Winning or Setting the Stage?

These are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision.

 

I suppose that if one were to extrapolate upon Dr. Albert Mohler's article of March 21, 2017 (The Gathering Storm:  Religious Liberty in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution - March 21, 2017) - wherein he expresses concern that the Christian community is in critical danger of losing religious liberty to the degree that Western civilization may be in danger of losing "the very foundation of human rights and human dignity" - then one might agree with the foundation of this blog by uttering forth from his, or her viscera - "beloved, there seems to be a freight train coming." Another might strongly agree and utter forth the most sincere thought that "These are days that will require courage, conviction and clarity of vision."

 

In my previous post of June 17 (According to Mohler) I alluded to continuing my response to the above thought by reviewing the dark days preceding World War II.  Dr. Mohler considered those days to be a foreshadowing of the conditions that he is warning us about at this current time.  Winston Churchill was his example of a voice in the midst of a fearful Western community saying something like this:  "Wake up everybody; there is a seemingly unbalanced man over there in Germany who has a huge state-of-the-art military and he wants to consume a whole lot of real estate called Europe and he doesn't seem to mind killing people while accomplishing such".

 

Here is how Dr. Mohler more elegantly stated the condition:

 

In the first volume of his history of World War II, Winston Churchill looked back at the  storm clouds that gathered in the 1930s portending war and the loss of human freedom.  Churchill wisely and presciently warned Britain of the tragedy that would ensue if Hitler were not stopped.  His actions were courageous and the world was shaped by his convictional leadership.  We are not facing the same gathering storm, but we are now facing a battle that will determine the destiny of priceless freedoms and the very foundation of human rights and human dignity.

 



So, at the expense of seeming to go out into space somewhere, a question begs to be asked and it is this:  Did Churchill succeed, and, if not, what did he accomplish?  Obviously, it is the thought of this writer that that great bulldog-of-a man did not succeed.  What then, did he accomplish?  To this writer the answer to that last question reveals an enormity of thought that he hopes will somehow resonate to our Christian community  in light of the present world condition,  Do we agree with Dr. Mohler that there is a "gathering storm" before us?  If so, how then should we respond?

 

Let's now review those dark days leading up to WW2.  To do so, it may expedite things to introduce to those having been brought up in the public school system a man by the name of Neville Chamberlain.  This is a vilified man.  By-the-way, he is not so vilified by me.  I believe that he was a sincere man who yearned for peace in a noble, and not selfish, way. He actually attempted as Prime Minister to noticeably increase the size of the British Air Force before the war only to be refused by those in power.  His sin? He appeased Hitler when all of the signs were there indicating that this was a very dark man with a really big stick and he (Hitler) needed some time to prepare for a proactive war that he would soon  start.  He (Chamberlain) was applauded when he returned from meeting with Herr Hitler by an appeasing-like community only later to be vilified by that same community when aggression was forced upon them.  His triumph before his fall was in waving a peace document signed by him and Hitler while he declared out loud a statement that seems to never disappear: "I have met with Herr Hitler and we have both signed this document that I have before you - We have attained peace in our times."

 

Churchill saw   -   Chamberlain did not. 

 

So what turned Churchill from a man little heard to the bulldog that unified a desperate people in a desperate time?  What turned Chamberlain from a hero to one of a despised failure causing him to be removed from office?  To a community not willing to deal with the potential of violence in the subliminal areas of their psyche, an outside force is sometimes (always?) needed that will supersede that subliminal area of comfort and cause a literal perception that leads to action.  Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland,  That invasion, and that invasion only caused Europe to respond. Violence tends to cause mental comfort to transform into intellectual acuity.  It could have been too late to recover.  Dunkirk follows and England and France (and all of Europe) were lost.  Well, history tells us that England was not lost.  Why?  A bulldog that would not quit, a huge giant of an industrial entity protected by a three thousand mile ocean with a people willing to engage, an invasion of an island on Dec. 7, 1941 that energized that magnificent people to action, and a Fuehrer foolish enough to invade the Soviet Union were the reasons that England was not lost.

 

 

So, was Churchill a failure, or a success?  In marshaling the Western European community to prepare to resist Hitler in the mid to late 1930s he failed.  Not his fault, by the way, but the required response, by those who should have responded, was not there.  In his bulldog-like tenacity throughout the war, he was a magnificent achiever. He never gave up and total victory was the result.  Now here is where we may go into space.  Even though Winston Churchill failed to marshal the world for war, he did prepared a remnant community of individuals to take heed in those dark days who would begin to prepare for the days that would soon come and to hit the pavement running, so to speak, when they did come.  Here is a thought for the current Christian community.  Churchill failed to marshal the community for war, but he did prepare that remnant community who did hear, with ears to hear, to respond when war was forced upon England and America.

