Voddie Bauchum speaks some wisdom on these matters, from the black community, although his analysis is thoroughly Christian, biblical, and strengthened via the school of (South Central L.A.) hard knocks.
There seem to be a good many people who will try to turn the inattentive church members into supporters of that which is heretical, and whilst it is right to be aware of trends, it is wrong to follow them. I am fairly sure that the good people of my local Methodist Chapel were being inveigled by the 2019 Methodist Conference into accepting a very bad report which would have sent the church into bland acceptance of same sex marriage, had it not been that it had to be ratified in 2020, but was not presented at that time. And certainly, if they ever do have an event of this kind at the Chapel, I shall be exiting their denomination the same day.
Erick, I don't know if you've had a chance to pick up Carl Trueman's latest book ("The Rise and Fall of the Modern Self" (Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution"). It's all about the deconstruction of western civilization and where we stand today in the wake of Woke. But if you haven't, read it yet, I recommend it.
In light of that scenario/agenda, a couple of days ago Mitch McConnel and Nancy Pelosi both experienced the tip of the anarchist's sword. It was a warning, I think, about the nature of the beast that seems to be stirring in our today in our midst. (I'm sure you must have read about the vandalism.) I would imagine that McConnel may have been more mentally prepared for this type of evil reaction than Speaker Pelosi was.
After all, she IS the "progressive". I suspect that she wasn't expecting "progressive" Vandal-ism at her front door.
I am presently reading Rod Dreyer’s latest book “Live Not By Lies”. In it, Mr. Dreyer illustrates his warnings about what he calls “soft totalitarianism” with the experiences of people who have lived under Marxist dictatorship. The people who he cites in the book unanimously decry what is happening in America today; one amazed person told Dreyer, “Don’t they know what they are doing?” I suspect that the answer to that question is “No”, probably because history, even quite recent history, may as well be the Middle Ages to those seduced by the allure of all that “free” stuff, forgetting that the cheese in the mousetrap, to the mouse, was also “free”. Why is this so? Dreyer credits it to the fact that in the West, we have separated civic virtue from the underlying moral principles on which it was based. History teaches us that the first thing any totalitarian seeks to do is separate the people from the moral principles on which their nation was based in order to impose the principles he must have underlie the state he would impose on them. Marxism in any form is utterly incompatible with Judeo-Christian values; that the Greg Thompsons of this world would have us believe otherwise is a condemnation of both him and us.
Well, I read Thompson's post. I don't agree with it entirely, but I think it has more in the way of solid points than gobbledygook word salad. I like to read from people I disagree with too; maybe I've read too many leftists, and internalized their jargon! Personally, I tire of counterargument by reducing the opponent to "Marxist / Leninist / Socialist / Communist." It's a bogeyman. Intellectual tribalism. Label something as a thought-crime, and you get to skip the details. Isn't that what we're accusing the left of?
I certainly understand the hesitation for this particular -ism; there's a lot historical correlation between communism and totalitarianism. But I'm not convinced that any single policy change dooms us to become Venezuela. Other Western countries are far more socialistic than we are, without having fallen off the ledge.
"Thompson puts the Christians on the bad side"; have Christians never been on the bad side? I'm not a theologian, but I grew up in a Lutheran church, and seem to recall the Reformation being a movement against the excesses of the Catholic Church. Doesn't "Protestantism" imply that there was some amount of protest against the orthodoxy?
I prefer not to dismiss an idea out of hand, solely because we associate the idea with our historical geopolitical enemies. Isn't that worldly too, to choose our policy on the basis of what's unlike countries we oppose? Are capitalism, and America itself, not also worldly? I happen to like capitalism, and America, but we're sinners too. Sometimes our navel-gazing borders on idolatry.
My philosophy professor at Boston College was part of the “Institute of Marxist Thought ” in the philosophy dept at BC. He was in is 70’s and he was also a Jesuit priest. Once over a beer (this is a Catholic school after all) he told me that he had spent his career trying to resolve Marxism with Christianity and had finally come to the conclusion that it was not possible. He said that atheism was just too great a part of Marx.
