NOTES ON THE QUESTION OF THE AGE: A PERSONAL EXPLORATION OF ‘THE AMERICAN JESUS’ VS. THE JESUS OF THE CANON

SCRIPTURE. “Now when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they answered, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you [yourselves] say that I am?’

Simon Peter replied, ‘You are THE CHRIST, the Son of the living God.’ – MATTHEW 16:13-16, AMPC

QUOTATIONS

MERTON. “To know the Cross is not merely to know our own sufferings. For the Cross is the sign of salvation, and no man is saved by his own sufferings. ‘To know the Cross’ is to know that we are saved by the sufferings of Christ; more, it is to know the love of Christ Who underwent suffering and death in order to save us. It is, then, ‘to know Christ.’” ― Thomas Merton, ‘No Man Is an Island,’ 1955; edited

PLATT. “‘Radical obedience to Christ’ is not easy … It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough.” – Dr. David Platt, ‘Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream,’ 2010; cf. https://pulpitandpen.org/2017/11/27/another-mans-done-gone-david-platt-and-beth-moore/; edited

HITCHCOCK. “The greatest danger to the Church today is not humanism, paganism, atheism or agnosticism. The greatest danger is not increasing hostility against our faith from the culture. Our greatest danger is Apostasy on the inside, arising from ‘false teachers’– theological liberals who deny and distort biblical doctrine and lead others down the same path.” ― Mark Hitchcock, ‘The Coming Apostasy: Exposing the Sabotage of Christianity from Within,’ 2017; edited

FIRST THOUGHTS

MY PERSONAL STORY. It was on a chilly Colorado morning on Saturday, February 6, 2016, as I was walking Scout the Wonder Dog across the very icy surfaces and sidewalks that I fell. Hard. “Crack!” Didn’t need a doctor to tell me I had snapped my lower right leg and ankle like a twig, as the blinding pain left no doubt.

As I rolled around yelling for help, with a forlorn Scout looking agonizingly at me, several neighbors came out and called 911. One of them took Scout upstairs (he had never climbed stairs before that day!), and the first responders arrived within minutes. I recall saying to a Christian firefighter named Dennis, “Sorry for the bad words!” as I was hauled into the ambulance and taken to the ER.

After administering some wonderful pain killers and doing the x-rays, the attending orthopedic surgeon ordered up emergency surgery, as I was rolled into the OR for the next phase of the drama.

DK’S ‘DEATH.’ Now it was in the next 12 minutes or so that The Story really begins.

The med staff laid me on that ice cold steel operating table, for some reason arranged my arms straight out, and placed my two legs close together. Then they all left for what seemed like ages – 12 or so minutes I’d guess. And then ‘A Word’ filtered into my somewhat lightly drugged consciousness:

“Crucifixion.”

My first reaction was very godly indeed: “No way!” Nonetheless, I was to learn soon enough that my life was about to change radically in the months and years just ahead, though at that painful intersect, I hadn’t a clue as to how.

2016-2019. Here is just a brief rundown, chronologically, of how those changes were to take place.

MARCH 2016. I learned via a nondescript email that my 10-year contract with Liberty University was being terminated, becoming a ‘First Canary in the Coal Mine,’ if you will allow it. No reasons given. No personal visits from the University leadership. Just the email, ending my successful decade-long run at LU, with its generous annual salary.

2017-2018. Tried mightily to make permanent a consultancy with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, writing several carefully composed prospectus documents, penning an entire course on The History of the Jews, and offering my services as University Liaison many times through a frankly hostile middle manager and quiet rejections upstairs. Nada.

JUNE-OCTOBER 2019. Served briefly as the Acting Executive Director of the European Christian Mission International-USA, admittedly struggling to master the burgeoning administrative data bases and personnel connections. After being warned that writing about Trump “doesn’t advance our cause,” late one afternoon the brass came by and said, drive-by style: “You’re done. Pack and leave within the hour.”

AFTERMATH. So, there I was, packed up and standing next to my car as the sun began to set in so many ways, as I was imbued with a sort of shocked numbness all around and inside of me. No tears, just an anesthetized sense of resignation as I inquired of the Lord, quietly: “Father, what was that?” Then words I still have trouble believing:

“I’m proud of you.”

