Monday Morning Music Ministry

Start Your Week with a Spiritual Song in Your Heart

There’s Just Something About That Name.

3-4-24

Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus.

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Immediately after a devastating tornado hit his house, but with his family safe, a Kentucky man was able to praise the Name of Jesus.

Click: There’s Something About That Name

What a tangled Webb we weave

8-29-22

Many physicists and indeed many average folk are agog over the first images from the James Webb Telescope. I personally have almost exhausted my supply of agogs, and I am not even sure what an agog is.

In fact, the more that the newest of humankind’s massive, far-flung telescopic cameras shows us… the more it does not show us. Quickly I explain: the pictures reveal more stars – indeed more galaxies and nebulae – than we knew existed. (“We,” meaning everyone from early humans Ug and Glug looking up at the night skies and scratching their heads, to egghead professors only months ago.)

But at the same time, scientists mix their astonishment and excited discoveries with questions. There are not only new pin-points on charts of the heavens, but anomalies, contradictions, challenges. More questions than answers? Maybe.

It is all galvanic, of course. I find it satisfying to see Americans revive a little bit of the amazement that spread across the land during those early space shots. What I do not see is what I am experiencing: the translation of these staggering mysteries – their scope, their extent, their significance – to increased confirmations of belief in God. Further proof, we might say.

The Creator God. In ancient tongues, among many names ascribed to God, Elohim.

The statistics and explanations, inadequate as they are, rekindle thoughts from the Ug-and-Glug stage of my own sentience.

  • We have a new, seemingly tangible, awareness of how big the Universe is. But do we? What is beyond the farthest we can see? Where does it end? Can it end? What is on the “other side” of the end?
  • We are told that the old estimate of the Universe having a sextillion planets might be a modest estimate (one sextillion is even larger than the latest inflation numbers). How, really, did the planets all form?
  • We have measurements of the “farthest” galaxies – the newest discovery estimated at 13.5-billion light-years from earth. A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year; that is 186,000 miles per second or 5.88-trillion miles a year. If correct, that’s 13.5-billion x 5.88-trillion. Years. You do the arithmetic; my brain hurts. These are scientists’ numbers. How old is old?

You might see where I am sidling. It amuses me to hear scientists talk about the Big Bang (often omitting that is the Big Bang Theory) and I wonder why their brains don’t get cramps, as they invent and rely on elaborate denials of a Creator God. Certainly it is the case that the increasingly erudite explanations of the Big Bang increasingly resemble the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. Hmmm… The Webb’s snapshots incite in me, too, more questions. At random:

  • If there was a “moment” of the Big Bang, Who or what caused it… and what was “there” previously? And for how long back in time?
  • In every other aspect of life, something that has been created had a creator. Why does the scientific mafia think that life, itself, is the exception?
  • Every one of the sextillion (give or take a skillion) planets in the perceived Universe is spherical (or generally so: oblate spheroids, given isostatic adjustments). Why? Friction? No, there nearly is no matter in empty space that would wear them down. “Gravity” is the agreed-upon culprit.

We have “theories” of Relativity and Evolution; and “laws” of Gravity… but I do not need the “what” of Gravity explained as much as the “why.” With virtual shrugs of shoulders, scientists call Gravity an “invisible force.” As a former Editor at Marvel Comics, I confess that this sounds more like the Silver Surfer than Albert Einstein.

Yes, Einstein postulated that Gravity pulls on light as well as mass. That’s the “meta” explanation; the “micro” evidence is the moon pulling on mighty oceans. Gravity pulls “downward,” essentially inward, which explains planets being spheres (but not why we have never observed an evolving “new” planet still in the shape of, say, SpongeBob SquarePants); but my brain hurts again. We still don’t know the How of all this. Or Why.

And that’s Okay.

The Big Bang Theory initially sounded silly to me; now it is discussed with gravity (sorry) by professors. The latest quest – to formulate a “Theory of Everything,” I kid you not – sounds sillier.

And yet the skeptics challenge us: “Because you can’t explain something you just say, ‘Oh, it’s God’.” (My friend Gary Adams has reminded me that Dr Frank Turek calls this the “God in the Gaps” argument.)

My response: Yes, pretty often. Now that we understand that, let’s move on.

