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America's New Religiosity: God Bless America, But Don't You Dare Tell Us To Repent!
Alpha & Omega Ministries ^ | n/d | Dr. James White

Posted on 09/22/2001 10:00:05 AM PDT by BibChr

            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 10th 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:

“So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.”  (Isaiah 1:15).

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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Good thoughts. I'm fomenting my own essay, but thought Mr. White sounded some little-heard notes of importance.

Dan
How Can I Know God?
Biblical Christianity message board

1 posted on 09/22/2001 10:00:05 AM PDT by BibChr (filops@yahoo.com)
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To: JohnHuang2, Keyes for President, Buggman, dataman, southflanknorthpawsis, Cyber Liberty, caleb1411
Not mine own essay, but PING all the same!
2 posted on 09/22/2001 10:01:40 AM PDT by BibChr
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To: BibChr
ILOVETHEPOSITIONOFBEINGARADICAL"UNPOPULARTOTHEWORLD"CHRISTWANNABEBUMP

Cheese .

3 posted on 09/22/2001 10:05:24 AM PDT by AmericanCheeseFood
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: BibChr
I have reservations on the post itself, but to you and your URLS there's a BUMP. To the message within the post, a BUMP.

Cheese .

5 posted on 09/22/2001 10:10:18 AM PDT by AmericanCheeseFood
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To: american arnie james
I do think the issue is a lot more complex than EITHER the "God had nothing to do with it" OR "It is the judgment of God" crowds are making it out to be. More later, God willing.

But there is no denying that this nation embraces practices and attitudes that God is on-record as loathing.

And that is never healthy!

Dan

6 posted on 09/22/2001 10:10:31 AM PDT by BibChr
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To: AmericanCheeseFood
I'll see your two BUMPs, and raise you a BUMP.

(c8

7 posted on 09/22/2001 10:11:17 AM PDT by BibChr
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To: BibChr
Barry Lynn of Americans for the Separation of church and state is theatening to sue Dr. White. It seems the two had a debate about homosexuality, and Mr Lynn is afraid that James White will make the tapes available to publice
8 posted on 09/22/2001 10:13:32 AM PDT by Sci Fi Guy
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To: BibChr
I don't see many "Christian Leaders" placing some of the blame on a lukewarm and complacent church...That is more to blame than any of the other reasons Falwell gave.
9 posted on 09/22/2001 10:15:32 AM PDT by GuillermoX
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To: BibChr
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 you wonder why the American people treat you like the Taliban? Many of you extreme fundamentalists share common characteristics with religious fantatics elsewhere. Maybe you dont cut off the hands of criminals or stone women who wear western clothes but then you did burn your share of witches not that many years ago and before that you forced Arabs and Indians in the new world to forcibly convert to Christianity or die by the sword.

10 posted on 09/22/2001 10:15:52 AM PDT by Dave S
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To: BibChr
The quote I remember first when I hear God proclaimed by the "modern" mainline Christian (all loving, all forgiving, goes by many names, etc.)is this definition: "God, the Almighty Patsy."
11 posted on 09/22/2001 10:16:49 AM PDT by moneyrunner
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To: Dave S
Is your hatred so great that you place Jerry Falwell and Osama bin Laden in the same camp? If so, you are beyond reason, and beyond sanity.

Love and peace.

12 posted on 09/22/2001 10:20:09 AM PDT by moneyrunner
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To: Dave S
Why should Christians be forced to worship other Gods? Basic Christianity teaches there is but One God and only He is to be worshipped.

Being forced to accept other gods is Taliban-like.

13 posted on 09/22/2001 10:22:25 AM PDT by GuillermoX
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To: BibChr
Thanks for this post. Everything this pastor says rings true, but I have one quibble with this quote:

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.”

Seems to me Christians and Jews do worship one and the same God.

(I have been thoroughly barraged on another thread for asking if Allah weren't just another word for God, so I accept that the god of Islam --and certainly of Buddhism or Ba'hai-ism etc.-- is not the God of Judaism and Christianity.)

What do you know about this?

14 posted on 09/22/2001 10:23:47 AM PDT by gumbo
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To: BibChr
Thanks for posting this, Dan. It is an excellent essay. With the fear of sounding "judgmental" (not really) I couldn't help my thoughts last night. As I caught the last minutes of the celebrity (for lack of a better term) bash and the reports about it on the late news, I was offended. Here stood all (at least most) these people who haven't really got a clue about God, yet throw His name around as if it is the buzz word of the day. It is and that's the problem. Talking about God and knowing Him are not the same thing.

I can only hope and pray that this horror has brought some people to their senses. Maybe some will realize that they should seek Him every day; not just when they are overwhelmed with helplessness.

15 posted on 09/22/2001 10:24:05 AM PDT by Southflanknorthpawsis
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To: GuillermoX
"I don't see many "Christian Leaders" placing some of the blame on a lukewarm and complacent church...That is more to blame than any of the other reasons Falwell gave."

On the contrary. Many modern churches support the kind of sins that Falwell railed against. You want to abort, practice sodomy and commit adultery? Join the Methodists, Unitarians, and a number of other "Christian" sects.

16 posted on 09/22/2001 10:24:22 AM PDT by moneyrunner
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To: Dave S
Many of you extreme fundamentalists share common characteristics with religious fantatics elsewhere.

Guess what, Dave......God is extreme and demands that we glorify and worship Him and Him alone. You don't get it and likely never will. I feel sorry for you.

Now, go on with your predictable rant.

17 posted on 09/22/2001 10:28:02 AM PDT by Southflanknorthpawsis
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To: Dave S
you did burn your share of witches not that many years ago

If you are referring to Salem, it was the secular authorities who executed the 'witches' (and btw, they were not burned), not the religious authorities.

In fact, it was the religious leaders who put a stop to the witch hysteria.

18 posted on 09/22/2001 10:29:10 AM PDT by gumbo
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To: gumbo
First, thanks for posting the article.

Seems to me Christians and Jews do worship one and the same God.

Judaism is monotheistic, they only believe in Jehovah. Christianity is trinitarian giving full divinity to the three Persons of the Godhead, Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Christ said that He is the only way to the Father, that there is NONE other. So while it is true that Judaism worships Jehovah, the Jehovah that they worship is not fully the Jehovah of Christianity.

19 posted on 09/22/2001 10:29:17 AM PDT by Mahone
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To: Mahone
Aren't there non-trinitarian Christians, e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses (I don't know, that's why I'm asking)?
20 posted on 09/22/2001 10:31:43 AM PDT by gumbo
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