The big blackout

"Our hearts and prayers should go
out to Chief Justice Moore as he continues his valiant fight to
acknowledge the Judeo-Christian principles that have guided our
country so well for over two centuries.... It is bad enough when
the electricity is turned off for a few hours. Think about what
condition our country would be in without having the Ten
Commandments to illuminate our lives during the last two
centuries. What if the secular lobby triumphs repeatedly and we
spend the next 50 years or more in an ever-increasing spiritual
blackout? It's a pretty scary thought." - Paul M. Weyrich

New York City - Blackout 2003

On August 17, practically the
entire Northeast of America and Canada were subject to a power
failure right at afternoon peak hour. Scenes of thousands of
people walking the freeways of New York City, taking the routes
home that would normally be taken by their cars or buses, filled
our TV screens for hours. A 9/11 sensitized city responded with
an orderly chaos. Thousands of drivers took strangers home to the
same neighbourhoods. Expected looting and other crimes did not
come to pass, as some media outlets had predicted. I had to
cancel my scheduled ministry in the Bronx that night as the main
arteries in and out of the city were choked. It was characterized
as 'The Big Blackout of '03!'

Even though the blackout only
lasted for a little over 24 hours, the repercussions spread
around the world, are still being felt, and the lawsuits soon
began to flow. However, there is an even greater blackout that
has been affecting America for the last 40 years. An increasing
spiritual and moral darkness began to creep across the land in
the twilight of the last millennium. A 'foolish virgin' church
(Matthew 25) didn't have enough oil to make it through the night.
Its light grew dim and seemed to be unable to hold back the
encroaching darkness. A subtle agenda began to slowly work its
way through western culture like a cancer that sneaks up on you
and is not noticed until it is too late. A little bit of leaven
leavened just about the whole lump. 

The education system was gradually
dumbed-down and saturated with relativism so that moral compasses
were confused to the point that the emerging generation could not
tell north from south anymore. On this decline, Thomas Sowell
recently had this astute observation, "In the long run, the
greatest weapon of mass destruction is stupidity. In an age of
artificial intelligence, too many of our schools are producing
artificial stupidity, in the sense of ideas and attitudes far
more foolish than young people would have arrived at on their
own.... Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an avowed
enemy can destroy many Americans, but they cannot destroy
America, because we are too strong and too capable of counter
attack. Only Americans can destroy America. Too many of our
schools have for years been quietly undermining the values and
abilities that are needed to preserve any society - and
especially a free society."

The Ten Commandments Monument

So we come to Justice Moore's
dilemma, one which tries to mix the oil and water of religion and
politics and raises doubts about America being a 'free society'
any longer. 'Old wine' thinking would have the church stay out of
politics and secularists fight to keep it so, but it is because
the church has swallowed the lie that it is not entitled to a
voice in the governing of men's affairs that the bigger blackout
is here! Executive Chairman of the Australian Christian Lobby,
Jim Wallace addressed a meeting of the NSW Council of Churches a
few days ago. His topic, 'Politics: What Can the Churches Do?' He
said that the Church's role is to keep Christian principles well
to the fore in public life and community debate. This must be
done so that the potential deviations of business and politics
are ameliorated and the rights of the disenfranchised are
represented and protected. Wallace argues that by its nature,
politics plays lightly with the truth, business pushes the bounds
of ethics for profit, and special interest groups focus down on
narrow and self-serving agendas. Hence the need for the Churches
to stand for the interests of those who lack power and influence
to make their voice heard. 

According to the Religion News
Service, Richard Cohen is one of the lawyers who sued to
challenge the display placed by Chief Justice Roy Moore. The
2.5-ton monument that once stood in the middle of the building's
rotunda now resides in a locked storage room. Moore said he
intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court... Cohen said
protesters, who have bemoaned an erosion of religious rights,
have twisted what the lawsuit tried to do. The lawsuit was about
protecting religious freedom, he said. "The case was never an
attack on religion. Justice Moore wanted to promote one religion
to the exclusion of others," he said. This last statement clearly
reveals the 'doctrine' of political correctness that is
endeavouring to masquerade as mainstream thinking. The United
States was founded as a Christian nation, but certain interest
groups would have 'other gods!' The most recent survey revealed
that 75% of Americans did not approve of the Supreme Court
Justice's decision to remove the Ten Commandments Monument in
Alabama. So much for democracy. It now appears that an unelected
judge has more power than the people. The clash over the Ten
Commandments is just the latest skirmish in a much larger clash
between competing and incompatible world views vying for the
heart of America.

Yes Church, it's time for us to
wake up and let our light shine so brightly that the encroaching
darkness will be pushed back and the moral and ethical 'night'
held at bay! We are in an age where we seem to be getting closer
to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did, but
we are all responsible for what somebody else did. It's time to
take responsibility, corporately as the church, but also
personally. Each cell must be healthy before the body will be in
good health. It starts with YOU!