Our recent flurry of political violence and near violence, with the murders at a synagogue, pipe bomb mailings, and numerous assaults have led to an even greater flurry of accusations and counter-accusations about one side or the other’s “hateful rhetoric” being responsible for the violence.  It all made me think of what the Bible says about the source of war and fighting among us:

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4:1-3

    James tells us that our lack of peace between ourselves stems from a lack of peace within ourselves, and that lack of peace is ultimately a lack of peace with God.

    Both Adam and Eve’s original sin and our own sins alienate us from fellowship with God.  Like Adam and Eve, we hide ourselves from God because we are “naked,” that is, because we feel guilt over our sin.  We try and cover our nakedness, our guilt over sin, with the inadequate covering of “fig leaves.”  Examples of these fig leaves include over-punishing ourselves for minor faults or the sins of our ancestors, trying to earn forgiveness by good works or ceremony, and transferring our guilt onto others, saying “This is all your fault!”

    At best, our fig leaves give us temporary relief from our guilt, so such activity must be maintained forever.  They can give us no peace with God and no rest, and as James says, they cause us strife with each other.

    A recent example of this was seen in the dust up over Megan Kelly’s “black face” comments.  Though she apologized, there could be no forgiveness or redemption, because our humanistic attempts to deal with our own guilt and lack of peace with God have no theory of forgiveness and redemption.  This spiritual problem underlies and colors all of our political discussions.  When we should be talking about pragmatic solutions to practical problems we are instead driven to blame shifting, name calling, hero posing and similar psycho-drama because of our unresolved angst stemming from our alienation from God due to our own sin.  Politics, like family life, becomes just one more arena to work out our guilt problem.  Actual problem solving can wait.

    As the Apostle Paul would say, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?”  But he goes on to say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  The forgiveness of sins through the sacrifice of Jesus, through faith in his finished work and not in our strivings, is the key that gives man peace with God.  From a place of rest, from a place of having our sins forgiven once and for all, we are set free, free to pursue productive activity unburdened with the psycho-drama of guilt abatement.

    May I say that this freedom from guilt is the unique Christian contribution to politics?  Is it possible for men burdened with guilt and shame, lacking peace with God, to be at peace with their fellow men and form a free and just social order?  Is it possible to fulfill the second greatest commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” if we cannot obey the first commandment “to love the Lord your God with all your heart” because our unresolved sin separates us from Him?

    As Christians we are given the ministry of reconciliation, not in smoothing over real differences between people, but in first leading them to reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.  When we have peace with God in ourselves we can have peace with each other.

​In Orwell’s 1984 there was the “Ministry of Peace” whose job was continuous war, the “Ministry of Plenty” whose job was continuous poverty, the “Ministry of Truth” whose job was lying, and the “Ministry of Love” whose job was enforcing PC thought through torture, fear and propaganda.  In the same vein, comes now the “Never-Trumpers” Republicans for the Rule of Law whose job is the promotion of lawlessness.
I am utterly amazed that some two-thirds of the Republicans in the Senate think that Mueller’s illegal investigation needs to be protected against Trump instead of Trump and our constitutional federal republic being protected against Mueller. Can it be that the craziest tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories about a corrupt uni-party “deep state” don’t go far enough?
The Mueller investigation, openly instigated by a manipulative leak from Comey, is fundamentally lawless in that it amounts to an investigation of a targeted person, Donald J. Trump, rather than an investigation of a particular crime.  This is a “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” travesty if there ever was one.  Moreover, its shocking aim is to overturn the legitimate results of the last presidential election. In other words it is a coup attempt under color of law.  Even its veneer of legality under the Special Counsel Law is defective in that the appointment did not identify the crime to be investigated as required by DOJ procedure.
Here we see the fundamental cancer eating at “our democracy,” the turning of the written law and written constitution upside down by a cult of slick talking lawyers.  It is of a piece with the doctrine of the “living constitution” by which the Supreme Court, a committee of nine lawyers after all, makes up the constitution as they go along in accordance with their own desires.  This is not the rule of law, it is the rule of men, the rule of lawyers.

