Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-4-16

Our recent essay concluded with a question posed by the successful Brexit vote, wherein the United Kingdom voted to end its membership in the European Union, and the certainty that many other countries soon will do the same. That question is this: If the current mode of virtually unbridled democracy had existed on July 4, 1776, how different would that world, and our world, be?

Men gathered from 13 colonies in Philadelphia to air and share their grievances. The Mother Country had dismissed their concerns, levied taxes, and arbitrarily stationed troops throughout the colonies. An emerging people – a nation of newly minted, self-conscious Americans – had chased off their lands the armies and representatives of the Netherlands, France, and Spain; pacified or cowed numerous native tribes who previously had squabbled among themselves for the same pieces of earth; and generally adopted English as the common and legal language.

In short time there arose common bonds of affection within the colonies, also trade and “commercial intercourse,” and the shared values of daily life’s fabric. Many “Americans” believed that the Crown and Parliament owed deference and special status to these British colonies. So did some prominent Britons, like Edmund Burke, whose “Conciliation With the Colonies” is still a literary classic. But London answered with less, not more, deference.

Eventually the leading figures of politics, government, business, trade, and society gathered in Philadelphia. They knew it was not to compose another letter, another petition, to the Crown. They had schooled themselves in biblical history, Greek democracy, Roman law, the Magna Carta and English Common Law, and philosophers of the Enlightenment. They were a remarkable collection of intellects, representing yet other luminaries of American history who did not attend these sessions, but supported the deliberations.

Those deliberations were no mystery; there was no shroud of secrecy, no imminent surprises. Their councils were idealistic… but grim.

The men who gathered were not, strictly speaking, suicidal. Yet they all declared – they so agreed and announced to the world – to “pledge their lives, their fortunes, their scared honor” to declare independence, to formalize nationhood.

Independence. It is a word that should still cause inchoate swelling of pride and even defiance in the descendants of those rebels, 240 years later. It is, strange but true, the motivation of the Brexit campaigners in the UK, and the nationalist movements in a dozen other European nations right now. The establishment press and political elites are trying to argue for 2-out-of-3; or claiming that voters were unprepared for the vote; or… any desperate evocations they can muster of King Canute of legend: the futile inability to order back the crashing ocean waves.

Ironically, King George III is reincarnated in the Bureaucrats of Brussels. It is the critique of Kafka and the jibes of Jefferson, however, that animate the workers and middle classes of traditional Europe these days. The soul of Sobieski, martyrdom of Martel and others who, over 15 centuries, battled to keep Europe Christian and white. But today we remember the Declaration of Independence.

The question I have posed is not rhetorical: if the document that was introduced to England and the world on July 4, 1776, in all its literary and ideological brilliance, had not been a manifesto and call to arms, but rather a Brexit-like Referendum, what would have happened? If Parliament had bound itself to the results of such initiatives, well… just think.

Historians agree that the colonies of ’76 were fairly divided in their passions: roughly one-third each loyal to the Crown, favoring independence, and indifferent. Alexander the Great felt no such restrictions; nor the Roman legions; nor waves of conquering Vikings, Huns, Mongols, Vandals, barbarians, Saracens. The European imperial powers for centuries enforced their worldwide hegemonies by means ranging from suzerainty to brutality.

Athens would have voted to be free of the Spartans; India attempted plebiscites against British rule; Zionists resorted to terrorism to establish Israel and in turn Palestinians employ bombs when ballots are not available.

Let us return to July 4. If the Declaration had been a Writ of Attainder against the King (more pacific Colonists did try to cast it so), there might not have been battles of Monmouth and Saratoga, nor the stirring examples of Valley Forge. No Yorktown, no Lafayette or Steuben, no heroes like George Washington. We cannot know these things.

But we do know that a list of grievances, not a declaration of war or even a “declaration of independence” was nailed to a church door in a German village in 1517. Martin Luther’s 95 “theses” were, basically, opinions, complaints, and pleas for reform within the Roman Catholic church. Luther was a priest in that Church, and had no desire to start a revolution.

But Christian reformers, German princes, and God Himself had other visions. The Protestant Revolution, in substance and in effects, has been as profound as the famous battles at Thermopylae, Marathon, Hastings, and Waterloo.

But I am not asking us, even on July 4, to turn to history books. Let us turn to our Bibles. Scripture tells us that we are pilgrims and strangers in this world – indeed a world of woe, a “vale of tears” – but we are Citizens of Heaven. Nevertheless, here we are now, and we are commanded to be, if not “of” this world, to be obedient residents in it. Uncomfortable passages for Tea Partiers of 1775 and today alike, but we “render unto Caesar” and recognize the Divine Right of Kings; and read that God ordains the positions of those in positions of power.

