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W. James Antle III, Columnist
May 5, 2022·2 min read

The United Methodist Church is about to become the divided Methodist church. The Council of Bishops finally conceded that a split is imminent. The liberal wing will remain in a predominantly U.S.-based successor denomination while conservatives remain in connection with the growing, mostly orthodox African church. Despite efforts to delay the inevitable, the latter body, the Global Methodist Church, officially came into existence over the weekend.

What is happening to what has heretofore been the third-largest denomination in the United States, after the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, is emblematic of mainline Protestantism in general. Once culturally dominant, its social, political, and theological witness was compromised by constant squabbling. Despite a slogan of "open hearts, open mind, open doors," the reality in many local churches was increasingly empty pews.

One side wanted to remain rooted in historic Christian teaching on issues of faith and morals, including sexuality, to which the world's largest churches mostly remained committed. The other wanted to move in the secular world's direction on these issues, first as a matter of attracting new members but eventually and increasingly out of a strong moral conviction that these teachings were exclusionary.

The United Methodist Church remained so for as long as it did because the denomination remained orthodox on paper but liberal in practice except in areas where its evangelical members were numerically prevalent. That compromise became untenable as liberals came to regard the official orthodoxy as unjust and conservatives could no longer tolerate the flouting of those teachings throughout vast swathes of the church.

For a time, it seemed possible a coalition of white Southerners and Black Africans would transform United Methodism from a center-left denomination with a strong evangelical subculture into a mildly center-right one with a robust liberal subculture, making it the first mainline Protestant church reclaimed by its more conservative members. But there was no democratically accountable executive authority through which to replicate their legislative and judicial progress, so the day-to-day running of church agencies was little changed.

Same-sex marriage hastened the divorce. But there's one thing both sides claim to agree on: It's time to stop arguing about sex and make disciples of Jesus Christ. May it be so.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/divided-methodist-church-122428969.html

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CP CHURCH & MINISTRIES | TUESDAY, MAY 03, 2022
By Nicole Alcindor, CP Reporter

Kenyan-born Pastor Christian Lwanda was among the speakers at the final Together for the Gospel conference, where he urged pastors and ministry leaders not to rely on outside forces, no matter how well equipped, to do God's work.

Lwanda, who's an associate pastor at the Evangelical Community Church of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, preached on the last day of the TG4 conference, which brought together church leaders from 62 countries and every state in the U.S., and encouraged them to "persist in the Word."

If pastors are "going to have confidence in God’s Word to do God’s work," they need to “persist in the Word, preach the Word, and be prepared by the Word to stand before the Judge" of their ministries.

“Persist in the Word because the Word is the only place where sinful humans can be shown their desperate, hopeless state before our Holy God and their need for salvation, which can be found only in faith in Christ Jesus,” Lwanda declared.

“Right there, you have the necessity of Scripture. Only in the Bible, are we shown a Holy God who made man in His own image, but man rebelled against God, bringing upon himself the just and holy eternal wrath of God. … But ‘God demonstrates His love in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,’” he added, quoting Romans 5:8.

Earlier in the sermon, Lwanda quoted 2 Timothy 3:14, where the Apostle Paul encourages Timothy to stand firm in the Scripture even though he was among “false teachers who deny, twist the Word, reject the pattern of sound doctrine that comes from the Word.”

“Timothy is to persist in this Word because it is the only Word that saves; it is from God. … And therefore, carries God's own authority, such that to disobey the Word is to disobey God,” Lwanda said.

“It is from God, which means it's inerrant. God is without error. What He breathes out in His Word is without error. It is from God, and Scripture says it is ‘profitable.’ Talk about an understatement!"

The Bible is made not just for the congregation, but also for pastors, Lwanda stressed, adding that "we don't need to rely on something else to do the work of God other than the Word of God.”

To illustrate his point, Lwanda recounted that when he was a high school rugby player in Nairobi, Kenya, the team he played on was well-equipped, with the best shoes and clean jerseys. At one point, they played against a team from the Western part of the country and their players had tattered shoes and looked like a team that would be easy to beat.

Although he immediately assumed his team would win the game, he soon realized the other team was going to win because, despite their ripped shoes, they were skilled players.

“After one tackle that left me seeing stars and all my ancestors, I realized my shoes are not going to help me here. I had put my confidence in the wrong thing to win the game," Lwanda recounted.