​President Trump on Friday issued a new order severely limiting what are called transgender persons from military service.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-transgender-military-20180323-story.html  The order more or less grandfathered those admitted under the Obama policy and used practical issues about deployability as the rationale for not allowing additional transgenders in.
This is a good step, consistent with President Trump’s emphasis on repairing the damage done to the military under the preceding administration.  It is noteworthy that this comes at the same time the President is approving (while holding his nose) a $1.3 billion omnibus budget busting spending bill to the dismay of many of his supporters.  The reason he gave was the necessity to move forward with military procurement in the face of growing threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.  The point here is that Trump appears seriously concerned about and focused on our military capability.
Though few seem to realize it, these military threats are serious and growing while our military is over stretched and strained.  The overwhelming priority given to using the military as a tool of social engineering under the previous administration has certainly not helped this situation.
The adverse impact of this social engineering on military capability is very real as Trump and Mattis argue in this new policy.  However, in my opinion, the real problem is the reverse, namely the adverse impact on our society as a whole of this social engineering in the military.
The real problem
This isn't just about practical matters like “deployability.” The whole feminist, homosexual, transgender agenda is about destroying the image of God in Man, male and female, and thus alienating America from its Christian roots. The left has been using the schools, business, and the military as instruments in this evil activity. It should be opposed because it is evil, not just because it is impractical. Trump and Mattis may not be able to say this but we should not be afraid to.
On the one hand the purpose behind showcasing a handful of women being successful in traditional masculine military roles is to deny little boys growing up a clear positive image of manhood to which they can aspire.  On the other hand the same image projection serves to downgrade the role of wife, mother and homemaker in the eyes of little girls.  As much as the left hates the chivalric ideal for young men, it hates the ideal of Christian womanhood even more, which is why abortion is its highest value.
This hatred of the traditional Christian family, what the left dismisses as the “patriarchy,” is logical for them.  The legal and moral institution of the family is the main bulwark against the totalitarian state.  The self-governing nature of a family oriented society leaves little excuse for ever expanding social services welfare state, a state that reduces everyone to children of “Big Brother.”  To the left, a totalitarian, one-party police state is necessary to bring about their delusional utopian society that solves all human problems by re-engineering human beings themselves.  Apparently, the 100 million or so bodies slain for this mad dream in the twentieth century are not enough yet.
For this monstrous evil to be resisted, the Christian church must stop limiting itself to secondary arguments against evil, must stop being ashamed of the words of Jesus in the midst of a perverse generation, and must once again speak with the power of the Holy Spirit. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

​The plight of the homeless and the impacts of homeless encampments on citizens has become a big issue for cities around the nation in recent days.  There is a lot of emotion on both sides, but not, it seems to me, much clear or systematic thinking.  Officials let the encampments grow out of “compassion” for the homeless until they are forced to act by “anger” of impacted voters.  The resultant actions tend to move the problem around without coming to grips with it.
We have always had poor and homeless people among us and likely always will.  One thing that has changes in recent years is the breakdown in vagrancy law.  Under vagrancy law, it was illegal to be a vagrant, a person in the community without visible means of support, and such a person subjected themselves to arrest and imprisonment.  Enforcement of these laws were often capricious and sometimes cruel, and a number of these laws were thrown out by the courts.  The same thing happened with the question of placing mentally ill persons under involuntary supervision or confinement such that the law now prohibits such action unless they are an immediate threat to themselves or others.  Too often this means police can’t do anything until after they have actually harmed themselves or others.
Vagrancy Law
A root problem then is the change of vagrancy from a crime to a constitutionally protected lifestyle, the cost of which is to be borne by the rest of society.  Willful vagrancy, a homelessness largely of choice, including a refusal of various services, is not a right.  It imposes costs on others and is not just the business of the individual.  The ability to arrest and incarcerate willful vagrants is a necessary component of dealing with homelessness, without which the problem cannot be satisfactorily managed.  Rather than scrapping poorly written vagrancy laws in response to court rulings and giving up, authorities should craft rational and compassionate systematic programs including both the
“carrot” of help programs and the “stick” of incarceration.
Help Programs
Help programs should all have the goal of moving people up to the highest degree of freedom and self-support possible.  A range of programs should be crafted to assist individuals whose homelessness stems from different causes:

