The United States finds itself right now in great danger because it is unsure about absolute truth. What do I mean? Let me start with the danger and destruction part. An enemy wishes either the take-over or the annihilation of Western civilization, which includes the United States of America, and an insufficient number of its leaders will even acknowledge or admit it. This opposition sees no problem with poisoning the water supply, exploding a nuclear device, or blowing up masses of civilians at a public event. They want to do all of these things and more. I could easily write a list of over a hundred of them.
A little over fourteen years ago, the enemy I’m talking about prepared and then executed the single greatest onslaught on American soil in the nation’s history. They hijacked four passenger planes and flew three of them into buildings, two of them two of the largest skyscrapers in the world, killing over three thousand. For a short while, the country recognized the threat of bloodshed and dedicated itself to its own defense. It seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation it was in — now, not so much. This foe has strengthened itself exponentially in the Middle East and the borders of the nation are porous. The United States really is ripe for a gigantic massacre of unsurpassed proportions.
I haven’t said the name of the enemy because that is part of the problem. A big number, especially powerful ones, of the elected officers in the government of the United States, including the president himself, won’t say that it is even radical Islam. He or Hillary Clinton not only won’t say it is any type of Islam, but they say that it is not Islam. They outright say that Islam is not the problem. Most Republicans will say “radical Islam,” qualifying a particular type of Islam, but they won’t say Islam — no way. Recently Donald Trump nibbled around it, but then backed off, then blaming it on the media. No elected official, that I know of, will say it’s Islam.
What I’ve written about so far relates to something even more serious and far more fundamental than the unwillingness to say that the problem is Islam. I’m talking about saying that something, anything, is a problem, judgment of problems. I called it postmodernism, because that is the official name that is most often given to it. I would say that it is something more sinister than the very philosophical sounding “postmodernism.” A lot of people, albeit a minority of Americans, will say that postmodernism is bad. Maybe a majority of professing evangelicals will say postmodernism is terrible. Almost no one today, a very small minority, will admit to absolute truth. Even the most conservative people have diluted the truth down to a very few essential truths that qualify with the rest up for grabs.
People won’t call the terrorism problem Islam, because they either (a) don’t think they can judge, (b) don’t think they know enough to judge, or (c) that they don’t think they should judge because it would seem like they know enough to judge and no one should want to look like that they know that. People are not sure about the truth any more. If two people look at a piece of ugliness, it could only be a matter of opinion as to whether it is ugly, and no one should judge. Maybe he could judge, but he shouldn’t, because it’s not worth to judge, even a problem to judge.
In John 8, Jesus said that He was the light of the world. First, He was sure of it, which made it more of a problem for a big segment of His audience. Second, He didn’t say He was the shades of indistinguishable gray. He was the light. Light. Light dispels darkness. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. People today have a problem with that. Some darkness is required.
You may think I’m consigning this non-judgmentalism to just liberals in the country. I’m not. This has spread everywhere. Most churches are this way. Even among the people with whom I would most self-identify, independent Baptists, they allow false gospels to flourish in their midst rather than judge any of that and bring so-called disunity among them. The most popular are coalition builders. So, when I say that someone won’t say that Islam is the problem because they can’t judge that, the root problem has spread everywhere. Some of those independent Baptists would say Islam is the problem, but they have still been diseased by postmodernism.
Sometimes I sit with men and say the most obvious things, and they can’t just agree with me. If I said the sky was blue, and someone else thought it was green, they would try to see it both ways somewhat. They remain silent. They won’t say anything, because they have friends who are involved. They are hurting those “friends” by saying nothing, but they still have to play the “good cop” because they can’t come across like they really know that it is wrong. They are still not sure themselves, or at least have to act like they are unsure.
Islam is an enemy, not the enemy, but a major enemy socio-politically. They are endangering this country and all of Western civilization, and people can’t admit it. This is a sure path toward future destruction. Right this moment Islam could not militarily defeat the United States. They however, could be, very soon, such a major threat that they paralyze the United States into giving up many of its freedoms. This is coming soon. I would call this a symptom of the real problem still though.
Doctors are telling us that there is a future pandemic coming. This relates to overuse of antibiotics. Doctors have been prescribing antibiotics for years to many who didn’t need them, and this over prescribing, most people know, has the world to a place where antibiotics will be useless, because the bacteria have adapted to them now. This was understood and pretty simple, but now I’m using it as an illustration. We could reach a place very soon where they will be of very little use and many people will die because they need antibiotics to work, and they won’t. Rather than tell people what they needed to hear, doctors just handed them out, because it was easier.
