by D.L. Parker

Picking up on the same note of David Lane—“Op-Ed: If America’s Churches and Believers Don’t Stand Up For Government Tyrants, the Country is Finished,” there should be no surprise why this article was titled with a direct insult to the current populace of individuals who want to call themselves Christian. They’ll show up on Sunday, pay respects to their minister, chat with friends, and cough up the routine supplementary income to keep the church open another week, but ask them to defend a minister if he dare stand up to someone, like oh say, Gavin Newsom, crickets begin to chirp in the background of dead silence.

Now, why’s that?

Thabiti Anyabwile has just tweeted, “to be politically homeless is one of the best things that could happen to the spiritual lives of people who are “elect exiles,” “sojourners,” and “stangers.” Politically homeless better fits the Christian’s true identity. Let’s live into that identity.” If you look at the face of it, there is a repetitive echo that’s spiritually religious to the evangelical’s ears, something that has been an ongoing affair since the second & third great awakenings. For most Christians who are not familiar with these historical time periods, these later movements sought to re-energize the American Populace by placing an emphasis on the wrong ideals, particularly with an emphasis on the end-times.

The Watch Tower Society had Charles Taze Russell.

The Mormons had Joseph Smith.

The Adventists had Ellen G. White.

And the Christian Science Movement believed in Mary Baker Eddy.

But none of these have as much of an immense impact as they do today because most of them are not mainstream unless you belong to a particular region, e.g. Salt Lake City, Utah—the LDS world headquarters. The ideology referred here is the one almost every evangelical believes in one form or another and that is dispensationalism.

For the Christians who are not familiar with this term, this is better known as rapture (end-of-the-world) theology, the idea where the Christ reenters history by removing believers in hopes that all “will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Of course, having this view in mind, many Christians—from the time of its prominent entry in 1830 until now—are all secretly waiting for Christ Himself to reappear and do just that.

Waiting to conquer the enemies of God.

Waiting to reward the righteous.

And (eagerly) waiting to punish the wicked with a redemptive, seven-year chaotic time-period called the Great Tribulation.

But yet—for the past (almost) 200 years—none of these claim-to-fame prophecies have ever happened.

No Timetable.

No Anti-Christ.

No Signs.

Nothing.

Generally, one would expect some type of tell-tale sign would encourage the believers that the rapture is happening sooner or later, and that’s where the boot-licking pansy attitude comes into play.

Jonathan Leeman, editorial director of 9Marks ministry, writes, “civil disobedience may not be the only legitimate or moral course of action at this moment” where he cites four state complying ways to make the church a Newsom-happy atmosphere concluding, “my goal is to open up a little space of Christian freedom for other churches to make different judgements.”

Gavin Ortlund, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Ojai, California defends this view stating, “I want to articulate why I believe cooperating with the current restrictions is not necessarily a cowardly desertion of our calling,” proceeding onward to reflect on all the decisive reasons why social distancing and mask wearing is aptly necessary while denying at the same time all the hypocritical stances which Newsom allows as essentials including but not limited to: (1) Abortions, (2) Pot Dispensaries, and (3) Riots, Looting, and other means of violence.

In addition to this, Newsom and the fellow Democrats have turned California into a sanctuary state with the promise of free benefits for illegals including stimulus checks, allowing the homeless to run wild and free with funds to aide their mental disabilities and drug addicting habits, over-riding the results of proposition 8 because no one supported marriage equality (while acting as Mayor of San Francisco), the excessive environmental regulations which lead up to its annual wildfire spreads (which are better managed in Collier County, Florida), all done so with compliance by the provide by the one and only California Residential Taxpayer.

Was there something left out? Oh yeah, not to mention these also do not include the outrageous tax hikes—totally forgot!

But here we are in 2020, where pastors and fellow Christians expect everyone else to come up with a Newsom-happy solution to make things right because “we are not being singled out for our religious beliefs; we are being directed to participate in a broader effort throughout our entire society, and throughout the entire world,” as Gavin Ortlund claims.

In other words, plain-ol’ boot-licking.

This method, despite the adherents who hope for Christ’s return, does practically nothing in the long run for Christians generally. To the contrary, it is an endless chase to live out the faith on something that is not destined to happen in the near future. Christ coming back to clean up this worldly mess does more harm to his followers than intended, mass-producing apathetic Christians who would rather vie for a seat in the pew than actually focus on preventing the lasting damages if a world without America existed.

To them, ‘political homelessness’ is the identity of the pious.

To anyone else, who understands the games that are being played, already know it’s old fashioned boot-licking.

D.L. Parker currently resides in the Sunshine State where he does most of his business for Collier County Florida. Currently, he possesses a bachelor’s in the field of English Language & the Arts, with a minor in creative writing from Bob Jones University. He is the also working on a fiction novel titled, The Knead set for publication in the distant future. Views do not necessarily represent the views of this publication.