[Vision2020] Grandaddy Gary on How to Put the Fun Back in Fundamentalism

[Christopher Witmer]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Rumelhart
If someone were trying to pass a 
law that Christians could not hold office, I would be there backing you 
up. . . . [snip] . . . Get off the power trip. It doesn't go anywhere
interesting. You just 
want to replace one set of tyrants with another someday down the road. 
You just happen to be a member of the new up-and-coming tyranny, so you 
can't see it's the same thing just with different uniforms.
-- Paul

Paul, the active oppression of Christians is happening all over the place,
and not just in Saudi Arabia. Europe is rife with overtly anti-Christian
legislation coming down the pike at every turn, from Christian homeschoolers
being fined and having their children taken away from them to pastors being
put on trial, fined and even sent to prison for maintaining traditional
biblical positions on homosexuality, the legitimate roles of women as
Christian ministers, and the rights of the unborn. Canada is not far behind,
and Australia too. The only reason the Christian ox is not being gored to a
comparable degree in the USA is because of the vigilance and activism of
American Christians who know that the best defense is a good offense -- the
offense of the gospel. We commonly hear that Christians are welcome to
believe and practice their faith in private, but to keep it out of the
public sphere. The only problem with that is, in order to be faithful to
what the Bible commands the Christian, the Christian faith must be practiced
both in private and in public, because Jesus' lordship extends to
everything. Conflict and confrontation between Christians and non-Christians
are inevitable. You say I want to replace one set of tyrants with another. I
say that's a very jaundiced way of looking at it. I'm looking for a total
victory for Jesus, with the final score of Church Triumphant
10,000,000,000,000 vs. Satan's minions 0. I believe that's going to come
about primarily through the power of God's Spirit converting men through the
gospel, and incidentally that transformation can be expected to have
implications in the political sphere as well, as Christian voters elect
Christian legislators who enact Christian legislation following their
Christian consciences and perhaps amend the Constitution to bring it into
greater conformity with the Bible. Procedurally a person in your position
has absolutely ZERO basis for complaining about that if it happens (after
all, what I just described above is a scenario in which Christians play the
American "game" strictly by the rules), and I have ZERO reason to feel the
least bit ashamed for desiring such a state of affairs to come to pass.

-- Chris