"In the same way, it is so easy for you and I to put our confidence in something other than the Word of God to do the work of God. It is so easy for us to put our confidence in our wisdom, in our ability to navigate complex issues, in our personal strength or charisma, in our ability to drop truth bombs in 240 characters or less."

Lwanda said that pastors have a reason to praise God because of their ability to “come to Him like little children" so that "His Word could do His work in our hearts as pastors.”

“Oh, how we need His Word to do His work in our own hearts as pastors if we are going to love, listen, bear with the sheep — even the sheep that are biting us,” he said.

It is God's Word that not only equips and matures us, it is God's Word that equips and matures the Church. … It is God's Word that carries God's power to do God's work,” he added, referring to Romans 1:16 and Isaiah 55:11 about the power of the Gospel in relation to salvation and how, when preached, it is never void.

Lwanda described the Bible as “sufficient to unite divided Christians in any culture [and to] navigate complex cultural issues in any culture.”

“The Word of God is sufficient to sustain you and I, brother pastors, in any challenge of pastoral ministry,” Lwanda added. “So how are we doing, persisting in the Word, brother pastors?”

“Scripture says Timothy was well acquainted with the Word. Are we well acquainted with the Word? Or are we better acquainted with blogs and social media? In the words of Jeremiah 1, God is watching over His Word to perform it. So when we persist in the Word, we get a front-row seat in watching God perform His Word."

Pastors have the ability to join God as He performs His Word through them, which can have massive implications on how they do mission work, Lwanda added.

“I beg of you, as someone from the global South, … please do not spend your church's money sending and supporting missionaries who believe in something other than the Word of God to do the work of God,” Lwanda urged.

“Please send us people who are confident that it is the Word of God that will call the elect of God and build the Church of God, and raise indigenous pastors until they know in their bones that it is the Word that will do the work."

Pastors should make sure that they preach the Word of God because God is watching, Lwanda warned, reiterating Timothy as an example, noting that "God will produce fruit."

“If Timothy is going to be a faithful preacher, he has to rightly handle the Word of God. Because his primary audience is God. And then Paul counsels him on how to do this: 'When in season and out of season, when the conditions favor biblical preaching and when the conditions do not favor biblical teaching.'

“Paul tells him, people will not endure sound teaching because they prefer ‘heaping teachers upon themselves who will tell them what is necessary and relevant.’ Interestingly, the focus here is not on the false teacher, but on the false churches who hire and pay as many false teachers as they can to tickle their ears all the way to Hell."

Lwanda concluded his sermon with a prayer for all the pastors in the audience.

“Holy Father, would You grant us confidence in Your ability to use Your Word to do Your work, so much so that we would doggedly persist in the Word, boldly preach the Word, slowly be prepared by the Word to confidently stand and be rewarded by You the Living Word, in Jesus Name we pray, amen.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-lwanda-at-tg4-we-only-need-gods-word-to-do-his-work.html

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BY TONY PERKINS/FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
MAY 03, 2022

Nancy Abudu isn't a household name, but her employer -- an anti-Christian group called the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) -- certainly should be. The "civil rights" organization, whose fall from grace rocked the Leftist establishment a handful of years ago, turned out to be a hive of racist scam artists that exploited its donors and sexually harassed employees.

Turns out, the so-called hate watcher was the biggest hater of them all. And now, thanks to Joe Biden, one of their top attorneys is on the verge of becoming a judge on one of the most important courts in the country.

A trip to the Senate Judiciary Committee was never going to be a pleasant experience for an extremist like Abudu. After years of working for organizations with a history of targeting conservatives, Abudu knew she would have to answer a lot of hard questions. And the Senate's GOP didn't disappoint. In one heated exchange after another, conservatives put her on the hot seat for everything from the SPLC's listing of Family Research Council as a "hate group" to her jobs at the who's who of radicalism.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was one of the most vocal, drilling Abudu on her record, highlighting her time at the SPLC and ACLU. "You've never served as a judge. You've spent your entire life as an advocate. And as an advocate on the extreme Left. There has been a pattern of nominee after nominee that had been extreme zealots. But I have to say, your nomination, when I look at your record, I find deeply concerning. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hateful and extreme place. And their hate, among other things, has led to horrific violence."