I instantly recoiled, unbelieving what I was hearing, as I dared to challenge The Voice. “What? How can this be, Sir! Just lost my third job in as many years, I have exhausted all my prospects, and I don’t know what to tell my family.”

To decompress, I decided to attend a Christian movie by filmmaker Alex Kendrick, ‘Overcomer’ just released in October 2019, about a failing coach and a one-woman, Cross Country team (my high school sport was Cross Country), and I settled in for a pensive 90 minutes. About 17 minutes into the film, the coach says to his one, failing female athlete:

“I’m proud of you.”

BIRTH OF ‘THE FELLOWSHIP.’ Five times that phrase was repeated by ‘the Coach.’ So having been lovingly reassured by the Spirit of the Lord in no uncertain terms, my family took the news calmly, and I spent the next 6 months continuing in comparative poverty, but still writing Commentaries warning about Donald Trump.

Each in their own way had made it clear they wanted me to ‘Stop attacking Donald Trump.’ Selah. Selah.

Then as Covid-19 was exploding everywhere, ‘Y’all happened.’ For some reason, my completely failed fundraising efforts took flight, and the financial support started flowing in MARCH 2020, and has not stopped since. So ended my Three-Year, comparatively threadbare Wilderness Experience as an Outcast.

My ‘Annihilation.’

THE LESSON. I believe with all my heart that GOD IS PROUD OF US, as we ‘Stand for Him,’ no matter the losses, beloved. So do I presently move gratefully and yes, joyfully, into whatever Future God has for us all. And every single measure of praise and honor and glory and accolade goes to the One who brought me through it to this present station:

‘Best job I ever had!’’ Hat tip to Brad Pitt from the movie, ‘Fury’ (2014).

THE AMERICAN JESUS

Writers much more discerning than this Johnny-come-lately have been warning for years now about the spiritual danger of ‘joining’ the cultural myth of the American Dream with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Canon. But despite their sometimes impassioned, cautionary pleas, we have clearly not heeded them.

Here is an excellent example of what has occurred in the American Church over the past 30 years or so, and acutely in the last five. It is by pastor and author BRANDON BOONE in his Blog entitled, “King Jesus and the American Dream,” published on February 26, 2019; edited.

Unapologetically quoted at length for its razor-sharp precision and literary power.

“Eliciting much sympathy for the American Church is hard. It seems we have been blessed with more widespread freedom, leisure, and resources than any other geopolitically defined group in Christian history. While brothers and sisters in Christ starve physically and endure persecution socially in places like North Korea, Pakistan, Somalia, and others, we sit, seemingly fat and fit.

But, while we are indeed physically fat, we are not spiritually fit.

When the Christian best-sellers list is filled, year after year, with gussied-up, pseudo-spiritual, self-help titles in which a Bible verse actually quoted in context is as rare as the Western Plains Jackalope, we’ve got a problem. When our chief spiritual export to the world is a false gospel that says to the less fortunate, ‘If you have enough faith, God will give you the kind of life we enjoy by the accident of our having been born in the land of the free and the home of the brave,’ we’re sharing that problem. When both our pastors and the people they lead are more concerned with propping up a corrupt system of government than promoting the Kingdom of Christ, ‘we’ve crossed a line’.

What happened? How did all of our apparent advantages lead to this mind-boggling situation? One reason is that we have an Enemy and he convinced us that we could follow Jesus ‘and’ live the American Dream. That Jesus could be our King and our Lifestyle remain unchanged. That so long as we prayed a prayer, sang some songs, and dropped 10% in the plate each Sunday, we could do what we wanted with the rest of our life. That the needs of our brothers and sisters could be matters of prayer and not matters of sacrifice. That our churches could glorify God even as they promoted their brand. That concern for the poor is now the government’s job as we stuff our coffers and bedazzle our sanctuaries.

‘And it’s killing us.’ The Lie that we can serve both God and money [or political power] is driving the American Church over the cliff and into oblivion.”

