“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”
So said the 6th President of the U.S., John Quincy Adams, on July 4, 1821. I’ve read that quote often in the past, and I’ve always believed it to be both insightful and truthful. I’ve long assumed that most Americans of the “experienced” variety (i.e. those who are as ‘old as rocks’, like me) always endorsed the truthfulness of Adams’ statement. I’m not quite as confidant that our younger fellow citizens subscribe to that sentiment, or have even heard of President John Quincy Adams, and lately I’m increasingly concerned that Americans of all ages no longer value the wisdom of our “elders” and our Founders. Let me share some of my concerns with you.
There is a verse in the Book of Psalms that has always bothered me. It is Psalm 9:17, which says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (KJV). ‘All the nations’ are the troubling words, for they seem to say that nations that “forget God” shall in their entirety be condemned to extinction. Does this mean that entire nations, who don’t know or don’t honor or worship God, will become “hell on earth”, as the verse implies? Since God says it in His Word, then who or what turns “a nation” in general, or the U.S. specifically, into “hell”? That requires an uncomfortable national self-appraisal, doesn’t it? Could it be that the citizens of any nation are capable of turning that nation “into hell”? Are we, as citizens of the U.S., doing this to ourselves—to our once seemingly God-blessed country? To be more specific, are WE who call ourselves “Christians” doing this to our country, or are WE, by our indifference, allowing Satan’s gang to turn our country into hell? Satan’s “children” in AntiFa and the scurrilous Black Lives Matter Movement are doing a credible job of turning portions of our nation into a “taste” of Hell, aren’t-they? If that indeed is happening to our country, then WHO is to blame? Are Satan’s cadres at fault for doing what comes “naturally” to them—for doing what their “master” tells them to do? OR are the real offenders in this case the Body of Christ—Christians in Christian churches, led by Christian pastors and priests and ministers, all of whom have ceased seeking righteousness and resisting evil as God’s Word counsels? Have you ever thought about this? I have, and I’m increasingly frustrated, and more than a little frightened, at the consequences of this Christian inaction of recent decades.
There has long been present in our United States an abominable doctrine known as “Abandonment Theology.” To my knowledge, it was first described in 1996 by the great Christian Patriot, John Chalfant, in his book titled: “Abandonment Theology—The Clergy and the Decline of American Christianity”. It’s a serious problem that hasn’t decreased over the years since it was first described in detail by Chalfant. According to him, ‘Abandonment Theology’ “describes a faith which DECEPTIVELY pawns itself off as Christianity by operating in the name of Christ, but which produces fruits destructive to America’s God-given freedoms. It compromises what is left today of the militant, power-filled…Christian faith of America’s Founders…. It is a “feel good” theology which patronizes Jesus Christ (to gain) legitimacy, while at the same time producing disobedience to the commands of God and desertion of Christian duty. (It) is so deadly that we are losing our God-given liberty, and evil is triumphing in nearly every aspect of life. A terrible spiritual blindness has come over millions of unsuspecting, victimized Christians who, in turn, have even allowed God, the Author of our liberties, to be…outlawed in our nation’s public schools and institutions.”
