More of the Same

     It has been reported as of today (July 5th, 2022) that there has been 309 mass shootings in the United States this year. That number should shock us out of our numbness.  Yet, the repetiveness of this type of violence has traumatized a good portion of the population so severely that they are perpetually sleep walking through the graveyard that America has become. Our obsession with death is a result of years of illegal wars, our cannibalizing of our young both born and unborn, and raping the creation God made and called good. Our chickens have indeed come home to roost. As we process another catastrophe, this time in greater Chicagoland, we need to look squarely in the national mirror and and ask what is wrong with us?  How have we created a culture where people delight in hurting the innocent? How have we let the anger in the political sphere run its black ooze over the rest of society? 

    We are truly an angry people.  I can feel it in the air.  The sky's very atoms charged with vitriol. I fear it's heaviness will collapse on us, breaking our people apart. So where then are the prophets crying in the streets? Where are the Jeremiahs weeping in the dust? Parts of the church have become as anger-charged as the rest of society. We would rather call down fire on our foes than give a merciful look their way. Perhaps if we did we would see the image of God in them.  Instead our look is intending to kill, and kill we have. We have let madmen who are unbelievably corrupt and treacherous take the Name of our Lord in vain. We have turned a blind eye to their evil for the sake of gaining power. We quickly condemn those who are deluded while we sit and eat delusion after delusion. We prophesy a feast of lies for ourselves while we let others starve for lack of God's love. We have turned the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of our collective wills.  We desire ease, comfort, and ignorance at the expense of the Good News of Jesus, which is neither easy, comfortable, or cheap. Our hour of judgement has come to the American church. The actual storm in this hour is not the one Qanon charlatans have peddled. It is a torrent directed at the idols of power we have held onto.  Our God is a jealous God and He will show Himself so. Therefore we must hold onto Jesus ever so much tighter and seek to do His will. We have to demonstrate to the world a Gospel of power over evil. It is not directed at destroying people, but instead it seeks to pull down the strongholds in the invisible world around us.  The atoms of vitriol in the unseen realm are heavy above us and they are intensified by satan and his ilk. The devil loves to see God's image-bearers at war with each other. When the Gospel becomes a party platform and not what it truly is: liberation from sin and death, it is not the Gospel. As a party platform The Gospel is reduced to a power grab by politicians who use God's people for the almighty vote. Power, not Jesus bends their knee. 

    However, a return to the bent knee is crucial moving forward.  But it cannot be pointed at the golden calf we have worshiped previously. We must return to our first love. I feel that if we do not, Jesus will quickly remove the lamp stand of the American church. He will remind us who we belong to. Before our loyalty divides into its respective commitments, we must be loyal to Jesus and His agenda first. Before any flag, before any platform. Before political parties and their contrary goals. Our Messiah has and will conquer but it is through humility and the cross of death. The New Testament repeatedly bids us to die to the selfish passions and motivations that hold us hostage. A healthy church must take up the cross to do this. We must die to the desire to conquer our foes and bend their wills by force. We must conquer the ease and quickness in which we compromised the Gospel for several generations in America for political gain. Some of us thought the way to turn the tide of an increasingly secular culture was to hitch onto the vehicle of the government. Almost 50 years in and after exhausting millions of dollars and spilling a sea of ink, we have not de-secularized the culture but have expedited its secularization. There are now several generations of American Christians who have let their confidence in Jesus and His good news go by the wayside. Segments of the church blame these generations and refuse to do the deep soul searching and questioning that we must do. We must ask The Spirit what is He saying to the American church. Do we have ears to hear? Or will we continue to pursue this course and feed this pyre of anger and bloodshed? If we think things are bad now, we have not seen anything yet. The only way to defuse this rage-bomb is to humbly live out the Gospel of reconciliation. Rebels don't change by pointing at them and screaming. They change by the disarming and healing love of Jesus, which liberates us from the desire to rebel and run away. We must pursue the beautiful Gospel in all of its power to save or all is lost. This age of anger is killing itself. Don't feed it.