Asking the Wrong Things of Government

We all know human organizations work better by being smaller and more efficient. But we also know that in partisans' mouths "smaller" and "more efficient" are primarily code-words for "less expensive." The real criteria of "small government" partisans, to the exclusion of almost every other consideration, is money.

It's one monomania of "conservatives" today. We easily assent to the plausibility of their madness because everyone knows government could be better if it were smaller, more efficient, and less costly. The problem is that the cost of government (or its size, or its efficiency) is the wrong criteria.

Any discussion of what is good, or "better," or "best" is a moral question, presented in moral terms. The problem is that moral questions speak to right and wrong; and the size, efficiency and cost of government are, in themselves, neither.

Made in the likeness of God...Who Alone IS Good, Jesus says...man has moral capability. Things created by man: whether ideas like efficiency, or objects like money: take on a moral dimension only in man's use of them. Governmental efficiency can be a moral evil, as in the crematoria of the Nazis. Government spending can be a moral good, as in our aid to the starving after that war.

The governmental systems and concepts men have devised can likewise only be considered in moral terms ("better," for example) according to how man uses them. Communism, for example, is morally judged not according to its paradisical concept, but on its hellish practice.

The great mistake in morally evaluating government is to draw the line the wrong place. Christian ideas and attitudes about moral government are rooted, first and only, in the Kingdom of God: perfect governance, owing nothing to man. Human governments may manifest some relative moral difference, between the "better" and the "worse." But all Christian consideration of government begins and ends in our King, Who Alone IS absolute Good.

The only line of distinction Christians should recognize, or take as their own, is between His rule and man's.

The danger of anti-communism

The human ideas on which communism operates are false and evil. Our scriptural faith is that evil will NOT triumph. Where then is the "danger" of communism ?

The real danger is that Christians would be misled from scriptural faith to operate on false and evil human ideas. And a Christian who puts his/her faith in communism is not operating in the Spirit and the mind of Christ.

A Christian who puts his/her faith in capitalism, democracy, "conservatism," militarism, political partisanship, anti-communism, patriotism, or any other false and evil human idea from the secular realm has likewise ceased to operate in the Spirit and the mind of Christ.

Vastly more Christians are misled by those deceptions than by communism. Which false and evil human ideas, then, are a greater danger: those we reject, or those we take into our hearts and minds ?

Illegal Aliens

I've been part of a spirited discussion on a Christian site about illegal aliens.

People mostly repeated Fox News anecdotes, and mouthed all the usual evil spin on the "issue" by unscrupulous politicians such as Kris Kobach.

After citing all the scriptures I found pertinent, I disengaged from the red-herring "policy" debate and Obama-bashing that continued: something I'm not always wise enough to do.

I think God also gave me the wisdom to sum up the matter well, quoted here:

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The "policy" aspect here is a complete red herring: it goes off in all directions, to no real purpose.

Folks, government policy can change tomorrow, and it WILL change dozens of times in the coming few years. During that time, the "issue" will be used by unscrupulous politicians and lying "news" organizations to create fear and advance their evil purposes. That's the way the world works, always has worked, and always will work.

I've witnessed to what I understand scripture says about righteous treatment of illegal aliens. If we operate on that reality, we will be righteous people, pleasing to God. The world's way will only produce fearful, deluded people who are manipulated by evil-doers.

The central question about illegal aliens is what kind of people WE will choose to be.

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The discussion seemed to exemplify the current psuedo-Christianity: centered on "issues," and demonizing other people (illegal aliens, liberals, etc.) for every national ill.

God forgive the American Church !!

Class Warfare

Last year Oregon citizens voted in a state-wide referendum to raise state taxes for those making over $250,000 a year.

Kevin Looper, one of the organizers of the referendum, responded to criticism he was promoting class-war:

"You know, it's class war when we're cutting Medicare. It's class war when we're cutting teachers out of our public schools."


http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/141013128/what-motivated-oregon-voters-to-raise-taxes

Idol

A good definition of "idol" is any thing that takes the place of God in our thinking. We talk about people whose idols are their cars, or success, or house...things.