IN SUM. What you have just read is as eloquent and bold a Definition of ‘The American Gospel’ as you will ever read. It dares to render the Messiah a Money and Pleasure Dispenser just waiting for you to faith yourself enough and sing loud enough to find His favor and receive endless trains of His abundance.

If you fell like retching about now, it would be quite appropriate. – cf. Revelation 3:16

While there are still ‘good churches’ out there, they are precious few and far between. Most are shamefully overwhelmed by a ‘New Christian Dominionism’ coughed up from the early days of the Politicization of the Gospel by such spiritual pioneers as Jerry Falwell Sr. and his errant son, Jerry Jr., Pat Robertson, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy and later, the entire pantheon of Faith-Prosperity stars such as E. W. Kenyon, Oral Roberts, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Hagin, Reverend Ike, Robert Tilton, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, and countless dozens if not hundreds more.

THEN CAME TRUMP. At precisely the right Moment in American Church history, Donald John Trump exploded on the political and religious scene to say all the things these leaders wanted to hear. This after decades of devastating erosion of sound doctrine in the Houses of God across the entire nation.

But it was so very much more than that, beloved. So vastly more than just that.

In a scintillating essay for ‘The Atlantic’ that I have cited before, the eminent Evangelical scholar PETER WEHNER, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, titled his latest commentary this way: “The Evangelical Church is Breaking Apart,” published on October 24, 2021; edited.

Quoted at length again to a nation fed for two to three generations on a steady diet of sound bites, empty memes and empty clichés all dressed up in glitzy graphics fit for a seven-year-old. Since I believe it’s a good idea to get each other to ‘think again,’ thus the long quotes presenting ‘meaty ideas’ on which to chew for a change.

“What happened at [Pastor David Platt’s] McLean Bible Church is happening all over the evangelical world. Influential figures such as the theologian Russell Moore and the Bible teacher Beth Moore felt compelled to leave the Southern Baptist Convention; both were targeted by right-wing elements within the SBC. The Christian Post, an online evangelical newspaper, published an op-ed by one of its contributors criticizing religious conservatives like Platt, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, as ‘progressive Christian figures’ who ‘commonly champion leftist ideology’ …

The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian Faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian Faith.”

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM. In the wake of Donald Trump’s nearly complete ‘Coup d’etat’ of the White Evangelical Church in America, we have the rapid emergence of Christian Nationalism. I argue here that it stands in vicious and blasphemous Defiance of true, Canonical Christian Faith.

Writing for ‘Christianity Today’ is PAUL D. MILLER in superb analysis of this comparatively new movement in the American Church (February 3, 2021). Here are some excerpts of what ‘The American Jesus’ has come to mean.

“‘Christian Nationalism’ is the belief that the American Nation is defined by Christianity, and that the Government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian Nationalists assert that America is and must remain a ‘Christian Nation’—not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future. Scholars like Samuel Huntington have made a similar argument: That America is defined by its ‘Anglo-Protestant’ past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance …

Christian Nationalism takes the name of Christ for a worldly political agenda, proclaiming that its program is the political program for every true believer. That is wrong in principle, no matter what the agenda is, because only the Church is authorized to proclaim the name of Jesus and carry His standard into the world. It is even worse with a political movement that champions some causes that are unjust, which is the case with Christian Nationalism and its attendant Illiberalism. In that case, Christian Nationalism is calling evil good and good evil; it is taking the name of Christ as a fig leaf to cover its political program, treating the message of Jesus as a tool of political propaganda and the Church as the handmaiden and cheerleader of the State.”

THE CATALYST. While this Ideology has been around for some time in Christian America, I will continue to argue that the Trigger Man to all of this now fully engaged Heresy inside the Household of God is none other than DONALD JOHN TRUMP. I further propose that he is operating more and more powerfully under the influence of the Spirit of Antichrist, and all its attendant political ambition and spiritual violence.

Soon and very soon, our politics are destined to become more violent as well.

