DO YOU KNOW? Series Article #17

WHAT IS REALITY FOR AMERICA NOW?  HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?  WHAT DOES THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS TELL US?

WHAT IS GOD’S REAL MESSAGE TO US  FROM THE ELECTION?

What does our Creator have in mind right now for His world, the United States of America and its people?  If John McCain and Sarah Palin had been elected last Tuesday, we’d still have some restraint on the immoral direction of our country and its spiral into a liberal Godless society.  With Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid now in charge of the three branches of government (yes, that includes the Supreme Court), isn’t the bottom of socialistic decadence in full view now with a wide open slippery slope?

Well, I’m all in favor of searching for the good that always accompanies the bad.  Our Lord always provides for those who love him, so Christians should continue to pray one of the ten prayers He always says “YES” to:  “Please, Lord, Bring Good Out of This Bad Situation.”  

Of course, nobody really knows what God’s message is to us from this election.  Many don’t believe God sends messages to us.  For others, His message could be: “You’d better get your affairs in order,” meaning your spiritual affairs.  To His believers, He might be saying: “Watch for the day marshall law is declared and be ready to follow your guardian angel to the refuge prepared for us for a 3 & 1/2 year period of tribulation.”  In case you think I’m kidding, there are thousands of refuges already set up around the world.  But, that’s a subject for a future “Do You Know” article.

HOW LONG DOES THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAVE?

So, let’s look at the future we can see coming, mostly because there is nothing visble to stop what’s already in motion and has been since Adam and Eve: The democracy or civilization countdown-HOW LONG DO WE HAVE? Many of you have probably heard what a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, Alexander Tyler, told us in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic 2000 years ago: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government”…it exists only ”until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.”  Didn’t FDR’s New Deal get that started in earnest and then, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society bring on an enormous government welfare system until it was reigned in by a Republican Congress in 1994.

Tyler continues:  “From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”   And now we see the collapse of Jimmy Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s affordable housing for the poor, programs perpetuated and aggravated by liberal control of Congress since 2006 that culminated last month in the crash of our credit and housing markets despite calls for reform by the Bush administration.

BONDAGE TO BONDAGE IN 200 YEARS

Tyler goes on:  “The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years…during (which) those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. FROM BONDAGE TO SPIRITUAL FAITH…
2. FROM SPIRITUAL FAITH TO GREAT COURAGE…
3. FROM COURAGE TO LIBERTY…
4. FROM LIBERTY TO ABUNDANCE…
5. FROM ABUNDANCE TO COMPLACENCY…
6. FROM COMPLACENCY TO APATHY…
7. FROM APATHY BACK INTO BONDAGE.”

WHERE ARE WE NOW ON THIS LIST & HOW FAST ARE WE MOVING?

Joseph Olson is a professor at Hemline University’s School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He uses some demographics from the 2000 presidential election to provide a benchmark for determining how fast we are moving down this list from our present position.

In the 2000 election:

• Democrats won 19 States, Republican won 29…
• Democrats won 580,000 square miles, Republicans won 2,427,000…
• Democrats won the county population of 127 million, Republicans won the county population of 143 million…
• The murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Democrats was 13.2, in counties won by Republicans 2.1.

Professor Olson adds this:  “In aggregate, the map of the territory won by Republicans was mostly land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this country.  Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.”  Olson believes the United States is somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some 40% of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.

By comparing those demographics above from the 2000 election with the same demographics from this 2008 election after they are published, it will give us an idea of how fast we are moving on this slide and help tell us how long before we return to bondage, according to Professor Tyler.  If Congress and our new president grant amnesty and citizenship to millions of alien illegals as they have said they want to do for the unspoken reason that it will increase their voter base for the next and future elections, how long do you think we have before we are in bondage again, five years?  Ten years?  Twenty years?  Throw in the liberal’s propensity to spend money, create larger deficits, raise taxes, and cut our military, then answer that question again.

How many times have you heard, read, or been told that great empires, great nations, and/or affluent civilizations destroy themselves internally before external forces cause their destruction?  Over 90% of our founding fathers were Christians who came to this conuntry to regain their freedom of religion.  Now, with the removal of our Supreme Creator from our public lives just about everywhere we turn, doesn’t the election of an anti-life president along with his culture of death colleagues tell our God that the majority of our people see Him as irrelevant?  Do you think for a moment His message is telling us He doesn’t care about that or that if we keep doing what we’re doing that He will give us the grace to overcome evil after all?  Not likely.  It’s more likely He is telling us to prepare for the day John describes in Revelation as the last decisive battle between good and evil that we call Armageddon.    

