Posted on 12/15/2022 5:52:32 AM PST by shortstop
You wonder where the churches are.
As American society is awash in new morality, as ageless conventions are toppled and condemned, as the teachings of millennia are dismissed and the very definitions of humanity are changed, where are the shepherds of the Savior’s flock, and what guidance do they give?
For the most part, they are passive and silent. Or worse, they have gone over to the side of confusion. But seldom are they heard, and seldom do they lead, and seldom do they seem to be a light of the world.
Nowhere do you find the courage and clarity of Isaiah, who foresaw this technique of the adversary and warned those who might be deceived by it. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil,” he wrote, “that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
“Woe” means great sorrow and discouragement, a fundamental unhappiness. And that is where an increasing percentage of Americans are, lost and confused, just as an Old Testament prophet foresaw they would be. Yet Americans navigate these perilous times with the guideposts of biblical truth obscured and forgotten, their watchmen upon the walls silent and blind.
The churches are often like salt that has lost its savor.
While the world shouts that good is evil and evil is good, that men are women and women are men, that right is wrong and wrong is right. The absolute and eternal truths of humankind’s Creator are seldom heard, including across the pulpit.
Religion, which in most cultures and in most eras shapes social attitudes and practices, has been silenced or co-opted in modern America. We have redefined marriage and gender, issues addressed in scripture, and the preachers of the gospel have looked the other way. We have rejected law, devalued work, preached entitlement, suppressed speech, and burdened portions of our society with ever heavier taxes – contrary to cultural practices rooted in traditional Christianity – and the Christian ministers have been silent.
We have replaced love of neighbor with tribal hatred, and the structures of power in our society seem intent on pitting us against one another to the point of violence and social dissolution. Those institutions of power – the government, the school and university, the entertainment and news media – all preach a strange gospel, focused in large part on children, that confuses the mind and obscures the truth.
And the churches are silent.
Not only about what is the truth, but on the existence of truth.
Religion declares that truth is absolute and eternal, that it is not subject to the opinion of man but is established by God. Situations may change, but truth never does, and the role of the religious has always been to proclaim the truth, to humbly seek to learn it from God and to share it with the world. Christians, Muslims and Jews have done that, and so have most believers of other faiths.
Certainly, there are disagreements, and a free and tolerant society like the United States recognizes and accommodates that. But the overlap of common belief among the faithful is broad, and the divine principles valued in a Muslim home are often the same as those cherished in a Christian home, and the Catholic is not that much different from the Baptist. And the cause of all believers is largely the same – freedom and decency, the right to believe and live as you wish, and the common embrace of right over wrong.
But American society has veered from that. There is no more right and there is no more wrong, and the immorality of yesterday is the morality of today. Good is called evil and evil is called good. There is no God and those who worship him are marginalized and ridiculed in society, the freedom of religion restricted to an hour a week behind closed doors.
And those shepherds and pastors called to guard the flock are silent as it wanders into forbidden and dangerous paths. The ecumenical groups and councils of churches, having long since sold their souls for a mess of progressive pottage, are useless to the task. Some religious bodies seek accommodation with the social masters, ignoring the reality that those who try to appease the lion end up in its stomach. Individual ministers and congregations, perhaps fearful of public ridicule or a loss of non-profit status, are silent, like lambs to the slaughter.
All while our children and society stumble through the fog of demonic deception, straying into the bondage and sorrow of those who do not know the truth and cannot be set free by its tenets.
The war between evil and good rages on, and good is not fighting back. Its institutions have largely abandoned the field. And when the wicked rule, in government or in the pulpit, the people mourn.
The battle for souls and safety is raging all around, and you wonder where the churches are.
And does anyone really wonder why churches are loosing members faster than D.C. swamp has lost what very little respect it has?
The “Johnson amendment” that prevents 501(c)(3)’s from engaging in political activity.
Lonsberry is a Mormon. The LDS church just threw in with the marriage protection act, and is going woke in a hurry.
Why are the churches silent? They sense the risk. It’s what men do in risky days.
Black churches are paid money to espouse and encourage blacks to vote the democrats’ agenda. Then there is a matter of speaking politics from the pulpit and losing tax exempt status. Churches like the money. Legally and illegally
Too many churches have abandoned “ecclesia” for the modern American Business Model.