My further response: “You folks, when you can’t explain something that generations of people have trusted, but challenges your ways of thinking… when your “accepted facts” of science are disproven, overturned, or superseded in the face of factors like architectural and anatomical discoveries… when things you dismissed as legends are revealed as actual history… you just say, ‘Oh, those are anything but God’.”

My final response: The Creator God, Elohim, has revealed Himself in uncountable ways. His fingerprints are on all of animate and inanimate creation. He has redeemed you through the Blood of His Son Jesus Christ, telling you that you are the most precious of His creations – including bright stars and colorful planets. With those photos from an outer-space telescope, He chooses to remind us of His sovereignty and majesty. I know these things because I see them; because He told us; and because I personally have been blessed by that Creator God. His Son, you see, is my best friend. And He reassured us: “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

We don’t need a “Theory of Everything” when the Bible already provides us the Answer to Everything.

I close with a quatrain I memorized as a kid, from the Rubaiyat, but that expresses my message here:

All the saints and sages who have discussed

Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust

Like foolish prophets forth;

Their words to scorn are scattered; their mouths are stopped with dust.

It’s a big universe, after all. But there’s no place like Home.

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An old Gospel song with a spoken reference to God flinging the stars across Creation:

Video Click: When All God’s Singers Get Home

universe

I Can’t… We Can

5-11-20

Sometimes, life’s circumstances can be like viruses. Appearing suddenly… not foreseeable… hard to pinpoint, harder to fight, often impossible to overcome – an invisible enemy.

My daughter Emily (yes, in whom I am well pleased!) in Ireland, with her family, has been a victim of life’s circumstances. Except that she has never fully seen the situation that way.

Onslaught? Oh, no question. She was a missionary, went to the “troubled” streets of Derry / Londonderry on the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland… lost her missions support… fell in love with a local lad in church, Norman McCorkell… married… went to Bible School together… jobs in church and running a retreat center near Dublin… setbacks… Norman’s epilepsy… with two great children, helpless but not hopeless for a spell, virtually homeless but for friends… returned to the Derry area.

Mr and Mrs Job, eh?

Don’t shed tears. Emily merely has pivoted, and pivoted again, starting an American-style food business (BBQ!) that has been well accepted in the city, her jars and bottles selling to stores and homes; her smoked meats selling via food truck to fans and to groups via catering. Emily has been on radio, in newspapers, magazine covers, billboards. She and Norman, a great team in the prep, production, and deliveries, were about to open a storefront… and then, you guessed it, the pandemic hit like a storm. The city is closed down.

What to do, especially with the insane PP rules? One thing not to do was retreat or moan or wait for things to resolve themselves. While making small batches of BBQ specialties to loyal (and hungry) customers, for non-contact pickups, she pivoted again. With sympathy for healthcare workers in hospitals and clinics, thinking the patients and the doctors should have other “angels,” she inaugurated a program for people to donate food – mostly packaged and easy-to-prepare – for the kitchen spaces in hospitals and clinics. For the workers and the over-worked on shifts, tired when they get home, to make their meals faster and special, and their days easier.

The response was immediate and enormous, after a little publicity and word-of-mouth. Individuals, cafes, stores, opened their cupboards; her garage was filled each day with donations. (As I write this, Emily reported that a man she doesn’t know heard about her “Pantry” campaign and ordered 87 Pounds, about $100, of foods from a shop to be delivered straight to her center.) She and Norman, and little Elsie and Lewis, pivoted to encouragement, thanks, deliveries. People were blessed – both givers and recipients. In interviews, again, Emily explained it all: “It’s what Jesus would do.”

All of these activities, pivoting to new activities, is what businesses call Entrepreneurship. It is what Jesus called “Doing unto the least of these.” The least? Taking care of one’s family is proper, prioritized. Then serving others. Good value and good taste and good service when times are good; good discernment of people’s needs and good organization and good charity – many untold stories, the time spent, the generosity of so many – when times are tight.

All in the space of a couple months. Emily will continue to serve the sometimes-forgotten workers. She is taking orders for no-touch BBQ orders for fans of her meats every Friday. She and Norman are looking again at a food truck with which – lockdown or no – they can deliver foods and be alongside events. Lo+Slo, her little operation, is not little, really, and cannot be suppressed!

