Introduction
For the majority of this blog, my focus has been on history and philosophy, not necessarily on politics directly. Our most recent discussions have been on the lives of men who were great influences on this country, men such as Elisha Williams and Jonathan Edwards. This is with good reason and is a result of my own philosophy as a Christian. I believe that politics is only the final piece of the puzzle, the outgrowth of everything that comes before, and the visible evidence of the philosophy of the people in charge as well as those who voted them in. America’s situation is as bad as it is because of wicked philosophies, damaging beliefs, and general mindlessness on the part of people on both sides of the political aisle. It has come to this state so quickly largely because Christian individuals quit doing their jobs and started focusing on things Christ never called them to.
This is what is destroying us, not the people in power. Or at least, not the people in power alone. So, instead of aiming my words at the symptoms, I have aimed at the heart of the disease and I have aimed to wake people up to where the disease comes from, why it is so dangerous, and what it will result in if we do not address it. This, I feel, is much more important work because if the philosophy, heart, and mind of an individual can be changed, then true change can occur in every other area of life.
Similarly, my focus has been mainly history of late because not only are most Americans completely ignorant on the subject (and I include even history buffs in this since they frequently miss the big picture and the why behind history because they focus in on one specific era or thing), but because I see a trend in my own community of homeschooled Christian young people that disturbs me: knowing generally what is right but not knowing why, which is of no use to anybody in passing along what is right to the next generations.
With that said, the recent events and the confirmation to Presidential power of a man who was vaulted to his position by the lies of a media who hid what he was, perhaps some fraud (though whether it was truly enough to change the outcome, we can’t say for certain; only that if it was, they’re not fool enough to let us prove it), and certainly by lying about what he is, lead me to turn my attention to politics and to address Christians specifically.
A Harsh Reality
Many if not most of you are not going to like what I have to say here. I’m bound to make Christian people on both sides of the aisle angry, but whatever your pet doctrines, preferences, and preferred colored glasses to cope with reality, reality remains unchanged. Truth remains unchanged whether you like it or not.
My response to the election is one born from thought, rationality, a long discussion with my father on the merits of fatalism, and more thought still about both what he said and what the Bible said. I have come to the conclusions that I have because I have observed history as a whole as well as on a smaller scale in the form of American history, and I have seen the hand of God’s providence in it, guiding it to His desired end regardless of what men did or did not do.
The Place of the Christian in the World
Christ states numerous times and in numerous places that the Christian is to be salt and light to a dying and lost world. I do not believe most of us who claim the name Christian think much about what that means. I hadn’t myself until my father and I were discussing why he personally adheres to fatalistic philosophy with a Christian bent. After that discussion and some thought, I came to realize that I myself am only less fatalistic than he by a slight degree in that I am a bit less jaded about life in general. I also came to realize that I needed a conscious reminder and thought about my place in things.
So, I am providing that same conscious reminder to all of you who are true believers who stand on Scripture and not the word of men. I needed it. Most Americans who claim to be Christian need it too. Wake up. See your place. Start filling it or else you are doing nothing to help His work.
The Christian is Called to be Salt
The Bible declares that the true Christian is salt. Salt preserves things. In the old days, when they packed salt around fish or meat, they knew that salt preserved. It was not some miracle substance, however. It didn’t keep the fish from stinking and rotting eventually. It delayed the inevitable. If we are called salt then, we also delay the inevitable.
What is the inevitable? The destruction of every nation on this world. The events laid out in Revelation. God’s return and triumph. Our rejoicing in the justice that will finally be done on this Earth after God’s longsuffering and patience with the wicked men who walked it. Why is it inevitable? Because of God’s character. He cannot lie, and He has told us what He will do, therefore He must and will do it regardless of what we do. To fight Him would be the epitome of reckless unreason. Your fighting can achieve nothing except your own misery and the end of your ability to preserve as salt. We cannot stop it forever, Christian. We are here only to preserve for a time until God deems it time to judge those left who rejected the truth.
The Christian is Called to be Light
The second analogy Christ made was that the Christian is light, a candle on a hill in the darkness that shines brightly. Note that we are on a hill or in a house and darkness is all around. Not only are we to preserve, we are to stand unwavering on the truth. We know what is true. We know what is right. We must proclaim it even if we are hated for it. If the world chooses to let us live, scorned and ridiculed but still on our terms as we are proclaiming truth, very well. If they make a choice to attempt to force us to denounce our beliefs, proclaim evil, and deny the truth, we will stand.
We must not be moved. Our knowledge of what is true and our fierce desire to live only in accordance with our philosophy and reality demand that we face even death unmoved. This is why the Christians in ancient Rome could face death the way they did. This is why so many of them refused to bow to the whims of another man when it required sacrifice of their principles. They bowed the knee on many, many things just as any reasonable man with a gun to his head would do. But sacrifice their morals, their principles, and the truth they would not, even if that meant other men would make the choice to destroy them. They would not be complicit in the destruction of their minds and hearts even to the end.