We all need money. We need it to buy food, or have a place to live. When does money become an idol ? When we cease to think of it as a thing: when we invest it with a spiritual quality against God's place in our spirit: love, for example, or trust. If we ascribe the qualities of a living relation to what is only a thing, we create an idol in our life.

Libertarians: Definition

Libertarians: anarchists lacking the courage of their convictions.

Ayn Rand Again

Ayn Rand is in the news again. Rep. Paul Ryan, author of the 2012 Republican budget, has credited the ideas of that budget to his idol, Ayn Rand. Anyone who has looked at that budget's treatment of the poor can agree.

Chuck Colson, bless his heart, was on top of this several years ago. In a review on a VERY conservative website in 2007, Colson was already warning that in their espousal of Ayn Rand's ideas, "conservatives" were buying into a radically anti-Christian agenda. Colson's warning is worth quoting again.

http://townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/2007/10/16/the_legacy_of_ayn_rand/page/full/

"In his new memoir, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan reminds us that author Ayn Rand is still influencing the world. He credits her with turning him into something more than a 'math junkie.'

"Greenspan is not alone. A 1991 Book-of-the-Month Club and Library of Congress survey asked members which book had most influenced their lives. As expected, the Bible finished first. Unexpectedly, Rand’s most famous book, the novel Atlas Shrugged, finished second.

"Fifty years after its publication and 25 years after Rand’s death, Atlas Shrugged is still read everywhere from college campuses to Wall Street. Given its popularity and its impact, Christians ought to be acquainted with Rand’s work and, especially, her worldview.

"As theologian John Piper puts it, Rand’s work manifests a 'complete rejection of a divine or supernatural dimension to reality.' The absence of God causes Rand to get human nature wrong as well.

"In Atlas Shrugged and her other writings, Rand articulated a philosophy she called 'objectivism.' Among other things, objectivism teaches that man’s 'highest value' and 'moral purpose' is his own happiness.

"By 'happiness' Rand meant 'rational self-interest.' For her, 'virtue' consisted of doing what 'secured' your life and well-being.

"Where did that leave altruism and self-sacrifice? As vices. For Rand, altruism and self-sacrifice represented a betrayal of what should be a person’s 'highest values,' that is, his life and well-being. Similarly, justice would be possible only where you never sought for nor granted unearned or undeserved results, 'neither in matter nor in spirit . . .'

"But without altruism and self-sacrifice, how do people relate to one another? Ayn Rand says through exchanges that promote mutual advantage, what she called a 'trade.' In other words, as if each of the parties were businesses, not people.

"Rand’s inversion of biblical norms had predictable results: Scott Ryan, who wrote a book on Rand’s philosophy, called objectivism a 'psychologically totalitarian personality cult that allowed Rand . . . to exercise personal power over [her] unwitting victims.' He cites, for example, the way she manipulated 'her own unemployed and dependent husband' to get him to agree for her to have 'an adulterous sexual affair.'

"We’re not talking here about personal flaws or merely human weaknesses. As Ryan puts it, these abuses are 'demonstrably connected to Rand’s own "philosophical" premises'—that is, her worldview.

"Rand and her followers, you see, lived in a way consistent with her worldview. But you can hardly regard a philosophy that exalts selfishness and condemns altruism as the basis for a good society.

"That’s why it is so important for us as Christians to understand our Christian worldview and to be able to contend for it, because it gets God right, and it gets human nature right, as well. You can find that worldview in the one book that out-ranked Atlas Shrugged."

Disposable Jesus

Stephen Prothero published a thoughtful blog on our culture's "disposable Jesus."

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/11/my-take-poll-on-bin-ladens-death-reveals-a-disposable-jesus/?hpt=C2

One of his examples is the "Golden Rule:" most Americans say they believe we should treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves (though that's not just a Christian teaching). Even when specifically applied, a small majority agreed that we should not do anything to enemies that we would not want done to American soldiers.

But less than half of white evangelicals agreed to that belief. "In other words," observes Prothero, for a majority of white evangelicals, "when Jesus said, 'So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets' (Matthew 7:12), He didn’t really mean 'everything.' He thought there should be an exception in the case of waterboarding your enemies."

