America's New Religiosity: God Bless America, But Don't You Dare Tell Us To Repent!

Christians are unpopular folks today. I mean by that, anyone who takes seriously biblical truth and biblical principles will find himself on the sharp end of angry stares if we dare speak the truth in the midst of today’s national crisis. To what do I refer? America has all of a sudden gotten very religious. There are vigils and candlelight prayer services on every corner. People who hadn’t said “God” except in profanity for years are all of a sudden very pious and reflective. Radio personalities who were focused upon tax cuts or some other political issue on Monday, September 10^th are now mulling over the role of “evil” in our world. The past week has turned the landscape upside down in many ways, to be sure.

Lest anyone think this new religiosity is a reason for rejoicing for Christians, it most surely is not. Oh yes, we are hearing old Christian hymns being sung. Ostensibly Christian churches were full this past Lord’s day. But there is no such thing as “partial Christianity,” nor is there any such thing as a Christianity that stands side by side with Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism, and says, “We worship one God under many names.” And surely, there is no Christianity that does not speak of repentance from sin. The new religiosity of America has two basic foundational pillars: there is one God, unknown, but addressable under any variety of religious epithets, who has revealed absolutely nothing of objective value regarding His will regarding worship or human behavior; and second, this God has no wrath; knows nothing of sin or judgment; and hence, any person who dares to say that God would punish a person, or a nation, is a glowing heretic to the new American religiosity.

The problem is easily seen: Christians believe, fundamentally, of necessity, that there is one true God. This true God is not Allah. This true God is not Krishna. This true God is not the god of Joseph Smith or Buddha or the Sikhs or the Bahais. Our God went to great lengths to differentiate Himself from all the gods of the peoples and religions that surrounded His ancient people, and that for a purpose He Himself proclaimed: He seeks true worship, worship based upon a knowledge of who He is in reality, based upon His revelation to man. He does not grant to man the freedom to make images of Him, to worship Him in a manner that pleases the creature rather than the Creator. God is particular about His worship. His worship is intimately, vitally connected to truth. Without truth, there is no worship of the Christian God.

And the truth revealed by the Christian God in the Scriptures is without question when it comes to the matter of His law, sin, rebellion, punishment, wrath, and judgment. One of the most amazing things to observe is the willingness shown by “evangelicals” to jump right onto the “we shall never utter a word about wrath or sin or punishment” bandwagon. Is the remnant so small that almost no voices will be raised to cry out against this foolishness? To withhold the truth about sin and judgment out of fear of man’s opinions and feelings is to make the cross of Jesus Christ a travesty! There is no cross, there is no sacrifice, where there is no sin, no offense that demands forgiveness be wrought through His perfect sacrifice! The person who refrains from speaking of sin and judgment to “win” a person over is doing so through unfaithfulness to the very gospel itself! And to what has such a person been won over? Where is the gospel when there is no sin to be forgiven at Calvary?

But it is right here that the new American religiosity clamps its hands over its ears and refuses to hear. America wants God’s blessing. America wants God to protect us from more horrific visions of airliners flying purposefully, relentlessly into our national monuments. We want God to be near us as we board our aircraft. We want Him to protect us from the horror of thinking about what it was like when the towers collapsed. We want Him to guide our military and allow us to flex our muscle and launch our missiles with impunity. We want a blessing God, a caring God, who simply panders to our wants and whims. This is the “God” of the new American religiosity.

But what America does not want is a God who is holy, who is just, and who has revealed His will concerning how we, His creatures, are to live. America is a land soaked in blood. We glory in violence. We are so selfish, so bound in our avarice, fornication, and sexual lust, that we murder our own offspring in the womb (or at birth as in partial-birth infanticide). Our hands are covered in blood, and yet we think lighting a candle and lifting them up while mumbling “God Bless America” is going to bring God’s favor? Listen to the words of God to another nation that likewise was “religious” but refused to hear the word of repentance:

Is America so arrogant, so utterly self-absorbed, so diseased by religious liberalism and philosophical subjectivism, that she thinks she can ignore all of history itself and demand from God blessings when she refuses to repent of her evils? Do we really need to be reminded that Planned Parenthood has killed more little children in our land in the week since the attacks than died in the attacks themselves? Are we so blind?