Cruz brought up the 2012 shooting at FRC, where gunman Floyd Corkins brought enough ammunition to kill everyone in the building. Only by the heroic actions of Leo Johnson was a mass shooting completely averted. And how did Corkins know to target FRC? By his own admission, Cruz pointed out, the SPLC's "hate map," "where the Southern Poverty Law Center equated the Family Research Council with true bigoted hate groups like the KKK and the Nazi Party." "Do you agree with your employer," Cruz pressed, "that the Family Research Council is equivalent to the KKK or the Nazi Party?"

She dodged, noting that most of her career has been spent as a "civil rights lawyer." Cruz stopped her. "Could you please answer the question?" Abudu replied, "I can't comment to that. I'm in the legal department." Cruz wasn't deterred. "I'm asking if you agree with them. You work for them..." She parried again, until the senator said, "You're going to refuse to answer that?" No, Abudu insisted. "I cannot speak to a statement where I played no role in the research or the writing." "I didn't ask you if you did it. You went to work with them. Do you agree with them?"

Five times he asked Abudu to say whether she thinks Christian organizations with a biblical worldview are "hate groups." Five times she refused. And that ought to tell American voters everything they need to know.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) who might have been the most candid, admitting openly during his time, "I can't believe you've been nominated for this position. I can't believe that the President of the United States would nominate someone from this organization with this record. And I can't believe that you would sit here today and refuse to condemn this hateful, frankly, violent rhetoric from this organization with this record. It's astounding to me."

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who -- like Cruz and Hawley -- was also listed as an extremist by SPLC, was horrified by Abudu's refusal to distance herself from SPLC's labeling. "Can you explain why the three of us ended up on your hate list?" Blackburn asked. She said she couldn't.

When it was Senator Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) turn, he took issue to Abudu's feigned ignorance over the SPLC's hate list and the views of the organizations listed. Later, Grassley joined "Washington Watch" in absolute disbelief. "Can you believe that she would say that -- that she doesn't know anything about this? If you're just reading regular newspapers or commentaries about politics in Washington, D.C... you would know that these organizations have been listed in a very negative way by the center that you work for..." Like a lot of the Republicans in the room, Grassley agreed, "I would find it hard to believe that she would not be familiar with their list ranking all of these conservative groups as hate groups. I would have to question her credibility if she's not aware of a major portion of what that organization does."

But, as he pointed out, what's more concerning is her judicial views. "Everything with her background -- the ACLU, the Center she works for now," all fall in the category of political activist, Grassley said. "They believe in big government. They believe that you and I don't know anything, and Washington has all the answers to everything. And Congress is not a democratic organization... And remember, 99.9 percent of all the cases are finally decided by circuits. And she's going to be on the 11th Circuit. So she's kind of a Supreme Court, except for about 70 or 80 cases out of the year."

These are the kinds of extremists that Biden has leaned on to fill every political and judicial post. It's the complete opposite of Donald Trump, who was intent -- not on filling racial and gender quotas -- but finding the most experienced, respectable originalist candidate. If voters want a stark contrast between the parties, you won't find a bigger one than the ideological approaches of the two parties on the courts.

This nomination, though, sets the Democrats truly apart. Nancy Abudu would be extremely dangerous to Christians and constitutional values on one of the nation's highest courts. Her role at a disgraced organization like SPLC ought to automatically disqualify her from any job in government.

Originally published at Family Research Council
https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5336

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Petoskey News Review
Jim Rudolph
June 16, 2022·2 min read

When our forefathers wrote the Second Amendment, they wanted to protect the right of the citizen soldiers to be armed. At the time our Constitution was written, a skilled musketeer could fire up to three shots a minute. Our forefathers wanted to protect the right of those citizen soldiers to bear arms, but with conditions to protect against mayhem.

If the founding fathers wanted free access to firearms, they could have composed the Second Amendment to be “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” But they didn’t.

They could have put in minor restrictions such as “A Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” But they didn’t.

And even more interesting, they didn’t write “A regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

No. They wrote “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

How does just an average citizen differ from a militia? How does a militia differ from a regulated militia? How does a regulated militia differ from a well-regulated militia?

When many states allow anyone 18 years of age unfettered access to 100-round military weapons, how can that in any way be construed to be a well-regulated militia?

The U.S. keeps granting more and more firearm access to more and more people. As the numbers of mass shootings increase, they fail Logic 101 and grant even more access.