What I described above in doctors is how it has been in the church for decades. Even the most conservative people in churches are clueless. I’m reading James White and John MacArthur, and the most conservative men are still treating certain practices as non-essentials that are the biggest enemies in the church. The biggest enemies in the church are not doctrinal. They like to mock you if you focus on almost anything short of the Trinity. The doctrinal are important, yes. Our church just did a whole conference about the gospel, because that is true. However, they have turned all sorts of worldly practices into non-essentials, that really do have the greatest impact on degrading the church. The problem is not with doctrine, but with people’s affections, something that Jonathan Edwards wrote about as early as the Great Awakening of the 18th century.
Many men will not have you judge anything but a few doctrines in order to maintain “catholicity.” They are preserving the coalitions that pay the salaries and buy the books. In a foundational way, this is part of postmodernism. Somebody can say, “turn to God,” and really not know who God is, and this is why things are slipping fast. This is the reason. James White, however, says that the problem is fundamentalism. He says, and I’ve heard Phil Johnson say this too, that fundamentalism itself is the reason for the postmodernism (these are Calvinists saying this, whose soteriology contradicts the very notion, so even Calvinism isn’t absolute here). In other words, they say the people that are the most sure about truth are the greatest enemy to the truth. People gladly believe this so that they can keep living how they want to live. These men become their unwitting apologists.
As I write this, I’m not saying that no matter is in dispute. There are disputable matters and those are matters of liberty, non-scriptural matters. The list of the disputable, however, is huge with even the conservatives today, and it allows the church to be like the world and yet say it believes in Jesus Christ. This is what will destroy Christianity. People really do know this. I’m not saying most know it now, but many that talk as they do, really do know I’m right in what I’m writing here.
Evangelicals can barely lay out any kind of coherent understanding of separation. They usually start apologizing for it before they can start to get out what they mean by it. It’s so fuzzy that you can’t expect anyone to practice it. It comes with so many disclaimers that no one could ever figure it out. Why? They aren’t sure about the truth. They’ll say they are, but no one can separate over anything if he isn’t sure about what anything is. He’ll keep allowing the behavior without doing anything because he’s not sure that anything is wrong. This is where we’re at today. It’s why we can’t send illegal immigrants out of the country too.
We live in a country that won’t admit that illegal immigration is illegal, so the country has a swiss cheese border that will allow something disastrous into it. We can’t destroy an enemy because we can’t say that it is one. It’s even worse than that, but what is worse than that is what is causing that. The greater enemy of our president is the intolerance of, that is, the judgment of homosexuality as sin. Instead of defeating an enemy, the problem is either not allowing homosexuals in the military or not allowing women to be Rangers in the infantry. Our Secretary of the Army, just appointed, is homosexual. An enemy exists that wants to kill millions, and yet the real enemy to postmodernism is the admission that God created man and woman.
The problem really does start with an unwillingness to admit absolute truth and then take that to its only and consistent end. Islam can’t be an enemy to postmodernists, only intolerance. As a result, great danger and destruction is ahead for this country. You might not even know it when it happens, because it was in the water or in the road or at an event you attended. No one could judge, because no one could know, and you and-or your family will become the casualty.
Kent,
No comments for this post? Sad, but self-evident from your summary of postmodernism. For men like White and Johnson, they have truly missed the mark. Fundamentalism started due to the rationalism of Modernism. It is that rationalism that has infiltrated evangelical and now fundamentalist circles.
We see many more still deny a 6 day creation. (and the corollary issues of human sexuality) We see sin degraded by the arguments of situational ethics and the freedoms of individual liberty of conscience. Forget any such notion of Biblical standards, that is too legalistic for them.
Outside of abortion, adultery, murder, and perhaps a few others, I never hear about many other "sins" in the Bible from most pastors. It is because leaders are unwilling to mention any other "sins" for the sake of not offending others or for avoiding be called a legalist or moralist. Relativism, situational ethics, and soul liberty almost obliterate in their minds anything else being designated as sin. They are smug about their own contrived holiness, separation, and spiritual maturity because of how they live their own narrative before God.
This too, is how postmodernism has gotten into and will make further headway into evangelical and more fundamentalist churches. Today's spiritual leaders have misused orthodoxy and the analogy of faith to suit their own common ends. I find the practice nauseating at best.
Ken,
Thanks for the comment. I too think this is major and obvious, but it fits that it would be ignored. I wish it was more paid attention too.
Taking up an "unbiased" middle ground is applauded as there must be "merit" on both sides. This is a prime example of the relativistic thinking which permeates our society. A comparison with God's Word is the true measure of unbiasedness as it is the standard of absolute truth – and there lies the hurdle. Few admit there is absolute truth, even fewer aknowledge it is found in the Bible, yet to actually compare it to one's own life and the actions of others seems to be the the most refused action of all.
Derek
Hi Derek,
Well said.
Thanks for dropping by.