A funny thing happened on the way to the primaries; a man
who once held the second most powerful position in the land and was forced to
resign from it, is, if the people of South Carolina have their way, going to be
rewarded by being given the most powerful job in the world; he was voted to be
the Republican candidate for the next President of the United States. He
couldn’t do the job of Speaker of the House, so let’s make him President. It’s
the Peter Principal on crack.
If that doesn’t have you scratching your head, try this:
Newt, who accepted millions of dollars from Fanny Mae for ‘nothing’, who is
known to have committed chronic adultery over two marriages, was selected in
the most evangelical Christian state in America. What? What’s more, they voted
for Callista, his third wife and former mistress for many years while he was
married to his second wife, to be the potential first lady.
That tells us more about post-modern, western Christians
than it does about Newt Gingrich. What would the founding fathers of the
republic think? Did they not lay out principals for keeping the republic strong
and free? They did! And some of those principals are:
Principle 2 - A free people cannot survive
under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.
In
other words, a morally bankrupt society cannot survive as a republic. Does that
scare the daylights out of you? It should! We’ve seen that morality has given way to unbridled greed in the marketplace and unbridled ambition in our politicians over the past several years. How’s that working for us?
Principle 3 - The most promising method of
securing a virtuous people is to elect virtuous leaders.
It’s strange that a country so fixated on freedom is so
willing to risk it all by putting two people with known moral issues in the
most powerful office in the world. What will that say to our children?
Certainly, there can be nothing wrong with cheating on your wife or sleeping
with someone else’s spouse if Newt and Callista can do it and still get elected
to the Whitehouse.
Evangelical Christians are supposed to be family oriented,
protective of the nuclear family; indeed, Newt is campaigning on family values –
go figure. Meanwhile, they would seem to be fine with marital infidelity having no serious
consequence. They want to replace a virtuous, family man with a man who claims to be a Christian, but has been a chronic adulterer, and they want to do it for the sake of family values? And they think this is God’s will? They think this
will bring God’s blessing back on the good ol’ USA. Surely this will lead to society
hemorrhaging virtue and becoming even more morally bankrupt. Indeed, perhaps
this primary is an indication that it already is.
Numerous polls from numerous pollsters reveal that 89% of
Americans, who say they are ‘born-again’, are statistically indistinguishable
from the rest of society on a moral basis. 89% have just as high a rate of
adultery, abuse, racism, divorce, pornography use, etc., etc., as the rest of
the country. Didn’t God call us to come out of that muck and be separate? Is
there no ‘fear’ of God in America? Oh yes, our seminaries changed that to
‘reverence’; terrifying fear has no place in our feel-good, romantic,
post-modern aberration of Christianity. But it is still in the Bible for anyone
who cares to look.
Principle 4 - Without religion the
government of a free people cannot be maintained.
This kind of contradicts the ‘separation of church and
state’ theory. By saying that the ‘government cannot be maintained without
religion’ the fathers suggest that religion must be an integral part of the
government, that is, the people who make up the government. But that would mean
true religion, not the hypocritical nonsense of politicians trying to get
elected. They will say whatever the herds want to hear to get elected. Their
real attitude toward God must be determined by their lives. Are they virtuous,
or even close? No-one is perfect; people make mistakes, make bad decisions and
often regret them, learn from them and grow in character. Others, those who are
hypocritical, continue in their mistakes and repeat them without any fear of
God or man.
We Christians have
been listening to too much hatred from the greatly over-heated right-wing media
commentators. Too many talk show hosts are there just to make money, to sell
you a product. They are verbal prostitutes. They claim to be Christian but what
comes out of their mouths is hatred, pride, and evil. There is nothing of
Christ in them. The Bible tells us to dwell on things that are lovely, not
things that are putrid. I am convinced that much of the vicious rhetoric in the media today is racism disguised a political comment. Christians listen to this crap because they talk Christian values, and some may indeed be good Christian people, but in among them are those who sow only hatred because they can't stand the fact that a black man is the President of the United States. Turn them off until they can learn to talk with respect and dignity about the President, until they learn to speak the truth, and until they develop humility and a real fear of God - for our God is a consuming fire.
People realize that you cannot be a bastion of freedom and
yet legislate morality. Outlawing gay marriage and abortion has not happened
under several Christian Presidents, and, if it did it will not make America a
moral country again. We’ve gone too far down that road. We should be witnessing to Americans not trying to legislate morality; but we’ve completely
destroyed our witness to those in need of Christ. We’ve alienated those to whom
we are called to witness, to glorify God. How do we glorify God? By revealing
His character through our own character. I have a hard time seeing the
character of Jesus Christ in most prominent Christians in this country, indeed,
most non-Christians see only hatred, greed, intolerance, egotism, and anger.
God forgive me, but I am getting more and more embarrassed
at being a Christian in this country; for while the leaders of the Evangelical
church endorsed Rick Santorum, if Newt wins the nomination, they will vote for
him. In South Carolina they already voted for him who appears the least moral
because he seems to have a better chance than the more moral candidates to
replace the moral family man in the Whitehouse. Should Newt win the nomination
many Christians will vote for him and they’ll do it in the Name of God to save
America. If that’s what it takes to save America, I think it’s already too
late.
