Apply this logic to the National Rifle Association. It has had a mixed record in actually changing laws in this country. We now have an administration in power that is aggressively hostile to the Second Amendment, perhaps comparable to its hostility to the first amendment which protects Evangelical churches. The states are mounting an attack on the right to bear arms by taxing ammunition etc.. Does this state of affairs which demonstrates that the NRA did not achieve all it might have hoped in the last 20 years in terms of broadening our liberty expressed in the Second Amendment-even though it won the DC case and had other success-persuade you that the NRA should withdraw from its political activities and concentrate on conducting gun safety courses?
Does The Telegraph say that American Jews should withdraw from lobbying because AIPAC, may arguably be at the historical nadir of its influence over American policy concerning Israel with this administration?
As one of the most radical newspapers in England, it is not surprising that The Telegraph might have missed some considerations which guide evangelicals. First, as biblically oriented folks, evangelicals take seriously the prediction of Jesus and expect to be persecuted in this world and assume that the political winds will always be in their face. Second, I believe The Telegraph misapprehends the lesson that evangelicals take when they make this statement:
“We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.” (Emphasis supplied)
Evangelicals have even a longer time horizon than do even the Chinese. They expect to lose these battles, "humanly speaking." Protestants have been around since Martin Luther and Christians have been around for a couple of thousand years. The Telegraph has a 24-hour deadline schedule.
Finally, I think The Telegraph conflates the Christians battle for salvation with the telegraph's battle for salvation on earth. The telegraph has its own worldview and his own version of temporal salvation which flatly conflicts with American evangelicals. The newspaper would like Christians to cease their Christian outreach in the sense of giving alms in the broader sense. They think that the worldly outreach of the Church is the animating factor rather than the natural results of its faith. They have it backwards.
Evangelicals, of whom I am one, are about as well organized as a Chinese fire drill. If any one person of the cloth said he speaks for me I would resent his presumption. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that American evangelicals will faithfully continue to pick up their cross and follow.