Think of Albert Einstein’s quote "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Letter to the Editor: Founding fathers never anticipated present day conditions

https://www.yahoo.com/news/letter-editor-founding-fathers-never-041510759.html

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CP VOICES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 04, 2022
By Ray Comfort, Op-ed contributor

In his The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What we are seeing in today’s political landscape with Russia attacking Ukraine is a repetition of what happened 80 years ago, when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted to conquer the nations of Europe.

After the tragic loss of 50 million precious lives in the Second World War, the United Nations was formed specifically to prevent a repetition of history: never again would a dictator have the power to conquer at will. However, the U.N. has shown itself to be powerless. To “level sanctions” on Russia is like attacking Goliath with a feather duster.

When Germany armed itself back in the late 1930’s, the then prime minister of England returned from negotiations with the Nazis having been assured that Hitler wouldn’t invade other nations. Then Hitler did, eventually conquering several and almost conquering the world, but for the genius and courage of Winston Churchill.

While all this attention is focused on Putin, Russian-backed Iran is mustering nuclear arms with an open agenda to destroy Israel.

Thirty years ago, I wrote a book (which is now out of print) called Russia will Attack Israel, in which I highlighted the Bible’s predictions that a nation to the north of Israel, led by “The Prince of Rosh,” would attack Israel. Is Putin the Prince of Rosh? Is he going to eventually unite with

Iran and lead Russia and other godless nations into the much-talked-about Battle of Armageddon? We don’t know for sure, but time will tell.

One thing we do know is that the Bible is the only book that tells us the future before it comes to pass. It speaks of the last days' signs that nation would rise against nation, rumors of wars, plague, general lawlessness, and a very real fear of the future.

But there is another sign of the end times — one that isn’t often addressed — that we’re seeing fulfilled in our time. This was spoken of by Jesus:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)
You and I as Christians can help hasten the coming of the Lord by sharing the Gospel with the unsaved — those who are still under the shadow of death and are in danger of being justly damned in Hell.

The Gospel doesn’t attack Goliath with a feather duster, but with a divinely directed stone. The moral law is the sling that gives the Gospel its thrust to penetrate the mind of sinners. It makes the message make sense.

And here is the wonderful kicker: in predicting the future, the Bible proves itself to be the Word of God. And if it is the Word of the Living God, its promise of everlasting life is true. It directs us to the One who gives us a living hope in our death, and it gives us the knowledge that the day will come when there will be no more wars, when swords will be turned into plowshares (see Isaiah 2:4), and that death will be no more.

Let’s hasten that day by sharing the Gospel today.

Ray Comfort is the Founder and CEO of Living Waters

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-often-neglected-sign-of-the-times.html

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Katherine Stewart
Sat, June 25, 2022, 3:00 AM·7 min read

The supreme court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reverses the constitutional abortion rights that American women have enjoyed over the past 50 years, has come as a surprise to many voters. A majority, after all, support reproductive rights and regard their abolition as regressive and barbaric.

Understood in the context of the movement that created the supreme court in its current incarnation, however, there is nothing surprising about it. In fact, it marks the beginning rather than the endpoint of the agenda this movement has in mind.

At the core of the Dobbs decision lies the conviction that the power of government can and should be used to impose a certain moral and religious vision – a supposedly biblical and regressive understanding of the Christian religion – on the population at large.

How did this conviction come to have such influence in the courts, given America’s longstanding principle of church-state separation? To understand why this is happening now, it’s important to know something about the Christian nationalist movement’s history, how its leaders chose the issue of abortion as a means of creating single-issue voters, and how they united conservatives across denominational barriers by, in effect, inventing a new form of intensely political religion. Christian nationalists often claim their movement got its start as a grassroots reaction to Roe v Wade in 1973. But the movement actually gelled several years later with a crucial assist from a group calling itself the “New Right”.

Paul Weyrich, Howard Phillips, Phyllis Schlafly and other leaders of this movement were dissatisfied with the direction of the Republican party and the culture at large. “We are radicals who want to change the existing power structure. We are not conservatives in the sense that conservative means accepting the status quo,” Paul Weyrich said. “We want change – we are the forces of change.”

They were angry at liberals, who they believed threatened to undermine national security with their softness on communism. They were angry at establishment conservatives – the “Rockefeller Republicans” – for siding with the liberals; they were angry about the rising tide of feminism, which they saw as a menace to the social order, and about the civil rights movement and the danger it posed to segregation. One thing that they were not particularly angry about, at least initially, was the matter of abortion rights.

