The Moral Majority Is Dead

Christians, take note. The Moral Majority is dead.

Whatever your thoughts are on the re-election of President Obama and others can be debated as to what is proper for our country in the midst of an economic tailspin. I'll remind you the economy was growing at a faster rate in 1992 when we ousted incumbent George H. W. Bush in favor of a new direction in Bill Clinton. It is clear we are satisfied with far less economic growth 20 years later and more at ease to continue with the current path.

However, my point in this post is not to debate who should be in the White House. The ballot issues provide far clearer clues as to where we are headed:

• Every chance for gay marriage to be law won for the first time in our history.
• Physician-assisted suicide barely lost in Massachusetts. I'm sure that fight is not over.
• Casinos were roundly accepted in Rhode Island and Maryland.
• Marijuana has been made recreationally legal in four states.
• Florida voters made sure to vote against state funds supporting religious organizations for public welfare.
• Abortion was a celebrated part of the Democratic Party platform in August and strongly supported nation-wide with one small exception in Montana.

America's Christian roots have dried up.

I'll be the first to confess, our nation is definitely "post-Christian." But the "Christian" country we had was simply labeled as such because most people identify themselves as Christian by default instead of conscious commitment. Let me be clear: That's not Christian. Christianity is not an ethnicity or national heritage bestowed upon you from your parents or church attendance. It is a willful decision to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, giving up your life for His sake. Doing what He did. Following His lead.

I'm thankful that our watered-down version of Christianity has been drying up for the past few decades in America. It's time to separate the wheat from the chaff and the pretenders from the passionate.

Even in this election cycle, there is good news! Evangelical Christians made up 27 percent of the electorate this year. That's an all-time high and a new record percentage-wise. While America is becoming "post-Christian" in the nominal sense, a swell of strong Christian conviction is brewing beneath the culture once again.

Never Despair.

The Lord always has a people. The movement God started in Abraham has lived on through millenia of international upheaval and centuries of crisis and turmoil. God always has a Nehemiah or Daniel speaking into the ear of the kings of Earth so that His ultimate plan may be accomplished. Even when Jerusalem was sacked and its people dragged into exile in Babylon, though down to only 4,600 people (Jeremiah 52:30), it survived. Christ was born of the Jewish Virgin Mary and in case you didn't know ... Israel and Christianity are still alive and well today. God's promises never fail (Genesis 12:1-3).

Never underestimate the Church that Jesus is building. Christian faith has always grown the fastest and purest when it was marginalized and ostracized and in some cases made illegal. The "Bamboo Curtain" went up with 2 million Christians underground during the reign of Mao in China. When it eventually came down, there were 70 million Christians. Persecution can be a good thing for the true Church.

Whatever side of the political spectrum you come down on, if your hopes were crushed or elated because of a political result, I would check where your hopes are placed.

Jeremiah 17:5–6 (NLT) This is what the LORD says: "Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the LORD. 6 They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.

May Christian's HOPE be built on NOTHING LESS than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Tim Hatch blogs about Christian faith and values at www.timhatchagain.com every week.