This is what we are called to do. We will shed light no matter how dark it is. We will stand there, not attempting to persuade or to argue because that is not what a candle does. We merely shed light on the truth vocally at every opportunity and through our lives at every other moment. The darkness hates light. We will be despised. We will be rejected. But we do not mind it because we know it is not our job to make them agree with us, to make them like us.
Why Our Goal Is Not to Persuade
Recently, I read a section from Ayn Rand’s book, The Fountainhead, that reminds me greatly of the attitude that we ought to have as lights proclaiming reality and the truth to the world steadily and unconcerned for the outcome. Rand was not a Christian and was in fact staunchly against religion, but I think this particular quote illustrates my point on our response to those around us well.
“I don’t propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me.”
The Fountainhead, pg. 15 (pdf version)
Then the Dean understood what had puzzled him in Roark’s manner.
“You know,” he said, “you would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if you cared whether I agreed with you or not.”
“That’s true,” said Roark. “I don’t care whether you agree with me or not.” He said it so simply that it did not sound offensive, it sounded like the statement of a fact which he noticed, puzzled, for the first time.
“You don’t care what others think–which might be understandable. But you don’t care even to make them think as you do?”
“No.”
This encapsulates our response to the world. We have the truth. We stand as lights that shine for it. But we do not propose to force anyone into accepting it. We don’t care whether others agree with us or not in the sense, at least, that it does not change what we must do or what we know to be true. We have compassion on them because knowing the truth means we also know their end if they reject it. We pray that God will use us as He pleases to be an instrument of change in people’s lives.
A frank reading of the Bible makes it clear that God chooses His people, not the other way round. We can persuade no one into salvation because it is God who does the drawing, God who gives the necessary faith, and God who does the saving. They could believe none of it without His changing work and His power to act on what they have seen and heard. This is why we are not concerned with persuading or arguing people into agreeing with us. It does not matter whether they agree with us or not if in agreeing their hearts remain unchanged, and no amount of elegant oratory can change the heart no matter how much it may change and touch the mind.
A Biblical Response to Biden’s Presidency and America’s Future
Understanding all that, we now have the groundwork to examine what is going on in the world today and in our own country. Make no mistake: I am as disappointed as any conservative Christian in our country’s appetite for deceit, outright lies, and hiding of the truth. I am as disappointed as most conservative Christians in the fact that a man with an obviously socialist (rankings have her further left of Bernie politically on the policies she has enacted and supported) for a running mate and clear mental instabilities was made President despite thousands of signed affidavits stating fraud occurred, which were swept under the rug by lower courts and left unheard by the higher courts of appeal. I am disappointed in our Republican representatives who, in their attempts to distance themselves from Trump as he goes off the deep end, have stated Biden won fair and square when polling demonstrates that had the media not suppressed all the information about Hunter Biden (which is now coming out because there is no way to hide it with the investigation and no need with the election done with), 17% of voters said they would never have voted for him. 17% is a huge number. It would’ve tipped the election in such a close race.
But as disappointed as I am, I am not surprised. Many Christians I know are feeling shocked that the truth didn’t win out, defeated because it didn’t, and pessimistic about the future. I don’t feel shocked. I am not defeated. I am fatalistic about the future, but I am not worried or concerned over it. I know where we are headed: to our own destruction. Liberal Christians, I know you still believe we aren’t. But history says we are. We chose to adopt the philosophy that Germany did before Hitler took power. We chose to adopt the philosophies that brought the Roman Empire to its knees. Do not be a fool and believe we will end any differently. We will not.
The Inevitable End
Conservative Christians, maybe we can delay the inevitable for another fifty years. Maybe even another several hundred. It makes no difference to God, who is outside of time, whether His end goal is achieved in a year or three hundred. But know that the world is only going to grow sicker, closer to death. You can’t stop it. Don’t try. Accept that America’s philosophies and the disease of sin are leading to her destruction. Accept that many people, even some bearing the name of Christian, applaud the destructive course she is taking and want to plunge her further into darkness. They will remove the foundation. They will remove everything that made America great.
When they do, we will fall. Those who are not in power will lose out just as we warned them they would. Those who are not in power may benefit temporarily while their party holds sway, but winds of power change swiftly, and every other country under a dictatorship has always ended with the people who are not in power being oppressed whether they agreed with the dictator or not. The poor and the powerless who hoped that taking from those who could achieve would gain them the same success will learn the hard way that it does not.
You cannot stop this. It will happen eventually. We are going to fall just as every other kingdom of this earth eventually will. Accept it. Quit wasting energy on something utterly futile. Move on and do what you are called to do preserve and shine. Do it knowing that your actions will have an impact on an individual level, that God does not let faithfulness go unrewarded, and that you cannot imagine how great an impact on other souls those few people God reaches through you may have. Just because you cannot change the outcome does not mean that you have no ability to change anything. For those whose lives God touches through you, you have been the messenger that changed everything for them.