How, in the face of health and job and housing and now pandemic opposition, does she thrive? She has a saying – maybe not original? Too good to think others have not used it too. It has become her slogan during lockdowns and isolation:

I Can’t; We Can.

Brilliant, really. An inspirational rallying-cry. As I thought of my daughter, admiring her from afar but talking daily on the phone, I thought of Jesus too – but not only of His admonition that we be charitable; He fed the hungry and said that we should exercise love to the needy.

No, let us think of the larger Christian meaning, a lesson, really, inherent in that phrase I Can’t; We Can.

God has reached down through history via the inspired Word and prophets and given us guidance and wisdom. Jesus came that we might have life and life more abundant; He taught, and offered salvation. The Holy Spirit was sent that we can have spiritual encouragement, gifts, power.

With all this spiritual help, we are blessed. Surely we cannot fail to be good servants – serving God, serving each other…

Yet. Consider I Can’t; We Can. Not only in the context of the fellowship of the saints and the priesthood of all believers, as important as are those truths. No, the “We” I think God would have us remember – and too many Christians tend to forget – is the We of the Godhead. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

How many of us have faced a challenge or gone through a severe crisis, and we pray to God, with confidence (and I hope not pride) – “OK, God, I’ve got it from here.”

That is wrong. The more we know of Him and His ways, the more we need Him, and know that we need Him. The more mature our faith becomes, the more we realize how dependent we are on the Lord. In every aspect of our lives.

Our livelihoods, our families, our homes, our businesses, our health, our budgets. Our patience, our sanity, our resourcefulness. Our future.

I Can’t; We Can. I can’t do these things on my own. We – family, friends, fellowships – are important; thanks. But the We who will see us through is waiting for us to lean on the Everlasting Arms.

I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).

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Click: I Believe; Help Thou My Unbelief

People With No Country?

2-5-18

Edward Everett Hale wrote a short book, originally a magazine story, about a sailor who denounced the United States, was convicted of treason, and was sentenced to sail the seas thereafter for entire life, never allowed to step foot on American soil nor receive any news of the US from fellow sailors.

Gradually this Philip Nolan grew repentant, then homesick, finally desperate, for any news of his native country. In his final days he invited another sailor to his cabin, there to see flags and eagles and patriotic symbols painted on the walls. He died and was buried at sea, a “man without a country.”

Published in 1863, the tale is a message about loyalty, clearly a metaphor for the Civil War and the essential appreciation of patriotism. It also addresses the primal attraction we have for Identity. “Identity Politics” is a theme of our day – everything from joining clubs to trying to choose one’s sex midway through life. It is a very different thing than nationalism or even chauvinism. As Abe Lincoln said, about as alike as a chestnut horse is to a horse chestnut.

We choose names for our identities and loyalties, usually good tries, but usually insufficient.

President John F Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War, famously spoke in front of the recently constructed Berlin Wall, the city’s demarcation from the Communist East. Before an enthusiastic half-million people, he twice delivered a pledge of solidarity: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

There were a few problems with the stirring line, despite the audience’s raucous response. He spoke in his trademark Boston accent, a challenge to local English-speakers. He was prompted to pronounce “Ich” as “ish” – more Yiddish than German, causing some confusion about his intention. Despite subsequent historical revisionism, however, the crux of the speech’s reception was the identification with Berlin.

Europeans often name foods after cities. Frankfurters and Hamburgers and Wieners are the kinds that originated in Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Vienna. We can know where Limburger cheese and Bologna originated. French toast and English muffins are virtually unknown in France and England; but marketers knew the value of geographic identification. A popular pastry from Berlin is called by the locals a “Berliner.” Basically a jelly donut.

So, yes, John F Kennedy declared to half million people, the Soviet leaders, and the world in general, that he was a jelly donut. I think I mentioned that the crowd noisily erupted. As I said, revisionist historians have since disputed… what they cannot really dispute.

In a way, that story can unmask patriotic passions as sometimes being silly, or at least futile. But in the end, most of us still are proud of our backgrounds and our nations. Perhaps in fewer numbers, but many of us still get misty-eyed when the National Anthem is played or a veteran is laid to rest. For those who do not, shame on them. For athletes who ostentatiously dismiss the flag, more shame.