• The mentally ill should be evaluated with due process protections.  Those requiring confinement for the protection of themselves or others will be few, and suitable facilities will be easily afforded by society.  Those requiring only medication to control destructive behavior can be treated on an outpatient basis.  If they fail to check in and take their medicine or counseling, they would be moved into the group requiring confinement.
• A similar approach should be taken for those with substance abuse issues with outpatient treatment the first choice and confined treatment the backup for uncooperative addicts.  It would be useful to try a number of programs and compare their success rates.  Choices between available religious and non-religious programs should be left to the individual.
• For others who are just down on their luck, suffering from marriage break-ups, lost jobs, medical expenses and the like, short term help and rehabilitation programs should be offered.  The goal is always to move people up to freedom and self-sufficiency.  Here again, there are many private sector charities working in this area, religious and non-religious.  People should be steered to appropriate programs with due regard for their preferences.  The option of accepting the help but refusing the rehabilitation programs is not an option.

The Ladder of Success
Economic success is a ladder we all climb, from doing chores around home, to a first job, a checking and savings account, sequential levels of education and training, and so forth.  But as standards of living in general have risen, we have implemented several well-intended laws and policies that have the effect of cutting off the lowest rungs of this ladder to the detriment of people at the lowest starting point.  These policies impact the homeless and need reconsideration.

• Minimum wage laws have the effect of preventing the employment of people whose skills and work habits do not justify that level of pay.  The correlation between excessive minimum wage laws and loss of low end employment is well known.
• Employer liability for anything a worker does or which happens to a worker similarly rises the risk and cost of hiring someone, particularly someone with a less than stellar past.  These policies have made casual employment almost illegal.
• Minimum housing standards create a minimum cost for housing.  A substandard form of housing, what we used to call slums, is prohibited by law.  The alternative for people who cannot afford this minimum cost, with the exception of the few that get government subsidized housing, is homelessness.  If we were to provide minimum standard housing for this population at taxpayer expense, why would the next group of people who have barely pulled themselves above this level by hard work want to keep working?  There are reasons to not want substandard housing, but we must recognize that one consequence will be more homelessness and that subsidized housing will not be an adequate solution.
• In some jurisdictions, separation of church and state absolutists prevent public support for religiously oriented social programs trying to help the homeless, leaving nothing to replace them.

Compassion for people having problems and an expectation that the same people should live up to certain minimum standards are not incompatible.  In fact they are the two sides of the same coin.  Recognizing this is necessary to escape a psychological “guilt and pity” trap that prevent rational problem solving.

In Psalm 2 we are famously told how God has set his king upon his holy hill of Zion to be the supreme ruler of the kings of the earth.  In verse 9 we are told that this reign will be forceful, to say the least.  "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Note that this throne is set upon God's holy hill of Zion, which represents the church.  We then note Revelation Chapter 2, in the message to the church in Thyatira: "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father."

This suggests that the church has a share in Christ's rule over the nations.  No doubt the complete fulfillment of this promise is for the culmination of all things, but does it have significance for the here and now as well?  In the great commission Christ tells us that all power has been given unto him, and that we are to go therefore making disciples of all nations etc., right now, not someday in the future.

Just how is the church supposed to participate with Christ in the rule over the nations in the here and now?  When Herod imprisoned Peter, the church made unceasing prayer, resulting in his miraculous release and apparently in Herod's subsequent death.  In Revelation Chapter 8 we are given a picture of the prayers of the saints going up to heaven as incense and thunder and lightning coming down to earth as a result.

The picture I see here is that of a church in prayer and worship, coming into the counsels of God, perceiving his will involving current events, praying earnestly in accordance with that will, saying like Jesus "Thy will be done on earth," and seeing God move in current events as a result.

I don't see us acting this way very much today.  We go to church to escape current events, not to intercede before God to change current events and thus shape history.  What if we are missing a major part of our designated role on earth today?  What if our failure to conduct this kind of "worship warfare" is the reason we do not see God moving in our affairs the way we should?  What if the reason America is going to the dogs is not because of the Russians or the ACLU but because of the failure of the church to fulfill her part in the government of the earth today?  What if the reason we have abortion, same sex marriage and school shootings is the failure of the church to rule in the here and now by our collective focused prayer, worship and intercession?

It seems to me that we need to rethink church.

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