Featured Have we become strangers in our own land (America)?

That happened very quickly when I became a disciple of Jesus more than 30 years ago.

If it hasn't, you're doing it wrong.

 

America: the Great Experiment

The land mass and numbers of citizens were small in the beginning. But America was bred from the evangelical outreach of Pilgrims and other Christian denominations who set out not to tame the New World but to bring its people to Christ. This meant very few Catholics, Jews, or atheists were citizens at the time of America's founding. And the fathers of that founding chartered a deliberate Christian course for this nation. Not that Christianity was a requirement of State (which would undermine Christianity at its core: our choice to believe in Jesus Christ) but to establish the rule of the laws of the land based on Christian principles and precepts. Meaning you do not have to be a Christian to live here but you must obey the Christian based law of the land.

And God blessed America more than he blessed any other nation (including ancient Israel).

This does not mean America replaced Israel. It simply means that a nation that does things God's way will be blessed. The laws of nature will flow with its people and their pursuits. And opposition will be washed out of their away or will be vanquished. A principle and practice the people of God have experienced since the very beginning (right down to Cain's and Abel's sacrifices).

But like God's people in the past, America in her times of prosperity forgot about God. Took blessings for granted as entitlements or as something we earned and therefore deserved. Our prosperity gained the attention of foreigners who came here to share in the wealth and brought along with them their paganism and antichristian customs. And having turned our backs on God and forgetting that these foreign people come from the places America set out to be apart from / distinct from, gave these immigrants equal time with their customs and beliefs from some misplaced sense of fair play.

Like heroine addicts getting clean and forming a support group, reaping the benefits of being free of heroine... only to allow heroine junkies to come into their group to bring heroine back into the community because it was the fair thing to do.

For the last 60 years, America has been doing precisely this. And results all around us are of the failure of the great experiment. Just like every time in the past when God's people turned their backs on him.

 

Very well said

 

It isn't just America.

It is the local church.

The typical Baptist church of today doesn't come close to resembling that of even 40 years ago. In fact, a typical modern Baptist service would have been closed down even before the preaching began with the showy flesh oriented what passes for pre-preaching "worship."

I recall in the typical SBC a youth leader being rebuked and almost fired for showing up one Sunday wearing "love beads" during the early 70's. What would the church do with a pastor that showed up with an earring?

The typical modern "music worship team" who have nothing much to offer other than emotional enticing, would be shown the door. Someone holding a microphone to sing was imitating the heathen nightclub singers.


80 years ago, Baylor university had stricter rules than Bob Jones Uni. ever considered.

And so forth.

The point I am making, America is merely a step ahead of the modern church in the rush of decline. Neither will be spared the wrath of God.

Believers who are wise work daily to imprint the Word upon their hearts that they will stand against all fiery times.

 

I find it very interesting that this thread was started today. Today I began reading Brian D. McLaren's book, "We Make the Road by Walking". In the Preface he, in much better words than I can, what I believe is happening, not just here in the States, but also around the world. It will take a full year to read as there are 52 chapters to be read one a week. The chapter of the week is to be thought about and reread during that week.

 

We are all better off reading "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" than to read anything McLaren has to say.

 

If we as individuals, if our church, if our denomination only looks back and longs only for the good old days refusing to search for the way God is now leading us and his church into the future, then we, our church, our denomination is stagnate. It may be comfortable, but it is wrong. God never promised us comfort nor security.

To be alive in God is to be open to to the way God is leading his people now, today. To do so is to continually move forward; to continue becoming. To refuse is to be stagnating, to remain unfinished. We must look to the past to learn the lessons of the past, but we must follow God leading us into the future no matter how uncomfortable that may make us at times.

With God leading change is to be embraced, not feared and hated.

 

:thumbs:

'Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it'"' (Jer. 6:16).

 

:thumbs:

And roads take us to new places.

 

I'm quite content to be where the Lord will take me when He comes for me in the rapture!!

 

Nice sounding sentiment, but not entirely accurate.

 

Are you writing about the days when white Europeans first built permanent settlements in North America, or when "America" (aka The United States) began with the Declaration of Independence and then later, the Constitution, which became the guiding document of the land?

Not at the time of the Constitution, but certainly at the time of most of the earliest colonies.

At the time of the earliest colonies, it certainly was a requirement of the government to support certain brands of Christianity - except for Rhode Island.

This was true in most of the colonies, but not at the time of the Constitution.

Maybe, maybe not. I think God blesses his church, not political institutions. In a nation that provides religious liberty through the separation of church and state, churches were able to flourish and grow without impairment, and God certainly blessed that.

Many churches certainly got complacent.

We have always had plenty of paganism and antichristian customs here in the U.S. I think you (or the writer of this piece) has forgotten that Christianity did not begin in the United States and that many fine Christians also came to this nation.

1.) Who has turned their back on God?
2.) Where did you get the idea that the United States was divinely set apart from the rest of the world?
3.) Where did you get the idea that religious liberty has not been a deliberate part of the entire American system since the First Amendment?

First, "heroine" = a female hero. Heroin is the street drug, a opioid.

Second, the example you have provided seems to be very specific, but there is no context. Heroin is a controlled substance, so heroin users/dealers can be arrested and charged. Therefore, there is no "fair" principle involved. Moreover, support groups exist to invite others who have the same problems as others in the group have (or have had) in order to help each other. That's the whole point of a support group.

I suspect your example is convoluted.

I agree with what I think is your main point: People should not turn their backs on God.

However your history is not clear - and probably not accurate - your theology highly questionable, and the scapegoating of "foreigners" repulsive.

If you live in North America and your ancestors are not directly related to the Native Americans who still live with us, you are a "foreigner."

 

Yes at the time of the founding of the constitution the founding Fathers charted a Christian course for this nation.

 

Taking in the stranger and helping them is very Christian.

 

I agree with what I think is your main point: People should not turn their backs on God.

However your history is not clear - and probably not accurate - your theology highly questionable, and the scapegoating of "foreigners" repulsive.

If you live in North America and your ancestors are not directly related to the Native Americans who still live with us, you are a "foreigner."

I can agree with the first two statements, but at the same time express a mild distaste for the term "Native Americans", much preferring the Canadian "First Nation." To me, anyone born here is a native American, while "First Nation" describes well those peoples whose ancestors arrived several thousand years before the Europeans got here.

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but it should be noted that the Constitution (before the amendments) only mentions religion once, and that's to ban religious tests for office:

Article Six reads:

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.​

 

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence?