“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” Matthew 6:10
Who Is Trying to Take America Away From Us?
This is the cry of many Christians and others today.
Is it the immigrant caravans at the border or perhaps the American elites who have developed a global pandemic to control the population with vaccines, or maybe its the Satan-worshiping pedophile rings at the highest levels of our government!
Current events indicate we can expect the next few years to be worse than the previous ones. Many people who seek Fame & Glory, making a name for themselves by exploiting fear and outrage (like Trump and many others) will continue to get better at it, simply because we have a gullible population willing to believe just about anything.
Ressentiment Not Character and Virtue Rule the Day
We have hit a low point in American Culture and even around the world.
That low point is not only the liberal agenda but its also those who self-righteously claim virtue and leadership out of their hubris and ignorance.
Former President Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Selma, North Carolina recently at which
he told the crowd that he thinks he's the "most honest human being that, perhaps, God ever created.
Trump is the poster child for foolish and ignorant. We can find many others like Marjorie Taylor Green etc. that we would consider stand up comedy were it not so serious. Just to be clear Gazpacho is a cold, vegetable-based soup from Spain. Recently when Greene compared a situation to Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, she chose an entirely wrong word.
“We have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens that want to come talk to their representatives,” Green said.
Ok so lets be real we all do this sort of thing and we not not pick people apart for doing what we are prone to do.
The fact remains however that Green, Gaetz and Gohmert to name a few are not known for their intelligence or problem solving skills.
If we throw out all the "bums" we are left with yes I am afraid to say Trump, Green and all the others of dubious skills.
Which brings us to "ressentiment", which is alive and well in America Today.
Nietzsche argued that one of the most powerful forces in society was "ressentiment." Similar to the word "resentment," ressentiment can be found at the heart of new kinds of morality in society. In the past nobility was associated with power, while the downtrodden, poor, and weak were ignoble.
Also in the past the ignoble masses resented their plight but they were too weak to start a real, armed revolution. The powerless then resorted to a moral revolution in which they assaulting the concepts of nobility, goodness, morality and made them seem evil in the popular imagination and culture.
Nietzschean ressentiment has now permeated our culture today. For example it is a great sin to make anyone other than the "privileged or elites" feel uncomfortable, challenged or psychologically threatened by the use of the wrong words, metaphors or concepts.
Out of this has grown the so called "Cancel Culture" as people selectively judge and ostracize people THEY deem bad.
We have in general become stiff rigorists who substitute closed-mindedness for integrity, character and virtue. Many Christians have also bought into this mindset.
Ressentiment rules the day!
Do You Still Belong to the Kingdom of God?
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”—Mark 1:15
The Kingdom of God is at work, HE is present, yet often we are absent.
Claiming to be a follower of Christ entails many things. So we must ask in lite of what I just said what would Christ have us do now, in our current culture? What would HE be doing?
Partisan politics is an even more divisive issue in America today than anything else, whether left or right, Democrat or Republican, each side stays in its own echo chamber, with its own TV news networks, talk show hosts, newspaper columnists, social commentators, blog writers etc.
How would Jesus respond to this world and our culture?
We as Christians often ignore this and rationalize our thinking and behavior in secular ways. It should be clear that Christ would not join in the dissent, factionalism, the hatred toward people with a different opinion?
Our Lord stood with the poor in spirit, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. He comforted those who mourn, and he offered mercy. Jesus told the pure of heart they would see God, and the peacemakers that they would be called children of God.
We should never completely withdrawal from the political process. As citizens in a free democracy, we should exercise the privilege of engaging our politicians about the issues and we should vote responsibly. But should never put our confidence in sinful politicians and political processes alone to deliver the liberation Jesus promised. The goal of the political process is not “liberation”. If we feel we must be liberated we must be liberated to something of significance. Today we have been liberated to ourselves, our radical self-expression, which it turns out is just another form of bondage.
We cant be the hero and we should stop trying.
Jesus resisted the urge to be that heroic leader himself.
For us to be Christ-like in our culture today the answers are right in front of us. We must live a life patterned on the incarnation of Jesus, enabled by the continuing power of his incarnation, and by joining the ongoing incarnating mission of God in this world by the Person of The Holy Spirit.
How?
Cook for others, run errands, feed animals and care for gardens, watching TV together, playing music, reading books. How about fostering babies, supporting poor and single mothers, or perhaps visiting prisons, volunteering our time to help the unemployed, the homeless, the disabled.
We can no longer afford to act the the world around us, We must set ourselves apart and serve our Lord and those around us.