despised by all of those who are unrepentant and unconverted by His grace through His Gospel.
There is no happy middle ground. There is no alternate route. There is no other path to true, lasting, genuine joy and prosperity anywhere in His creation.
The Christian worldview, when it comes to changing the world for the better on the human level, is a very bottom-up proposition. This stands in stark contrast to the ways and defenders of a world in rebellion against the Lordship of Christ.
Where the world and its systems seek to impose a better world on the masses through centralized power and political leadership, the Gospel and Great Commission have us creating individual disciples who will, by virtue of having been supernaturally saved and given a new nature, then desire and apply the Word of God more and more accurately and comprehensively in every area of life. This is what you might call the ultimate “grass roots political movement”, and it centers entirely on the Gospel and Great Commission of Christ.
Our only hope on every level – be it personal, familial, community, county, state, or national – is that Gospel-fueled Great Commission.
…which is precisely why every system, sage, and lemming of this world would have us to look every where but to that Gospel and Great Commission for “solutions”.
Secular politics and its approach to cultural salvation is easy. It never works, of course, but it is easy. You just throw some money (of you have it) at candidates (or issues), listen to your preferred talk radio puppets, read your favorite political books/columns, and go about your business. You get to complain and moan, of course, every time the “other team” gets into power and does something stupid. And, at the end of the day, the steps toward American Statism that have been taken during your lifetime – including under the leadership of “your team” – is all just written off as inevitable and nothing that we can really do anything about. It’s just the way the world works…or doesn’t work…
The Christian alternative, however, is much more challenging…and infinitely more rewarding.
It costs everything. It impacts and defines every realm of life. It centers on the undiluted, supernatural Gospel by both proclaiming and applying the Lordship of Christ the King in every area of life right here and now.
When we take that Christ-centered approach to anything, including politics, dead things come to life.
People are reborn.
Those reborn people – New Creatures in Christ – then act differently, giving everything that they are and that they have to the cause of His Great Commission, all by His grace and for His glory.
The next thing you know, those resurrected people are inspired and empowered to come together to resurrect other things…things like families, communities, cultures and civilizations…things like economics, law, art, and even politics…
It’s easy to see why the present ruling elites don’t want that sort of resurrection going on. They are quite comfortable and happy with the way things are and the way that they are going.
The real questions begging to be answered here are:
Why are most professing Christians playing along?
Why are we tolerating (and even championing) a “conservatism” centered on rank Marxist thought and planks “borrowed” from the Communist Manifesto?
And what might happen if we actually repented and believed in Christ the King enough to give our everything to the proclamation and application of His Nature as the life-giving, life-defining standard in every realm of His creation right here and now…including the realm of politics?
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© 2015 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.
Soli Deo Gloria!