 

Is the current Church in the Western community in need of a present-day Churchill?  Is there even such a person existent today?  Allow us to make a metaphor out of Neville Chamberlain.  He would be a type of the present-day dormant Church, a church not even aware of such warnings as Dr. Mohler is expressing; namely, that there is a gathering storm out there and its desire is for us and that these are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision. Allow that the vacuous utterance that we have peace in our times be a metaphor and type of the utterances Paul warned us about when he declared there to be a people who will, at the close of the age, cry out peace and safety (I Thess. 5:1-6).  Utter destruction follows such a people for it is the day of the Lord. There will be no Churchill in that day.  Churchill had Czechoslovakia and Poland to awaken a dormant people.  We will have no one but Christ to be our Churchill, and that will be when human history is truncated and finalized.  As a final metaphor let's allow Christ to be our Churchill to close the age.  In the meantime let us be Churchill-like using the mid 1930s in Europe to foreshadow the time in which we currently live, a time that demands of us who see and hear to not live in darkness that the day not overtake us, to be light bearers, to be sober and alert and be proactive in these days when courage, conviction and clarity of vision will be demanded of us. 

 

In the conduct of the war Churchill was a magnificent bulldog of a man and was magnificently victorious over a vicious enemy.  In the marshalling of a dormant and cowardly world community he was less than victorious, but in setting the stage for warfare and response to invasion he was triumphant.  Let this be our final metaphor that we may return from space:  When the soon close of the age is upon us there will be no three thousand miles to separate the Christian community from whatever awaits.

The dormant-like church will not see such a condition approaching.  It's the mid to late 1930s and Churchill-like men and women like Dr. Mohler are voices crying out in a wilderness-like community.  We need to be vigilant in what Christ has us doing.  We are in the process of setting the stage for whatever awaits us - a process that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision.

 

 

 

 

 

According to Mohler

"These are the days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision.  We are in a fight for the most basic liberties God has given humanity, every single one of us, made in his image."

I recently ran across this article in Dr. Albert Mohler's blog of March 21 of this year. There is certainly no equivocation here.  In the article (The Gathering Storm: Religious Liberty in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution) he goes on to state that those of us who have been made in His image are presently engaged in an existential struggle to maintain a moral set of standards that are progressively being negated in the World community by a strong, dedicated and proactive force. This ominous progression is advancing "with astounding velocity."  He continues:

A revolution in morality now seeks not only to subvert marriage, but also to redefine it, and thus to undermine an essential foundation of human dignity, flourishing, and freedom.  Religious liberty is under direct threat.  During oral arguments in the Obergefell case, the Solicitor General of the United States served notice  before the Supreme Court that the liberties of religious institutions will be an open and unavoidable question.  Already, religious liberty is threatened by a new moral regime that exalts erotic liberty and personal autonomy and openly argues that religious liberties must give way to the new morality, its redefinition of marriage, and its demand for coercive moral, cultural, and legal sovereignty. 

 

These are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision.  We are in a fight for the most basic liberties God has given humanity, every single one of us, made in his image.  Religious liberty is being redefined as mere freedom of worship, but it will not long survive if it is reduced to a private sphere with no public voice.  The very freedom to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ is at stake, and thus so is the liberty of every American.  Human rights and human dignity are temporary abstractions if they are severed from their reality as gifts of the Creator. The eclipse of Christion truth will lead inevitably to a tragic loss of human dignity.  If we lose religious liberty, all other liberties will be lost, one by one.

 

The bold has been added.  I was thinking of adding bold to other parts of the quote but decided that more than half would have been in bold and thus making the devise almost meaningless.  So let's stick with "These are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision." I noticed that he did not appeal to some form of Christian activism.  I was actually pleased by such.  It is not that I advocate against Christian activism.  Just the opposite is the case.  Rather, I was pleased that, acting as a learned scholar, he seemed to leave the severity of the subject matter to stand by itself and not be diluted with extraneous thoughts.  "Stop and cogitate" he might have said. "These are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision".

Dr. Mohler continued on with many thoughts -  naming names, concepts, organization, etc. Leave it to say that I agreed with all that followed.  However, - allow me to deflect a little and expand on a thought that began the article. Immediately following his clarion-like call to courage, conviction, and clarity of vision he alludes to the bulldog-like efforts of the great Winston Churchill in his attempts to awaken a lethargic Western World community to the immanent dangers of the expansionist mentality of Adolph Hitler in the late 1930s.  He saw that if not impeded - Nazi hegemony would prevail over all of Europe (and beyond?).  One would do well to read the article. 

I was going to continue this article with allusions and conclusions concerning the situation surrounding the dark days preceding WW2.  Did Churchill prevail and awaken a comfortable World community, or did the reality of invasion do so?  The subject-matter became substantive enough that I thought it best to continue this line of thought with another post.  Part two to follow.

Let's close with this:  For those of you who are aware of World conditions and are sobered by such a scenario - Do you feel that our Christian community is going to soon become courageous, become convicted by the godless atmosphere that is pursuing the demise of Christianity and its moral and biblical code, and do you believe that a myopic clarity of vision is soon to prevail in the American church?  Do you even think that such a scenario is required?

My appeal is for us to consider the warnings of Dr. Mohler, to stop and cogitate and to consider that courage, conviction, and a clarity of vision may soon be demanded of us.  The World condition may force the matter upon us.