Here are a few Scriptures pertaining to these issues:
". . . and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. . ." (Rev 1:16)
" And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common." (Acts 2:44)
Implications in the church's present challenges:
~~Christ is presented in Scripture as a divider. His word is separated from the dictates of men. Believers who stand with Him will stand upon his Word, and consider all other human doctrines and theories as secondary. Christians need not be bound by human expectations of correct behavior when the Lord himself has set the standards, in His Word, for his people's behavior.
~~As for the postmodernist iteration of Marxist socialist doctrine, Christians are not bound by any worldly prescriptions for equality and community. We have our own standards, which the Lord has established in His Word. In Acts 2:44 we find there is biblical precedent for communitarian sharing, to be administered, judged and shared by Christian churches; this early example does not, however, require the benevolent practice of Christians in their communities to be subject to the fickle currents of worldly doctrines--be they Marxist, Socialist or Capitalist or any othe -"ist", except Christ.
Jesus warned about these false preachers. As Erick pointed out, the world hated Jesus and still does. I pray for the young who are being indoctrinated in this as these heresies permeate society from all sides. I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian and my church preaches Christ as the Gospels reveal him. My priest doesn't preach politics but did tell the church that marriage is a sacrament and only between man and woman! There are Christian churches that aren't buying this marxist crap! Pray they stay that way.
Erick, I compared your post from today with your post from yesterday. In yesterday’s post, you argued for a similar unity that occurred after the 9/11 attack. In contrast, in today’s post your argument was about the danger of being united with those who are on a path opposed to clear teaching about God given us in the Bible.
After 9/11, Americans of all political persuasions were unified against a violent attack on the physical territory of our country by a foreign enemy, in a similar way that an earlier generation was united by the Pearl Harbor attack. But this was never a political or religious unity, as a vicious divide over the morality of abortion and LGBT behavior never went away. Any deceptive unity from 9/11 had virtually disappeared by the time the media was trumpeting “Bush lied, people died” in regard to the Iraq war.
I also believe in grace and Biblical morality and I do not support cancelling people with different political or religious views than mine. But your argument that our country can have a unity between political parties with polar opposite positions on issues like abortion, the morality of LBBT behavior and violent riots/looting is simply not correct. Light cannot unify with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14) and truth can never unify with falsehood.
A Politico article about the 2020 Democratic Convention starts with this headline: “'I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness': Biden frames election choice as light versus dark.” You may dispute the concept of a Flight 93 election, but both political parties see the 2020 election and the elections that follow it as a vote on what constitutes light/darkness in a political world that in various ways overlaps with a moral world.
Moral integrity never sacrifices truth for the sake of unity with darkness. Rather, it always seeks to drive out darkness by shining light upon it. Your post from today regarding “gay Christians,” “BLM/Marxism” and “Critical Race Theory” attempts to do exactly that. Whether you believe it or not, that is a similar goal to the 90% of the Republican party that supports Trump, who seek to drive out what you know in your heart are bat-c**p crazy political policies.
Confronting darkness is divisive because many “people love darkness instead of light because their deeds [are] evil. – John 3:19.” The moral question is how to deal with people who refuse to come into the light of truth. The Bible teaches that God lets the wheat grow with the weeds until the time of the harvest when they are separated (Matthew 13:30). Until then, God lets his rain fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). Jesus was indeed a friend of sinners (Matthew 16:19), but he never once was supportive of sin. We should do the same.
I love you but I don’t know that I’ve ever put up a post where you haven’t felt the need to lecture, be contrary, or argue. Do you need a refund? I have grown weary of your comments here.
One of the most valuable parts of this blog is that there is space for differences. Room to disagree and opportunity to learn. I learn from almost everyone here, and am grateful they take the time to write long and thoughtful posts. Or short and pithy posts.
I do agree with your posts at times, as in your post on John Lewis, for which I started my response with "Great post Erick" - see https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/cant-we-be-friends. Believe it or not, there have even been some of my posts that you have even "liked" my comments, with these being three examples:
But lately you have been on a mini-crusade to criticize people who believe in the concept of a Flight 93 election, arguing that they have the wrong focus. sometimes questioning their Christian faith. I strongly oppose the extent of your view about this issue and consequently my comments have been largely negative on that topic. Nevertheless, I have a great respect for your promotion of Christian integrity, which is why I take the time to read your posts and comment on them.