Ask yourself these questions:  If New Testament Scripture tells us that Christ will be coming again and spends one whole book describing a devastating encounter between Christ and the forces of the devil, is there any chance there will be a peaceful negotiated settlement because our world is getting holier and less evil?  Since just the opposite is in full view for all to see, with moral relativism becoming more and more the secular religion of our society, with the election of our new president and more of his culture of death political party purveyors of corruption, who is going to decide what’s good and what’s evil, what’s right and what’s wrong?  Do we even talk about it in our Catholic Churches on Sunday mornings?  Do we even recognize ”mortal sin” anymore because it could be too offensive to the secular generic Christian Catholics in our parishes?

 AS CHRISTIANS, CAN WE DO ANYTHING ABOUT OUR CONDITION? 

As disciples in Christ’s war with Satan, no matter how bleak the battlefield appears, don’t we have a moral responsibility to win the battle for souls even knowing that, until Christ does come, we probably will continue losing the war?  So, here are some things we can do as Christians and as a Church:

#1.  SPEAK LIKE JESUS WOULD! 

According to Raymond de Sousa, a Catholic Apologist who heads up Saint Gabriel Communications International in Perth Australia: In discipleship for God and His Gospel today…“we live in a time when our culture is politically correct and we think in terms of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe’ and ‘how we feel about it.’  But, that is not how Jesus Christ thought (or spoke), when He said for example, ‘He who is not with Me is against me,’ or ‘He who does not gather together with Me scatters abroad,’ or ‘Let your communication be yes, yes, or no, no.’   The whole Sermon On The Mount is a clear teaching on morality.”  In other words, don’t be defensive or wishy washy about your faith.  Look for opportunities to be a witness to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as your safety net for the challenges and losses of life and to be a refuge for those who aren’t blessed with a relationship with God.

Pope John Paul II, when he spoke to the youth in Spain in 1981 about the spiritual background we must have within us for morality gave us a prescription and a technique for Christ like discipleship, said:  “Learn to think, speak, and act in accordance with the evangelical simplicity and clarity of: YES, YES, NO, NO.  Learn to call GOOD,  GOOD, and EVIL, EVIL; to call BLACK, BLACK, and WHITE, WHITE; to call SIN, SIN, and not to call it liberation or progress even if fashion or propaganda are opposed to this teaching.” 

#2. IMPLEMENT THE CARLIN PLAN IN ANSWER #3 OF ARTICLE #9.  

In considering the task the Catholic Church has in front of it now, what should a vigorous surviving Church look like?  David Carlin’s eleven positive characteristics of an anti-secularist non-denominational Catholicism in Article #9, promugates the antithesis of, denounces, and publicly opposes modern secularism.   The Catholic Church, its clergy and its laity, must make the “religion” of moral relativist secularism our religious mortal enemy, and act and talk like it.  No longer can we be silent both in the public square and from our Church pulpits.   Now that we have clearly  identified our enemy, we must not change our values to match his, rather we must strengthen them to overcome his. 

Make no mistake, Barrack Obama and his liberal democrat secularist party leadership, along with their mainstream media, are and will be as destructive to our free, constitutionally based, and Christian way of life as any outside enemy such as Islamic terriorism.    

#3. STOP THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE ACT FROM BECOMING LAW! 

For the immediate future, we must defeat FOCA.  Cardinal George, President now of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in his statement at the end of the USCCB’s fall assembly that: “the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve,” if the administration’s policies increase abortion.

He also warned Obama about mis-reading the results of the election when he said:  “The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families,…. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve.  Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good…. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation (like FOCA), and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans.”

It was important that the Cardinal make this statement as soon as he has after the election because Obama’s Alinsky Black Liberation Theology training has him watching closely for this kind of advanced uncategorical warning to his plans.  If the Cardinal, as President of the USCCB, and the Catholic Church as a whole do not quickly, visibly, and persistently establish the moral high ground on this satan-like culture of death, devisive law; Obama, his administration of pro-abortionists, and their media protectionists will pass this legislation before the end of January. 

The flaw in Cardinal George’s statement is that it was not made in the form of a personal letter to Obama and the Congress of the U.S. and sent to them directly with a copy to all of the major media outlets.  We must hear about  his message and additional messages through the main stream media or we’ll loss this battle as well. 