SPIRITUAL PERIL. Therefore, it is inarguable by these doctrinal standards that all Christians who follow Donald Trump are in violation of the Canon, and thereby risk becoming fully ‘Apostate’ before the Court of Heaven.

Paul the Apostle said it plain enough to refute any contrary view.

“You cannot drink [both] the Lord’s cup and the cup of demons. You cannot share in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons [thereby becoming partners with them]. Do we [really] provoke the Lord to jealousy [when we eat food sacrificed to handmade ‘gods’ at pagan feasts]? Are we [spiritually] stronger than He? [Certainly not! He knows that the idols are nothing. But ‘we deeply offend Him.’]” – 1 CORINTHIANS 10:21-22, AMP

The reference to “food” here is allegorical reference to our ‘consuming foreign ideas’ from a False Christ, and daring to ‘blend’ [or Syncretize] them with the Jesus of the Gospel. This cannot be done with impunity, ever!

THE CANONICAL JESUS

In sometimes stunning and frankly outrageous contrast to the Jesus of Donald Trump, is found what can best be described as ‘The Real Jesus.’ It is nothing less than shamefully astounding that our churches have largely forgotten or ignored this Messiah, in favor of the Americanized, romanticized, and politicized Deity who I now see as:

‘The Schizophrenic Jesus.’

Who on the one hand indiscriminately schmoozes and schmooches affectionately with anyone who calls themselves ‘Christian,’ no matter their conduct; while at the same time plots and schemes to violently overthrow the secular government for Divine Supremacy.

A cross between Mr. Rogers and Rasputin. Yeah, ‘that’ Jesus, whoever he is.

THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHRIST. So, after a somewhat exhaustive review of possible sources to paint a picture of a much more ‘Biblical Messiah,’ I was delighted to find a theologically adept rendering by DR. DARRYL DASH. Pastor-theologian-author and graduate of Gordon-Conwell and Heritage Theological Seminaries, he comes light years closer to describing who The Real Jesus is.

Adapted from his essay, “The Characteristics of Jesus: Luke 2:21-36,” published on his blog, ‘Dashhouse,’ December 30, 2018; edited.

JESUS IS GOOD. “We tend to think of the Law as a negative thing, as something that hems us in and keeps us from being fulfilled. The Bible presents the very opposite picture. The Law is given as an act of love from God so that we can learn to live like He does. The Law reflects God’s character. The closer we stay to keeping God’s Law, the closer we are to living in line with what God is like. The Law is not oppressive. It’s actually liberating. ‘Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us” (Tim Keller, ‘The Reason for God,’ 2009). Our problem is that we have not kept God’s Law. It’s the reason the world is such a mess. And if you ask how far this problem goes back in our lives, you have to go back right back to the very beginning. Nobody had to teach us to throw temper tantrums. Nobody had to teach us to want to take other people’s toys. Nobody had to teach us to be self-centered. Lawlessness comes naturally to all of us.”

JESUS IS CONSOLATION. Quoting John Piper here: “Jesus Christ is the consolation of the Father’s open arms to Jew and Gentile. Jesus Christ is the Consolation of the universal amnesty of God held out to the world of rebellious creatures. Jesus Christ is the Consolation of God as we look back on all sin and hate and anger and guilt and shame and doubt and failure. Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah 49:13: ‘Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has consoled his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.’ So it makes sense to set your heart on Christ … because if there is any deep longing in your heart for a consolation and comfort that this world cannot satisfy, it is because God is preparing you to recognize and receive his gift: Jesus Christ, the Consolation of Israel. Don’t seek it anywhere but in Him.”