I love you too Erick. But that doesn't mean I agree with all of your positions any more than you agree with mine. I have been following your posts since the early day of the Resurgent, when your concept was that it would be an open website where people could discuss conservatism, which I thought was a good idea. I am in general agreement with your view of Biblical Christianity. I have read your various posts around Easter and Christmas time that described the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts and I have forwarded them to other people because they were excellent. If you look at those posts, my comments were always supportive of your Biblical viewpoint. In those posts, I also defended Biblical Christianity against modern day Gnostics who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, so we have that viewpoint in common. Similarly, I have always been supportive of any post you have made that indicates that homosexuality is not a Biblically acceptable practice, as 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 makes unambiguously clear.
You are a big fan of unity in a “loving your neighbor sense” and unity is certainly important within the body of Christ (John 17:20-23) even though the natural tendency of people is to separate from those they disagree with (which is why the body of Christ is divided into umpteen denominations). I started following you because my brother Rick was vehemently anti-Trump in 2016 and he listened to your radio show regularly. I was interested in discussing policy issues with members of the Never Trump movement and I thought your posts on the Resurgent website were a great place to do that. My brother has now flipped to being a strong Trump supporter and he no longer follows you. But I have continued to follow you because I seek true unity with people I disagree with. My opinion is that can be best achieved by having honest discussion about points of disagreement, agreeing to disagree when there seems to be no other option. Perhaps we have reached that point in time. It is your website, and if you want to issue me a pro-rated subscription refund to end any further comments on my part, I am okay with that. But (said humorously) that would be you cancelling my subscription because of a difference of opinion, which is sort of the opposite of the set of your subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions because of a difference of opinion.
My personal preference is to keep the rest of my annual subscription so that I can make comments to your posts that provide an alternate viewpoint to your subscribers, but I leave that decision up to you. It is not the case that I disagree with you about everything in the political sense. I am almost in complete agreement with the political views you expressed in this post from August 23, 2019 : “Yes the President’s Behavior is Abnormal. But the Democrats’ Policies are Bat Crap Crazy,” which I think you still hold. The truth is that I think we actually have more of a common viewpoint on both politics and Biblical integrity than most people do. So I will leave you with an honest and sincere question, if you can’t have unity with me despite our differences of opinion on political and Biblical issues, how do you expect there can be unity among people who have far greater differences of opinions on these subjects? A similar question applies to Robert Jeffress and other Christians who choose to support Trump, despite his past history of sexual immorality, because no human being has the ability to undo their past actions. I would argue that position amounts to grace.
Extremely insightful Erick while the SBC, in which my church belongs, doesn’t have any voices as extreme as Revoice, there are trends which are very concerning.
More believers and pastors should read this. While many in the SBC may have a tendency to have a “not us!” mentality, there are events within our Convention which if not identified and corrected, will lead parts of the SBC towards the same destination.
Accurate and well enunciated. Again, your writing and opinions regularly challenge my thinking and motivate me to be ever more diligent and discerning.
I believe the timing of this article, in my life, is by the Lord’s hand. An adult family member attends a PCA church and I see these inappropriate teachings taking root. My EPC church in
St. Louis (Home of Covenant Seminary) has a number of members and even staff that quietly ascribe to these idea’s. I covet your prayers for wisdom an direction on how to respond with truth in grace. Thanks Erick
May I should be glad that I am almost 70. I don't want to be around when true Christianity, this country and the world falls. I pray every day that it doesn't, but...............
Voddie Bauchum speaks some wisdom on these matters, from the black community, although his analysis is thoroughly Christian, biblical, and strengthened via the school of (South Central L.A.) hard knocks.
There seem to be a good many people who will try to turn the inattentive church members into supporters of that which is heretical, and whilst it is right to be aware of trends, it is wrong to follow them. I am fairly sure that the good people of my local Methodist Chapel were being inveigled by the 2019 Methodist Conference into accepting a very bad report which would have sent the church into bland acceptance of same sex marriage, had it not been that it had to be ratified in 2020, but was not presented at that time. And certainly, if they ever do have an event of this kind at the Chapel, I shall be exiting their denomination the same day.
