The Church Has Failed America . . . Again

In the spring of 2015, I attended the American Pastors Network’s U-Turn Conference in Lancaster, PA.  Over 500 pastors were there; all of us listening to nationally-known speakers urging churches to get involved in the up-coming election for President.

The conference was informative, inspirational, and was completely non-partisan.

At one point, I got a chance to speak one-on-one to American Pastors Network President – Sam Rohrer.  I urged Sam to use whatever influence he had in whatever circles he traveled to work to unite Christian leaders to support just one candidate for President rather than having a variety of conservative candidates split the vote and give us yet another RINO to have to “hold our noses” and vote for in the fall election.

To their credit, a number of Christian leaders did make such an attempt early on in the Primary process, but it was not pervasive enough and they held too little authority to influence the decision of many candidates’ campaigns.

The end result - once again - is that Christians have no good candidates to vote for in the fall election.  Once again, God’s instrument of “salt” and “light” in American culture has utterly failed to guide the nation back to God’s Truth.

(A brief caveat to this article is necessary at this point.  Truly, several million Christians have gotten involved in this election and done a good job supporting the best possible candidate for the Presidency.  But, our numbers were far too few and far too many of our “brethren” have refused to see things with their Biblical eyes and rational brains.)

Now, we are being told that we have to “hold our noses”; “close our eyes”; “stop up our ears”; “close our mouths” and vote for the worst possible candidate choices in the past century of American politics.

No thank you!

I have no intention of violating my faith, my conscience, and my integrity to vote for the likes of Donald Trump (or certainly not Hillary for that matter).  He has proven himself to be a liar, a coarse insecure bully, a sleaze merchant, and a pompous horse’s backside – hardly Presidential material no matter how often he brags about “building the wall.”

The national media may have sold their souls for ratings, celebrity, and fat paychecks at the expense of the American people and culture, but I refuse to participate in the “double-quick march to oblivion.”

So what has brought us to this place?  What should the Church have done differently?  How could this looming disaster have been averted?

First of all, we need to do far more than pray.  Prayer is truly the first line of defense (and offense) for Christians, but unless we give our prayers “feet” they are very limited in their impact.

We still have millions of Christians in this country that are politically impotent and illiterate.  They don’t participate in elections and then bemoan the lax spiritual and moral states of America.

Some are pseudo-intellectual, quasi-socialists, but the vast majority is just intentionally ignorant and lazy.

These folks, if they do bother to vote, get their instructions from the left-wing national media with its secular, socialist agenda.

They don’t bother to research candidates and sort through all the lies to get at the unvarnished truth.  They are happy to be ignorant and just go with the flow of what is easy.

Or, they are sincerely deceived – believing news sources that are puerile, fraudulent, and downright silly in their assertions of “truth.”

Nope.  Far too many members of Christ’s Church are “useful idiots” for all who oppose Christianity and Christianity “fleshed out” in American society.

Second, the Church couldn’t see the “big picture” in this election.  There is a Clinton running.  That means everything connected to this election has the potential for fraud, lies, and corruption.

That most certainly includes helping the Republicans to pick the candidate Hillary least fears in November – which is exactly what has happened.

Anyone who has failed to see the Trump/Clinton connection in all of this is a fool and has learned nothing from history.

The Clintons recruited Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 to seal Bill’s Presidential career.  The Clintons – through their surrogate Terry McAuliffe – actively recruited a 3^rd Party candidate to tip the Virginia Governor’s race to him a couple of years ago – a setup to insure Hillary taking Virginia in 2016.

Enter Trump – after meeting with the Clintons – announcing his run for the Republican nomination for President.  A life-long liberal New York Democrat suddenly becomes a “conservative” Republican to vie for the nomination.

On the other side were a bevy of conservatives and a couple of squishy moderates.  And, once again, the Christian vote was split and nullified.

Myself, I looked at all of the candidates and made what I believe was the best choice for President – Ted Cruz. 

All of the other contenders have proven me right by their actions throughout the process.

Mike Huckabee sold his political soul after being rejected by the voters.  His “30 pieces of silver” – a job with Trump for his daughter and returned access to the national media talkshows.

Marco Rubio’s ego got the best of him and he “went down with the ship” in his home state of Florida – a few weeks too late to save the nomination for Cruz.

Ben Carson, an early favorite of Christians and an amazing doctor, proved his ineptitude in politics with his stupid mistake in Iowa and then compounded the damage by continuing to blame Cruz with his continual whining afterwards for weeks.

On top of that, he endorsed Trump with constantly contradicting support statements.