Surely the scourge of abortion would be enough to warrant the unleashing of the wrath of God, but there is so much more! We are a nation on a crusade—a crusade to wipe from our history books every vestige of our former religious past. The religion of scientism, with its chief idol in the person of Darwin, has become enshrined in our very governmental policies. There is no creator, we are told, to express His law for us in the first place. We want to banish God and His law from our courtrooms, our schools, our every public institution. If God says it is wrong, we celebrate it. Every form of sexual debauchery is found in the land. The airwaves are filled with programs that exalt fornication and adultery. Major film stars are lauded for the most sinful lifestyles. Homosexuality is not only turned into an acceptable “lifestyle,” it is made a political right, a political force, a test-case for being properly “tolerant.” The list goes on and on and on. The widow and orphan is oppressed, while the nation indulges in every creature comfort, sits back in its luxury, looks about upon the bounty of the land, and says, “Ah, what the labor of my own hands, my own intelligence, my own insight, has accomplished.”

Religious liberals may mock our “literalistic” reading of the Bible at this point, preferring to simply label us “fundamentalists” and ignorant, but the fact of the matter is, they know they could never win a scholarly debate on whether the Bible actually teaches that these things are sins which must, inevitably, bring God’s judgment upon a people. They know that is exactly what the Bible teaches. They are just embarrassed by it, and hence seek to suppress that truth.

As I said, Christians who believe the Bible are an unpopular lot today. If they speak in accordance with the Word they may well find themselves being called "unpatriotic" and "judgmental.". In fact, given that the new orthodoxy demands of us the confession “Everyone is God’s child” over against such clear biblical teaching as John 1:12 (remember how Christians refused to say “Caesar is lord” and died as a result?), we must be ready to “count the cost” in engaging in formal, cultural “heresy” by speaking the truth. We need to realize: this new American religiosity can take on the same kind of fanatic zeal that kept the hi-jackers’ hands steady all the way to their end. May God grant His people the strength to proclaim loudly God’s demands upon a wicked nation, and may He be pleased to bring repentance and revival in a land where darkness reigns.

"Dave didn't put them in same camp, just pointed out that they're both [Falwell and Bin Laden] seriously misguided. Personally I find Falwell much scarier"

Dear Lazarus,

Both you and Dave have serious emotional problems. You find Jerry Falwell scarier than a terrorist who has just killed 7,000 of your fellow citizens? How many would he have to kill in order to become the bigger monster: 70,000? Seven million?

"I would lump Bin Ladin and Falwell in the same camp as far as using religion for evil."

Let's see, so far Falwell has grown a church, founded a university, has funded numerous charitable works and - as of this moment has committed no murders. Not one, zero, nada. Bin Laden's religious activities include (but are not limited to) bombing embassies, the USS Cole, and the attack on the US which we have all witnessed. But to you, Falwell and Bin Laden are equally evil, and you fear Falwell more.

You are an idiot.

Furthermore, you and your kind are dangerous, because it's perfectly apparent that your hatred of fundamentalist Christians knows no bounds, is beyond reason, and puts you in the same mindset as Hitler. He also feared and hated a group of people, and had a solution.

Love and peace.

Hi there

I'm not sure that I agree with the idea that the Jewish conception of G-d is closer to the Christian idea than it is to the Muslim idea. I think that, while all three religions share some common ideas about G-d, each is pretty distinctive. For instance, the Christian belief in a divine Trinity is utterly antithetical to the Jewish and Islamic belief in a wholly incorporeal G-d. Both Judaism and Islam forbid graphic representations of G-d as a result; Christian art, of course, is dominated by representations of one or more parts of the Trinity.

As a Jew, I'd agree with you that Christianity evolved out of Judaism -- with the caveats that I'd say (1) it evolved out of a totally different form of Judaism to what is practised today, a version that centred around priests, sacrifices and the Temple(s). Rabbinic Judaism was also formed in the early centuries of the Common Era (eg after Jesus's death), and (2) it evolved so much that it is very dramatically different in terms of theology, ritual, practice and observance.