More dilemmas, especially for Christians in democracies. And more reason for us to search the scriptures and seek spiritual guidance. All the time. To pray, not just over jobs or romances, but in EVERY question affecting our daily lives… and our country’s future.

We should adopt the mindset that every choice between candidates is also a spiritual question. Every ballot item – referendum – presents us with spiritual choices. Electing representatives who decide questions of education policy; judges who will rule on abortion; presidents who send us to wars, or not – these are all decisions that God would have us consider prayerfully.

“Consider prayerfully” is not an empty cliché – well, yes it is, if we allow that. The problems in America virtually all stem from Christians surrendering their prerogatives. We have lost our way, insecure in our faith, ignorant of our heritage. Otherwise we would be throwing bums out of office, overturning noxious laws and regulations, and storming courthouses.

Whether it is time for a Convention of States (as per Article Five of the Constitution), civil disobedience, or armed resistance if, God forbid, things get that bad, Christian Patriots should think about a new Declaration of Independence. Read the old one, write a new one!

Better yet, Christians should act according to a Declaration of DEpendence… dependence upon God Almighty. Among other things, that will make America great again.

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Click: Looking For a City

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9-8-14

History knows two kinds of war, generally: those that are declared, with precise commencements, formalities, and peace treaties; and those that begin from a host of various grievances or jealousies, have hazy – usually multiple – flash-points, and drag on, and on, spreading misery and atrocities over civilian populations no less than enemy forces. Both sorts of war can change the course of history to equal degrees.

The United States – the West; the Christian church – is engaged in the second form of these wars. We are not anticipating it. We are IN it. And we have been for some time. That the “enemy” can be defined in several ways does not diminish the fact that there is one war. And it is not new, although our dim-witted realization, as if awakening from a dream, might be new.

I am writing of Islam, of course. It is instructive, even vital, that we review how we got here. “Past is prologue,” Shakespeare wrote.

The hideous barbarism of ISIS / ISIL is the latest. We should call it the Islamic State, as its leaders do, although our own “leaders” believe that would reveal us to be politically incorrect if we call them either Muslims or terrorists. (They are merely “extremists,” you see). We can go back to 9-11; to the various Palestinian terror groups, modeling themselves, by the way, after the Zionist terror groups before 1948. We can go back and back in history.

The history of Islam, or the Mohammedans, as the West used to call them, is as rich in politics and warfare as it is in theology. After the death of Mohammed, probably in 632, Muslim factions started warring, partly as a byproduct of factionalism, but also to spread their religion’s overall influence, expanding in an imperialist mode. Throughout the Levant, to Asia Minor, to north Africa. And to Europe.

Through formal invasions and persistent incursions, Muslims spread into Europe. It was a time after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Civic, military, and social systems had deteriorated, and Islam tried to fill the vacuum. The remnants of the Visigoth Empire were supplanted in modern-day Spain. Pockets in southern France were overrun. Strongholds of the old Byzantine Empire were no longer strong, and Mohammedan armies pushed them back.

For a millennium the Arabs and Islam continued squabbling over men’s minds and men’s land, while over the time also mastering various cultural advances in mathematics, science, poetry, astronomy, medicine, and art. But the doors of Europe and Christianity, whether to knock or kick down, were seldom far from the expansionists’ minds, either.

Around 700 and for roughly a half-century, a fierce battle over the survival and character of Christian Europe was fought on the Iberian peninsula and in southern France. The romanticized legend known as The Song of Roland, a landmark in Western literature, nevertheless tells the facts that Charles Martel, his son Pepin le Bref, and his son Charlemagne, combined through persistent bravery and bloody sacrifice to defend Western civilization.

Not only was militant Islam turned away from Europe, but Charlemagne, in present-day German lands, reestablished the Holy Roman Empire. Yet the inexorable “soft” invasions continued. After a siege on Constantinople roughly contemporaneous with the Battle of Saragossa in Spain, the Bulgarian Emperor Khan Tervel turned back vicious Moslem fighters and earned the title “Savior of Europe.”

Around 900, Moslems attacked the Italian peninsula. Rome was sacked, and an emirate was established in Sicily. Three centuries later a resurgent Mongol empire swept across Eurasia, defeating Moslem strongholds in their path, most notably as far south as in the Battle of Baghdad, 1258… but then its leaders, following the mighty Timur, converted to Islam. The effect was a victory for the consolidation and spread of a militant Islam, from Egypt through Syria to India.

Thereafter, the Islamic Ottoman Empire invaded Western Europe and colonized Greece, all of the Balkans, Romania, Bessarabia, and Hungary, and was stopped only at the outskirts of Vienna. In 1683 a brutal force of militant Islamic soldiers besieged Vienna, which literally, geographically, was a gateway to Europe. Only the fierce rescue by brave Polish, Austrian, and German Hapsburg troops led by the Polish king Jan Sobieski turned back the Muslim invaders.