I have said I regard patriotism as a primal impulse, and basically one of self-protection, pride, and nurture. Like the difference between country and nation. In Europe, volk translates to more than a population – the family of fellow countrymen; the group with shared values and experiences. Similarly heimat is more than home or homeland or community. “Soul” and “soil” are more than cognates.

We don’t have such earnest but inchoate words in English, or in America. In our case, however, we inculcate – because we have inherited at great cost – values like Democratic Republic; free enterprise; equality of opportunities; freedom of religion, press, assembly, speech.

It is why a Swede, say, moving to, say, Argentina will always be called “that Swede down the street”; and an American in Paris will always be… an American in Paris; not a Frenchman. But – as current debates reinforce – immigrants and migrants are fairly soon called “Americans” after they arrive. And are so.

The Bible addresses this issue, because there are larger truths involved. We are spirits, intimately known to God while yet in the womb; and will live eternally according to Judgment and the Grace of God. That is, in this vale (valley) of tears, we are passing through for a moment of all eternity.

“We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace” (I Chronicles 29:15, NLT). “Sojourners” in some translations; “Pilgrims” in others. “Strangers” in all.

This world is not our home. We reside here awhile, and sometimes it seems all too real, and hard. Sometimes we fully experience, or occasionally have mere glimpses of, joy. I am not a cynic, but a reporter: it is useful to remember our “temporary status.” As Christians we have green cards, so to speak, because we are on the way to another place… a better place.

God creates a universe, and a wondrous world, and His family of children, to live a relatively few seconds in His eternal Forever? No thought is needed, and our heads would start hurting anyway. It pleases Him to design things this way. We pass from life to death to… life eternal. Somehow that seems like a good deal. Heaven will be our home, with mansions. “If it were not so, I would not have told you.”

God could have made us as jelly donuts, but He created us in His own image. He loves us passionately – enough to create us with free will; enough to have given us a “Get out of jail free” card in the form of His Son assuming our death sentences. Enough that, wherever we live or die, we are not people without a country.

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Click: The Sojourner’s Song

Andrae Crouch – He Just Couldn’t Turn Off the Love

Andrae Crouch has died. For the few who don’t know his name, that gap is filled by the fact that all of America and much of the world knows his music. His pop credentials included movie scores (“The Lion King,” “The Color Purple”), producing and working with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, and many others. But he was a gospel singer, composer, preacher, first. And foremost. His father pastored the New Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ, a Holiness / Pentecostal church in Los Angeles; and he and his sister Sandra succeeded in the pulpit.

His many hymns and gospel songs became hits on gospel radio and especially, at first, in churches of the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewals decades ago. Then they spread, ironically (for Andrae was Black) more and more into the Black church, and into the hymnals of mainstream denominations. The songs God gave him are eternal: if the Lord tarries, people will be moved to tears, and to repentance, by Andrae’s songs for generations to come.

They will hear in his lyrics the same problems they have; the same doubts and overcoming; the same humility and gratitude; the same victories; the same joy.

Andrae did have many problems and challenges. The Holy Spirit gave him spiritual persistence. Because he prayed for that. This man who performed at humble urban missions and at vast Billy Graham crusades, winning seven Grammys along the way, fought throat cancer for a decade, and died at 72 from a heart attack.

His very first composition was “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power,” now a standard Communion hymn in many churches. Other familiar gospels songs are “My Tribute,” whose familiar incipit line is “To God Be the Glory”; “Take Me Back”; “Soon and Very Soon”; “Jesus Is the Answer”; “Let the Church Say Amen”; and “Through It All.”

My old friend Craig Yoe, who knew Andrae before either of them was a household name, is our Guest Essayist today:

What a week! First my cartoonist comrades, their co-workers and others – and freedoms – were murdered by horrible, horrible masked terrorists. And on January 8, I learned that the great Andrae Crouch has passed from this coil that is so mortal. 

I feel for and pray for the musical artist’s family. 

They might find some very small comfort in their great loss to know that in reviewing Andrae’s signature song “Through It All,” after hearing of his demise, that I have found some healing for my own heart troubled by the world’s agony.

Andrae Crouch was such a great human being. I had him sing at the hippie-church in Akron, Ohio in the early 1970s that I pastored. And I engaged him to perform with his musical associates, including his gifted sister Sandra, for a special concert I produced back in the day.

