No Civics Lesson Here

People will call this a political blog. I will deny that if they do. If you need a category, let’s call it theological. It is a cry for Christians to think. It is an appeal for followers of Jesus to reason biblically. It is a plea for the redeemed to consider the weight of God’s call upon their lives.

One of our many current problems is ignorance. Or is it better catalogued as being naïve? Or oblivious? The label does not matter. The consequence is the same.

In The Weight of Glory C.S. Lewis writes, “A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

There is a torrent of nonsense cascading upon us. And it is not water over falls. It is sticky mud. It is cement, even. It is the kind of stuff that if allowed to harden we are headed for deeper trouble. How many know what is going on?

What am I talking about? In two words, government overreach.

“He who surrenders himself,” writes Lewis, “without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God Himself” (The Weight of Glory).

Some are watching this happen. Others surely must but do not appear to care. It seems the majority are content rendering to Caesar whatever he asks for. And he is beginning to demand more and more.

I am not referring to onerous taxation. I am not bringing up unsustainable deficit spending. I am not even talking about mask dictates and vaccination mandates. Mandates? O, they are happening already and more is on the way. What I am talking about here is something much bigger.

What I am referring to is what Lewis saw on the horizon many decades ago, “In the first place, when the modern world says to us aloud, ‘You may be religious when you are alone,’ it adds under its breath, ‘and I will see to it that you are never alone’” (The Weight of Glory).

And this is where we are. The government will not leave us alone. Statists love their contrived mantra (contrived because it is written nowhere in our Constitution) of the separation of church and state. Well then, back at you Mr. Big Government. Separate yourselves from the church.

But they will not. Why? Because at the end of the day a pagan politician is the same as any fallen man. He hates God. He thinks he knows better.

For a while we were told, “Keep your religion and faith at church.” Sadly, the church agreed to their made-up rules. The secular public square then took their next idolatrous step and moved into the void, declaring itself god. And now that false god, hungry for more worshipers, wants God’s sanctuaries. He has many of them already.

“But,” you may be saying, “the uppity preacher is talking too much politics. Stick to God’s Word.”

And I would say back, “I did.”

Pastor Rich Hamlin
April 29, 2021

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