This is an open letter to all those who are so fearful of COVID-19 that you are willing to impose indefinite, liberty-curbing restrictions on your fellow citizens.  I understand a certain amount of concern regarding this virus.  It has taken the lives of many people in America and in the world.
However, as the early days of this outbreak passed and it became apparent that, while more deadly than the seasonal flu, it was nowhere close to an apocalyptic event, this virus was not allowed to be put in proper perspective.  The true risks of death were never properly framed, instead allowing hyperbolic worst-case scenarios to be amplified and panic to ensue.  Panic led to poor public policy and life-altering devastation beyond the physical toll of the virus itself. 

Normal citizens suddenly became outlaws for not wearing masks, trying to keep their businesses open, having parties with friends, and attending church.  Neighbor has turned against neighbor as we have quickly been conditioned to view fellow human beings as potential agents of death who need to be properly compliant for the good of all.  No longer is it each person taking responsibility for their own well-being, but instead we have grown comfortable telling others how to live to enable us to feel safe.  And along the way many developed an irrational standard that no one should ever get sick again.

I believe that many of you are coming from a place of sincerity.  You want to protect yourselves, your loved ones, and society at large.  But there are bigger issues at stake than a virus.  Over the past year we have seen pastors arrested for the crime of keeping their churches open.  Mothers hauled off in handcuffs for taking their children to a playground.  We are now talking about forcing people to get injected with an experimental vaccine to obtain a “passport” to return to normal society.  We are vilifying our neighbors and seeing a dystopian society unfold before our very eyes.
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But I suppose dystopia is in the eye of the beholder.  Those blinded by fear see restriction as prudence, compliance as necessary, and resistance as a threat to the safety of all.  However, if you persist in leading us down this path, the day will come when someone else’s fear will be used to force you to do something that you do not want to do.  Only then will you understand the proper balance between liberty and safety.  But by then it will be too late, because in the name of your vision of safety you will have silenced all the voices who might have spoken on behalf of your liberty.

​There are certain tactics would-be tyrants employ to claim and maintain power.  These strategies are being carried out in our current society.  It is important to recognize them for what they are before they achieve their purpose.
 
Division
We are all familiar with the term “divide and conquer”.  Tyrants seek to divide society into groups.  They turn group affiliation into personal identification to separate the individual from the unifying greater whole.  We are no longer American, Christian, etc.  We are instead black, white, gay, trans, male, female, etc. They then pit these groups against each other to weaken the structure of the society they seek to overthrow.  The groups take on descriptors such as oppressed and oppressor, extremist and resistance, patriarchy and progressive.  There is no denying that our current society is deeply divided and ripe for overthrow.
 
Intimidation
Hitler had his “brown shirts” who in the days prior to his rise to total power, would patrol the sidelines of parades and beat anyone who refused to give the Nazi salute.  By-standers quickly learned that they had better publicly honor the aspiring German leader and his National Socialist party whether they fully agreed with him or not.  Intimidation coerces the appearance of support from the ambivalent, amplifying the perceived power of a movement.  Perception becomes reality.  Today we have the BLM movement, ANTIFA, and Cancel Culture both literally and figuratively beating people into submission to advance an ideology that seeks to transform the structure of our society.  The individuals involved in these causes might think they are working to build a better world, but they are just foot soldiers for a tyranny that will bring them to heel when their usefulness has run its course.
 
Fear
Ben Franklin famous said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  Promising safety to a frightened population in exchange for their total submission is perhaps the oldest trick of tyrants.  For decades, the Democrat party has used the fear of economic insecurity and the promises of government benefits to carve out a perpetual constituency.  The Republicans used the fear of terrorism following 9/11 to bring about one of the most audacious submissions of personal liberty in the form of the Patriot Act.  But both pale in comparison to the chilling suspension of liberty during the COVID-19 crisis.  The year 2020 proved to tyrants that Americans can be frightened into total submission.
 
Ignorance
The prophet Hosea wrote, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”  There was a reason why it was forbidden to teach slaves to read and write.  Knowledge is power.  The absence of knowledge makes it easier to control others.  If you do not know or understand other groups, you can be made to believe they are your enemy.  If facts are not presented to you in the proper context, a disease can be amplified into a terror-inducing plague that can then be used as a pretext to get you to accept previously unthinkable restrictions upon your liberty.
 
