Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #815 (6-28-22), “Lively Fourth of July.” It’s a lively time in America, Independence Day is next Monday, and a recent poll tries to imply God is failing.  Get real.  See the column below, at our blog CommonChristianity, or on social media. Enjoy the week, and God bless the U.S.A.

Bob

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Labels: 4^th of July, America, culture, faith, Gallup Poll, God’s truth, politics

Spirituality Column #815

June 28, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Lively Fourth of July

By Bob Walters

“Belief in God in U.S. Dips to 81%, a New Low” – Gallup Poll headline, May 2022

Let’s begin with a reverent, grace-infused, all-church chuckle at any notion that a Gallup poll of humans has any effect on the absolute truth and righteousness of God.

No matter who does the poll when or where, polls measure humans, not God.

This was a recent poll and yes, it is a particularly lively time in America. We shake our heads as a congregation – the macro, unified congregation of saved sinners and believers in Jesus Christ – at the God-bereft messaging swirling in our nation. 

We look around … at culture, politics, education, social priorities, unpunished crime, inflation, unsecure borders, charlatan news media, raunchy entertainment, selective prosecution, fraudulent science, mindless internet influencers, dysphoric gender promoters, bad-faith government, rich liberal elites, poor urban slums, dark-web conspiracists, and neighbors with non-sensical justice signs in their yards … and sigh.

I fly an American flag on our house, so I’m one of the commenting nuts as well.

We may well be personally in the Bible, God’s word, every day, in church every Sunday, and praying without ceasing in our hearts.  But when we survey modern America’s ideological landscape – every jot and tittle of public discourse – it’s admittedly easier to behold culture’s diminished belief in God and gross abandonment of morals and truth than to grasp faithfully the accessible grace and always-there truth of Jesus.

When will we remember? It is the truth and grace of Jesus that fixes all things.

God’s truth, morals, and righteousness are eternal. Of that, I’m 100 percent sure. 

They are objective. They don’t change. They are not subject to earthly principalities, kings, fashion, expedience, comfort, phase of the moon, position of the stars, a lawyer’s argument, a politician’s wiles, or my own personal best guess on the right thing to do.

God is neither less righteous, less alive, nor less authoritative today at 81 percent of folks believing, than He was in 1954 at 98 percent.  That was Gallup’s record high since the poll began in 1944.  But … the poll is about us, not God; God is 100 percent.

I don’t blame the internet and mass-media fueled glut of information for the variety of opinions, passions, and positions across the spectrum of America.  We are created equal and are free to form our opinions but not our own truth.  God does that.

America is the great experiment in enjoying freedom at the head of the line and at the point of the spear; we are free to do whatever we want but are responsible for whatever we do.  God didn’t make us to be the same; but He made us to love Him, to love others, and to honor His truth with our faith and work. That’s the message of Jesus.

God’s important and we’re important. Truth is eternal and our opinions are … not.

Today’s great cultural error – though truly I believe it constitutes willful, strategic, sociological malfeasance in the service of ungodly political power – is forcing tribal “diversity” or group segregation that destroys the freedom to build broad relationships.

We Americans – sinners all – are only a “moral people” as far as we understand, accept, and act on our relationship to God and each other 100 percent of the time.

That’s the truth, with no dip.  And we shouldn’t need a poll to tell us that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) celebrates God’s truth every day, the 4^th of July, too.  America’s freedom of individual uniqueness and opportunity are the envy of the world.