I’ll always remember when he came to my little home. After dinner the smiling Andrae jumped up to scrub the dishes. Jesus set the example of leadership by washing feet; Andrae, in that spirit, washed and dried my rummage sale-bought chipped-up dishes. 

After the concerts of Andrae Crouch and the Disciples, Andrae would jump up from the piano to talk to folks who came forward to shake his hand and offer thanks. And he’d seek out the often forlorn ones of that group suffering from drugs and other abuses of life, and share with them into the wee hours of the night. You know, the people who were the “least of these.” 

Andrae and I disagreed on things, like his belief that faith should bring people wealth, but he certainly was no respecter of persons and generous with his time – and wealth. 

Andrae would always look people straight in the eye with love, leaning in close and call the folks he was conversing with “brother” and “sister.” That wasn’t just some off-hand catch-phrase with the singer/minister. He deeply believed it, and so did the people he talked to as a result. 

Everybody was family. I even remember Andrae generously inviting me and my ex to come stay with him. He told me there were plenty of people there. I got the idea that his home was always open.  

He just couldn’t turn off the love. 

Oh, and, of course, Andrae Crouch was a brilliant, moving, singer filled with the Holy Spirit – that goes without saying.

And he was recognized by the non-brethren and sisters. Andre was the go-to guy when people like Michael Jackson and Madonna wanted a gospel sound for a song they were recording. The dude won seven Grammys – not too shabby! 

I’m sure Andrae wasn’t perfect. But he lived a life that was exemplary. Lord knows we need the likes of more of him in this world. He has left the world and we all now must step up. 

We’ll miss this brother’s example. But, wow, the heavenly choir just got better!

I remember Andrae closing his concerts with “Through It All” and asking the audience at the end to sing along. And this part is still in my head decades later… 

I’ve had many tears and sorrows,
I’ve had questions for tomorrow,
There’s been times I didn’t know right from wrong.
But in every situation,
God gave me blessed consolation,
That my trials come, to only make me strong.

Through it all,
Through it all,
I’ve learned to trust in Jesus,
I’ve learned to trust in God.

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Craig Yoe has been a worker with the blind, a sewer worker, a nightclub owner, a church pastor, a banana salesman, a toy inventor, a creative director for The Muppets, Disney, and Nickelodeon, an author, a book designer, and a cartoonist of sorts. 

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Many Christians have memorized the words, even if not the tune, to an internal verse of “Through It All,” explaining brilliant mysteries of life’s challenges: “I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys; I thank Him for the storms He brought me through. For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know that God could solve them; I’d never know what faith in God could do.” A sermon in song. I dont’t know if ever made a song of this, but in last painful years, Andrae said he was given a message, and prayed to God: “Lord, heal the wounds, but leave the scars.” A humble, gifted servant. Performing here: CeCe Winans and a room of gospel legends at the Billy Graham Retreat Center, the Cove.

Click: Through It All

Playing On Fields with No Boundaries or Goalposts

6-2-14

Schools, public schools anyway, these days are de-emphasizing the standards of the past, the values of our culture, the traditionally cherished aspects of our American heritage. Progressives do it; conservatives decry it; and the vast center of society is populated by folks who largely are intimidated, confused, defensive… or guiltily change their views about once-cherished “foundational” beliefs.

People try to be open-minded, and are frequently made to feel at fault if they are not sufficiently “compassionate.” Or they are branded as racists or bigots when such feelings had never been part of their thoughts. Or they feel forced to confront, and accept, all forms of social deviancies or political abnormalities that, privately, are anathema to that Great Middle of every culture.

Sometimes, one’s mind can be so open that one’s brains fall out.

Ours is a society that is experiencing relatively sudden, and seismic, changes to manners, morals, and traditional, foundational beliefs. Throughout history such philosophical dislocations are usually signs of cultures in decline. Decadence comes to all civilizations; it is merely a matter of when… not how.

No matter how much a society thinks it has discovered new truths that applied to all previous societies but not them – in matters of morality, public virtue, family structure, respect for authority, encouragement of spiritual values – it is a certain template that one civilization’s moral “liberation” is coldly recognized, after its inevitable fall, by future generations, as common decadence.