Vilification
To complete their rise to power, tyrants need to paint the old order as something that is evil and therefore the moral imperative is to replace it.  They also need to vilify anyone who refuses to conform to the objectives of the revolution.  This is where the seeds of division, the fruit of fear, the blindness of ignorance, and the hammer of intimidation combine to overthrow society and replace it with tyranny.  When a segment of society refuses to be made ignorant or sufficiently frightened, the fearful and compliant must be made to believe that the non-compliance of others is a threat to their safety.  Enforcing compliance becomes a matter of survival and extreme measures can therefore be justified to eliminate any opposition.  This is the path to concentration camps and mass graves.  This is the path we are on.
 
The tools of tyrants are doing their work on our society.  It is not yet too late to prevent the completion of their end goal.  We must reject division.  We must refuse to be intimidated.  We must stay informed and engage in critical thinking.  We must never allow ourselves to be frightened into surrendering our freedom, even if we are told it is just for a short time.  Above all else, we must maintain a firm reliance on the promises of God.  He brings us unity through faith in him.  He brings us strength to withstand those who would intimidate us.  He brings us hope in the face of fear.  And in him all truth is rooted.  As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Abortion became legal in America under the premise that it was to be “safe, legal, and rare”.  It was supposed to only occur in the first trimester.  It was to be an option of last resort for women in desperate situations.  It was a little moral compromise (although some would argue it was not little at all).

But what has it led to?  The debate has shifted to third trimester abortions and even partial birth abortions, where a viable human being is being executed only moments from being born.  Abortion is no longer an unfortunate decision a desperate woman feels compelled to make.  It has become a battle-cry in the culture war.  Some wear it as a badge of honor.  It has become a litmus test for an entire political party – support it in all its forms or there is no place for you.  This party now runs two of the three branches of our federal government.

But beyond this dark culture shift, there are even greater horrors.  The organs and tissues of aborted human beings are being harvested and used in scientific research.  As if this is not macabre enough, these tissues are being combined with animals in some forms of research.
 Scientists Use Scalps From Aborted Babies to Create “Humanized Mice” for Research | LifeNews.com

It is hard to imagine that the vast majority of those supporting abortion when Roe v. Wade was being decided would have supported these outcomes.  Yet we would not be where we are today if each incremental moral decline was not supported by the majority of Americans.  And to clarify, support does not necessarily mean active endorsement.  It can also mean turning a blind eye so as to advance other interests (i.e., supporting radical abortion politicians because you prefer their economic policies, etc.).

This is the problem with little moral compromises.  They often lead to great evil.  First trimester abortions have led to killing fully developed babies.  The innocuous “love is love” campaign redefined marriage and thereby kicked open the door to redefine any and everything.  As a result, society’s embrace of homosexual marriage emboldened the transgender movement which has led to gender confusion and doctor’s mutilating the bodies of children.

Little compromises have led to a descent into madness.  It used to be understood that a woman was carrying a human being in her womb, not some ambiguous “choice”.  We used to understand that individuals born with certain biological attributes were a certain gender (some of us still do).  Now we pretend that there are infinite genders and that they can be interchanged at will, depending on how one chooses to “identify”.

We can see where the little moral compromises of yesterday have led.  When you compromise the definitions of foundational principles such as life, marriage, and gender you begin to unravel the fabric of reality itself.  The question is what further evil awaits from the little moral compromises we are making today?
 

A lot of Christians are afraid right now.  They feel that they are being targeted for persecution.  They see eerie similarities to the lead up to the Holocaust whereby the Jews were first marginalized, then dehumanized, then completely disenfranchised for the greater “good” of German society, then moved to concentration camps where most of them were ultimately executed.  This article is not about how close we are to that level of persecution.  Instead it is about how Christians should respond in the face of any level of persecution, be it the threat of social ostracization or death.
 
1.  Do not be afraid.  Our life in this world is a temporary existence until we enter the eternal kingdom of God.  Death is not something to be feared but rather welcomed as the ultimate homecoming.  However, there is a wide spectrum of persecution that comes short of death and I understand the fear of hardship, suffering, and torture.  It is in such circumstances that we must trust in God to strengthen us to endure our suffering, and in doing so, shine as lights in the darkness. 

2.  Do not place your hope in changing this world.  Our kingdom is not of this world.  We live in a fallen world that will one day be restored when Jesus returns to set up his earthly kingdom.  This world is a sinking ship.   It hit an iceberg when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden of Eden and has been taking on water ever since.  There are some Christians who feel that it is their duty to bail water and repair the ship.  That is not our duty.  Our duty is to guide people to the lifeboats (the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus) that will carry them to a new perfect ship (Heaven). 

However, this does not mean that we refrain from engaging in the mechanisms of civil society to protect our rights to live out our beliefs.  Indeed, we should be active in protecting our rights.  But we should never confuse protecting our right to live out our beliefs with imposing our beliefs on others.  Imposition leads to resistance and resentment.  Ours is the path of persuasion which leads to sincere conversion and salvation.
 