Paul, Walker, and Santorum were never really much of a factor in the race; although all of them are fine men.  But, they contributed to the siphoning of votes away from the only viable conservative.

This dilution of the Christian vote among multiple candidates early on only solidified Trump’s position in the race.

If he would have had to compete and debate head-to-head with the likes of Cruz early on, he would have gotten out of the race long before Iowa.

Instead, because the Christian vote was so split, he began winning “open” Primaries with minimal votes – around 1/3 of the votes.

Especially in the early southern states where evangelical populations are larger, Trump was able to win because he added a small percentage of the evangelical vote to his cadre of Democrats “crossing-over” to vote for him.

In these same states, Cruz, Rubio, and to a lesser extent – Carson - split the Christian vote; giving these shallow victories to Trump.

By the time all of the other challengers got out of the race (Soros puppet Kasich excepted), the media narrative was set – Trump was to be the presumptive nominee no matter what he said or did.

Despite a valiant attempt to battle for the truth, Cruz never was able to get a fair shake from the press (even the so-called “conservative” media).

Lest any Christians doubt me on what has really gone on here, I invite you to look at just who was the main target of extremist smear campaigns of the Trump proxies and Trump himself.

First, Trump tried to eliminate Cruz’s candidacy by scurrilously declaring that Cruz was ineligible to be President because he was born in Canada to an America mother.  Trump assured his would-be voters this “flaw” in Cruz would be challenged in court and Cruz would be forced to withdraw.

The truth is that even after the “Trump/Hillary kooks” filed several lawsuits against Cruz, they were all thrown out as baseless.

Cruz was right and Trump lied.

When that didn’t work for Trump, he began the personal attacks on Cruz’s character.  He was “Lyin’ Ted” because he refused to go along with Carson’s attempt to save face after his gaff in Iowa.

Trump pounced on Cruz’s charitable attempt to pacify Carson to save face for his own disappointing Iowa finish.

Just like the Democrat narrative – “Democrats never lose elections.  They are always stolen from them.” – so too, Trump whined about being cheated by Cruz’s “lying.”

But that attack didn’t finish Cruz off either, so Trump’s next move was to go swimming in the cesspits deep in the bowels of Trump Tower and come up with sleaze at a level that would make Hillary proud of him.

Trump got his buddy – Mr. Pecker – at the National Enquirer to publish a toxic lie about Cruz having multiple affairs.

Only the grossest of simpletons believed it, but since it meant ratings for the press, they kept the story alive for days.

Cruz was showered by Trump’s sewage in the process, even though it was all Trump’s sewage, not anything Cruz had done.

When that didn’t finish Cruz, Trump went back to his “Lyin’ Ted” mantra  all the while cowering in fear that he might be forced to debate Cruz one-on-one at some point and be shown for the huge fraud he really is.

Cruz still hadn’t quit the race; much to Hillary’s and Trumps chagrin, so Trump got even more desperate.  As Cruz picked up more and more delegates from the various states’ delegate selection process – following long established rules by each state’s Republican Parties – Trump became apoplectic in his shrill protests about a rigged process – a process that granted him a higher percentage of delegates than he had earned via popular votes.

Finally, Trump was forced into the “outer limits” of the “twilight zone” to come up with a bizarre charge that Cruz’s father was somehow connected to JFK’s assassination – once again “leaked” by Trump friend – Pecker – at the National Enquire.

Now, at this point the average voter should have been rolling on the floor, laughing at Trump’s desperate hysteria, but even the national media played along for a while as if it was a serious story.

I can’t imagine any sane Christian believing this tripe.  I certainly wouldn’t want any Christian who did in any kind of leadership role in any church I can think of.

But, perhaps too many in the Church can no longer tell the truth from lies emanating from Hell.

At any rate, after all of these lies and fraud were thrown at Cruz, there should be no doubt who the devil desperately wanted to stop from winning the White House.

The sad reality is that too many Christians have done the devil’s bidding here.  And just like Jesus’ words to Peter, perhaps a - “Get thee behind me” - statement needs to be directed to gullible Christians who are helping to destroy America.

But, I fear most Christian dupes will shrug their shoulders and say it was somehow “God’s will” for those who hold only contempt for Him to come to leadership in a land that He brought about by His grace and faithfulness.

Perhaps too many in the Church are ignoring Samuel’s advice and are demanding a “king.” 

Perhaps too many in the Church are ignoring Joshua and Caleb’s testimony and want to go back into Egyptian slavery.

Maybe what lies ahead is God’s judgment on America, but what these jaded Christians fail to realize that “judgment starts first with the House of God”  (1 Peter 4:17) and they are digging their own spiritual graves before those of the pagans.