Erick, I don't know if you've had a chance to pick up Carl Trueman's latest book ("The Rise and Fall of the Modern Self" (Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution"). It's all about the deconstruction of western civilization and where we stand today in the wake of Woke. But if you haven't, read it yet, I recommend it.
In light of that scenario/agenda, a couple of days ago Mitch McConnel and Nancy Pelosi both experienced the tip of the anarchist's sword. It was a warning, I think, about the nature of the beast that seems to be stirring in our today in our midst. (I'm sure you must have read about the vandalism.) I would imagine that McConnel may have been more mentally prepared for this type of evil reaction than Speaker Pelosi was.
After all, she IS the "progressive". I suspect that she wasn't expecting "progressive" Vandal-ism at her front door.
Just for 'fun'... a poem:
Yes, the Visigoths are roaming
Through the high end neighborhoods.
Nancy, look, we tried to warn you,
But it didn’t do much good.
Yes, the Cancel Culture henchmen
Have their eyes, girl, set on you.
Some, I think, could see it coming.
Others didn’t have a clue.
Well, so much for just ”progressive”.
Nancy, that’s just not the aim.
No, the beast that you’ve been riding
Isn’t playing “liberal” games.
I don’t think your fancy ice cream
Helped your case on live TV.
That was classic “hard to swallow”…
(As is rank hypocrisy.)
But Ouroboros was watching,
Can you hear his liberal hiss.
He’s approaching right on schedule
From his “Safe Place”…(The Abyss).
No, the serpent takes no prisoners.
Better lock down all your doors.
Might be time to grab your gun, girl.
This ain’t Kansas anymore .
I am presently reading Rod Dreyer’s latest book “Live Not By Lies”. In it, Mr. Dreyer illustrates his warnings about what he calls “soft totalitarianism” with the experiences of people who have lived under Marxist dictatorship. The people who he cites in the book unanimously decry what is happening in America today; one amazed person told Dreyer, “Don’t they know what they are doing?” I suspect that the answer to that question is “No”, probably because history, even quite recent history, may as well be the Middle Ages to those seduced by the allure of all that “free” stuff, forgetting that the cheese in the mousetrap, to the mouse, was also “free”. Why is this so? Dreyer credits it to the fact that in the West, we have separated civic virtue from the underlying moral principles on which it was based. History teaches us that the first thing any totalitarian seeks to do is separate the people from the moral principles on which their nation was based in order to impose the principles he must have underlie the state he would impose on them. Marxism in any form is utterly incompatible with Judeo-Christian values; that the Greg Thompsons of this world would have us believe otherwise is a condemnation of both him and us.
Well, I read Thompson's post. I don't agree with it entirely, but I think it has more in the way of solid points than gobbledygook word salad. I like to read from people I disagree with too; maybe I've read too many leftists, and internalized their jargon! Personally, I tire of counterargument by reducing the opponent to "Marxist / Leninist / Socialist / Communist." It's a bogeyman. Intellectual tribalism. Label something as a thought-crime, and you get to skip the details. Isn't that what we're accusing the left of?
I certainly understand the hesitation for this particular -ism; there's a lot historical correlation between communism and totalitarianism. But I'm not convinced that any single policy change dooms us to become Venezuela. Other Western countries are far more socialistic than we are, without having fallen off the ledge.
"Thompson puts the Christians on the bad side"; have Christians never been on the bad side? I'm not a theologian, but I grew up in a Lutheran church, and seem to recall the Reformation being a movement against the excesses of the Catholic Church. Doesn't "Protestantism" imply that there was some amount of protest against the orthodoxy?
I prefer not to dismiss an idea out of hand, solely because we associate the idea with our historical geopolitical enemies. Isn't that worldly too, to choose our policy on the basis of what's unlike countries we oppose? Are capitalism, and America itself, not also worldly? I happen to like capitalism, and America, but we're sinners too. Sometimes our navel-gazing borders on idolatry.