3.  You must stand for what you believe, no matter the cost.  A long line of Christians who have compromised their beliefs have led us to this place and I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to making compromises.  Laziness, indifference, misplaced priorities, and a love of entertainment that exceeded our value of truth have enriched and empowered the institutions that now seek to exert their power to silence and de-person us. 
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We are now in a place where you must be willing to lose your job, social standing, friendships, and possibly even some family relationships to stand for what you believe in.  Some of you might say you have children to support and cannot afford to take a stand that would lead to a loss of income.  I would refer you back to point number one – do not be afraid. 
 
Because my parent’s generation refused to stand during a time when it just meant giving up some free time to more closely follow politics to make better voting decisions, attend school board meetings or give up some forms of entertainment or preferred products to send a message to stem the erosion of Christian values, people of my generation are now faced with the loss of careers and income to support their families if they dare to stand.  And if this generation refuses to stand it is not a stretch to think that our children could be faced with imprisonment or death for standing for their beliefs.
 
It is important to understand what standing is and is not.  Standing is not storming the US Capitol.  It is not lashing out in Twitter tirades or talking about civil war.  Standing is less about what you will do and more about what you will not do.  Standing is saying that you will not give in to a lie, no matter how many people want to pretend that it is true.  Standing is refusing to hide your beliefs.  Standing is refusing to modify your behavior for unjust reasons.
 
As Christians we should look to the examples Jesus provided.  Jesus confounded the expectations of his followers because they expected the Messiah to overthrow Rome and establish his kingdom by force.  Instead Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to create a path for salvation.  He was mostly silent as he stood before his unjust accusers.  He refused to let them put their words in his mouth – their attempt to make him what they wanted him to be so as to ease their consciences as they destroyed him.  His silence enraged them further because they knew they were in the wrong and he was giving them no avenue to justify their actions.  Rather than becoming what they accused him of being, he was revealing them for what they were – liars, tyrants, and hypocrites.
 
When the Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, they gave all the liars, tyrants, and hypocrites the “out” they had been longing for.  The Trump supporters became what up until then they had been unjustly accused of being.  In doing so, they have enabled a sense of moral justification among those who would suppress certain points of view.
 
The Christian model of standing is not about crossing lines to defend a way of life.  It is about drawing a line and saying, “no further”.  It is about saying I have love for homosexuals, but I will not change the God-ordained definition of marriage.  It is about saying I have love for people struggling with gender identity, but I will not change the definition of male and female or accept the notion of more than two genders.  It is about saying I have empathy for women confronted with an unplanned pregnancy and am willing to help find solutions for them, but I will never condone the killing of an unborn life.  It is about saying that our government has the authority to take reasonable steps to fight the spread of a dangerous disease but it does not have the right to destroy the livelihoods of its citizens, their right to freely assemble, or the right to freely worship. 
 
And when the day comes when you are told you must accept these things or suffer certain consequences, standing means enduring the consequences.  And as a Christian, it means loving those who inflict the consequences upon you, as difficult as that might be.  For you see, our purpose on this earth is not to win political debates or social battles.  It is to glorify God in the living our lives and in doing so to help lead others to Him.
 
When you shine through your suffering, your oppressors are denied the darkness they require to cloak their unjust deeds.  When you stand it raises the question in the minds of others “what is this belief that is worth losing so much over”?  And when you gracefully endure suffering it raises the question “who is this God that inspires such grace”?  These questions and their answers have the potential to save souls.  This is why we must stand and why we must be willing to suffer with grace.
 

The words in the title represent the plan to destroy Christianity in America.  It began with convincing Christians to compartmentalize their faith.  This is the concept that our faith should not bleed over into other areas of our lives.  Politicians should not govern according to the principles of their faith.  Teachers should not wear symbols of their faith at school.  In short, it is fine to go to church and pray in our homes, but religion must be kept out of the public realm.  More and more we were conditioned to keep our faith to ourselves, which is the exact opposite of the Great Commission Jesus issued to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.  Sadly, far too many Christians chose compartmentalization over their commission.
 
The next phase is isolation.  This is the phase we are currently in.  It began with a shift in culture that painted Christian values as tools of oppression, objects of ridicule, and proof of ignorance.  The intent was to turn Christianity into a badge of shame, an affiliation so absurd that no one in their right mind would want to be associated with it.  The goal was to culturally marginalize Christians – to make them feel as though they were in the minority despite the fact they held the majority.  This effort has been wildly successful.  This culture shift has allowed the minority to claim unprecedented victories in the realm of public policy and has even started to shift our definitions of reality.
 
