One of the real downfalls of the way we raise our children in America is virtually forcing them to participate in organized sports. While everyone is quick to point out the so called character building aspects of these endeavors, I have my doubts. As I see it, it encourages youth to think and act in concert with a group whatever the group does. It encourages youth to subordinate individual initiative and decision making to a coach, a team captain and finally to the team members themselves. And, it conditions youth to think that the "right" answer to everything must be found through group consensus.
I have read my Bible through several times now over the years. I have skipped a year this year but intend to start again in January. I have as yet to find a place in the scriptures where Godly decisions were made by the group. Rather, the picture always presented is one where the group acts situationally, gets it badly wrong and then has to be corrected by an individual who has the capacity to step outside of the group and the situation and evaluate what is going to happen next within the context of God's Word.
I have just finished Dr. Edwin Lutz's powerful little book, "When a Nation Forgets God,
This phenomena is never more apparent than in American presidential elections. Americans choose up sides, form teams with coaches and captains and team members and then go a little crazy cheering and playing our hearts out so that our side can win without ever asking just exactly what is actually being accomplished. The problem is that there are times when neither team deserves to win and nothing good is going to come out the victory.
Over the past thirty years, GOP presidential candidates have gotten progressively more progressive. The current quarterback and hero, Mitt Romney, would have been classified as a left wing radical by John Kennedy. But now, he has the entire Republican party going a little nuts trying to get him elected. In John Kennedy's time, anyone who took Ayn Rand seriously was thought to be either sophomoric or seriously self centered. But now, we have a vice presidential candidate who paradoxically claims to be a Christian and a follower of Rand. And the greatest pity is that no one in the electorate, much less the media, has the knowledge or the critical thinking skills to call him on it.
The football game mentality has done great harm to the American republic. American conservatives and even American Christians have become so obsessed with winning the "big game" right now, that they never stop to analyze just what it is that they are winning. Progressives and communists never try to take over by armed force. Rather, they know that time is on their side. They will fight within the system to make gains then stubbornly hold those gains and wait for their next opportunity. And, instead of stopping this the GOP and the church have both stopped moral analysis of the candidates positions in place of a continued "lesser of evils" analysis. Instead of insisting on the good and righteous, we have been conditioned to accept the less bad. This is the classic example of the Communist incremental approach to political victory and a prime example of Bork's left handed ratchet theory applied to the whole political system.
Weimar Germany was faced with the same decisions, Communism or Facism? They knew the former was wrong so they trusted the latter. And within ten years, six million Jews were dead along with untold millions more Christians, aged, disabled, homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehova's witnesses and other "undesirables." With their cities were in flames, and the Russians literally raping their way across the country, the Germans, who were no different than you and I, paid a terrible price for the "lesser of evils" decision making.
One individual, a wealthy, upper class, pastor and theologian saw what was coming and preached against it. He eventually paid for his resistance with his life but before that he set the example for modern men in these political situations. He taught that there comes a time when people who name the name of Christ can no longer be a part of the political system and have to set themselves against it, literally to "jam a spoke in the wheel" of the oppressors juggernaut.
Bonhoeffer did not advocate violence. Rather, he preached, taught, organized underground churches and seminaries and even helped victims of the oppression escape, just as a brave Mennonite pastor recently did concerning a convert whose child was about to be taken from her and turned over to homosexuals by AN AMERICAN COURT. And yes, here in America that Mennonite pastor is facing criminal prosecution and the American Justice Department is spending a fortune scouring remote Mennonite settlements in Latin America trying to find one little girl whose mother, a former lesbian, converted to Christianity and said to the system, "you cannot have my child." (Details HERE) The pastor was sentenced to three years in federal prison for failing to assist the court in honoring a visitation and custody agreement with a lesbian ex-lover whom the court defined as a "co-parent."
American Christians have been sold a massive bill of goods when it comes to political participation. We have been convinced that we must vote and ratify policies that we know are sin because voting is is our Christian duty. As I said before, I have read my Bible through, cover to cover, many times over the years, and I have never found a command to participate in any political exercise. But, time after time, I found exhortations to avoid evil, not choose the lesser evil. Time after time I have found exhortations to confront evil, not ratify it because the perpetrator is a member of "our team." Bonhoeffer got it right. When the system presents you with no good choice, you must choose God and if necessary be ready to pay the price for that choice.
There is a passage of scripture which discusses God's people CHOOSING their leader. It is I Samuel 8: 1-9:
1And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel.Until this time, Israel had been ruled by God under God's law. Granted, that rule was applied through elders and other mixed theocratic/civic rulers but nevertheless the underlying authority was God, no earthly sovereign. But, Israel was worried. Samuel was old and his sons weren't following in his righteous footsteps. So, instead of asking God for a solution, they chose the world's solution ... a king. And God gave them a King ... King Saul.
2Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judging in Beersheba.
3His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice.
4Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah;
5and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.”
6But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.
7The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.
8“Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.
9“Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.”
The application is obvious. When God's people subject themselves to the sovereignty of any earthly king without remembering their first sovereign is God Himself, they invite ruin to their nation.
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