Autumn Song

Apart from some really good barbecue, there’s nothing more “southern” than visiting some authentic Civil War sites when you’re in Tennessee. Having moved here a couple of years ago, my husband and I were entertaining out-of-town family recently, so we made sure we included BBQ and also a tour of the Carter House, the site of the short but devastating Franklin Battle during the Civil War. The tour was excellent– interesting and informative.

It was a good reminder that there was nothing “civil” about the Civil War. It was horrific. Civil war produces an abrupt halt to freedom; it creates a paralyzing atmosphere of fear and panic; it wounds and kills innocent people, and it harshly divides friends and even families members. And if all of this sounds too close to home, that’s probably because like it or not, we are currently living through a very real Civil War, though it’s not with guns and cannons. 

What’s happening in America today is an intense conflict– a Civil War, if you will– of words, ideas, philosophy, and actions, an intense clash of two opposing, dominant worldviews that is robbing our freedoms, creating fear, and dividing friends and families. 

On the one side is “Biblical Christianity”–that is, the belief that God and His Word (the Bible) form the lens through which the culture is viewed and by which the directives for all of life are determined. This has recently been coined by opponents as “Christian Nationalism” because it includes the application of the Christian faith to politics and the civil sphere, with the understanding that this nation was founded upon Christian ideas.

The opposing worldview,“Humanism,” is the belief that man’s progressive ideas form the lens through which life is viewed and lived out. It has declared war against Biblical Christianity.

These humanistic ideas have erroneously been coined as “Science,” though in truth many of the ideas defy scientific facts, most often driven, in truth, by emotions. Basically, it’s a war to determine who ultimately has the last word in establishing the boundaries of mens’ actions – God (through the Bible) or man (through alleged “Science.”) 

On the one side is the belief that God holds ultimate authority because He made everything. It’s His. It’s the belief that God created only 2 sexes, male and female in order to procreate; that life is sacred and abortion is heinous murder of the most innocent; that marriage is between one man and one woman in order to propagate children and form the foundation of civilized society. 

On the other side is the belief that man’s evolving ideas hold ultimate authority– that despite what DNA establishes, the individual can choose to be any (or no) sex; that a woman herself has the ultimate authority to kill the sacred life within her if she herself deems that life of less value than her own; that the ultimate goal of marriage is to satisfy personal lust (erroneously labeled ‘love’) and therefore can be any combination of gender. In usurping authority over life and death issues like these, man then becomes ‘god,’ if you will. 

The conflict between these strongly opposite positions is intense. It’s war. 

Any suggestion that we can all peacefully coexist, each within our preferred individual belief system, is erroneous and unrealistic because as Orwell suggested in Animal Farm, some will inevitably rise as “more equal than others.” Those who call for “compromise” are, in truth, calling for surrender. There is no middle ground. If faith in God and His authority could be compromised, it would not be a real faith. It’s all or none. 

To compromise any part of it would reduce faith to merely an option in the great big pool of belief systems out there. To compromise what we believe would be to admit we are merely playing a game, each of us hiding behind our “imaginary friend”– the ‘god’ that we ourselves have created according to our own preferences and can manipulate on a whim. We’re merely pretending, playing an imaginary war with our plastic soldiers all lined up in rows. God Himself becomes nothing more than the made-up idea of the humanist. It’s all a game.

The Biblical Christian worldview, however, is a firm and unwavering belief that God really is who the Bible says He is, not just a concept of what we want Him to be; that He created the world and everything in it, and because of that, He alone makes the rules. He alone creates life and has the right to determine who lives, and when they die. 

Having created life and all that’s in the world, God then gave us the “instruction manual” (the Bible) for how it all works properly. Whether we’re professing Christians or not, there are blessings as we comply with His instruction manual, and consequences (or “curses” as the Bible says) when we violate His instructions. It just doesn’t work when we don’t follow the instruction manual. It’s that simple. 

To clarify, this does not suggest that everyone must be “saved” or converted to the Christian faith in order to secure these blessings. And yet God’s blessings are conditional– there are blessings for following His instruction manual (His Law), and inevitable trouble for defying it, whether we’re confessing Christians or not, as America’s 200 years of history have proven. 

God is not merely a warm and fuzzy idea that I can make up in my head because truthfully, there are aspects of His character that my sinful humanity is not particularly comfortable with. God is real, and I can’t change Him into what I want Him to be or ignore the reality of who He is. He is not an imaginary friend. His instructions are for the benefit of the human race, and for the success of the world He created so that all of creation might characterize the life, goodness, and fruitfulness of who He is. The Bible is not restrictive. It’s liberating. 

The humanist worldview, on the other hand, desperately wants ‘man’ to be the ultimate authority, to replace God’s instructions with his own, to control and manipulate everyone else for the controller’s benefit, and to force everyone else to give license and affirmation to the perversions which they call ‘freedoms.” And there’s no greater way to prove ultimate control than to be the one to determine who lives and who dies– which is why the abortion issue is a battle that won’t be easily surrendered.

In this war, the most recent attack of the humanists has involved posting multiple fear-mongering articles and television interviews planting the idea that “Christian Nationalists,” though a small minority, are a highly dangerous group that threatens to rob our freedoms and force a “Theocracy.” 

So what exactly is a “Theocracy?” “Theo” means “God; “ocracy” refers to “government;” and “government” is defined as “direction, control, regulation, restraint.” So apparently if any Christians– like me– believe that God’s Word is the standard of measurement, or the “instruction manual” by which we all should live, we are a “dangerous threat,” capable of forcing everyone else to conform to “the instruction manual.” 

Meanwhile, the Humanists are actively infiltrating the schools’ curriculum with their philosophy and indoctrinating children with drag queen story time in libraries as they propagate transgenderism and identity confusion; they mutilate young people with coercive sex-altering surgeries; they control the news media with their biased agenda in their determination to force compliance of the masses to embrace their ideology through fear and intimidation; they censor those of us who resist their philosophy; they rewrite history, destroy historic landmarks, and inject their propaganda into movies, television shows, ads, and commercials during sports events; biological men force their way into women’s bathrooms and usurp women’s sports; they force compliance to experimental gene therapy injections via threats and coercion; they propagate the heinous mutilating murder of millions upon millions of innocent pre-born babies and sell their body parts, and at the same time, they are accusing Christians like me of dangerously forcing our agenda on everybody else. Does something here seem blatantly inconsistent to you too?

Let it be known that bold advocates of “Theocracy” unabashedly apply faith in God to everything we do, including voting for the policies and people that best represent the “instruction manual” that guarantees the blessings of the successful, fruitful, equitable, charitable, life-affirming existence that we all strive for. 

There is a war going on, and it’s real– but we need to identify clearly which side is the dangerous one. At the same time, we don’t need to fear. Psalm 2 says, “the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord… [and yet] He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision…” 

We are most assuredly at war, but we already know who is going to win. The victory is secure. Just wait for it. 

“Arise O God, set forth Thy rights, pronounce Thy just decree; 

The heritage of Earth by right belongs, O Lord, to Thee…” (Psalter, Psalm 82)