New Right leaders formed common cause with a handful of conservative Catholics, including George Weigel and Richard John Neuhaus, who shared their concerns, and drew in powerful conservative preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones Sr. They were determined to ignite a hyper-conservative counter-revolution. All they needed now was an issue that could be used to unify its disparate elements and draw in the rank and file.

Among their core concerns was the fear that the supreme court might end tax exemptions for segregated Christian schools. Jerry Falwell and many of his fellow southern, white, conservative pastors were closely involved with segregated schools and universities – Jones went so far as to call segregation “God’s established order” and referred to desegregationists as “Satanic propagandists” who were “leading colored Christians astray”. As far as these pastors were concerned, they had the right not just to separate people on the basis of race but to also receive federal money for the purpose.

They knew, however, that “Stop the tax on segregation!” wasn’t going to be an effective rallying cry for their new movement. As the historian and author Randall Balmer wrote, “It wasn’t until 1979 – a full six years after Roe – that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”

In many respects abortion was an unlikely choice, because when the Roe v Wade decision was issued, most Protestant Republicans supported it. The Southern Baptist Convention passed resolutions in 1971 and 1974 expressing support for the liberalization of abortion law, and an editorial in their wire service hailed the passage of Roe v Wade, declaring that “religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision.” As governor of California, Ronald Reagan passed the most liberal abortion law in the country in 1967. Conservative icon Barry Goldwater supported abortion law liberalization too, at least early in his career, and his wife Peggy was a cofounder of Planned Parenthood in Arizona.

Yet abortion turned out to be the critical unifying issue for two fundamentally political reasons. First, it brought together conservative Catholics who supplied much of the intellectual leadership of the movement with conservative Protestants and evangelicals. Second, by tying abortion to the perceived social ills of the age – the sexual revolution, the civil rights movement, and women’s liberation – the issue became a focal point for the anxieties about social change welling up from the base.

Over time, pro-choice voices were purged from the Republican party. In her 2016 book, How the Republican Party Became Pro-Life, Phyllis Schlafly details the considerable effort it took, over several decades, to force the Republican party to change its views on the issue. What her book and the history shows is that the “pro-life religion” that we see today, which cuts across denominational boundaries on the political right, is a modern creation.

In recent decades, the religious right has invested many hundreds of millions of dollars developing a complex and coordinated infrastructure, whose features include rightwing policy groups, networking organizations, data initiatives and media. A critical component of this infrastructure is its sophisticated legal sphere.

Movement leaders understood very well that if you can capture the courts, you can change society. Leading organizations include the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is involved in many of the recent cases intended to degrade the principle of church-state separation; First Liberty; Becket, formerly known as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; and the Federalist Society, a networking and support organization for rightwing jurists and their allies whose leader, Leonard Leo, has directed hundreds of millions of dollars to a network of affiliated organizations. This infrastructure has created a pipeline to funnel ideologues to important judicial positions at the national and federal level. Nearly 90% of Trump’s appellate court nominees were or are Federalist Society members, according to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and all six conservative justices on the supreme court are current or former members.

The rightwing legal movement has spent several decades establishing a new regime in which “religious liberty” is reframed as an exemption from the law, one enjoyed by a certain preferred category of religion. LGBT advocacy groups are concerned that the supreme court’s willingness, in the next session, to hear the case of a Colorado website designer who wishes to refuse services to same-sex couples is a critical step to overturning a broad range of anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT Americans along with women, members of religious minority groups and others.

The legal powerhouses of the Christian right have also recognized that their efforts can be turned into a gravy train of public money. That is one of the reasons a recent supreme court decision, which ruled Maine must fund religious schools as part of a state tuition program, was predicted by observers of this movement. This decision forces the state to fund religious schools no matter how discriminatory their practices and sectarian their teachings. “This court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

This supreme court has already made clear how swiftly our Christian nationalist judiciary will change the law to suit this vision of a society ruled by a reactionary elite, a society with a preferred religion and a prescribed code of sexual behavior, all backed by the coercive power of the state. The idea that they will stop with overturning Roe v Wade is a delusion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/christian-took-over-judiciary-changed-070008675.html

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CP ENTERTAINMENT | TUESDAY, MAY 03, 2022
By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Assistant Editor

NASHVILLE — Kirk Cameron recently opened up about the importance of parental involvement in education and shared why he believes the biblical transformation of culture begins in the home — not in the government-run public school system.