This is what Prothero calls our "disposable Jesus:" the operative attitude that Jesus is not so much the sovereign Head of the Church as a useful pawn for OUR opinions...and can be ignored when He contradicts them. I'd add that this attitude also manifests itself in the treatment of truth (who Jesus said He IS), particularly among followers of the politicized Church.

I have limited interest in heresy-hunting, and the conspiracy-mindedness that goes with it. Heresies and conspiracies are both "out there." But time spent searching them out seems to me a complete waste, and conspiracy-mindedness is forbidden to us (Isaiah 8). I doubt heresies and conspiracies, even those which are real (most aren't), mislead and destroy anywhere near as many Christians as does "disposable Jesus" thinking.

It's again a question of thinking in Kingdom terms. In the Kingdom, the King's word is law.

Amen !!

Wisdom, well-stated

"All Things Considered" today read a letter from a listener who enjoyed a recent news-story.

The writer said he was a gun-owning Libertarian, but praised N.P.R. for its thorough and intelligent coverage of news. He admitted he often disagreed with what he called N.P.R.'s "editorial policies:" but, he ended, "nobody learns anything in an echo-chamber."

Ayn Rand again

I've talked before about the demonic "philosophy" of Ayn Rand, and her pervasive influence on the "conservative" movement.

It seems a movie of one of her books was released...during Holy Week !!...and someone sent me a review. The reviewer considers the movie pretty awful. He attributes that to the fact that it (like the book it's based on) is little more than a screed for Rand's "philosophy:" which makes it fair game for his comments.

Keep in mind, these are excerpts from a secular movie-review, in what some like to call "the liberal media." Kudos to Michael Gerson, of the Washington Post.

"None of the characters expresses a hint of sympathetic human emotion -- which is precisely the point. Rand's novels are vehicles for a system of thought known as Objectivism. Rand developed this philosophy at the length of Tolstoy, with the intellectual pretensions of Hegel, but it can be summarized on a napkin.

Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible.

'The Objectivist ethics, in essence,' said Rand, 'hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.'...

Rand cherished a particular disdain for Christianity. The cross, she said, is 'the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. ... It is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.'...

Reaction to Rand draws a line in political theory. Some believe with Rand that all government is coercion and theft — the tearing down of the strong for the benefit of the undeserving. Others believe that government has a limited but noble role in helping the most vulnerable in society — not motivated by egalitarianism, which is destructive, but by compassion, which is human. And some root this duty in God’s particular concern for the vulnerable and undeserving, which eventually includes us all. This is the message of Easter, and it is inconsistent with the gospel of Rand."

I'm convinced again that reality (in a sense, God's Maker's-mark on creation) doesn't conform to our prejudices. A secular movie-review, in the so-called "liberal media," propounds the gospel. And Christians continue to ally themselves with those who follow "doctrines of demons."

Jesus warned us to "...be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." (Matthew 10:16) Maybe He was hinting that reality seldom operates in accordance with our caricature worldviews.

Same Spirit

It was announced last night that Osama Bin Laden has been killed by American military forces.

The news this morning showed jubilant crowds in downtown Manhattan, outside the White House, and even in towns near me, cheering, chanting "U.S.A., U.S.A.," and singing the national anthem.

I remember the appalling scenes of Islamic crowds on 9/11 cheering and burning American flags at the news that thousands had been killed in the World Trade Center's destruction. But of course, we all know that satan's spirit of murder and revenge are operative in Islam.

So what do we say at our supposedly-"Christian" nation's celebrations today ? Jesus says our Father "is not willing that any...should perish." (Matthew 18:14) Are American celebrants at Ground Zero today manifesting God's Spirit; or are their hearts led by the same spirit as Moslem celebrants on 9/11 ?

May God forgive us !! May our country repent and follow God !!

salvationism

I can't remember what book it was: some Christian best-seller the class had decided to study: and I admit I was a reluctant participant. I prefer a Sunday School class that studies the Bible, but try not to be unpleasant about it.

But God hit me when I read the first sentence: "It's not all about you." I don't remember the title of the book, its author, or anything else the book said. But that sentence was exactly what God wanted me to hear: it remains written on my heart.

