Part 2: Lost in the Forest

In Part 1 of this series we looked at the departure of the Christian-conservative-religious right from the Biblical and Constitutional principles that it once represented. We saw how that departure was documented in black and white in the 2012 primary elections. Remember, the primary election is where the Christian-conservative-religious right (which predominately votes Republican and serves as that party’s base of support) chooses the candidates who best represent their values and which they want to be represented by in the general election. We observed that when Christian and conservative voters were confronted with a number of strongly Biblical and Constitutional candidates to choose from in the primary election, in almost every case they rejected those candidates in favor of secularists, humanists, socialists and even some pro-sodomites and pro-abortionists.

The question is, how did this happen? After decades of believing that we were engaging in political activism for the purpose of preserving Biblical values and Constitutional principles, how could we suddenly find ourselves pushing aside candidates who embody our professed values and instead willfully select a slate of secularists, humanists and even socialists to represent us? Part of the answer is that this did not happen overnight. This is the fruit of something that has been at work for a generation or more.

As I pondered and prayed over the matter, seeking understanding, the following allegory came to me.

There was a time when America was primarily on the straight and narrow path prescribed by our Creator. Oh yes, we sometimes swerved and swayed to this side of the road or that and sometimes even got off in the ditch. There have been occasional scoundrels in our midst who used the power of government for greedy gain. Yet over all, we continued to acknowledge the Sovereign of the universe, the fact that His was the right path that we should follow and that the Constitutionally prescribed form of government that He had blessed our land with should be observed and upheld.

Then there came a time when some began to openly reject the rule of the Sovereign and worked to take our nation off His path and to subvert the principles that our nation had been founded on and the Constitution that was given to secure the blessings of liberty and keep us on the right path. And so conservatism and the religious right were born in an attempt to resist the subverting influences and keep America on the Biblical and Constitutional path.

But over time the Christian-conservative-religious right began to wander off the path and into the woods beside the road, being enticed by the allure of the forest of political power. We began to trust in that power and think it to be something – something that we needed if we were to “save ourselves” from our enemies. And so we began to sell small portions of our birthright to the establishment that claimed to be the owners of the forest of political power whenever they demanded it of us in exchange for a seat at their table.

Eventually the allure of political power drew us deeper and deeper into the forest. Oh, we still had God in sight as we tracked a course parallel to His Biblically prescribed path and to the Constitutional road that our nation’s founders had set us on and so we assured ourselves that all was alright. But we continued to wander farther and farther off into the forest, trusting more and more in political power to save us from our opponents. We were now so deep in the forest that we were only catching glimpses of God and His path as we looked back over our shoulder, occasionally spying Him between the trees. We assured ourselves that all our political endeavors were for the purpose of getting the nation back to God’s right path, but first we had to get just a little more political power, which meant straying just a little farther into the forest; one more compromise in order to win at the ballot box; one more birth right to be sold to get our hands on the bowl of political pottage.

I believe that 2012 marks the year that the Christian-conservative-religious right finally wandered so far into the woods that we have now lost sight of the Biblically and Constitutionally prescribed path that our Creator once so graciously set this nation upon. The Christian-conservative-religious right is now completely lost in a forest of human reason and the quest for raw political power, oblivious to the fact that we’ve come to a fork in the road where God’s path went one way and we’ve gone another – that His presence, blessing and empowering has departed from our political endeavors because we’ve departed from Him and from His path and have, as the Bible puts it, “gone a whoring” after political power, party and a seat at the table, selling ourselves to the power brokers who assure us that their man can win in November.

Please don’t be fooled by the fact that we still use some Christian jargon or that we have candidates who use certain buzz words that we deceive ourselves into believing means that they are Christian or conservative and that it somehow makes whatever they do okay. When Christians, conservatives and the religious right reject overtly God honoring, Biblically sound and Constitutionally correct candidates during a primary election in favor of being represented by secularists, humanists, socialists, even some pro-sodomites and pro-abortionists, half of whose policies violate the very Constitution that they swear an oath before God to uphold and defend, all so that we can “win in November,” then the Christian-conservative-religious right has lost its way whether we’re willing to admit it or not.

It might be hard to believe that while calling ourselves Christian, thinking ourselves conservative and surrounding ourselves with Christian-conservative-religious right rhetoric, we could stray from the path, have God’s presence depart and not even notice. However, it happened to Israel over and over and it often took being smacked up-side the head with a stinging defeat before they woke up and realized that the glory had departed. In part 3 of this series we will look at a Biblical example of this very thing.

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Ichabod – The Real Message of the 2012 Election, can be purchased as a paperback book at lulu.com (click here for direct link).