Volume 8, Issue 48
These burdensome times revolve around the State, the Family, the Individual, and World Governments.
The hope of Christ is not the hope of many Americans. Their faith may be based on a different theology or no theology at all. Therefore, the question becomes, upon what eternal force, principle, or natural order may expectant hope be based?
The United States is still in the trial and tribulations of determining with finality who will be the next President of the United States. Currently, several state election officials have certified former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner of the Presidential election in their states. The Vice President appears to have secured the 270 electoral votes required to be elected President. A substantial number of Americans believe that the election was stolen and evidence of fraud is yet to be exposed. Most Americans desire fair elections and seek peace in the compromise of the ballot box.
The inauguration of the next President will occur on January 20th. This is not in question. What must be reconciled in every citizen’s mind is, what is their expectant hope in government? Many would say egalitarianism, or equal opportunity, or cultural fairness. All of these are resplendent utopian goals.
But hope in what Truth is realistic?
Independence and freedom are often mentioned as critical components for the achievement of individual prosperity. Yet, in and of themselves, they are not aggregate in meeting the desired objective when not inclusive for all citizens. Rome ruled the world militarily providing some freedom and benefits to its citizens with little sensitivity for the circumstances of those they conquered. Great Britain ruled the world largely through colonialization. British capitalism produced wealth and provided some freedom for its subjects without equal benefits for the citizens of the colonies. The United States declared government to be a servant of the people, and through free enterprise, produced the greatest wealth the world has ever known. This economic system provided some freedom for its citizens while denying, at first, citizenship, then, equal freedom, for Native Americans and African Americans.
Imperial Rome resulted in some citizens becoming slaves. The kingdom of Great Britain resulted in some citizens becoming trapped in a caste system. The constitutional government of the United States resulted in some citizens becoming disenfranchised. In history, Rome and Great Britain rose and declined. The United States’ story is still unfolding.
What is similar and what differentiates the cultural ideologies of these three great societies? First, independence and freedom were critical to creativity, science, and economic prosperity. Yet, when this freedom was denied as a universal right across all societal spectrums, a rot in the nation’s foundation germinated. Uncured, the condition can be fatal.
The United States is distinct in that the Declaration of Independence and the ensuing Constitution recognized that God is sovereign over man and man is sovereign over government.
God’s love extends to all individuals. There is no preference in God’s Kingdom for freedom or benefits. Neither is anyone born to be subservient to another individual. Individual prosperity derived in pursuit of God’s purpose is an unalienable right.
This law of equality and equal rights is the hope of the Christian faith. Competing ideologies lack evidence of dedicated truths. A faith that mankind by itself will evolve towards righteousness is not supported by the facts of history. Where, then, is this truth embedded that has yet to become determinative?
Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, refused to believe in a creator. He stated that the universe and the nature of its forces exist. That is a fact. His question was, why does it exist? He believed that humanity was an accidental consequence of an ongoing matrix of competing forces in the universe that would soon dismiss, as an anomaly, human existence.
The right question is, in what do you place your hope that is real?
For Rome, the hope was the state. For Great Britain, the hope was the crown. For the United States, the hope is the manifestation of unalienable rights. In the absence of God, the universe has no meaning, no known purpose. The denial and disobedience of God’s laws by government for society dooms the hope of that sovereign. Looking into the ideological ether of the universe for some undiscovered, deeply embedded truth generates false hope. Even Stephen Hawking did not do that.
Governments, unchecked by divine morality, will at best produce mercurial results for societal objectives. Pursued without accountability, such theology results in putrid miasma further dividing the public.
What then is the answer to the question of what is real? The evidence of history proves that God’s laws of freedom, applied equally with government held accountable by Christian morality, is the right societal formula. A moral lesson that America is still attempting to obey in reference to all its citizens. This evidence renders the conclusion that God is real and His truths are eternal.
In this Advent Season, whether Christian or non-Christian, each of us can abide in the peace of reflection, contemplating that in which we place trust for our hope.
May the United States of America be at peace.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?