Star Traveler asserts that Judaism and Christianity are both Abrahamic religions and that Islam is not -- but elaborates a theological position, rather than a description. Jews more than just the divinity of the Messiah, they reject most of the fundamental tenets of Christianity -- original sin, for instance.

Sorry for the delay replying, been in a meeting...

You asked: "But broadly speaking, Christianity and Judaism seek to serve the same God, do they not?" I don't really think they do. What makes you say this? What are the elements of similarity? The Jewish and Christian conceptions of G-d are very very different. Jews fundamentally reject Jesus as Christ--we fundamentally reject the *idea* of a deity in human form. You asked "And is not their God the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and Elijah?". The answer is that, yes, Jews and Christians believe in a link between their G-d and the G-d of the people you mentioned (Jews might traditionally refer to "the G-d of Avraham, Yitzhak v'Ya'akov" in this context). So, of course, do Muslims. And, of course, Muslims also believe in the 'Old Testament' as being sacred scripture. They differ from Jews in that they believe the same of the 'New Testament'; Judaism rejects the 'New Testament' entirely and *never* refers to the Torah as the 'Old Testament'. Judaism also traditionally believe in the Talmud as being sacred -- Torah she'be'al'peh (Torah that is in the mouth, as opposed to written). That adds a collection of more than a million words of Jewish thought that is unique and not at all Christian (or Islamic) in outlook.

I think it is easy both to over-play and to under-play the resemblance of each of the three religions to each other. They are distinct and distinctive, sister faiths. They share some important concepts -- and are utterly unlike each other in other ways.

I ~~accept~~ respect your beliefs and the reasons you hold them.
Dang! How could that happen to me ;~)?

However, I don't share them. And as I said in a previous post, this is the case because I find the concept of god(s) unreasonable (supernatural entities, omniscient beings, etc.) and so I cannot believe in a particular god. You gave me your reasons for your beliefs but I don't find them convincing.

You said that the Bible is a good (eventually the only correct) description of reality but in my eyes that's not the case. The Bible is a smorgasbord of stories and tales from different authors and written over a long period of time. These not only contradict each other in some aspects but very often conflict with contemporary science (and there are many sites on the net dealing just with this topic).
However, I acknowledge the fact that the stories in the Bible describe a society over a long period of time. During this vast amount of time this society was confronted with good as well as bad situations and therefore you find in these writings how people behave under certain circumstances. Our knowledge may have advanced enormously since those times but our nature has not - we're the same humans (especially regarding our emotions) we were 5,000 years ago, even 20,000 years ago.

The society the Bible deals with (that of the ancient Hebrews) was a very stable one. But for societies to exist at all it is necessary that it's individuals trust each other i.e. an individual should not be a threat to the life of an other one. From these presuppositions certain rules arise: don't hurt/injure an other individual from your society (with killing as worst case), don't steal from him and don't lie to him (of course under certain circumstances society has agreed upon, exceptions from these rules can be made). These rules can be found in any society we know of - they are therefore the basic rules of the system called society.
In the Bible are also other rules (commandments, laws, recommendations) that deal with issues that may lead to the cases mentioned above or issues that may in other ways destabilize society. That could be in most general terms uncommon behaviour because in ancient societies people were suspicious and even afraid of what they weren't used to (tolerance is a rather recent "invention" but nonetheless there are people who act as described above).

In the field of human competition,there is almost always the need for an umpire...somebody the contestants mentally assent to as being the highest authority in the game.The higher the competion factor and the more there is at stake...the greater the need for the umpire.If the contestants already know the rules and conditions of play (and we'll assume that most who compete are mentally competent enough to understand them) then why can't we simply rely on reason to rule and dispense with the uneccessary intrusion of an umpire?

