Okay, let me get this straight; we're going to bomb Syria................because Syria bombed Syria?!
Really, how much sense does that make?!
Well, if you're in the know, and in the general context of our foreign policy for the last 2oo years, give or take, it makes all the sense in the world! The rulers of the American Empire seem to think that it is their duty to 'police' the world, to make it safe for democracy. This haughty attitude has engendered many unnecessary problems in the world at large, and has been the cause of much heartache and loss of lives ( 'Bring the Boys Home' ) here in America.
Beginning as much as two centuries ago, our Founding Fathers, and certain subsequent 'rulers' started out with what seemed like a good foreign policy; America was 'a city on a hill' to all the other nations! She was ordained ( of God? ) to shine the Light of Democracy into the farthest reaches and darkest corers of the world! She was, in essence, ( up till 1948, anyway ) the New Israel, to minister the Good News of Freedom to the nations who labored under tyranny and oppression!
Fast-forward to the present-day dilemma facing the 'powers that be'; to bomb or not to bomb, to stick our metaphorical nose in even farther where it does not belong! As was hinted at earlier, this is just the next logical step for a nation that has back-pedaled from being a bright and shining ( 'a thousand points of' ) light, to being hated by many nations for our often unwanted and always intrusive foreign policy!
The blame for much of what has gone wrong with our foreign policy, along with a host of other evils, can be laid almost wholly and squarely at the feet of the Church in America! When the first 'ruler' had a notion, however good and righteous it seemed, that we should be 'policing' the world, or even intervening in the affairs of nations outside our own borders ( we have enough to deal with here ), America's preachers should have been among the first to nix the whole idea! However, as it stands now, 'a silent pulpit is a complicit pulpit', and though She bears much of the blame, and more and more preachers, praise God, are waking up to this abominable fact, She is still, to a large extent, silent and complicit!
Much of the blame, I will admit, for the frightened silence of many of America's churches, can be brought right back around and laid at the feet of her secular 'rulers, those 'powers that be', as the mistakenly term them. Because the 'rulers & authorities' which the Church in America has allowed to gain sway have departed from the principles & precepts found in Scripture, and to some extent followed by our Founding Fathers; the Church, they have, through tyrannical oppression & subterfuge, put into effect their own corrupted and perverted system of checks & balances concerning the Church Herself!
It is not too late; in fact, it's never too late! America, and even the Church in America ( thank God? ) will never be the same, but the most awesome Creator of the universe is as immutable as He is powerful! What evil man has done and will yet do can never undo or even alter the eternally infinite and perfect Plan of our Almighty Father! There WILL be consequences, no mistake about that, but we can rest assured, that with all the machinations of man, and 'the evil that men do', nothing can interfere with Almighty God's plan for His Creation!
Let us rest in this joyous fact, not cowering in the safety of our 'bunkers by the River', but bravely, fearlessly, and joyfully shining the Light of God's Love and Kingdom, as 'a city on a hill'!
Charles Haddon Shank
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