Reality Check
By Douglas James Heffner, Sr.
My fellow Americans it is time for a reality check particularly after all the piety following September 11, 2001. You would think as people flocked to churches, synagogues, temples and mosques that America suddenly discovered God. Television newscasts showed members of Congress spontaneously singing God Bless America. Religious leaders waxed eloquently on "the meaning of it all" and the faithful gathered in extended prayer meetings. Wow! What a revival meeting!
To the average American this signaled a renewal of our nation's commitment to be "one nation under God" and live the motto of "in God we trust". School children began to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which contains the words "one nation under God". Church attendance skyrocketed and everyone felt better. Thank God we're a nation blessed by His beneficence, a light for freedom shining in the darkness of the dust of the World Trade Center disaster. God. Don't you just love that innocuous word? So gender neutral. So religion neutral. Majestic yet without meaning as it never defines whose God we're referring to.
Are we speaking of the Jewish God? The God of Islam? The God of Christianity? Or maybe it's the God of the Babylonians, or ancient Egyptians, Greeks or Romans; ooops they all had several gods. How can we know and does it matter? In America it doesn't. In Muslim countries there is no question his name is Allah and he is One. For Jews the name is so sacred they dare not utter it he is the "I am" of Moses. Just who is this God anyway? Will the "real" God please stand up and end this confusion of deity! Right now the "world" really could use some clarity here. If everyone desires to "turn towards God" it sure would help if they were pointed in the proper direction (something crucial to Islamics who face Mecca in daily prayer). Where do we turn?
This is an honest question. No one wants to be wasting time praying or worshipping a God who doesn't exist. We want reality! And here my friends is the reality check necessary to clear the air and get us focused on a God who IS and DOES and CARES. There is only one God and His name is Jesus (well, at least that's his "English speaking" name) though in other languages He's known in their unique tongue; yet it's still the same person. He's the one who rose from the dead and claimed to be God. Which, by the way, neither Moses nor Buddha, nor Confucius nor Mohammed ever claimed to be. Pretty shocking isn't it! Throughout all time only one has ever claimed this title, performed acts which attested to His claim and astounded his followers by coming back from the dead a walking, talking, eating, laughing person who then advised his followers to spread the word about him and His "Good News". Sure you say, we all know that story, celebrate it every Christmas and Easter. After all, America is a Christian nation, right?
Reality Check! Nope, not by a long shot. Not even in your wildest dreams. America is in fact woven from a plural (polytheistic) religious fabric where all gods are welcome real or not. Americans by and large get along, unlike the Irish Catholics and Protestants, unlike the Israelites and Palestinians, unlike the Muslim extremists bent on Jihad against the infidels. Is this plurality a good thing? Apparently so! Apart from the "left" and "right" views of religious zealots we pretty much let-be, you do your thing, I do my thing. Yup, pretty much a lukewarm way of seeking God. Which is (another reality check) to say, we have it all wrong. You see, we're not supposed to "seek" God as much as God is supposed to seek us. Which brings us back to the Jesus question. God is not a "religion", God is not a pie-in-the-sky "fixer of things", what He is is God. And Jesus is the only recorded "spokesman" for God that ever claimed to be Him. If the Church had not failed in its mission to "spread-the-word" in power and truth, to tell the real Good News, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today.
The events of September 11th are the work of fanatic Muslims but they are in fact the "fault" of Christians around the world. We, as the Church, have failed miserably in our witness to Christ's redeeming and saving power. We as a nation have failed to fully employ the resources at our disposal to evangelize the world for Christ. We have been to busy gaining the things of "the world" while losing the rewards of Heaven! We Christians have been "cowards" for Jesus, watered down the gospel and bellied-up-to-the bar with followers of false gods. We've become "drunk" on our national religion and the seeming success of our way of life. What a mess!
So, while our fellow citizens are fervently seeking answers to real questions it's time to give them real answers. Life changing answers! It's time to tell them of the Love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. No more warm pabulum from the altar of life, no more social gospel that fails to change peoples lives, no more "peace-at-all-costs" with the false gods. It's time to "declare war" on Satan and his cohorts, it's time to put on the whole Armour of God and stand up for Jesus. It's time to "admit" you are a Christian and that Jesus is the only way to eternal life.
This is a war of Love, not of might, but of power in the Holy Spirit, to the taking down of the strongholds-of-darkness and lies that lead only to death. If America were a Christian nation we'd not only be dropping food packets on Afghanistan we'd be dropping gospel tracts in their language. Then they'd know the food was given in love and that there is hope for their country that has and continues to be ravaged by a religion of lies and death. We have the civil resources, we have the technology but do we have the courage to wage this "holy war" all over the world. Where are the special-operations teams of dedicated Christians that could go into Afghanistan and rescue the Christians being held hostage for their faith in Jesus? Billionaires of corporations have sent such teams into such places to rescue their employees are our brothers and sisters in Christ any less important?
America, take off the sackcloth-and-ashes and put on the robe of righteousness in Christ and let's attack the real enemy with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other way, there is no other name, and we have a mandate to take this Gospel to the entire world if we expect the "end to come". It's time to "cash" this reality check and put the proceeds towards the true purpose of the Church.
Onward Christian Soldiers!