The spiritual leaders (Priests, rabbis and pastors) have been cowed into believing that they are simply employees of the Exec. Council/Elders.
Some Pastors even announce their loyalty to the State’s decisions from the pulpit.
Sadly.
>> Then there is a matter of speaking politics from the pulpit and losing tax exempt status.
...which has actually happened exactly NEVER. Not on the left nor on the right.
But, in the words of Pastor Rick Joyner (from memory, not a word for word quote): “Christians all over the world are being KILLED for speaking the truth of the Word and of Christ. And you’re worried about your TAX EXEMPT STATUS??!?”
In our comfortable, materialistic society the gravitational forces of Baal and the culture are sadly strong enough to pull many away from the Word. Jesus said it would happen, and so it has, many times over the millenia.
Our societal conditions are completely unprecedented in all of history. We are the fattest, most passively entertained and comfortable people to ever exist...our poorest are the most likely to be obese. Don’t expect strong faith and morals to come from a society like ours, you will be disappointed.
Freegards
The average person is almost completely unawares of how much “tinkering” has been going on covertly for decades. As far back as the 1950s there was much discussion by the usual suspects on how to shape and move public opinion.
The churches were very much a central part of this, because of the overwhelming strength and breadth of the American public’s faith, and goodness, decency and all that stuff. It took a long time, but fragmenting the family - the basic building block of a society, is slow but sure.
Infiltrate an Institution
Kill it
Gut it
Wear it as a skin suit <-—— you are here
Demand respect
They are sissies and pansies who are more interested in keeping their 501C3 status.
When I ask that question, I’ve had church leaders fall on the “we don’t do politics here, at this church, we preach the Gospel.”
Abortion, trannyism, the destruction of the family and marriage, the perversion of education and our children is not politics, but they are like a horse with blinders on, unable to look beyond their pure little world.
While I still attend church regularly, I can’t help but be disgusted by their willful ignorance.
Welcome to the Laodicean Age of Christianity
Many of these churches are no longer religious institutions, but instead function as “state churches” that are commonly found in European countries.
Because most of them aren’t churches. Sadly, among the Catholic and Orthodox churches, too many of the hierarchy are poofs and too many of those who are not lack the courage to oppose the poofs.
“Where is the leadership?”
Arguing dogma. Which from what I learned last night, and after a bit of study regarding the nomenclature, I’m “supposed” to fit in 1 of 3 dispensations and when I pick one (which I don’t) I somehow have mysteriously offended the other two. Which was made abusively clear and rather jihadist in nature.
But that’s okay, the holier one made it infantly (yes, infantly) clear that only one particular dogmatic angle was the correct track.
So... I’m a “heretic,” and was even labeled a democrat. I suspect imbibment, but it was strange nonetheless. And now I know through sheer curiosity how dispensationalism is defined.
Dogma... I reckon that’s an inevitable spinoff of vanity. At least the vigor upon which it was being shoved at my inbox portended the worse for my lack of couth... er... or something. And top it off with the ‘holiness’ of the fanatical creep... again I suspect imbibment.
I remember when the tax exempt status law came to be ….. has forever since been the stick of o threaten churches and I’ve seen a few threats in my lifetime
I agree to some of that. But I'm seeing a sea change among black churches here in Alabama. More and more you see black churches with a Sav-A-Life house (pro-life place for pregnant moms). Also I have more blacks come to me telling me that George Floyd ain't their hero, that they're Christian first and black second.
I go to a majority black church set up by whites but in a black neighborhood. Like many majority white churches in my area, we've had a lot of blacks join because they were tired of the regular blame-the-whitey message from the black pulpits. They wanted their families to be part of a love-God and love-others type church. This grassroots movement of real Christianity blacks has grown enough that the emptying black churches have taken notice and many of them have cleaned up their act. I'm cautiously optimistic that we're seeing a spiritual awakening among blacks like their ancestors had during segregation and their ancestors had during slavery.
I tell them all the time that this generation is the one time black America doesn't have to wait on white America to also have a spiritual awakening (so that whites would abolish slavery and later whites end segregation). This time the spiritual awakening among blacks is enough to get what they need (to end all the effects hedonism does to black families).
Real churches teach that salvation is not through the government, but through Jesus Christ who will return and setup a government on earth that will never fail.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.