From My Perspective - - -

What is your greatest interest and concern as this nation faces a Day of Decision in less than two weeks? Is it the considerable and growing national debt? Is it the loss of benefits and increased cost for Medicare recipients? Is it the sharp increase in Health Insurance Premiums already starting in parts of our country? Have you looked at food costs lately and the increase that is beginning to occur there? Is it the intrusion of government more and more into private businesses and personal investments (E-Trade has recently sent notice that the Government is requiring a report on every transaction, every gain or loss, every distribution made from an account, etc.)? Are you fearful of the control of media by those absorbed and obsessed with Political Correctness (considerable attention has been given this week to National Public Radio and the decision to terminate the Contract with Juan Williams in terms of political correctness when he expressed his personal view regarding anxiety when he boards a plane and someone in Muslim garb also boards)?

The list of questions could be considerable. The politics occurring currently are discouraging at best and disingenuous at worst. Who can really believe what is uttered anymore? The old joke line is becoming more true: “How can you tell if a politician is lying? If his lips are moving!” In so many instances – what is culturally acceptable – is causing us to become an embedded culture. In her column in The Wall Street Journal on October 22nd entitled Tea Party To The Rescue, Peggy Noonan writes: “The Tea Party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The Tea Party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals…and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the Tea Party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush - We had to - it was a political necessity! They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe. And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50 to 75year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on…not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems…The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know - learned all too well! - the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn't lived there in a long time.” This is a brilliant analysis that is on-target.

We have long-thought of ourselves as being a “Christian” Nation. But in case you haven’t noticed, we currently have a “leader” who infrequently attends a “Christian” Church and has chosen to omit or to use “Creator” when quoting from The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Where is the voice of “The Church” or “The Christian Community” in this nation? One is caused to wonder whether or not "Christians" who have become so embedded in the Culture - and - the Culture embedded in them - that they have desensitized themselves (seared consciences) and are incapable of discerning right from wrong! A demonstration of this occurring is given in Genesis 19 – the account of Sodom and Gomorrah – where only Lot and his family were deemed to be righteous and savable. Why is this important for us to know? When a person or nation becomes embedded by the culture and the culture becomes embedded in them, that person and nation has become desensitized to the things of The Eternal God. In doing so, Jude 1 (NLT) is the pending reality: “And don't forget the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with sexual immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and are a warning of the eternal fire that will punish all who are evil.” There is still time to change course! Consider these things with me!