But this year isolation took on an even more concrete and troubling form.  The COVID-19 crisis created a pretext to shutdown churches and prevent Christians from gathering.  Christians have watched as grocery stores, home and garden stores, and abortion clinics have remained open while houses of worship were deemed unessential.  Christians have watched as “peaceful” protestors have gathered in crowds for days on end, shouting, looting, and setting fires, even as Christians are prohibited from singing or chanting in some of the very states were protesting has gone on unhindered.
 
What we are seeing is leftists groups that are being allowed to display shows of strength to influence and intimidate to advance an ideology, while Christians are separated down to the household level, thereby creating a psychological effect where Christians feel even more powerless and unable to fight back against the changes that are taking place around them.  And should churches dare to fight back, the next phase will soon be implemented.  The insistence of churches to gather will be blamed for COVID deaths in the months to come.  They will say we could have had this disease beaten if stupid Christians would have just worshipped at home.  They will say this even has protestors continue to fill the streets and liberal elites continue to display their hypocrisy by flouting the oppressive rules they put in place.
 
This is the demonization phase, where all ills of our current society will be blamed on Christians.  Critical Race Theory will advance to its inevitable conclusion and blame Christianity for slavery and the unjust founding of our nation.  Traditional Christianity will be labeled an irredeemably racist religion used to justify white supremacy and foisted upon slaves to condition them to endure their suffering.  Only a social justice version of Christianity will be allowed to continue – one that accepts homosexuality, abortion, unlimited genders, and denies the exclusivity of Jesus as the only path to Heaven. 
 
This will in effect be the destruction of Christianity.  Churches who do not obey the social justice doctrine will be forcibly shutdown.  Those who preach a gospel contrary to the socially acceptable one will be “cancelled”, charged with hate crimes and imprisoned.  This is our future if we do not actively work to change its course.  We need to reject compartmentalization, reverse our isolation, and refuse to be demonized.  If we do not do these things, Christianity as we know it will be destroyed.

We as Christians tend to look to the Ten Commandments to judge how our performance measures up against God’s expectations.  And while it is true that Jesus boiled the essence of these commandments down to two: love God and love your neighbor, he spent a great part of his ministry focusing on another means by which the work of those who claim to follow him would be judged.
 
When it comes to the Ten Commandments, Jesus repeatedly showed mercy to those who broke them.  He intervened on behalf of the adulteress.  He declared that the thief who was crucified next to him would join him in Heaven.  He asked God to pardon those who were responsible for his death.  He gained such a reputation for associating with sinners that the Pharisees held him in disdain.
 
When it came to his teaching, Jesus did not focus his teaching on how we handle sin, but rather how we handle grace.  He admonishes us to judge not lest we be judged.  He used the parable of the servant who had his debt forgiven but refused to forgive the debt owed to him to drive home this point (Mat. 18:23-35). 
 
He used the parable of the Prodigal Son to show the love we should have for those who turn back to God and to not be like the “good” son who was embittered by the grace shown to his wayward brother (Luke 15:11-32).  In similar fashion, Jesus used the parable of the workers in which the ones who worked from the start of the day were given the same wage as the ones who worked only an hour (Mat. 20:1-16).  The lesson is that grace is something given, not earned and we should not feel more entitled to it than others who we might deem less worthy.
 
Jesus left his disciples with the “Great Commission” to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.  How seriously should we take this assignment?  Jesus taught the parable of the servants who were each given talents by their master.  Two of the servants invested the money to make more money for their master, while the third servant hid the talent away (Mat. 25:14-30).  This is a lesson on the gift of grace.  Two of the servants could be seen as sharing the gospel message of grace so that more souls were won to Christ, whereas the third servant accepted grace for himself but did not go to the trouble of sharing the gospel with anyone else. 
 
In the parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus speaks of five virgins who brought lamps and oil to wait for the bridegroom, while the other five only brought lamps (Mat. 25:1-13).  This reveals a superficial attitude.  Five could not be bothered to carry the extra weight of the oil, most likely because they were not willing to entertain the idea of having to wait so long that extra oil would be required.  This speaks to Christians who are only willing to do the bare minimum to be a Christian.
 
It should be noted that we do not see Jesus admonishing “sinners”, but we do see him issuing rather stern rebukes to servants who fail in their work.  The servant who refused to forgive the debt owed to him had the forgiveness of his debt revoked and was sent to the torturers until his debt was paid off.  The servant who hid his talent away had it taken from him and was cast out.  The five virgins who ran out of oil for their lamps were not allowed into the wedding feast.
 
