Months of Thought Set Down in One Sitting

If Not Ending With A Whimper, We At
Least Are Slowing Down With A Bang


This morning, my friend Bradley Ball, a Vietnam veteran and a minister of the gospel of Jesus, crossed over into his Lord's presence, by means of the exact same cancer that took my first wife Mary seven years ago. Three years ago, my second wife Janalee was taken away by a sudden heart attack. In Janalee's case, it was much on my mind that God might have called her home, instead of healing her, because He wanted her to be safely out of the way of the evils that were coming to the Earth. I now feel the same way about Brad.

Tomorrow, aggressive homosexual activists will once again be trying to make Saint Patrick's Day be all about them and their self-indulgence, even though this holiday is not about ANY kind of sexuality. They still pretend that they are poor, persecuted martyrs, when in fact they have been the darlings of pop culture for many years. Today, the Dennis Miller show discussed a novel about racial injustices of FIFTY YEARS AGO. Just what we need, still more of rehashing the Sixties--while in THIS decade, Eric Holder is allowed to run interference for the BLACK racists of the PRESENT time, who intimidated voters at a polling place. Is it really so much to ask, that people would forget the retro fascination, and address the actual troubles that exist NOW?

Yes, it probably IS too much to ask. Or if people do address the current problems, they'll offer exactly the wrong SOLUTIONS--as when politicians claim that the solution to our national deficit is to go STILL FURTHER into debt, or when labor-union bosses push and push to reinforce their privileged position, and too bad for everyone else. But it will not be any particular one of the existing crises that brings America low--NOT EVEN the Japanese reactor-meltdown crisis, which in my flesh-nature has me scared poopless. If enough Americans were now all the positive things that Americans at their best have been, we could with God's permission face and conquer ALL these perils.

What promises to devastate us is our people's loss of spirit, focus, integrity, and backbone.

Some thirteen years ago, my Mary and I went several times to a church which used lively liturgical dance in its worship services. There are Christians right now who sound the alarm against "show business" worship styles; but this church was not failing to preach the gospel. The problem in this church was neither an absence of Biblical teaching, nor the presence of dancing. The problem was to be found in the rank-and-file membership. When they had open-mike prayer-request times, Mary and I were the ONLY persons who ever brought up anything like praying for persecuted believers in other countries, or praying for the salvation of unrighteous officials. Most of what was brought up for intercession was, "Let me get a promotion at my job," or "Ask God to lead me in finding a boyfriend." Of course it was no sin to pray about these things; but when things like these were ALL that a congregation was interested in praying about, Mary and I could see that a chunk of Christendom was losing its vision. And if born-again children of God are forgetting to be salt and light in this world, how can we expect the unconverted to perform better?

So here it is, 2011, and all around us are empty-headed Americans worrying about their vacations, or their pet cats, or their yoga classes, or their self-esteem, instead of the life-and-death situations which ARE going to affect them whether they pay attention or not. All around us are teenyboppers who adore sexy vampires, but have no respect for the armed forces which have kept them alive and free TO adore sexy vampires. All around us are disciples of the entitlement philosophy, who will still be shouting "Gimme, gimme, I want MINE!" while the country collapses.

I am continually reminded of my powerlessness. I cannot do a single blessed thing to prevent radioactive particles from crossing the Pacific Ocean, if God does not choose to prevent it. Indeed, I can only even WRITE about these matters while a state of civilization survives; take that away, and I'll be just one more civilian trying to survive a few more days. But while I do still have an audience, I must say what's on my heart.

SOMETHING is going to hit us in our time of weakness. Collectively we have lost our self-discipline and our idealism--and it does NOT count as idealism when crowds chant, "Hope and change! Now give us more welfare goodies!" Still less does it count as idealism when Muslim terrorist Arid Uka murders two of our Air Force personnel in Germany (who had not been provided with the means to defend themselves), and the administration won't bother even to recognize this murder AS terrorism. Least of all does it count as idealism when almost all American Christians boast of "being spiritual" because they're NOT paying attention to events in their own country, not paying attention as their own freedom of speech is attacked, and not paying attention as power brokers behind the scenes do things we don't hear about in the news to ruin our system of representative government. In this our condition of weakness, we will be hit HARD: either by a cancer plague from fallout hitting our West Coast, or by our industries failing because tyrannical regulations deny them access to energy sources, or by Communist China asserting its growing power at our expense, or by some other very large setback. It will be the widespread loss of patriotic will, the lack of direction, that will make this blow so damaging to us.

If America is going to continue at all, it is going to have to be the way a heart-attack survivor needs to proceed: giving up various bad habits, limiting many activities. I don't mean we should give up having modern industry--that is something we need to RECOVER! But one thing we certainly will need to do, will be to DECREASE our overseas military involvements. This is NOT because it is automatically wrong for a nation to support its interests militarily, nor automatically wrong to defend allies. It is ABSOLUTELY not because our military personnel are bad people; the men and women of the United States Armed Forces display a quality of moral behavior such as few military establishments in the history of the world have ever come close to. Remember that my saintly friend Brad Ball was a military veteran. BUT WE JUST CANNOT DO EVERYTHING; and our ability to do ANYTHING is being diminished rapidly.

If it is not yet Chapter Four of Revelation, then we might still see America being granted a time of reprieve, an interval in which the message of Christ can go on being proclaimed. But in that interval, we will urgently need to clean house. We will need to PAY ATTENTION to circumstances, not claim that ignoring evil makes us more spiritual. We must look beneath the surface of our own government, and follow the tracks of weasels wherever they lead. For instance, although our troops in Afghanistan are doing their duty gallantly, and are not to blame for dirty dealing that goes on without their knowledge, not enough of us at home are investigating questions like "Who profits by encouraging the opium trade in that country?" I would feel much better about our troops going into harm's way if I could be sure that they were not on false missions for someone's private gain.

America has whimpered along in its wimpiness, and is now sure to be staggered by the bang of one or more catastrophes. Which ones, and how big, remains to be seen. But we're not going to be allowed to skate along with business as usual. So those Americans who HAVE kept their patriotic will, are going to need to REJECT business as usual. If God wills it, our country can still make a difference for good in the world, though probably not as a superpower anymore. I am reminded of this by humanitarian groups like Team Rubicon, which is currently standing by to render aid to any small Pacific island nations that might need help in the aftermath of the tsunami. There still is good in America; there still are more than fifty righteous men even in the modern Sodom. But for us to bear any good fruit in the dark days facing us, we will need BOTH to be able to accept America being humbled, AND to keep on trying to obey God's will in action. Let us not grow weary in well-doing....even if we're scared poopless. May the Holy Spirit provide us with the perfect love which casts out fear; we're SO going to need it.