JESUS IS DIVISIVE. “Jesus is Good and Jesus is a Consolation. This One isn’t so nice. Jesus is Divisive. Jesus is a Consolation for many, but He will also be opposed. Jesus comes not as a universally popular Savior, but opposed by many, and Jesus’ own mother will partake of those sorrows. Jesus Himself said later on, ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’ (Matthew 10:34). Wherever Jesus Christ comes, with whomsoever He may come in contact, He is never without influence, never inoperative, but in every case a weighty result is produced … Never does a man hear the Gospel but he either rises or falls under that hearing. There is never a proclamation of Jesus Christ (and this is the spiritual coming forth of Christ Himself) which leaves men precisely where they were; the Gospel is sure to have some effect upon those who hear it (C.H. Spurgeon, “Christ: The Rise and Fall of Many,” December 26, 1869). When it comes to Jesus, ‘there’s no middle ground.’ Jesus calls for a verdict. You either trust in Him or you’re opposed to Him. There’s no middle ground. ‘You must decide!’ Either He is your Fall or He is your Rising. Jesus reveals your heart. You must trust Him, because there’s no other option except that you oppose Him.”

DK’S TAKE. My heart literally sang when I read Dr. Dash’s words, sang, I tell you! How long I have waited to read of the Real Jesus from a true man of God, ‘who knows Him,’ the Whole Jesus, fully Man, fully God in both His tenderness and His severity, requiring absolute commitment to Him, and nothing less. On our lives or on our deaths.

Or in the magnificent words of the Apostle:

“And this, ‘so that I may know Him’ [experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely] and [in that same way experience] the power of His resurrection [which overflows and is active in believers], and [that I may share] the fellowship of His sufferings, by being continually conformed [inwardly into His likeness even] to His death [dying as He did]; so that I may attain to the resurrection [that will raise me] from the dead.” – PHILIPPIANS 3:10-11, AMP

This Jesus, this Vision of who He is and who we must become, beloved! This Jesus is what the Church so very desperately needs to return to in this Hour of Apostasy and an Americanized, seditiously ‘diluted and confused Jesus,’ so disgustingly prevalent in the House of God today.

THE TEACHING

Simon Peter replied, ‘You are THE CHRIST, the Son of the living God.’ – MATTHEW 16:13-16, AMPC

So, to the very meaty center of our inquiry, indeed, to the only QUESTION begging for, indeed, beggaring an answer before He Arrives to address it ever so personally and powerfully, beloved. ‘Just Who is this Jesus?’

We start with a single KEY TERM that separates God’s wheat from Satan’s tares, the true disciple from the false, as we begin our deep dive.

THE CHRIST. From the Greek, ‘Christos’ [Χριστός]: “The Anointed One, the Messiah; Consecrated by God’s Holy Oil; the High Priest; Head of the Church; implicates the presence of Sound Doctrine leading to true Christian Faith.” IN SUM. ‘This’ Jesus is the One and only begotten Son of God the Father of Lights, Yahweh, He is the Creator-Sustainer of all, the singular, Divine, perfect and immutable Truth for all the questions of the Universe. ‘This’ Jesus, is the very Center of The Faith, the Living Word from Genesis to Revelation, every jot and tittle and nuance. He is, in exquisite precision: THE ANSWER! Anything less is cheap imitation at best, and hideous blasphemy at worst.

THE COMMENTARY. “And Simon Peter answered and said … Either of his own accord, and for himself, being a warm, zealous, and forward man; one that dearly loved Christ, truly believed in Him, and was ready to make a confession of Him; or, as the mouth of the rest, in their name, and with their consent; or, at least, as full well knowing the sentiments of their minds. ‘Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God’: A short, but a very full Confession of Faith, containing the following articles.

As that there is a God, that there is but one God; that He is the Living God, has life in Himself, is the Fountain of Life to others, and by this is distinguishable from the idols of the Gentiles: That Jesus is the Christ, the Christ of God, the true Messiah, that was promised by God, prophesied of by all the Prophets, from the beginning of the world, and expected by the people of God: A Character that includes all His offices, of prophet, priest, and king, to which He is anointed by God; and that this Messiah was not a mere man, but a Divine Person, the Son of God; not by creation, as angels and men are, nor by adoption, as saints, nor by office, as magistrates, but by nature, being His own Son, his proper Son, the only begotten of the Father, of the same nature with Him, being one with Him, and equal to Him.” – JOHN GILL, ‘An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments,’ 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited

DK’S TAKE. For some time now, one of my primary griefs over what is presented to Christians in America today is what I can only refer to as, ‘A Partial Jesus.’ It is as if we have tried to tame the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, to make Him gentler, kinder and frankly, utterly, exhaustively ‘non-judgmental.’