These lessons cut to the heart of how Christ judges the work of his servants.  We are to be active Christians, not passive Christians.  We are not to just sit back and do the bare minimum with the grace that Christ has given to us.  We are to share the message of grace with others so that they too might be saved.  We do not earn our grace through works, but once we receive grace, our work is to share it with others.

​As our society becomes increasingly divided, it is all too easy to join in the division – to get caught up in Twitter wars and Facebook battles.  But it is at a time like this that we as Christians need to take a step back and remember what our true purpose is as children of God.  Ours is the same mission given to the very first disciples of Jesus – The Great Commission to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
 
One need not look to the far-flung corners of the world to find those in need of hearing the gospel.  We can see them on our televisions rioting in the streets.  We can watch their TikTok videos where they have emotional breakdowns because the death of a Supreme Court justice threatens their ability to end the life of possible future unborn child.  There is darkness growing all around us.  Never has this nation founded on Christianity been in such dire need of those willing to spread the gospel message.
 
We could instead choose to go down the path of judgment.  We could point out their sinfulness.  Their abject stupidity.  The irreparable damage they are doing to themselves and this country.  They will not listen.
 
They expect us to behave like them.  They expect us to hate them as much as they hate us.  The genius of God’s plan of salvation was that it defied the fallen human nature.  It gave humans something they did not deserve.  This is the doctrine of grace – it is a gift freely given with no expectation of receiving anything in return.
 
Jesus described this concept in Matthew 5:44 – “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”
 
Logical arguments can be rebutted.  Facts can be ignored.  Grace speaks loudly and profoundly.  When you show love to your enemy, it throws his entire worldview into question.  He loses any pretext for his hatred and cruelty and is forced to either reassess his position or actively lie to himself about your intentions and thereby enter a downward spiral of self-loathing, facing the gnawing truth that he is the one behaving unjustly.
 
Make no mistake, this is not a path of all rainbows and lollipops.  Evil is real and some people are so consumed by it that they will double-down on their hatred when confronted by grace.  But God is not using us with the expectation of saving everyone.  Every single soul saved is a victory unto itself.  If 100 people you encounter break your olive branch over their knee and only one enters into a conversation that leads to their salvation, then you have succeeded.  I know this sounds like a recipe for frustration in a world where our metrics for success set the bar so much higher.  We need to instead think of the analogy Jesus used of the shepherd seeking the single lost sheep.  Or another way to think of it is like someone who is panning for gold.  The dreariness of casting all the countless plain rocks aside is worth all the work of finding that single nugget of gold.
 
We are not here to just countdown the days to the Rapture of the Church.  We are not here to be God’s prosecutors on earth, pointing out everyone’s sins.  We are here to lead people to Christ.  And if we truly are living in the Last Days (as seems highly likely) then our mission is even more critical.  Remember, Jesus loved his enemies, even as they were mocking him as he was dying on the cross they nailed him to.  We must find it in ourselves to love the mockers and persecutors of our day, because among them might very well be children of God that are waiting to be saved.  This is the hard work that will earn us the praise “well done my good and faithful servant”.

​Do not be deceived.  There is an insidious movement in our nation that is cloaked in false virtue to conceal a diabolical end.  If you are one who has been left dumbfounded by the swiftness with which our culture seems to be disintegrating, understand that this is not the work of mere mortals.  There is something wicked at work here and it has an insatiable appetite to consume all that is good.
 
Let us begin by tracing the progression of events that have led us to this place.  In the early twentieth century, an ideology hostile to Christian values began to take over colleges and universities.  Initially, the focus was on education, journalism, and the social sciences – the mechanisms through which a society distributes and processes information.
 
Next came the infiltration of the entertainment industry – the mechanism through which a culture reinforces its value system.  It is a window that strives to be a mirror – providing a picture of a new reality it wants its viewers to become.  Over the later half of the twentieth century entertainment became increasingly violent and sensual, breaking down traditional boundaries of decency.  The line between hero and villain, evil and good, became increasingly blurred.  And through it all a theme emerged – the Christian as the hypocrite, buffoon, killjoy, or villain.
 
The 1960’s saw a massive influx of young people into colleges.  These were young people who had experienced the early titillations of the emerging popular culture.  They were welcomed by Marxist professors who encouraged them to reject their traditional values.  The result was the Sexual Revolution.
 