Now that's interesting. If you didn't mention that I'd come up with that myself. Why do I think so? Well, man is selfish and therefore he is tempted to breake the rules mentioned above for his own advantage (especially when he thinks he's not going to be caught or he is in a position where he needs not fear any punishment by others) but of course that's detrimental to society. And how do you make him obey those rules? You can explain the rules to him and show him the negative effects his acts can have on society and that he in the end is affected by this. But as you stated above most people are mentally not competent enough to understand that (and it's also a hell of a job to explain that to everyone). Therefore it's easier to tell them to obey the rules because you told them so and it's good for them (I'm sure everyone heard that as a child). But who are you to tell someone else how to behave.
Of course if your an authority (e.g. king, priest, etc.) that's a lot easier but there are nonetheless problems: you cannot supervise the people all the time and if you break one of those rules (you're a human after all) others may see no reason to respect them anymore and do what they want.
Therefore it may be wise to attribute those rules to god(s). These entities are used to explain things people don't understand, they are feared and the most important fact is people are convinced they are everywhere and thus can see respectively know everything and of course last but not least they're immortal. So if people are convinced that these rules are devine and every single action of them is seen by the god(s) and misbehaviour is going to be punished they automatically try to follow those rules.
What's important here is that people believe all that. Whether these gods exist or not is secondary. (In a way it is comparable to the fear of little children that Santa Clause may not leave any presents under the Christmas Tree if they're disobedient.)
So just because something is useful doesn't make it automatically true.
I don't want to say you don't believe in God but IMO you rather believe in 'believing in God', i.e. "you should believe in God because that makes you a better/more moral/more loving/etc. person". But I think if someone arrived to see it that way he can be good/moral/loving and treat others with respect without a belief in a deity. Or to quote Einstein: "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed".

The problem with deities however, is that you never know what they really want. Their will is always subject to interpretation and of course different people have different views of what his will really is (hence the vast number of Christian denominations). A real umpire always makes clear what he wants and how he sees things. Therefore your Superbowl game has no umpire. It is said he made the rules but the players have to apply them themselves. If a foul seems to have occured he is not there to decide whether it really was a foul or not. But the players are left alone to decide that according to his rules. But of course the players of the two teams have different views of this occurrence and one team would say the Great Umpire would say it is a foul and the others would claim the contrary.
Therefore the decision of an umpire should always be clear and the two parties should not have to interpret his decision. and that's why I think that a god is no umpire. In other terms you need an umpire to decide what the Great Umpire really decided.

Though I don't accept the Bible as an authority I don't say that everything in this book is bollocks (though there is a lot that doesn't make sense and so if it was His message he could have done better). If we use ideas from this book we should not use them because they're from the Bible but because we think they are reasonable. If they're not reasonable we should discard them. Our modern society is much more complex than that of the ancient Hebrews and therefore we have to find out for ourselves what is acceptable and what not.

So long

"Both you and Dave have serious emotional problems."

Starting with a personal attack eh? Please try to calm down.

" You find Jerry Falwell scarier than a terrorist who has just killed 7,000 of your fellow citizens? How many would he? Save to kill in order to become the bigger monster: 70,000? Seven million?"

You trim my quote to remove context and expect no one will notice? I see you have a low opinion of the people on this board.

"Let's see, so far Falwell has grown a church, founded a university, has funded numerous charitable works and - as of this moment has committed no murders. Not one, zero, nada. Bin Laden's religious activities include (but are not limited to) bombing embassies, the USS Cole, and the attack on the US which we have all witnessed. But to you, Falwell and Bin Laden are equally evil, and you fear Falwell more. "

Because I expect more from Americans. We have access to decent education, yet people like falwall, and I get the impression yourself since you defend the crazy bastard, feel the need to use ancient myths to justify your hatred of people different from you.

"You are an idiot. "

feel better? We're all going through a difficult time right now and it seems like you're losing it. Take a deep breath.

"Furthermore,you and your kind are dangerous, because it's perfectly apparent that your hatred of fundamentalist Christians knows no bounds, is beyond reason, and puts you in the same mindset as Hitler. He also feared and hated a group of people, and had a solution. "

Am I talking to a real person or an automated insult generator. Did you cut and paste the above from another message? I don't hate fundamentalist christians. Real christians that spread the christian message of love can be a force for good, but falwell and his ilk twist what's supposed to be a religion of love into a justification for their hatred of people that are different. It's exactly the same as the way bin ladin and the taliban twist the message of islam.

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