I began by criticizing public schools, but that was to note that such institutions merely codify what the society believes. Our children would not have lost their moorings if we had not loosed the ropes to the mother ships. And, with the kids, if it were not schoolbooks – let’s say we turn to home-schooling – they see the rotten movies from Hollywood. If not there, it’s television; if not there, the musical culture that is everywhere; if not there, the advertising in magazines; if not there, the displays in shops at the mall; if not there, the conversations they overhear on the street, and the drugs they will be offered; if not there, the unavoidable trash on the internet; if not there, the corruption of politicians and execrable news stories; if not there, the dictates of bureaucrats and decisions of judges.

And so forth. With such a blueprint of shame, we can scarcely blame children who go astray. Rather we should pity them, and rescue them.

And, by the way, note that all the attacks I have just listed are self-inflicted. Our Christian culture has foreign enemies, but we can only be defeated from within. And… it is happening.

The first rescue attempt, if we wake up some Monday morning with cleansed hearts, stiffened spines, and firm resolution, would be to reform the rotten culture that we as adults serve up to our children. It is our creation, and our parents’ – the “finest generation”? – because the earlier challenges of society were routine problems of human nature… until our contemporary downward spiral began. Seldom, once again looking at the sweep of human history, seldom has a culture disintegrated so quickly as ours.

It is as if society is playing on a virtual football field… but in this 21st-century game of life, there are no boundaries on either side of the field; no yardline-markers; no goal posts – because we no longer have goals, and we deride competitiveness – and no rule books, referees, or time-limits.

The virtual “game of life” in Western culture sees us scurrying around, making and breaking rules, committing infractions and ignoring penalties, dismissing the concept of teammates, craving the approval of the crowd, hogging the ball or throwing it away carelessly, and believing that we have invented the greatest game in the world.

If this analogy is apt, then we must go at least one step further, and consider that the Western Church, the Church in America, has failed even more so. It had been the foundation of our civilization; the builders’ plan of our democratic republic, the American Experiment. And, in stark truth, it is not the Church itself (in biblical parlance) that has failed: for the Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The American Church has not failed. But its leaders have.

Like the chaotic football game I described, significant segments of the church today are aimless, self-centered, denying rules and traditions, inventing playbooks as they go along, discouraging the belief in goals or individual progress, focusing on ticket sales and the roars of the crowd, and declaring that there are no such things as rules, infractions, or penalties.

It is an ugly game – not, of course, a game at all. The Church in America, the American establishment, and too many families, are proving the adage that when you believe in everything (that is, what is pleasing and convenient for the individual, at any moment)… YOU BELIEVE IN NOTHING.

Will we wake up that theoretical Monday morning with clear heads and restored hearts? My guess is no, but there are always surprises. On a societal level, masses in Europe seem to be awakening to the attacks on Western heritage, and asserting borders, language, and culture in their voting booths. On the spiritual front, I am heartened by the explosive growth in Christian belief, both evangelical and Pentecostal, south of the Equator. And, more, that Africa and South America are sending many missionaries to Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the US — lands these new believers see as “mission fields” needing to hear the gospel.

Our playing-fields might again paint yardline markers, and erect goal posts, yet. Let us dream. Let us work. Let us pray.

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The way things are now, do you ever feel that you don’t belong? “The Sojourner’s Song” opens with, “It’s not home, Where men sell their souls And the taste of power is sweet. Where wrong is right, And neighbors fight, While the hungry are dying in the street. Where kids are abused, And women are used, And the weak are crushed by the strong. Nations gone mad; Jesus is sad; And I don’t belong…” This short music vid from a church service contains a few more sobering words… and then glorious hopeful ones. Watch:

Click: I Don’t Belong (Sojourner’s Song)

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... Rick Marschall is the author of 74 books and hundreds of magazine articles in many fields, from popular culture (Bostonia magazine called him "perhaps America's foremost authority on popular culture") to history and criticism; country music; television history; biography; and children's books. He is a former political cartoonist, editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney comics. For 20 years he has been active in the Christian field, writing devotionals and magazine articles; he was co-author of "The Secret Revealed" with Dr Jim Garlow. His biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for the “Christian Encounters” series was published by Thomas Nelson. He currently is writing a biography of the Rev Jimmy Swaggart and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Read More