Stan Moody:
I believe that history will mark September 11, 2001, as the date that America lost its spirit, but for reasons that have little to do with terrorism. That was the date that galvanized the Christian right of America officially to merge with the Republican Party, and the rest of us to lament the vulnerability of the American Dream ethic of prosperity and success.
My moment of final departure from faith in nation and party came when a prominent Christian lady in my State Legislative District told me, “Shut up and get behind the President,” and published a letter in the local newspaper expressing doubt that my congregation had ever heard the Gospel. My journey since has focused on the Gospel of the Kingdom of God as the present, dynamic, triumphant government of God over His people.
The COVID-19 Pandemic contributed, as well, to loss of trust in the province of both God and country. Yet, it may well be that through these tragedies, God has been calling His people back to a renewed relationship with Him and each other.
Eliminating Threats to the “Natural Order”:
The past 24 years have been a roller coaster ride, haven’t they?
Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, including born and unborn babies, lost their lives with nary a word from the Evangelical community except, “Better them than us.”
Domestic spending and the international trade deficits have spiraled out of control. Instant gratification through consumerism offers temporary relief.
Every bill before the Congress of the United States is now screened through a process of deciding whether or not it disrupts the natural order of a “Nation under God.” Who decides is the person with the loudest voice, and they are legion.
It used to be that demands for Constitutional rights were viewed by white male establishment as attempts to upset the natural order of things. How I regret my own prolonged angst over the Viet Nam protests and the cultural revolution of the 1960’s as an attack on the natural order. I didn’t give up on Nixon until he waved Goodbye to us from the stairs of Air Force One! As it has turned out, “natural order” was the preferred lifestyle of the privileged few.
Public policy has since become consistently reactive, lurching from crisis to crisis, judging daily which nation, which political party, and which neighbor is “evil.” Evangelical doctrine, buried beneath a culture of fear, blindly insists that there is enough evil to go around for everyone, including the Church. Few of us, however, appear to be listening!
Cult of Individualism:
We have drifted increasingly toward a culture of greed and fear, leaving the Confessing Church on extremely dangerous ground. The cult of individualism has become the driving force behind American politics and religion, a force completely at odds with the person and work of Jesus.
We Americans no longer trust the Gospel of the present, dynamic, triumphant Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus. Salvation has become an insurance policy paid in full at the altar but left there in a rush toward Armageddon, the final but “glorious” global crisis. The God of our coin and Pledge of Allegiance has become optional rather than sovereign; He is “away,” rendering Him nearly impotent. Tragically, the Sermon on the Mount has been sidelined as dated WOKE politics.
Whatever happened to Amazing Grace? Somewhere along the way, it stopped being amazing in other than exclamatory terms! It became a mere entry fee to the Jesus-club, if that. Following suit, the Kingdom of God has been relegated wholly to the future, its presence on earth dependent on our futile efforts to make the world ready for a Second Coming – another display of “natural order.”
Sin, the Bible and the Future:
Sin has become something that others do that requires our judgment now and God’s final judgment later, while our own sin has been upgraded to occasional mistakes or peccadillos. The Bible has become a dated book of laws in place of a living epistle of God’s unfolding Grace toward His Creation. The Mid-East is where the end of the attack on normalcy is projected to occur, and not soon enough for the flat-earth Christian.
Still, on the dusty road to Jerusalem, you might find the Man, Jesus, touching the lives of untouchables and personally demonstrating what it means truly to love. That depth of love has largely been dismissed as reserved for a wholly-future Kingdom someday, somehow, and somewhere. While Caesar ought to be nothing more than the figure on a coin, Caesar and God have combined forces so that neither is now truly honored.
What is the Strength of America and the Confessing Church?
The strength of America was never its pseudo-Christian beginnings. The unraveling strength of America has been its people living in freedom to make individual choices for good or for not-so-good, learning from and living with the results of those choices.
The strength of the Confessing Church, on the other hand, has been its unique voice and ability to offer hope and reconciliation to those who have fallen through the moral, economic and ethical cracks of life. The reasoning behind the walk of faith has traditionally been both simple and straightforward and was characterized by an author lost to obscurity:
If love were possible without the Gospel, we would need no Gospel;
If love is not possible by the Gospel, we have no Gospel;
That love is possible by the Gospel is what the way of discipleship is all about.
We seem to be looking for love in all the wrong places, as the pop song reminds us. From this old entitlement personality, it comes down simply to, “Show me the love, and I’ll show you the hope.”
