Posted on 09/17/2020 8:23:22 AM PDT by Carpe Cerevisi
Some years ago, while flying back to Seattle from Washington, D.C., I sat next to a young marine, who, as we were landing, asked if I would permit him to accompany me to my shuttle, as he “had a personal matter that was weighing heavily” on his heart. While being in our nation’s capital I had already come into contact with many soldiers, all of whom I personally thanked for their service to our country, and all of whom were young enough to be my grandchildren. The young marine reached out to me, not unlike I had with my grandfather, or my pastor, when I was a young man needing the guidance and direction of an older, more seasoned man.
Since my plane arrived too late for a ferry, I spent the night in the Airport Hilton. Being too exhausted to sleep after seven hours in flight, I spent much of the night praying for my fellow citizens, broken by a culture devoid of Christ, and wandering in a wasteland of a nihilism deprived of hope.
Why have we, as a nation, become an incubator for political divisions and murderous anger turned violent, with rage increasing in alarming ways among our young. How have we, as a people, come to a place where we think we must arm ourselves to the teeth for our own personal survival, and where some think we should even arm college students, so they can be safe in their classrooms? How have we come to a place in our nation’s history where someone would think it important to suggest to the abbot of a monastery that he consider acquiring weapons to protect his monks?
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.ancientfaith.com ...
BTW...I hope that this doesn’t devolve into a pro-gun/anti-gun debate. The larger message is more important in my opinion.
Because the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for people to devour.
Because, as CS Lewis believed, we live in occupied territory, behind enemy lines
The answer is that there is a (seemingly) growing number of young people who view Christianity (and anyone who follows it's tenets) not only as useless, but as an actual enemy. There are those who would like to see us dead.
The reason the abbot was encouraged to arm himself is that, if the forces of evil gain the upper hand, those young people may come after anyone who worships the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and His Son the Lord Yeshua.
The Bible does say that we would be persecuted, and that those who kill us would think they were doing the world a favor.
That's why.
I’m not sure the most religious and believing society could long withstand the rise of smart phones, social media, the 24 hour news and screen culture, and the unprecedented amount of recreational time and comfort. Our poorest people are the most likely to be obese, are the most entertained and least used to physical labor ever. These are all things that have never happened before.
And all these innovations and conditions happened after there had already been a pretty huge falling away from faith and morals. I wonder what would have happened if all these things had come about in the 50s instead of more recently.
Freegards
I respect the learned perspective of our religious leaders in the church and their righteous messages, those who are not tainted by the corruption of the enemy and stand firm in the unaltered word, and honor them by being cautious in my acts. But, to lay in wait and watch as the world burns, to me at least, is a sin in itself; to not defend God's work and protect what he has built is to dishonor his house.
Ultimately it is not a question of whether to fight, but when and how. It could be with weapons, or words, or other acts. I kneel before the Lord and ask him to lead me in the struggle and show me what acts I must do to glorify him. I feel many of us Christians are doing the same and waiting for the moment that his plan is revealed to each of us, uniquely, in the fashion that is best for us.
Praise be to God and his glory and God save America.
I reject the narrative in this article.
No one I know is in despair, but plenty of people I know are prepared for flooding, tornados, earthquakes, tyrannical governments, and depraved human natures.
Interesting remarks about increasing internal conflict and violence. Last night I was just watching Francis Shaeffer say the same thing about the Roman Republic in the first episode of his “How Should We Then Live” series on Amazon Prime. They had tried to base their society on the secular thinking and decisions of their elite class. It inevitably failed to withstand social pressures. Then they embraced tyranny, thinking they could trade liberty for peace. The man-made “gods” they then tried to base their society upon, including the emperor, were merely reflections of themselves. They became increasing apathetic and disillusioned, turning excesses of violent arena spectacles and gross sexual immorality to try to fill the void in their lives. Art and creativity declined. Christians held the opposite of this futile worldview, and were thus viewed as a threat to this secular, self-indulgent, and depraved society as it was rotting from within. Do we see any parallels to our society, as it becomes more and more secular?
I believe you are closest to the answer of this question.
Well, his writings (and I have read quite a few of them) showed that Satan is a quite dangerous enemy in this sphere, but remember that Clive Lewis was indelibly British, and of a religion that borders on Romanism.
This country was not founded by such, but by the Pigrims, whose Christianity was mre like that of the New Testament type--an independent autonomous local church group led by a pastor and spiritual elders. They were hounded out of England by both Protestant mainline Anglicans, Puritans, and Romanists (all of whom were in deadly conflict with each other) into the tolerant Netherlands. For several years there they conducted their way of worship, but eventually returned to England, obtained shipping, and with another complement of common artisans not of the same religious disposition as the Pilgrims, set sail for the New World and landed there to escape British adversaries, and form a community governed by the Mayflower Compact.
What I am gettimh at here is that the Pilgrims of Scrooby, closely followed by the separatist Puritans, an then soon by the revival of the truly New Testament formula assembly of indpendent autonomous immersion-baptizing only of those professing as mature Christians; all departing from England to come out from under a state church, these were the fist Founders of American government, and the Protestant Christian beliefs upon which the form of government was built.
It is thrusting out the Christian precept through the misguided false interpretation of what separation of church and state means, that has led to our predicament.
The only way back is to confess the error of trying to remove Christianity from the chambers of the three branches of the government, and from he halls of their organs of education and healthcare, that has left the true servants of the True God and His Son (not the Islamic, Mormonistic, Jewish, or Jehovah-Witness ones) at a loss as to how to conduct themselves. a watertight separation of religious morality and civic law is impossible if the Constitution is to be our source of government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.