My philosophy professor at Boston College was part of the “Institute of Marxist Thought ” in the philosophy dept at BC. He was in is 70’s and he was also a Jesuit priest. Once over a beer (this is a Catholic school after all) he told me that he had spent his career trying to resolve Marxism with Christianity and had finally come to the conclusion that it was not possible. He said that atheism was just too great a part of Marx.
Here are a few Scriptures pertaining to these issues:
". . . and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. . ." (Rev 1:16)
" And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common." (Acts 2:44)
Implications in the church's present challenges:
~~Christ is presented in Scripture as a divider. His word is separated from the dictates of men. Believers who stand with Him will stand upon his Word, and consider all other human doctrines and theories as secondary. Christians need not be bound by human expectations of correct behavior when the Lord himself has set the standards, in His Word, for his people's behavior.
~~As for the postmodernist iteration of Marxist socialist doctrine, Christians are not bound by any worldly prescriptions for equality and community. We have our own standards, which the Lord has established in His Word. In Acts 2:44 we find there is biblical precedent for communitarian sharing, to be administered, judged and shared by Christian churches; this early example does not, however, require the benevolent practice of Christians in their communities to be subject to the fickle currents of worldly doctrines--be they Marxist, Socialist or Capitalist or any othe -"ist", except Christ.
Jesus warned about these false preachers. As Erick pointed out, the world hated Jesus and still does. I pray for the young who are being indoctrinated in this as these heresies permeate society from all sides. I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian and my church preaches Christ as the Gospels reveal him. My priest doesn't preach politics but did tell the church that marriage is a sacrament and only between man and woman! There are Christian churches that aren't buying this marxist crap! Pray they stay that way.
Erick, I compared your post from today with your post from yesterday. In yesterday’s post, you argued for a similar unity that occurred after the 9/11 attack. In contrast, in today’s post your argument was about the danger of being united with those who are on a path opposed to clear teaching about God given us in the Bible.
After 9/11, Americans of all political persuasions were unified against a violent attack on the physical territory of our country by a foreign enemy, in a similar way that an earlier generation was united by the Pearl Harbor attack. But this was never a political or religious unity, as a vicious divide over the morality of abortion and LGBT behavior never went away. Any deceptive unity from 9/11 had virtually disappeared by the time the media was trumpeting “Bush lied, people died” in regard to the Iraq war.
I also believe in grace and Biblical morality and I do not support cancelling people with different political or religious views than mine. But your argument that our country can have a unity between political parties with polar opposite positions on issues like abortion, the morality of LBBT behavior and violent riots/looting is simply not correct. Light cannot unify with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14) and truth can never unify with falsehood.
A Politico article about the 2020 Democratic Convention starts with this headline: “'I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness': Biden frames election choice as light versus dark.” You may dispute the concept of a Flight 93 election, but both political parties see the 2020 election and the elections that follow it as a vote on what constitutes light/darkness in a political world that in various ways overlaps with a moral world.
Moral integrity never sacrifices truth for the sake of unity with darkness. Rather, it always seeks to drive out darkness by shining light upon it. Your post from today regarding “gay Christians,” “BLM/Marxism” and “Critical Race Theory” attempts to do exactly that. Whether you believe it or not, that is a similar goal to the 90% of the Republican party that supports Trump, who seek to drive out what you know in your heart are bat-c**p crazy political policies.
Confronting darkness is divisive because many “people love darkness instead of light because their deeds [are] evil. – John 3:19.” The moral question is how to deal with people who refuse to come into the light of truth. The Bible teaches that God lets the wheat grow with the weeds until the time of the harvest when they are separated (Matthew 13:30). Until then, God lets his rain fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). Jesus was indeed a friend of sinners (Matthew 16:19), but he never once was supportive of sin. We should do the same.
I love you but I don’t know that I’ve ever put up a post where you haven’t felt the need to lecture, be contrary, or argue. Do you need a refund? I have grown weary of your comments here.
One of the most valuable parts of this blog is that there is space for differences. Room to disagree and opportunity to learn. I learn from almost everyone here, and am grateful they take the time to write long and thoughtful posts. Or short and pithy posts.
