Amen and Amen!
I am getting sick and tired of listening to defeatism and negativism among conservatives. Just exactly why is it that we are on the defensive? Has the San Francisco City Council asserted some sort of pretended authority over the state legislatures of Georgia and Texas? Are the county commissions of Missouri and Iowa under the power of Chicago?
Defeatism is a device of the Devil, designed to disarm us.
I'm a lifelong Republican, my father was a Republican Party official while I was growing up, and by any definition of the word, I am a hard-right Christian conservative.
I've also spent my entire adult life in journalism. My wife is a clinical psychologist. It's hard to think of many professions more liberal than that.
We've both had problems in our careers. We're also both succeeding against some pretty difficult odds. Put bluntly, if we can do it, so can lots of other people in far less liberal professions.
We read this from the lips of Jesus Christ in Matthew 16:18-19: “...and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
The gates of hell are not offensive weapons, but defensive. We're supposed to be taking the fight to the enemy, not huddling in caves afraid the enemy will find us.
That role of hiding in caves is for the **OTHER SIDE** — read Revelation 6:15-17:
“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
I can understand why a secular conservative may be depressed, disappointed, and veer toward defeatism. I don't agree, but I do understand. Things can look pretty bad at times if we don't know there is a God who rules the world and overrules evil people.
But for Christians, and also for conservative Jewish believers, there is no valid reason to be defeatist. While I'm pinging this to the “Great Reformed Ping List” — we of all people ought to affirm the sovereignty of God — this isn't distinctively Reformed doctrine (even though Abraham Kuyper would have liked what I'm writing, knowing that not one square inch of God's creation is free from his sovereign rule). The concept that God rules, and that He will win in the end, should be something all Christians, whether evangelical Protestants or traditional Roman Catholics, should be able to affirm, along with Orthodox and other conservative Jewish people.
Defeatism should be limited to secularists who deny the power of God and who see only what is in front of their eyes. No Judeo-Christian believer should be a defeatist.
The church has seen far darker days than we have today. Jewish believers have seen the depths of the Holocaust, and for nearly two thousand years had good reason to believe the end of Jewish political resistance was Masada.
Go take a look at the rise of the modern state of Israel if you want to look at a group of people who had every reason to be depressed and despondent, but who put their fury into something constructive. Can any of us as American conservatives say we've faced greater odds than Israel?
We, as conservatives in America, have far less excuse for defeatism than they did. And I would go so far as to say that the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will not treat us kindly if we, as Americans, fail to stand up for truth when we have every legal right to do so.
Remember, the gates of Hell, i.e., the works of Satan, are supposed to be attacked and broken down. It is the liberals, not us, who are supposed to be on the defensive.
We forget that at our peril.
Yes! Heartening words, brother.
Great post, darrell!!
Cordially,