The Future of America is Bound to the Future of the Church
Society looks like the Church. If we tolerate binary gods in our creeds, the culture will tolerate binary gods. The sparkle creed is coming to a pulpit near you.
The Church is a city on a hill, which cannot be hidden. But today, our evangelical leaders demolish the hill to blend in with other institutions. We have become just another mall, just another mom-and-pop business, and just another space among the many competing spaces in society. We have accommodated so much that accommodationists are feeling threatened. The church has attempted to be all things to all people so much that she can no longer remember who she is called to be. But you can only be all things to all people if you are who God says you are: the Church.
Societies Reflect Her Churches
Societies always reflect their churches. Our American society reflects what Christian Smith called a moralistic, therapeutic, and deistic culture. It’s moral like soap, therapeutic like an MRI scan, and deistic like Thomas Jefferson’s Bible. This is a fitting image for our American nation. We are infatuated with our ability to say absolutely nothing with a host of words like cis and zen that mean absolutely nothing.
Society looks like the Church. If we tolerate binary gods in our creeds, the culture will tolerate binary gods. The sparkle creed is coming to a pulpit near you.
We must see this for what it is. Some may sleep complacent to the reality on the field. We may assume that our statements are treasures kept at our little-town museums only displayed for the curious historian. But what the Church believes matters. It may not feel like society is watching or that the labors of the Church are part of the ol’ time religion corpus of the Masonic/Gnostic society or that what we do does not matter in the public square. But the Scriptures say that God gave the Church the keys of the kingdom, and so the culture wants access to our Narnia wardrobes. She wants access to the divine world; she wants the supernatural; she longs for myths; it wants its own set of martyrs, and they want gods to worship as well. This is why every story made up by some fancy Hollywood graduate from the School of the Lesbian Arts merely reflects the great story of the Bible. It is inescapable. The Church is the center of God’s creation because she is “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, (Mat 13:47; Isa 9:7); the house and family of God (Eph 2:19; Eph 3:15); out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation, (Act 2:47).”1
Do You See What I See?
Yes, the world is watching.
This is why America needs the Church more than ever today. But not an effeminate body that meets every week fearful; rather, our nation needs a strong body that meets every week courageously, singing Psalms and praying with the boldness to call President Biden a coward and an ethical delinquent for advocating crimes and misdemeanors against the Church and her Lord, Jesus Christ. And preaching with the gravitas to treat the Kamala theatrics as demonic acts of betrayal against civilization.
America needs a Church on a hill standing tall and setting an example of righteousness. The Prophet Jeremiah says to the nation of Israel that if they turn from their sins, God will forgive and restore them. King Solomon says that righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people. And if any of these things is true of a nation, it is only true because judgment begins in the house of God. The future of Church and Nation go hand in hand because a nation reflects the Church. Therefore, the Church should be objective in its proclamations, demonstrative in its charity, and biblical in its ethics.
If America prospers, it prospers because God prospered the Church. There is no ordinary salvation outside of it, and if America fails, it fails because God judged the Church. Yes, make America great again because the greatness of the Church is incontestable before the nations.
The Church is and must always be a city of a hill that cannot be hidden. May she live her true life now high and lifted up with her Savior and King.
Notations
As our society declines morally, trust in institutions also declines. But should we view this as an unaltered reality? Should we cease to work for a trusting society?
I contend there is no institutional longevity unless trust is inherent to its mission.
In this episode, I offer five recommendations for restoring a high-trust culture.
My new Perspectivalist episode is now available.
On A-political preaching:
The form of exegetical preaching that thinks it can simply preach the Word without delving into political concerns will be the first in line to support leftist causes.
They will be indifferent to the conservative causes seeking to find a third way above the fray in the supposed matrix of political discourse. But the allure of the left almost always draws the supposed undecisive church member.
If an ecclesial conservative is not consistently reinforcing Orthodoxy, all preaching will produce a parish incapable of handling contemporary challenges.
They will fall into the "blessed middle," where niceties shape policy and empathy forms alliances. Again, this philosophy always carries the game to the left side of the field.
Exegetical preaching is not neutral. It conveys a view of the world that must apply to disputations on the modern political scene.
On the benefits of the sacraments:
The practice of weekly communion with actual bread and actual wine promotes healthy sociology, anthropology, and economy.
Sociology because it creates patterns and rhythms for community tables. Cultures are strengthened by weekly engagement around the table. A family that eats together stays together.
Anthropology because we see the humanity of Christ displayed in actual elements rather than imitations. There is no spiritual Jesus appearing, but by the Spirit, we commune with the Ascended Messiah.
And economy because bread and wine are not created ex nihilo but undergo a process of maturation. There is a liturgical work that takes place for grain to become bread and for grapes to become wine.
The Perspectivalist offers biblical and theological perspectives on events and ideologies impacting the church, culture and cantus. It is also a place for personal updates on academic and pastoral matters.
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Westminster Confession of Faith.