In a sit-down interview with The Christian Post, the 51-year-old actor and author shared why he and his wife, Chelsea, decided to homeschool their six children.

“[Homeschooling] is this biblical concept that parenting, and particularly the education of children, is a parental responsibility and privilege,” he said. “It's not some job that God gave to civil government to do. And yet for generations, we've handed our children over to the government, essentially giving to Caesar the things that belong to God, and our children, made in the image of God, belong to us.

"And so we know them, we love them. And if we're going to disciple them seven or eight hours a day in some sort of a school institution, it sure as heck better be something that's going to reinforce the things that God wants us to be teaching our kids. And I think that that's best done in a community where moms and dads are running the show and leading the way.”

The “Growing Pains” actor is gearing up for the release of his new documentary, “The Homeschool Awakening,” in which he “dives into the adventures of dynamic American families on a mission to put fun and faith back into learning.” The film will be in theaters this June for two nights only on June 13–14.

“The pandemic made parents grossly aware of what public schools are teaching our kids,” Cameron said in a press release announcing the Fathom

Events documentary. “It’s up to us, the parents, to cultivate the hearts, souls and minds of our children, and today’s public-school systems are not working for us, they are actively working against us. Public education has become Public Enemy No. 1.”

When he was first introduced to the concept of homeschooling, Cameron joked that he was under the impression he had to have “14 kids that all played the violin.” Now, decades later, he’s on a mission to debunk common myths about homeschooling and give an honest look at the practice.

Homeschooling “looks different for different people,” Cameron told CP, adding: “Sometimes it's private schools, sometimes it's in-home lessons. Sometimes it's co-ops and networks and conventions and curriculums. Other times, it's reading novels and exploring and pursuing your passions and talents.”

“This homeschool documentary is going to explore all of that, and give people an idea of how to homeschool their kids. Because true biblical transformation of culture has to begin in the home,” he added.

He stressed that investing in children from a young age and teaching them biblical principles is always “worth it,” even if the fruits of that labor aren’t evident until later.

“You begin to see the good and the bad seeds that you've planted when they were young, and whoever educates our children control the future,” he said. “So what I would say is, the future of the Kingdom of God is built and it hinges upon faithful moms and dads believing the promises of God and faithfully training their kids up in the way they should go.”

Though parenthood can be scary and difficult in an increasingly secularized culture, Cameron offered that reminder that God is present in even the hardest moments. He encouraged parents to model biblical Christianity for their children in the way they parent and conduct their lives.

“Don't worry that [your house] is not perfectly kept in and picked up; your house is not supposed to be a museum,” he emphasized. “Your house is more like a workshop, and you're building little humans, and you're shaping their hearts and their souls and their minds. There’s supposed to be sawdust on the floor. It's supposed to be a little messy because you're building something, and it's difficult. And God is there with you, and the Bible is your blueprint.”

“Go for it. Do it with joy, and depend on the grace and the promises of God to help you through, because this whole process is molding and shaping you as a parent as well,” he continued. “God's not done with you yet, either. So lean into it. It's lean into it, joyfully. And trust God, it's all worth it.”

An award-winning actor who has starred in a slew of faith-based films including “Fireproof” and “Left Behind,” Cameron is passionate about using his platform to share his faith and equip the next generation of believers. In November, he debuted his show “Takeaways” on TBN, where he discusses pressing issues facing believers with experts like Dennis Prager, Mike Huckabee, Candace Cameron Bure and others.

Christians, he said, are called to engage with culture and difficult issues. He lamented the tendency of some believers to adopt a form of escapism that says, “The world is bad, it’s run by the devil, I’m not of this world, I just need to make sure I have my relationship right with God, and one day, I'll go to Heaven where everything will be OK.”

“The only problem with that is that I think that it kills the power of the Gospel,” Cameron said, adding that the Gospel is what transforms hearts, marriages, families, communities and entire cultures.

My goal shouldn't be to get from Earth to Heaven, but to be saved and transformed so that I can bring Heaven to Earth,” he added.

Christians should instead take what God has done in their lives and then seek to transform their worlds, impacting politics, family, faith “and everything else so that God's ways become more manifest in our world, and our kids have more of a future because of it.”