The Sexual Revolution had two significant outcomes – a skyrocketing of children living in unstable family structures and the legalization of abortion.  In a masterful stroke of evil, women were convinced that it was virtuous to hypersexualize their lives and to fight for the right to kill their unborn children.  It was the ultimate male chauvinist dream – sexualized women and sex without consequences.  And yet somehow it was called Feminism.
Step one in destroying Christianity is the destruction of the family.
 
The next significant cultural shift came in the fight for same-sex marriage.  In a breath-taking short span we went from a period where Barack Obama spoke in defense of traditional marriage during his 2008 campaign to lighting up the White House in the colors of the rainbow to celebrate a landmark Supreme Court case clearing the way for the legalization of same-sex marriages.  But this was never just about the love between two people.  In very swift order, lawsuits were launched against Christian businesses who refused to extend their services to same-sex weddings because of religious objections.
 
Next came the sudden normalization of gender dysphoria.  Suddenly we were told there are an infinite number of genders and that men should be allowed into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.  The concept of proclaiming a child to be a boy or girl at birth became somehow insensitive and oppressive.  And then the Supreme Court issued a ruling granting transgender individuals civil rights protection.
Step two in destroying Christianity is granting protected status to behaviors that are incongruent with Christian doctrine, thereby pitting religious liberty against newly constructed civil liberties.
 
As this was going on, America allowed an influx of Muslim refugees into the country.  Suddenly there are conversations about Sharia law in Texas, teaching about Islam in Tennessee schools, and we have Minnesota and Michigan electing radical Islamic congresswomen.
Step three in destroying Christianity is amplifying the political and cultural influence of Islam in America.
 
This brings us to 2020.  First, we have the COVID-19 crisis.  “Two-weeks to flatten the curve” so as not to overwhelm hospitals turned into shutting down churches indefinitely.  What emerged was a rather alarming hostility in many places toward churches that attempt to have drive-in services or in-person worship following guidelines similar to essential businesses that were allowed to remain open.
Step four in destroying Christianity will be blaming Christians for spreading the coronavirus because they wanted to attend church.
 
Then we had the tragedy of George Floyd and the racial tensions that have exploded in the aftermath.  In the name of ending racism, much of American history and culture is being erased right before our eyes.  But an activist tipped the movement’s hand as to their ultimate goal when he inartfully spoke of the need to destroy images of the white Jesus.  This was followed by another activist claiming that the term “Pro-Life” was racist.  Do not be fooled.  Black Lives Matter as an organization is a Marxist front group determined to destroy America as we know it.  Do your own research on them and learn the truth.
Step five in destroying Christianity will be linking traditional Christianity to systemic racism.
 
In the end what we will see is a convergence of all these social justice movements to attempt to deal a deathblow to Christianity in America.  The Marxists, Feminists, Islamists, LGBTQ, and Radical Black activists will unite in a common cause to blame all the ills of America on Christianity.  And they will use a generation of indoctrinated youths from broken homes as their foot soldiers to march in the streets, burn churches, tear down statues, and call for the cancellation of all things Christian.
 
If you think I am being hyperbolic, consider how far things have unraveled since February of this year.  If this movement is not stopped now it will keep tearing down the relics of American culture, not stopping until it can tear down every cross in America.  Darkness is sweeping across this country and it despises the light.

July 4th, 1776 marked the day when a group of men took a stand and pledged their lives to proclaim their independence from the tyranny of the King of England.  In doing so, they gave birth to a nation that would do more to advance the cause of liberty and throw down the forces of oppression than any other nation or empire in the history of the world.  They created the freedom for an economic system that would foster innovations to cure previously incurable diseases, cheaply feed the masses, and give our current working class a lifestyle more comfortable than the king of their day.
 
To view that day through the narrow prism of our current culture is to miss the profundity of that moment.  The skin color of those men is irrelevant.  Did some of them own slaves even as they spoke of freeing men?  Yes.  That was a contradiction not lost on many of them, the unjustly maligned Thomas Jefferson among them.  That was a battle for another day, for slavery had been interwoven into the fabric of society and economics since the earliest days of human civilization.  To wage that intellectual war among their own ranks was to guarantee a division that would make the first step for the better world they envisioned impossible.
 
To view this event and these men in the proper context, we must never lose sight of the fallen nature of Man.  Jesus famously spoke “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.  Judging from the number of stone throwers that have emerged in recent weeks, one might think we have suddenly entered the perfected Millennial reign of Christ.  But alas, no, for what we are seeing is nothing more than an age-old display of human hypocrisy and judgement.
 
Those who celebrate an ideology (Marxism) that has thrown more people into prison camps and graves than even the worst slaveholders in American history could contemplate, would tear down all the good that was done on that July 4th so many years ago.  For make no mistake, these new revolutionaries are not content to just tear down statues.  They mean to tear down American society itself.
 