The lesson I took from that is that it's all about God. Christianity that's about me is no Christianity at all.

One place I notice it sharply is in our Sunday hymns. So many of the Nineteenth Century hymns are about my need, my joy at finding God, my struggles with faith, my trials in this world. Wallowing in my own sentimental self-centeredness I find contrary to the spirit of WORSHIP. When God's merely an adjunct of my emotional life, it's really all about me.

I grew up in a church that emphasized above all else salvationism...that the first priority of Christianity is our "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." We sang the dreadful same Nineteenth Century hymns every week, and there was an altar-call after every sermon. Its centerpiece was that one-time experience of going forward, then being baptized. The pressure to "be saved" was relentless, so I gave in.

After that, living the Christian life was primarily being in the pews for all the following weekly sermons on the need to be saved. Now that I was, it seemed Christianity had nothing further worth hearing: I abandoned (what I thought was) Christianity to try some things that were more interesting.

God was gracious to call me back, and showed me Christianity is vastly MORE than "being saved." Nobody starts this (I'd have to call it) adventure with Him unless they take the first step...but it is a first step, only a beginning. My experience is that we can't go any farther (and I'd question whether even that first step is meaningful) in the mindset that "it's all about me."

Salvationism can very much tend to that thinking. I'm especially suspicious when "being saved" is the first priority of a church, because that's not God's first priority. His purpose in all creation is that He rule, and that He be glorified. He's gracious to make those who love Him part of His rule and glory: to make us even HEIRS with His Own Son. We miss it all...God, His purpose, His rule, His grace, His glory...if we continue in the thinking that "it's all about me."

Let us repent not just our sins, but our self-centeredness. Let us cast that idol out of the temple and destroy it completely, "that the King of Glory may come in." (Psalms 24:7)

Root Causes

It always takes me a while to work through problems, to their root. This one has taken even longer than usual; but I may have reached some kind of "ultimate cause" for the Church' waywardness. Perhaps our foolish assumptions have made us prey to deceivers.

Politicians are not our friends. Their purpose is not the Church' purpose, and their methods are not our methods. Their criteria is not our criteria, and their kingdom is not God's Kingdom. If politicians pretend to to be on our "side," it is to use us to their purposes.

This is the way of politicians in every age, in every nation. This is most dangerously true of politicians who profess to be one of us, and style themselves the "party of God." Let the American Church therefore be wise, and beware. Let the American Church follow her Head more closely, and shun the deceivers.

No Celebration

On this day 150 years ago, the Civil War began when secessionists fired on a U.S. Army fort. When it was over, 25% of southern men were dead, southern farms, mansions, and major cities were burned to the ground, and the south's economy was wrecked.

The Union lost more dead than the south: the wounded, maimed, orphaned and widowed on both sides probably totalled in the millions. The war changed America in profound ways, and repercussions of the human costs continue to this day in many of our family stories.

It would be blindly foolish to "celebrate" the day: but history's value is that we remember, and learn from past mistakes. Today I remember that the violent spirit of rebellion, of divisiveness, partisanship, and faction is still among us: that "those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:21): and that the consequences of operating in that spirit are disastrous even in this world.

A Test

God's tests are always a chance: rather, a mandate: to test ourselves...whosoever will. His test this week is even clearer than usual in letting us...even more, Him...see where our hearts are.

The tea-partiers held a demonstration against Congress, for more budget-cuts.

Jim Wallis and others are praying and fasting that Congress' budget-cuts would protect the poor, rather than military expenditures and corporations' tax-breaks (such as those the New York Times just reported let GE pay no taxes on $5.1 billion profits last year).

I doubt the contrast could be more sharply-drawn, or the decision clearer, as to which is God's purpose, and God's way of working His will. But even being able to see the test is God's grace.

God's grace too that we can make that choice.

Not in Me

Earlier this week, while I was frantically trying to finish my work and leave for a meeting I was already late for, our lawyer-neighbor came up the driveway. I was thinking "I don't really have time for this," but I went out to greet her.

The first words out of her mouth were, "If your f---ing dogs come in my yard again, I'll kill them !!"