I do agree with your posts at times, as in your post on John Lewis, for which I started my response with "Great post Erick" - see https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/cant-we-be-friends. Believe it or not, there have even been some of my posts that you have even "liked" my comments, with these being three examples:
1) https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsors/
2) https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/common-core-tries-to-buy-a-senate/
3) https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/death-gets-partisan/comments#comment-174055
But lately you have been on a mini-crusade to criticize people who believe in the concept of a Flight 93 election, arguing that they have the wrong focus. sometimes questioning their Christian faith. I strongly oppose the extent of your view about this issue and consequently my comments have been largely negative on that topic. Nevertheless, I have a great respect for your promotion of Christian integrity, which is why I take the time to read your posts and comment on them.
Your extreme verbosity proves his point. Brevity is the soul of wit and clarity....
I love you too Erick. But that doesn't mean I agree with all of your positions any more than you agree with mine. I have been following your posts since the early day of the Resurgent, when your concept was that it would be an open website where people could discuss conservatism, which I thought was a good idea. I am in general agreement with your view of Biblical Christianity. I have read your various posts around Easter and Christmas time that described the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts and I have forwarded them to other people because they were excellent. If you look at those posts, my comments were always supportive of your Biblical viewpoint. In those posts, I also defended Biblical Christianity against modern day Gnostics who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, so we have that viewpoint in common. Similarly, I have always been supportive of any post you have made that indicates that homosexuality is not a Biblically acceptable practice, as 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 makes unambiguously clear.
You are a big fan of unity in a “loving your neighbor sense” and unity is certainly important within the body of Christ (John 17:20-23) even though the natural tendency of people is to separate from those they disagree with (which is why the body of Christ is divided into umpteen denominations). I started following you because my brother Rick was vehemently anti-Trump in 2016 and he listened to your radio show regularly. I was interested in discussing policy issues with members of the Never Trump movement and I thought your posts on the Resurgent website were a great place to do that. My brother has now flipped to being a strong Trump supporter and he no longer follows you. But I have continued to follow you because I seek true unity with people I disagree with. My opinion is that can be best achieved by having honest discussion about points of disagreement, agreeing to disagree when there seems to be no other option. Perhaps we have reached that point in time. It is your website, and if you want to issue me a pro-rated subscription refund to end any further comments on my part, I am okay with that. But (said humorously) that would be you cancelling my subscription because of a difference of opinion, which is sort of the opposite of the set of your subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions because of a difference of opinion.
My personal preference is to keep the rest of my annual subscription so that I can make comments to your posts that provide an alternate viewpoint to your subscribers, but I leave that decision up to you. It is not the case that I disagree with you about everything in the political sense. I am almost in complete agreement with the political views you expressed in this post from August 23, 2019 : “Yes the President’s Behavior is Abnormal. But the Democrats’ Policies are Bat Crap Crazy,” which I think you still hold. The truth is that I think we actually have more of a common viewpoint on both politics and Biblical integrity than most people do. So I will leave you with an honest and sincere question, if you can’t have unity with me despite our differences of opinion on political and Biblical issues, how do you expect there can be unity among people who have far greater differences of opinions on these subjects? A similar question applies to Robert Jeffress and other Christians who choose to support Trump, despite his past history of sexual immorality, because no human being has the ability to undo their past actions. I would argue that position amounts to grace.
Extremely insightful Erick while the SBC, in which my church belongs, doesn’t have any voices as extreme as Revoice, there are trends which are very concerning.
More believers and pastors should read this. While many in the SBC may have a tendency to have a “not us!” mentality, there are events within our Convention which if not identified and corrected, will lead parts of the SBC towards the same destination.
Accurate and well enunciated. Again, your writing and opinions regularly challenge my thinking and motivate me to be ever more diligent and discerning.
I believe the timing of this article, in my life, is by the Lord’s hand. An adult family member attends a PCA church and I see these inappropriate teachings taking root. My EPC church in
St. Louis (Home of Covenant Seminary) has a number of members and even staff that quietly ascribe to these idea’s. I covet your prayers for wisdom an direction on how to respond with truth in grace. Thanks Erick
May I should be glad that I am almost 70. I don't want to be around when true Christianity, this country and the world falls. I pray every day that it doesn't, but...............