I'm back!!!
Sorry I have been out and away from blogging, but the new year begins a new determination to continue the dialogue that should be occurring.
Now, I have a theory and it is just a theory:
There is a new god rising in America. I remember the god the first Americans brought across the ocean (with respect to native americans) and I remember how they worshiped. I remember that a popular writer, Josh McDowell, said that the real god in America was the god of tolerance. Well, it was true for a while, but I see a new one rising. But first, let me give you a little background.
Travelling around the world and seeing some incredible houses of worship from Notre Dame in Paris to the Dome in Cologne, Germany, to several smaller houses of worship allows me to make an unscientific observation. To me it seems as the power of government grows and as the entitlement mentality grows, then something begins to change inside the human spirit. I was even in a town where the taxes paid the priest salary and all church expenses!
It appears that as a people look to the government more and more for benefits, then they begin to look to the government as a divine higher power. It takes years and maybe generations to foster this idea but the government truly becomes god for many people. They look to the government, pay their required offering (taxes), worship those who are in power, sing certain songs, plead their case to them (prayer?) and expect the ones in power to take care of them. Maybe this is one reason Europe is filled with large beautiful, priceless, empty worship centers.
No one would actually say that they worship a government yet as the power rises the attitude changes. Do not forget that communism and other forms of that system get rid of churches as soon as possible.
It is that storm that is coming ashore in America. The rate of the growth of our faith does not keep up with the population growth, especially among the young people. We are turning away from our historic roots and it does not seem to matter to most of our country.
We will reap the Biblical rewards of a people who turn their back on Jehovah. The storm is on the way.
If our Lord tarries, it will sure be interesting to see what the church in this country will look like in 10-20-50 years.
Jim
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To add to your conclusions, I heard some interesting news at a worldview conference I attended this past fall. Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor who was heavily persecuted in communist Romania, escaped to America to warn us of things that would cause our country to loose it's religious freedom. Everything that he warned us about has come to past.
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