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow parishioners, the leadership in our Catholic Church, after what happened on November 4th as one of the most devastating defeats to our pro-life efforts since Roe v Wade, cannot continue to fight this war for life in the same manner they have since 1973 and expect a different outcome in the next four years.  With the help of just a handful of our bishops, Priests For Life led by Father Pavone, EWTN, President Bush’s Supreme Court appointments, and some non-Catholic organizations like Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, the laity of our faith had brought us to the brink of total success of ending federal legal abortion.  Please realize, we stand to regress all the way back to ground zero where we were on January 22nd, 1973 if Obama is successful in gaining passage of FOCA. 

Until the last five to six weeks before the election, our Church hierarchy was absent from the effort to defeat Obama for president, in which effort they were encouraged to participate before the 2004 election.  Bishops Kevin Farrell and Kevin Vann of the Dallas and Fort Worth Dioceses respectively finally stepped out in leadership with a joint statement that was actually powerful enough to be heard and criticized by the secular media around the world.  Nothing less than that bold courage they displayed in October is now required of them in order to continue that leadership in bringing about and carrying out a much greater Catholic Church and Christian public battle strategy to defeat Obama’s pledged passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.

Resistance.com has already collected several hundred thousand signatures on a public petition to prevent the passage of the resurrected “Fairness Doctrine” to squash the conservative dissent of talk radio.  This and more will have to be done led by our Catholic and Christian hierarchy in order to stop passage of FOCA.  Nothing we do will accomplish that, not five million signatures and Congressional letters will matter if Church leadership stays silent and refuses leadership of this effort.  It must begin immediately if we are to have time to get it done.  So, we are requesting our two bishops to request this of Cardinal George to reinforce circulation of the FOCA petition.  How about www.StopFreedomofChoice.org originating from the USCCB in order to get the attention of the American Christian public. 

#4. CLOSE DOWN ABORTION CLINICS NATIONWIDE BY FLOODING THEIR SIDEWALKS WITH PRAY-ERS AND COUNSELORS.

This could happen if Cardinal George wanted it to by insisting that every diocesan bishop where abortion clinics are located require their pastors and their clergy make a parish project out of this goal, talked about it from the pulpit on a regular basis, and asked for volunteers.

What’s it going to take for Cardinal George and our clergy to do that?  There is precedence of Catholic Church leadership breaking their silence and crossing that line between espousing moral beliefs and values and taking sides in the political arena.  It takes courage.

To overcome his and their usual reluctance to get involved in politics, let’s examine the example of Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila, who in 1984 was referred to as the most popular man in the Phillipines. The country was disintegrating under the rule of the well-known tyrant, Ferdinand Marcos, and their traditional democracy was being degraded by a government that made less and less pretense of justice. 

Cardinal Sin constantly criticized the government for human rights abuses, (and of course, none have been worse in the history of mankind than the 50 million babies killed by our own government’s decision in 1973) on which he sent pastoral letters read in every Roman Catholic Church in the Phillipines.  He initially made clear that he did not speak for opposition politicians, but for God.  You see, He was a student of the Bible and after studying the Book of Chronicles, he discovered a parrallel with the grief his own nation was suffering following the murder of their resistance leader, Benigno Aquino, in the account of Israel’s corrupt leaders.  Sin reasoned, “When God wants to punish a people, He gives them unjust rulers, like Marcos.”  He believed then, the answer for the people is to repent, turn away from their views, be converted, and seek God.

Isn’t that kind of what we are feeling today about our new secular government taking office in Washington?

Now, Bishop Farrell and the USCCB could use that tactic to justify an active role in our effort to stop passage of the Freedom of Choice Act before Congress even assembles in January.

Or, even better, in the case of Obama’s fraudulent citizenship, they could do what Cardinal Sin did next.  Until Aquino was murdered, he had been very careful not to marry the Church’s position to the opposition.  When Marcos disgracefully intimidated the Cardinal into supporting his re-election, Sin crossed the line of his self-imposed pledge and fired back in discust, “Sir, I will unite the opposition in order that there may be a fair election.”  Result: with the national unifying power of Cardinal Sin, Corazon Aquino, the popular wife of the slain Benigno, won the election and took office after the remarkable intervention of God himself to overcome the military power of Marcos to maintain office by force.  It’s a fantastic true story that will be posted on my blog in the near future.

 However, with this example, the Bishops don’t need to be defensive about crossing that self-imposed or attorney imposed prohibition of supporting government dissent especially when we have a moral responsibility to disobey illicit law making.

Chuck Suter