Jonah’s going to Nineveh did not result in anything more than temporary reprieve. God did eventually destroy them as He had prophesied He would. But Jonah’s going to Nineveh made it possible for the Assyrian empire to play their role in Israel’s story, which was necessary to bring about the coming of the Messiah. Jonah’s going to Nineveh made all the difference for those who repented even if it couldn’t save their empire.
Practically Responding to Biden
There is no question in my mind that Biden means higher taxes, a sinking or floundering economy, more encroachments upon our natural rights, and further tyranny. We are a country already living under tyranny. The pandemic showed that. What was lawful for our government was illegal for us as the citizens. That is the most straightforward definition of tyranny I have ever seen or heard. And tyrannies generally tend to grow more oppressive with rulers who have no sense of natural rights and no moral code to guide them in lightening the heaviness of the burden tyranny places on a people.
It’s as I’ve said before: a person with good morals and a faulty or poor philosophy can still make living under that philosophy far more bearable than a person with wickedness in their hearts will. Furthermore, a person with wicked morals or no morals will corrupt even the best of philosophies to suit their villainy.
This is why I stand firm on the stance that Biden is going to reduce liberty and continue to destroy this country. There is abundant evidence for this. Biden has shown he will stand against nothing if it means risking his career. He has contradicted and reversed himself on every police he ever stood on, and he has tried to cover up the truly heinous things he has said. His remarks that he didn’t want his children to go to school in a racial jungle back when bussing was first starting for inner cities and black communities are disgusting and were pointed out by Harris then promptly ignored when he nominated her for VP. These two individuals stand only for their own power. Their actions speak louder than their words, and time and again they have proved enemies of the truth, enemies of liberty, and enemies of justice. Believing that either of them are good Christians is nothing short of laughable if you know your Bible. They are not Christian in any way. No more than Trump was. They will be God’s tools of judgment on a nation so richly deserving of everything coming to them.
But despite that, my response is still this: they are in power because God allowed it. He is my president, even if I ashamed of him and disgusted by everything he stands for. I am not happy about it, but I know he is the symptom of the disease that is rotting this country from the inside out, and I know it does no good to rail against a symptom when you have done nothing to delay the spread of the disease that caused it.
Christians, our practical response to Biden is to accept that he is president. He got there by fraud and on a bed of lies; that much is certain even if we don’t know the extent to which fraud actually helped. But as is the case with any dictatorship, the dictator is in power now. Nothing will change that. We can only continue to stand on the truth no matter how hard they make it. They cannot take away or grant us our right to live our lives according to the truth and to judge what we are to believe on reason and reality. We would have to grant them that currency, that power, and even were we so weak as to do it, the responsibility before God that comes with that right still is not negated because we choose to give up reason, our minds, and our conscience. But we will not be weak enough to do that if we are standing on the truth.
We will stand, to the death if need be, but we will stand because to do elsewise would be a betrayal of our values, ourselves, and our God. To do otherwise would be to become complicit in our own destruction, to commit suicide instead of forcing our murderers to pull the trigger if they wish us gone. Do not pull the trigger for them. Do not allow them to believe that they were able to destroy you with your own willing participation. Do not allow them the delusion of thinking that winning will be done by anything else except the complete destruction of believers by force. They hold the gun. They pull the trigger. We do not acquiesce and pay our values as protection money in exchange for a life they have no power to grant us. We live on God’s terms, not on theirs, and we know who wins in the end. It won’t be them.
Conclusion
In the end, you will do with this reminder as you see fit. You will either continue to fight against the symptoms, of which Biden is one, and you will get nowhere and gain you nothing. Or you will fight to preserve and shine for as long as God sees fit to allow. I cannot force anyone to agree with me. If I could, I still would not because to do so would be immoral and a violation of their rights as a person. Were any of them so weak as to allow me what is not rightful mine, I would still refuse it on principle.
However, I will present reality, reason, and truth as I believe it is my purpose to do. I will stand as that reminder of truth, as that light in the dark. I do so as a beacon and hope to my fellow Christians, as a welcome relief to the weary sinner who is seeking for a way of life and light, and as a denouncement to the self-righteous among us who believe they can defy the truth and God without judgment or consequence.
My purpose in standing is not for the sake of these people, but for the glory of God and for the preservation of the truth. My concern is only with truth and God for their own sakes and mine. I welcome with open arms anyone who wishes an answer for my hope, for my reason to stand. But I am not standing for their sakes. What my choice to stand no matter the consequences or results achieves I leave in God’s wise, all-knowing, and just hands. I cannot control or determine that, and I frankly care nothing for it. The results could be that no change is made, no hearts touched, no one brought into the light, and still I would do it. It is up to you if you wish to join me or not. It will not be an easy road, but the rewards now and in eternity are innumerable.