It blindsided me. Being blindsided with anger has often shown me some dark depths I didn't know were in me. This time, however, absolutely no answer-in-kind flared up in my spirit. The kids were there, so I wouldn't have answered her with angry cursing anyway: but what surprised me was that that filth was not IN me whatever. That surprised me, and I praised God for what He's done !

But she obviously wasn't in a mood to talk about the problem: so I waved at her and went back in the house, and sent the kids to get the dogs. (Only later did I think it might not have been the best course to send them out where an angry lawyer was screaming threats: but they said she didn't talk to them.)

That night I also talked to the kids about the other thought the experience raised: that a lot of people think the best solution to problems is to kill something (or someone). I advised them to stay away from such people.

A Christian View of Ronald Reagan

I don't usually bother to be for or against politicians. It's a mindless substitute for thinking through political issues, or having political principles. And in the nature of things, politicians have a short shelf-life. Today, however, NPR's "Talk of the Nation" was about Ronald Reagan, in honor of his upcoming 100th birthday, and I was reminded that politicians' impact can be lasting.

The talk was, of course, almost entirely laudatory: what a great President Reagan was, and what important things he accomplished. Even I weren't a Christian, I doubt I'd view any human, human event, or human idea as wholly praise-worthy. All things human necessarily include mistakes and failings. Not taking those into account is neither honest nor thorough. Nor does it allow us to be realistic in our assessment. Ronald Reagan is a good example.

Reagan based his political career on anti-communism. He often pronounced communism the source of all evil. It's a shallow understanding of evil: and not a Christian understanding, though it doubtless relates to communism's failure. We often hear that "Reagan defeated communism." More causative may be that God sets his face against evil.

We were also continually told communism was an unworkable economic and social theory. It seems wrong-headed to praise Reagan for stopping what can't work. To the extent that anti-communists' efforts had a part in defeating communism, some credit may be due the 12 Presidents who preceded Reagan. The most that can truthfully be said of Reagan is that he happened to be riding in our cab when the other guy's locomotive fell apart.

We hear that Reagan "restored America's honor." We should probably understand that, as he did, in terms of military power. But that too is not a Christian understanding. In fact, scripture pronounces a curse on those who put their trust in their armed might.

In mundane terms, his military expenditures produced our first trillion-dollar budget. For that money, American troops conquered Grenada, a nation the size and population of the rural county I live in. U.S. bombers once struck Libya in retaliation for a nightclub bombing. U.S. peace-keepers were sent to Lebanon, and withdrawn after 231 were killed by a truck-bomber. It's hard to see how, on his own terms of projecting invincible military power, Reagan's actions "restored honor to America."

Reagan's administration also took a tough stand against Iran, designating it a sponsor of international terrorism. That designation was justified. Its effect on Iran was probably undercut by the fact the we were secretly selling them arms at the same time (arms they needed to continue their war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whom we were also arming). The Reagan administration, on their part, needed off-the-books money to fund Central American contras, which was against U.S. law. In both directions, Reagan's policy was run by evil men: law-breakers who delighted in stirring up war, and who (by Oliver North's own testimony) were proud to lie when caught.

Reagan's most famous dictum was that "government is the problem." It seems an illogical and disingenuous reason for wanting to head the government. Once in office, his anti-government belief was embodied in the policy of deregulation. We still live with the consequences, from airline and food safety, to the economic consequences of Wall Street's unrestrained greed, to the Murdochization of American media. On that operative spirit, Reagan also claimed he knew nothing (and did nothing) about the illegal war-mongering of Col. North and others in America's name.

Again, "de-regulation" is not a Christian idea. Restraining lawlessness is in fact exactly what scripture says is God's purpose for human government (Romans 13:4, I Peter 2:14).

America suffered, and suffers, additional harm from Reaganism. His ridicule of climate-science put us 30 years behind on dealing with the matter...or even thinking about it except as a POLITICAL issue. Reagan's myopia remains the operative mindset of his faction.

But his greatest harm was to the Church. He taught the Church to believe unscriptural ideas: that military might exalts a nation, that government is the problem, that evil is primarily political. On the latter premise, he taught the Church that political factionalism and its bitterness are "Christian;" contrary to Galatians 5:20, which teaches they are works of the flesh, and not of the Spirit's leading.