Strong words, aren’t they? Reckless words, if they aren’t true. But I fear that they are true. And if they are true, must we not conclude that the “Abandonment Theology” clergy have been successful—perhaps unwittingly, but even more disturbing to contemplate—in PURPOSELY removing from our historic Christian faith—the faith of our Forefathers and Mothers—the admonition to be vigilant, take action when required, resist evil in ALL its forms, and remain obedient to God’s Word? It is my opinion that if ALL of our American clergy taught their congregations to truly fear God, faithfully keep His commandments, and boldly proclaim resistance against evil and incipient tyranny (as many of the clergy in our pre-Revolutionary times did—for example, the famed “Black Robe Regiment”), our once God-honoring country would not be descending into the black hole of incipient chaos and planned mob violence, with the freedom-destroying and tyranny inducing so-called “solutions” to that chaos and violence being ever more shrilly proposed by the determined enemies of our Republic—the leftwing, socialist/progressive denizens of The Klan of New Bolsheviks, i.e. the anti-American Socialist Democrat Party and its horde of mentally challenged progressive/collectivist agitators and willing accomplices (their “useful idiots”) with their despicable, anti-constitution, anti-conservative, anti-Christian, and “big brother worshipping” presidential “wanna-bes”, who are increasingly convinced that our Constitutional Republic, with its capitalist (free enterprise) economic engine that has produced the greatest good for the greatest number in world history, needs to be replaced with the always-fatal-to-freedom system of collectivist socialism, so that all of our people can share “equally” in the “fruits of socialism”—i.e. HIGH taxes, scarcity of goods, scarce and poorly performed services, SCARCE FOOD AND BASIC NECESSITIES, poor quality of goods, poor quality and scarce medical care, lack of freedom to travel, loss of free speech, the forced confiscation of people’s firearms, the inevitable loss of liberty and the also inevitable decent into the hell of tyranny and political terror that ALWAYS has accompanied a socialist-oligarchical left wing system of government (i.e. Socialist Fascism, Socialist Nazi-ism, Socialist Communism, repressive monarchies, etc.). Witness the inevitable results of the “end products” of socialism in today’s “worker’s paradises” like Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and many so-called countries in Africa if you want to see what “socialism” will bring to the U.S.
So, you might ask, how and when did this descent into potential national calamity come about? I’ll give you my opinions, and quote somewhat freely from Chalfant’s book, mentioned above. The first major “shove” toward that “black hole” of the death of our Constitution was what has always been called (by the winning side) America’s “Civil War” (1861-1865). I’ve written previously regarding why that term is inaccurate, for that war was perhaps an “Uncivil War”, as Mike Scruggs calls it, but by definition is was NOT a civil war. Be that as it may, the Federal Dictator, Abe Lincoln, and his fellow constitution-despising conspirators, acted illegally and “extra-constitutionally” by raising a huge army--80% of whom were socialist/communist immigrants from GERMANY-- who had fled that country and were welcomed into the U.S. when the communist revolution of 1848/49 failed, most of whom could neither read nor speak English, and who were used by Lincoln and his anti-constitution gang to ILLEGALLY invade a newly sovereign country (The Confederate States of America), denying constitutional rights to his own American Union countrymen, terrifying, threatening, and imprisoning many northern newspaper editors and everyday citizens who disagreed with his anti-Confederacy and pro-war policies, shutting down northern newspapers, and in some cases destroying their printing equipment, and threatening a Supreme Court Justice with arrest, suspending the constitutional right of “habeas corpus”, often substituting intimidating military tribunals for state or local court trials, bringing a virtual “police state” upon the northern states, and trying to fool the gullible of the population that his terrible act of aggression against the Confederate States of America was for the purpose of “ending slavery”, which was an UNMITIGATED LIE. (It was 19 months AFTER the invasion of the Confederate States of America before Dictator Lincoln announced his “Emancipation Proclamation of 1863”, which “liberated” ONLY the slaves in those areas of the Confederacy which had NOT been overrun by the Union Army. Lincoln was anti-Negro his entire life and admitted that his goal was to preserve the fractured Union in order to continue its large tariff income, the majority of it paid by the Southern states, and the continuation of slavery or its abolishment was NOT of paramount importance to him.) To the “victors” go the spoils. Remember? To the “victors” also go the “MYTHS” that they use to try and justify their illegal actions!
Lincoln’s response during The War For Southern Independence was the first major blow to the Constitutional Republic envisioned by our wise Founders, for it PURPOSELY began the slow and inevitable process of attacking our Founders’ “Federal System” by taking power from the States of the Union, and transferring that power to the Federal government, in direct contravention of the system of “Federalism” originally established in 1787. (There are those who believe, and I’m one of them, that sinister anti-constitution forces in the northern AND southern states agitated for a war between the states for the very purpose of ultimately destroying that wise compromise called “federalism” that our Founders, in their brilliance, gave to us, thus further reinforcing in the minds of Americans that it is perfectly legitimate to ignore the mandates of our U.S. Constitution which is, they like to assure us, a “living document” that politicians and their mindless supporters can change at will. For absolute proof of this, read the book: TO THE VICTOR GO THE MYTHS AND MONUMENTS, by Art Thompson, reviewed by me here in The Times Examiner on May 18, 2020).
