A preacher friend and relative, counseled all of us to not involve ourselves in politics in his Sabbath morning homily today. It was at that point that I realized he'd done stopped preaching and done started meddling!
Seriously though, as a professional journalist/blogger/author whose specialty is politics, humor (two branches of the same field), religion (make that 3 branches), vegetarian cookery and how-to articles, I find it difficult to give up my political writing. This is especially so since I firmly believe that modern progressive politics are working very hard to create the world we were warned about in Revelation. I personally have come to believe from my study of current events, political discourse and the Bible that there is one political group that will get our nation down the road to hell far faster than the other. Revelation talks about a three-fold union between the Dragon (Satan/Pagan Rome), the Beast (the inheritor of the power of pagan Rome - see Emperor Constantine) and the False Prophet. Sounds suspiciously like some sort of global new world order to me.
As a result of my studies, my political blogs tend to be as much about religious matters like the Second Coming and the 7 last plagues as they are about who should win the next election, since at this point in history, politics and religion have become so intertwined. And anti-religion is every bit as much a religion as any denomination. They have shared rituals like burning down electronics stores after looting them, setting forest fires, shooting people with MAGA hats, and screaming Marxist claptrap in the faces of people smaller than they are (not to mention knocking down little old people). They have shared beliefs like collectivism, and shared values like perversion and anarchy. Also as a citizen of a nation whose constitution clearly states this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people, that makes each of us leaders of the government. The state, our founding fathers decided, belongs to us, not we to it as the collectivists would have us believe.
The advice this morning's speaker quoted came from one of our church founders, whose advice to avoid politics was, I believe, aimed at Gospel Workers (that being the name of the book the quotation was drawn from). The counselor in question also once publicly called out the president of the United States for not making the Civil War about slavery - she said God wouldn't bless the North if he didn't. She was an abolitionist at the time which was a very prominent and trouble-making 19th century political movement. It can be argued that the abolition movement was a direct cause of the Civil WAr. It seems that even back then politics and religion had some shared values. Turns out she was prophetic about making it about slavery once it got started. The North struggled in the early years of the war, until Lincoln stopped talking about a settlement that left slavery intact and went right for the Emancipation Proclamation solution. Immediately after that, the tide of the war turned in favor of the Union.
I feel like there is still a role for watchmen on the wall whose responsibility is to tell the truth to kings. A lot of God's servants have gotten in trouble for doing just that. The kings didn't appreciate their meddling in politics and some prophets paid with their lives in singularly unpleasant manners. So like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Elijah, John the Baptist, Elisha, Joel, Samuel and other minor and not so minor prophets, all of whom got in trouble for challenging the centrist governments of their day (they called the politburo presidents kings back then), I feel called to challenge the centrist oppressive government of today and support those who fight against those who would take our freedoms, shut down our churches and persecute those who disagree with them. Even more so as the end of time approaches.
"Watchmen on the wall" Isaiah called them (Isaiah 62: 6). He said we shouldn't rest from watching for the approach of the enemy, nor should we be silent about it..
Just one man's opinion.....
© 2020 by Tom King
