How is our nation today "post-Christian"?
I am a Viet Nam era vet and have always been a patriot. Lately, though, The Lord has
convicted me of making an idol of my beloved country. I share the actual mourning of
my brothers and sisters over the decline of our nation, and it is apparently on the verge
of an implosion along every possible line: financial, moral, political, cultural, and what
have you. Nations have life cycles, as many authors (Toynbee, Gibbon) and studies
have noted. But all these works show a common thread in the stage of decline, the
widely shared belief that "My well-being is someone else's responsibility." We are
clearly in that stage. What is not to be sad about?
But there is an element of sadness as if over a fallen idol, as if our one goal would be a
righteous USA, fogetting our "great commission" to make disciples of all nations. Those
who first followed Jesus' command surely mourned over the fall of Jerusalem and the
destruction of the temple in AD 70. Yet because of Jesus' warnings in Mt 24, they were
not devastated, because their love of Israel was no longer idolatrous, if it ever was, but
was directed toward Jesus and making disciples of Him in all nations. I am trying to see
beyond the fall of USA, which is no less inevitable than the fall of Jerusalem in the first
century. Is repentance possible? Yes, for a "remnant", but I think we have long passed
the "tipping point" to avert devastation on a national level. I want my sorrow over this to
be more now about the Lord Jesus than about the idol of my patriotic past.
It is sad to think that the USA we knew and loved is a thing of the past. The greatness and glory that we enjoyed being a part of is gone forever and that is sad. The rapid perversion of the views of the American people will surely bring the downfall of this great nation. There is an unwillingness to listen to the truth.
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