The next major cause of our national “descent into darkness” occurred in 1947, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black—that high-ranking member of The Ku Klux Klan-- lifted out of context part of a letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802. Justice Black used Jefferson’s letter in the case of Everson v. Board of Education to conclude, out of imaginary “whole cloth”, that a phony “wall of separation” existed between church and state. While some apologists for Black’s majority decision have denied this, I believe that Black, in his twisted reasoning, insisted that a “wall” HAD to exist between church and state. Justice Black completely ignored Jefferson’s true intent: That a wall of law had to exist to forbid the new government from intruding into the affairs of the Church, and NOT to preclude Christian citizens from interacting with and influencing the “affairs” of the government. This liberal justice, with no precedent, concluded that it was necessary that the “Church” (which, after all, is made up of Christians who work for the Federal government and who live under the protections of the Federal Constitution) could NOT be involved with the affairs of the state. As I assume you know, there is NO mention of the words ‘church’, ‘state’, or ‘separation’ in our Constitution or in the First Amendment to it.
Our next descent into national suicide happened with the 1962 Supreme Court case of Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court declared as “unconstitutional a strictly voluntary, nondenominational school prayer”. Then in 1963, the Supreme Court, in Murray v. Curlett et. al., ruled that “it was unconstitutional for a state to have portions of the Bible recited in schools”, having concluded that this was “an establishment of religion”. (This was the lawsuit brought by atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hair, who was later found murdered by one of her followers, and who has descended to her eternal reward). After this decision, the Wall Street Journal, that pseudo-free enterprise newspaper, reported that “atheism was now the one belief to which the state’s power will extend its protection.” Justice Potter Stewart, the one dissenting vote, accurately observed that this ruling did not lead to neutrality with respect to religion, but to the ESTABLISHMENT OF A RELIGION OF SECULARISM. How right he was.
The next ‘nail in the coffin of constitutional liberty’ occurred in 1980, when the Supreme Court, in Stone v. Graham, struck down The Ten Commandments, our ancient God-given pillars of liberty and social order upon which our Constitutional Republic was founded. The Court majority ruled it “unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to hang on the walls of a classroom, since the students might be led to read them, meditate upon them, respect them, and obey them.” Such a horror
can hardly be contemplated! Of course, we all know what has happened in our country since that piece of nonsense was pronounced by the “Oracles” of the Extreme Court. I wonder if there is a connection?
These national injustices, each one a step into the darkness of incipient tyranny, were protested by a small remnant of our once-mighty Christian Army (Onward, Christian Soldiers—remember?), but most Christians just watched as the Supreme Court stabbed its sword of calamity into the heart of our heritage. Why did Americans—why did Christians—allow this to happen? Where were our clergymen to stand for righteousness and to support God’s Word? I’ll tell you where at least some of them were: These “Abandonment Clergy” refused to get involved in what they called a “political issue”, when it was as plain as anything could be that these were RELIGIOUS AND BIBLICAL issues! These clergy should have received the ignoble “White Feather” award for their COWARDICE, and we laymen who also stood as though we were struck dumb should share that ignominy!
Jeremiah 23:1 warns God’s people: “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!, saith the Lord.” In the decades since 1947, much of our so-called Christian clergy, along with millions of victimized American Christians, who have believed every word their pastors or priests told them, fled from the battle, and retreated to the “safety” of nonconfrontationalism and noncontroversialism, while all the while they and their Deacons and Elders claimed federal “tax exemption” from that evil servant of the “world”, the IRS. These clergy, and their congregations, have long ago sold out to Caesar for a little safety and security. Unless they, and all of us, escape from the stupor imposed by our national “FAKE NEWS” media, the day will come when all of us will have neither safety or security! That day, I fear, is closer than any of us may realize.
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(Next time, we’ll discuss “The Curse of Abandonment Theology”).