They wear Che Guevara shirts as they splash red paint on statues of Washington and Jefferson to symbolize the blood on the hands of the Founders of this nation.  Che, who lined up those who were perceived as threats to Castro’s Marxist Utopia and shot them dead.  His hands were hardly unblemished, but perhaps he gets a pass because he killed the “right” people.  Marxism is very proficient at making sure all the “right” people are eliminated.  From Soviet Russia to Communist China, the road to Marxist Utopias is always paved with the bodies of millions who just refused to get “woke”, if you will, to the new more “just” society that was being created.  After all, to build a perfect society, you must first eliminate all those imperfect people.
 
And lest you be under any illusions, the people leading this new revolution are indeed Marxists.  If you do not believe me, do some research on the leaders of Black Lives Matter and these other social justice groups.  Yes, I am suggesting that you actually do a little intellectual work before you add your voice to the cacophony that is calling for the complete overthrow of Western Civilization.  In an age where we are discussing “what is owed”, you owe us that much, fellow citizen. 
 
I think I speak for many when I say that I am sick and tired of being brow-beaten and held under the threat of “cancellation” by the willfully ignorant and dangerously uninformed among us.  I am equally weary of those who want all the benefits of American culture but are too “busy” to do anything to help protect it.  I am speaking of those Christian conservatives among us who had time to binge-watch “Tiger King” but cannot be bothered to watch some of the great work men like Glenn Beck, Steve Deace, and Mark Levin have done to expose the concerted effort taking place to dismantle our society.  We are approaching the time of Rome again, only now many Christians have decided it is much more comfortable to partake in the bread and circuses than to stand on the floor of the Coliseum.
 
When will you stand?  They redefined marriage and you did nothing.  When will you stand?  They redefined gender, telling you with a straight face that men can have babies and menstrual cycles and you did nothing.  When will you stand?  They are programming your children to stand against every value you hold dear and you are doing nothing – worse than nothing – you are funding the reprogramming.  When will you stand?  They are in the streets of your communities burning your businesses, defacing your landmarks, and threatening to come for you if you do not bend the knee.  When will you stand?  In the name of protecting us all from a virus, they told you to sacrifice your business, to stay away from your church, to cancel all funerals, weddings, and graduations, and yet they cheered on massive groups of protestors, vandals, and LGBTQ pride celebrations and now they are telling you to sacrifice your business again and to continue to stay away from your church.  When will you stand?  They release prisoners from jail and allow looters to roam free, yet handcuff mothers at playgrounds, raid Jewish funerals, and arrest hair stylists.  When will you stand?
 
Voting for a Republican will not save you.  Posting a snarky meme on Facebook or Twitter will not save you.  Calling in to a talk show will not save you.  Complaining to your friends over the Starbucks coffee you bought and thereby helped fund their contribution to the destruction of society will not save you.
 
What will save you?  Run for political office.  If you are tired of the leaders we have, become the leader – and stand your ground once you are in office.  This applies to all levels from the school board to the United States Senate.
 
Engage in targeted boycotts.  The forces at work to destroy our society have so deeply penetrated the corporate world that it is very difficult to boycott everything all at once.  I suggest we develop a campaign to identify one organization at a time and engage in a very deliberate and tenacious boycott.  For example, let us say we launch a social media campaign to stop buying Disney products and services until they stop all funding and support for the causes that are destroying our society.  The same would go for social media platforms.  You do not need to boycott all of them at once.  Let us say we all just decided to close our Twitter accounts and moved to the Parler platform (https://parler.com/).  The financial impact of just one or two of these concerted efforts would be enough to remind all companies what the true values are of the majority of their customer base.  We have been taken for granted for far too long and it is our own fault because we let them do it.
 
And should anyone come into your community and tell you how you should live, you stand.  You do not cower in your home, however nor do you go out and engage in violence.  You stand and you let them see you stand.  If enough of us stand, the strength of our numbers will be sufficient to stare down any mob.
 
Most importantly, you must know why you are standing.  It is not out of blind allegiance to a flag or in hero worship of some long dead men.  It is not to prop up a president or put down a group of people.  It is out of love that we stand.  Love for God, love for our families, love for our neighbors, and love for people we do not even know.  We stand because no system of government or economic model has done more to advance the prosperity of humans and protect their liberty than the American capitalist system.  It is not perfect, but perhaps its greatest feature is the fact that it allows its imperfections to be pointed out and repaired.
 