The Ottoman Empire remained a diminished irritant to European Christianity, and was dispatched after World War I after it chose the wrong side – the defeated Central Powers – and was dismembered. Greece became independent, the British typically gained territories-by-peace-treaties, and Turkey became a constitutionally secular country in 1923.

With that – and buying off Islamic leaders with protected artificial statehoods (Iraq, Iran, Trans-Jordan, etc), trade favors, and other emoluments after both world wars – Western Europe thought that radical Islam was a thing of the past.

But as recent events have shown (including a quiet resurgence of a radically Islamic Turkey), the last century was just a breathing-period. The incessant 1500-year war of Islam against Christianity continues.

I do not apologize to readers for this brief history lesson. As George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Shame on Americans for being generally ignorant about such vital matters. I will go further and wager that most Americans could not fill in the names of many Middle East countries on a blank map of the region. Nor assign the Sunni or Shi’ite loyalties of the players in the current crises, much less Alawite or Ba’athist roles in the conflicts.

(Neither can most Americans identify the role of British and American manipulation of events since the end of World War I, prompted by trade and oil and geopolitical interest, including doing others’ bidding; and usually bungled. But that is another essay.)

The fact – the hard fact – remains: we are engaged in a religious war. And that is very bad news, because America is hardly a religious nation any more.

We are, therefore, losing before we realize we are being attacked. Feeding our lack of conviction is the notion that to recognize Islam’s war on us is to be “unfair.” “Prejudiced.” The political and cultural leaders who feed these concepts are, simply, traitors to the nation, to our culture, and to our faith.

We should recognize them as traitors, and deal with them as traitors. And shame on the American public – traditional Christian patriots – for surrendering. Not just to notions of “Arab extremism” or “Islamic terror,” but surrendering to the traitors who soften or minds and wills.

The United States is a Christian nation, founded by Christians, dedicated to God by countless pilgrims and pioneers in the name of Christ. That does not means we hate or should exclude others, but it traditionally meant that we invited others to live at peace in a Christian nation. Christians like to say “Judeo-Christian” often so they will not be accused of wanting another “Holocaust,” but our values and traditions are Christian.

We are under attack. “We” are not only Americans – Islam does not care so much about our passports. It is not a question of their wanting more real estate.

Christianity is under attack. You can respond by softening your faith. By being “tolerant” of those who wish you dead and happy to help in the effort. Or you can join the historic ranks of forgotten heroes and martyrs like Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charlemagne, Khan Tervel, and Jan Sobieski, willing to die if necessary for Western civilization and for Christianity.

The war, like it or not a real war, is being waged by Islam.

But the real enemy, admit it or not, is our own culture’s loss of faith.

We cannot pretend that — for the first time in history — this condition, a lost foundation of faith, will not be fatal to a culture. We cannot wish this away. We need backbones, not wishbones.

The first battle – or is it our last? – seems to be lost already. How many of us will enlist?

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We are not helpless or clueless if we choose to engage. We have the words of the Bible, and the example of Christ. There is the example of uncountable martyrs and warriors who loved the Word so much – who savored the sacrifices of those who have gone before; and who cherish the dream for the sake of their children – so we might be encouraged. For Christ’s sake, not just our own. An inspiring version of an old hymn of the church, and a rousing video message, by Michael Card.

Click: How Firm a Foundation

9-12-11

The 9-11 commemorations are over, and perhaps America, now, will get back in the saddle she was knocked from a decade ago. I am afraid not, however. For 10 years I have been a pretty lonely man on this issue. I take back seat to no one in my love of country; I bleed red, white, and blue; and was as angry as anybody then who did not actually lose a loved one in Manhattan, Virginia, or Pennsylvania.

Someone recently asked, “Do you remember where you were on September 11, 2001? Did you wonder, then, how changed you might be 10 years later?” I have to admit that I thought ahead to Now, and I dreaded the premonition that in 2011 America would be engaging in self-pity instead of righteous anger; political correctness instead of correct politics; and the further ceremonialization of our culture.

I take nothing from the awe-inspiring service of first-responders who lost their lives on 9-11. But they were not heroes because they, in some instances, ran into burning buildings, in order to seek people to save. They were doing their jobs. They were brave; they were extraordinarily courageous. But – I am making a point about our society’s changing and confused values – a fireman is not a hero because he dies in a burning building. Firemen and police are heroes; and sometimes they have to do dangerous things. Heroes live among us, and should be honored now, not only in show-biz (usually, these days, secular) “moments of silence” ceremonies.