Thus the ‘Contradiction’ between this gentle Lamb-God, and the Brute conjured by the Christian Nationalists – those who seek to conquer or even eliminate all the Unsaved who, by the way, Jesus came to save!

The Apostle had a few things to say about such sacrilege.

“But I am afraid that, even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, your minds may be corrupted and led away from the simplicity of [your sincere and] pure devotion to Christ. For [you seem willing to allow it] if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted. You tolerate all this beautifully [welcoming the deception] …

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we [originally] preached to you, let him be condemned to destruction! As we have said before, so I now say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel different from that which you received [from us], let him be condemned to destruction!” – 2 CORINTHIANS 11:3-4; GALATIANS 1:8-9, AMP

THE ACCURSED! This most forceful term selected by God’s Spirit is from the Greek, ‘Anathema’ [ἀνάθεμα]: “A curse, the thing cursed; a man accursed, devoted to the direst woes; pregnantly equivalent to doomed and so separated from Christ; a (religious) ban or (concretely) excommunicated (thing or person); the word does not denote punishment intended as discipline, but a being given over to ‘Divine condemnation’ [due to violation of] an indissoluble vow.”

That is correct. I am arguing directly from the Canon here that devoted Christian Nationalists inspired and led by Donald Trump are very probably considered by The True Jesus to be “accursed,” or to be doctrinally blunt: ‘Eternally condemned.’

In a most succinct summary of the severity of these passages, WILLIAM MACDONALD writes in support: “Whereas the Law has a curse for those who fail to ‘keep’ it, the Gospel has a curse for those who seek to ‘change’ it.” – ‘Bible Believer’s Commentary,’ 1995, p. 1876; edited

Selah.

LAST THOUGHTS

We therefore come to the inexorable point of the present Crisis of the American Church: It has chosen to become entangled in the godless politics of Donald Trump’s brutal, power-driven ‘Ethnic Triumphalism,’ and thereby destroyed the integrity of our Christian witness for a generation. And nothing less.

So has the American, primarily White Church, dared to ‘De-throne the Canonical Jesus,’ replacing Him with a hideous, profane and wanton False Christ. The penalty for which shall be Damnation for all who willfully subscribe to it.

THE DEATH OF GOD. It pains me to write these words, but beloved, at this point after five years of the most strenuous struggle with God’s Truth I have ever engaged, I can conclude no other. I just cannot join hands and heart with this seditious attempted overthrow of The True Christ, in favor of some politically expedient, altogether hideous canonization of this utterly wicked man, Donald Trump.

I am here once again reminded of the Historic Lament of FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE as he wrote of the brass and crass Secularization of society in his day, published in ‘The Gay Science’ (1882). It is a prescient though painful read indeed.

“The Madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God?’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed Him — you and I. All of us are His murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the Divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed Him.’”

THE REMEDY. It very nearly goes without saying, but sadly does these days, that the only way back from this American Abyss is by a wholesale, passionate and Church-Wide REPENTANCE AND REFORM. Not by some political agenda or by increased material or military hegemony, accompanied by a foaming patriotism. No, beloved. No!

Here is the Way Back, by the Law and by the Prophets, and by no other.

“IF MY PEOPLE, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” – 2 CHRONICLES 7:14, AMPC

Or not.

‘His’ people, beloved. ‘Christians’ by no other name. Not the Liberals nor the Pagan nor the Democrats nor the burgeoning debauched of the earth. No. He said, “If MY people!”

And all the more to the Pastors and Priests and Teachers who have led or tolerated this poisonous Rebellion against the True Jesus, who have scattered the sheep of His Pasture. – cf. Jeremiah 23:1

To these, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah still speaks Grace to those who will hear – but only for a few moments more.

“Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met].” – JOEL 2:13, AMPC

May it ever be so, even at this late hour, beloved. Even this very day, that you might not perish from the whole earth, and forever denied the sacred blaze and wonder of God’s Eternal Heaven.

Ever you servant, DK

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