Stand for the truth, no matter the cost.  Never let them force you to proclaim that men can be women and women can be men.  Never let them force you to apologize for sins you have not committed.  Never let them shame you into silence.  You may lose your job.  You may lose friends.  Family members may turn their back on you.  But despite it all you must stand for the truth.  When no one stands for the truth, any lie will be believed and lies lead to destruction.
 
But the sad truth of history is that too often people refuse to stand during that window early on when standing would have been enough to avert tragedy.  Instead, they stayed quiet and hidden away from the commotion being caused by those “fringe” groups.  Then one day the window closes, and they wake up and find their society completely transformed and those fringe groups are now their leaders – leading some of them to re-education camps and others to firing squads.  Our window is closing.  When will you stand?

             ​Perhaps one of the best-known phrases in the Bible is “judge not lest ye be judged”.  Unfortunately, it is also one of the most ignored.  For those of us who are Christians, we base our hope in eternal life in Heaven on the fact that God has extended his grace to us through the sacrifice of his son Jesus, wiping away all of our sins.  In return, we are instructed to extend grace to others – wiping the slate clean of any grievances they have caused us so that they might have an opportunity for a new start, free from the stains of the past.
                Another common phrase (not biblical) is “I can forgive, but I cannot forget.”  That is not grace.  Grace is the deliberate effort of forgetting past grievances.  It is not easy, but it is necessary.  Refusing to forget means that you continue to view that person or group through a prism that is distorted by the events of the past.  It leads to assumptions and suspicions.  It leads to judgement.
                Grace requires an extreme amount of self-control.  It demands an abundance of patience.  It does not require living in faith that you will not be hurt again, but instead an acceptance that any hurt that results is worth the price of living a life the emulates the ideals of Christ.  We are not promised a pain-free life.  Our reward is in Heaven.
                However, grace makes this world a better place.  Grace prevents us from making assumptions about people based on their skin color, economic status, or even their past crimes.  Grace means handling even the most belligerent among us with civility and care, for how are we to know the deep wounds that have caused them to lash out.
                And how would we apply grace in light of recent events?  A police officer ruled by grace would never do what was done to George Floyd.  A community ruled by grace would never engage in a violent riot to protest an unjust death.  Society at large would not cast sweeping judgements about the individuals participating in such riots, law enforcement officers in general, or use the event to advance their given political stances.
                And at every level we see an absence of grace.  The police assumed that Mr. Floyd was just another degenerate criminal worthy of any measures they deemed fit to bring him to justice.  And so, a man effectively received a death sentence for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill during the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.  Beyond that, the very foundation of the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they are employed to protect and serve has been further eroded to the point of being nearly irreparable.  In a nation where its citizens are presumed innocent until proven guilty, we simply cannot have a form of law enforcement that assumes the worst of its citizens (or of certain groups of citizens).  Indeed, it would be better to have no police at all than police that are feared and distrusted by the communities they are employed to serve.  I know there are many in law enforcement who carry out their duties in the proper manner (I am friends with some of them) and it is unfair that they get painted with the same brush as the worst among them.  However, we have reached a point where we can no longer discount this as the actions of a few bad apples.  A lack of grace has put the very fate of law enforcement in our country at a tipping point.
                The community, jaded by previous injustices, assumed no justice would be given in the case of George Floyd and went beyond a civil protest and engaged in destructive rioting.  The result is that their own communities have been damaged and the livelihoods of several of their neighbors have been destroyed.  Riots provide a momentary emotional release and perhaps some superficial political action.  They also reinforce the assumptions made by certain members of law enforcement, which leads to more heavy-handedness and more tragedies like what happened to George Floyd.  In addition, they perpetuate the belief that these neighborhoods are too risky to do business in, so goods, services, and employment opportunities will be slow to return, causing more hardship in the community.
                Society at large, having become more polarized than perhaps even during the time of the Civil War, and utterly lacking in grace, has turned this tragedy into a political issue.  Between those who stoke the flames of racial grievances for political gain and those who would turn a blind eye to our increasingly broken system of law enforcement for the same reasons, there appears to be little appetite for actually solving the problems facing our society.  We assume the worst about our political opponents.  We are ruled by distrust, intellectual dishonesty, and opportunism.  We have lost the compass of truth and are utterly rudderless in a sea that is growing increasingly tumultuous.  We are dangerously close to being cast against the destructive rocks of our own making.  Only grace can navigate us to calmer waters.
                There are far too many Christians in this society for us to be this divided and dysfunctional.  It is high time we turned away from the gods of identity politics that we have created and returned to the one true God – the God whose grace restored our place in his kingdom.  It is grace that brings reconciliation and restoration.  Without it, our society will continue to fracture until it ultimately falls.