I hope I am being clear; and I mean to say that words are important, because essential values lie behind words. I recently spoke to a group about America’s current crises, and I asked various questions about the victims of terrorism, concerning 9-11. The group’s discussion addressed the three sites of attack; the number of people who were killed at one place, and another, and on the planes.

I told them, and I submit to you, that the people who died on 9-11 were not the victims of terrorism. They were, simply, murder victims. To call the perpetrators anything than murderers is to pay them a compliment. Using the word “terrorism” makes their crime somehow qualified, less than totally monstrous. The dead on 9-11 were murdered. We, the survivors, were terrorized.

We are the victims of terrorism. And we are losing that war. We have allowed our way of life to be altered, our rights to be restricted, and our treasury bankrupted. The hard questions about what has happened in 10 years cannot sufficiently be answered by a shrug of our shoulders and another question, “What else could we do?”

Here is what I mean about the ceremony-mad society. When Redcoats attacked citizens in Boston, the patriots did not meet for annual Moments of Silence – they grabbed their muskets. When Fort Sumter was shelled, a war commenced; and when Fort Sumter was re-taken, there were no plaques with every soldier’s name – the Stars and Stripes was proudly raised again. Pearl Harbor filled us with anger – not sorrow or guilt.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Franklin Roosevelt of all people, the president of the United States, led the nation in a public prayer on D-Day: “Help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.”

Back to the 9-11 Decade. Let the diplomats explain why America kicked into overdrive on a crusade for global empire. Let the politicians explain why personal freedoms were expropriated at a breathtaking rate. Let the financiers explain why criminal monetary and fiscal policies – prosperity that was too good to be true – was too good to be true, and they all knew what they were doing.

But we should all look for Christians to explain (and that means looking in the mirror, too) how the last decade has seen an unprecedented war on Christianity, a successful war, right here in America. To start a list of outrages – from high courts to low sitcoms, from the national Administration to everyday textbooks – would fill more columns than the web could carry. Babies killed; homosexuality sanctioned; God’s name banished from schools and the public place; prayers outlawed.

If the attackers were bent on kicking America out of the Middle East, they failed. If they wanted to bring down the government, it did not happen. If they intended to destroy the economy, it has bent but not snapped. But if they attacked America because we were a Christian nation, founded on biblical principles and inheritors of a Christian heritage… America has responded, in too many respects, by declaring a victory – for the attackers. Happy anniversary.

Anti-Christian prejudice is on the rise in places like Pakistan and Egypt – partly, I am sure, because of America’s post-9-11 policies – but there is one major difference: in those countries, and China, and North Korea, and elsewhere the church is under attack… the underground church is growing. However, not in America. Here, persecution seems to lead Christians to be even more apologetic to the atheists or Satanists down the street who are offended when they hear a Boy Scout recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Christians must cease being confused about what Christ would have us do when His church, His children, are threatened. He put righteousness above “peace” in the Temple, and surely would not have His church dismantle itself. That would not be “love,” but camouflaged weakness; and to compromise with evil, guarantees the presence of evil. Once upon a time, the church was as militant about its turf as it was its faith, for one thing was necessary in order to exercise the other. Not only Christians but Christendom was muscular in its self-defense. If it were not for Christian warriors like Charles Martel at Tours; Charlemagne and Roland at Saragossa; and Jan Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, Europe would long ago (1200 years ago) have been Muslim. And the Reformation, for all of its intellectual and spiritual force, only succeeded in Europe when princes identified themselves, and their armies acted, as members of one form of Christianity or another.

These Christian warriors, despite and subsequent to occasional zealotry, largely made Europe safe for the practice of Christianity. “Terrorism” is just the latest form of invasion. The invaders have discovered a society more concerned with opponents’ “feelings” than its own freedoms and children’s security. When the president of the United States declares in an Arab capital that America is not a Christian nation; and when the mayor of New York City prohibits public prayer at the latest 9-11 media ceremony… well, you can go back to, say, the epic poem “The Song of Roland” (circa 1050) and read of traducers in the ranks of the Franks at Ronceveaux, and what almost happened, in that stirring legend, to Christian Europe.

Christianity, in any society or country, cannot simultaneously assert its right to exist and surrender its prerogatives. We do not need to lead ugly crusades in order to affirm our traditional status in the United States of America, a Christian nation. But we do have to decide whether the 9-11 Decade was the last breath of a brief, misguided period of self-doubt; or the first dawn of extinction in this culture.

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From the ancient opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, an allegory about William and Mary based on Virgil’s Aeneid. The hauntingly mournful “Dido’s Lament” is here juxtaposed with photographs of the traditional American landscape. Our homeland once and…

“When I am laid in earth / am laid in earth / May my wrongs create no trouble, no trouble in thy breast. / Remember me! Remember me! / But, ah, forget my fate!” The singer is Emma Kirby.

Click: Remember Me Lament