And when culture feels defeating and it seems like “the tyrants are winning and the good guys are losing,” Cameron offered the reminder that throughout history, evil has been defeated and righteousness always prevails.

“Those who are in covenant with God are the ones who change history and bring blessing and protection and prosperity for people and create the best families, the best businesses and the best cultures and nations,” he said.

“When we see things appear to collapse around us, what is likely happening is God is using the enemies of the family of faith and the cultural pressures to bring about His will to purify His bride and accomplish His Kingdom purposes.

But we've got to think that way. And we’re taught to in the Bible, and history demonstrates that that is always the way that it works.”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/kirk-cameron-says-biblical-transformation-has-to-begin-in-home.html

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Sturgis Journal Shayne Looper
June 18, 2022·3 min read

Every day it is a new headline, but they all sound alike: “Christian Nationalism On the Rise.” “White Christian Nationalism ‘Is a Fundamental Threat to Democracy.’” “White Christian Nationalism Is at the Heart of 'the Most Radical Fringe Groups.'”

I saw a headline yesterday that read something like, “Evangelicals Are Imperiling America’s Freedom.” As a Christian from an evangelical tradition, I want to object to being cast as the bad guy. But as an observer of the current political scene, I am not sure that I can.

Admittedly, the headlines are political hyperbole that expose an engrained distrust and misunderstanding of religious people. Further, such headlines reflect an editorial bias and serve a political agenda. Nevertheless, there is reason for concern, for there is an obvious link between American nationalism and evangelical Christianity.

To grasp what this is all about, it is necessary to understand the term “nationalism”. There is nothing necessarily religious about it. Nationalism has been around as long as nation-states have existed. It thrives in atheistic, irreligious societies as well as in religious ones.

Briefly defined, nationalism is an attitude that gives priority of place and standing to the nation. Nationalists subordinate other commitments to that of supporting the nation and seeking its wellbeing. This differs from patriotism, for a patriot can honor and sacrifice for their country without elevating its importance above other primary commitments.

It is all about what Augustine referred to as the “order of loves.” Nationalists elevate the nation within that order in a way that sets it at odds with Christian faith. When the nation assumes a place that belongs to God alone, when government crowds out the church in a believer’s thoughts, and when religion is used as a tool in the service of politics, then nationalism has become Christianity’s adversary.

Secularists denounce “Christian Nationalism” because they see it as a threat to democracy, or at least to their version of democracy. Committed Christians also denounce it, but for a different reason. They see it as a threat to the integrity of the faith.

A growing number of Christian leaders warn that nationalism distorts the gospel. This is true, but it could also be said that a diminished gospel causes, or at least leaves people susceptible to, an idolatrous nationalism. Both Christianity and nationalism have a gospel – a message of good news – but they are not the same gospel.

Nationalism, depending on which nationalist “denomination” one belongs to, proclaims the good news that the nation can bring justice, end poverty, rescue the oppressed (fetuses or LGBTQ folk, depending on one’s brand of nationalism), stop crime, protect our borders, punish the wicked (variously defined), bring prosperity, and defend democracy around the world.

The Christian Gospel, on the other hand, proclaims the good news that God has already acted through Christ to forgive our sins (some of which are listed above), to install his king, and to bring his kingdom which alone is peaceable, just, and secure. It is this kingdom that Christians are to “seek first.”

The nationalist longs for power over others. The Christian seeks submission under God. The nationalist serves as judge of the wicked (again, variously defined). The Christian leaves all judgment to God. Nationalists try to crush their enemies. Christians try to love theirs.

The willingness, even eagerness, of some evangelicals to embrace nationalism betrays a lack of confidence in, and even knowledge of, the gospel of Christ. They have relegated it to the religious sphere and to Sunday mornings. The rest of life belongs to the secular world, which is where they suppose the real power lies.

When the church proclaims a diminished gospel – one that is just about getting into heaven when you die – even Christians are drawn away to the gospel of nationalism, which promises to get things done in the here and now. Dressed up in religious attire, nationalism has been attracting liberal Christians for at least a century, and conservative ones since the 1980s.

The trend will continue in the absence of the proclamation of the authentic gospel of Christ, which is world-changing and life-transforming. Such a proclamation is our pressing need.

Shayne Looper is the pastor of Lockwood Community Church in Branch County. Read more at shaynelooper.com.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-christian-nationalism-051806037.html

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