More than individual unChristian ideas, Reagan co-opted the Church' identity for his political purposes, persuading Christians that they were "conservatives" and should vote for "conservatives." (Not that Christians should vote for Christians, note: in that case he might have been at a great disadvantage against the strongly-evangelical Jimmy Carter.) It's an untrue characterization of the Body of Christ, and of Christ, taught nowhere in scripture. It's a self-concept which has misled the Church to do itself, and the country, irremediable harm. Worse, the Church continues to think of itself in Reagan's terms.

That the Church foolishly takes its identity from a politician, rather than its Head, doesn't absolve the deceitful politicians. God will judge both. Perhaps Ronald Reagan repented of misleading Christians. But my concern is that the Church turn back from following deceptions, and be and do what God created it for. May the Church be the Body of Christ, God's light in a dark world. To every extent we've made ourselves a sub-demographic of Reagan's political faction, may the Church REPENT its gross spiritual foolishness !!

Attacking the Church

It's well-known that persecution makes the Church stronger. We don't currently perceive that the American Church is under persecution (and often hear that perhaps we'd be a better Church if we were). But we need to realize the enemy has more than one way to attack us.

We are messengers, and more importantly, demonstration of the Kingdom of God in this world. Kingdoms of men, through whom the usurper prince of this world works, rightly perceive our message and our presence as a challenge to their rule. Satan's first attack against God's Kingdom is always what it was against the King, violence and murder.

The rulers of the Jews accused Jesus to Pilate for "...saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." (Luke 23:2) Roman soldiers to whom He was sent for flogging mocked Him as King of the Jews.

But Pilate was reluctant to sentence Jesus to death. The Jewish rulers egged him on, saying "If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar." (John 19:12)

When Pilate then took Jesus before the crowd and they shouted for his crucifixion, he asked, "Shall I crucify your King ?" The crowd shouted back, "We have no king but Caesar !!" (John 19:15) In the end, Jesus was crucified under a sign proclaiming Him "King of the Jews."

The One we follow was judged and executed entirely on the question whether God or man (and through him, Satan) is the ultimate sovereign. The world's rulers and people, even God's Own people, rejected Jesus as King with violence and murder. Satan himself must have believed those tactics had thwarted God's rule. Instead, God's sovereign power and wisdom worked victory from the enemy's scheme, and confirmed Jesus as King forever.

But Satan and his minions continued to oppose God's rule. Rome persecuted the Church throughout its first centuries. Under that attack, the Church continued to grow, and grew stronger. In the end, the emperor Constantine (either because he himself became a believer in Christ, or as a political ploy to enlist Christians in his cause) made Christianity the religion of the empire. Caesar's purposes were thereafter officially deemed to be identical with those of the Kingdom of God. The slippery question of Church-state relations has continued every since.

Since Constantine, kingdoms of men have often made God an adjunct to their purposes and actions. Christian rulers notoriously enlist God in their wars, even against other Christians. Germany's army-issue belt-buckle in World War I, for one example, boasted "Gott Mit Uns" (God Is With Us). German troops wore it into battle against Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans whose leaders likewise vehemently assured them God was on their side.

Abraham Lincoln was one of the few human leaders who understood the spiritual issue for rulers and nations of men. A group of clergymen assured him the Union cause would triumph because "The Lord is on our side." Lincoln replied, "I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

The enemy isn't, at the moment, persecuting the American Church. His tactics are more subtle, and more successful. He instead co-opts the Church to the operative idea that America's national purposes are God's purposes. Most American Christians in our time are doubly co-opted, operating also by the unexamined idea that one political faction's purposes are America's hope, and thereby God's purposes.

When the Church' operative thinking is co-opted by the enemy, the result is co-operation in his opposition to God's Kingdom. Satan is no fool: he realizes that persecution, at best, produces only reluctant compliance, and will ultimately strengthen the Kingdom he seeks to overthrow. But a Church which will think as he wishes, and acts according to its co-opted mind, will do as he wishes, of their own will.

May God open the eyes of the American Church and send His Spirit of repentance on us !!