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I found the contents of the Rev. John Spink’s Dec. 4 letter, "Christians are under attack in the nation they founded" to be disappointing in two ways.
In paragraph four, he makes the statement, "We are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles and ideas." As a reverend, he of all people should know this statement is not true by any stretch of the imagination.
Granted, first century followers of Christ were identified as Christians. However, by the 1500s, John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion depicted professing Christianity as a hodgepodge religious mixture of Judaism, paganism and highly distorted gospel truth. As a nation, America has always been a diverse body of people united under one general secular government. Therefore, based upon the above, America is not nor will it ever be a Christian nation.
Later in the letter, he laments on how the courts and groups like the ACLU are denying the rights of Christians. As an example, he points out that a New Jersey federal appeals court upheld a ban on Christmas songs in public schools that included any mention or reference of Jesus. I fear that the Rev. Spinks and other like minded Christians have completely lost sight of the fact that persecution is a distinguished characteristic of the people of God.
Jesus warned the 11: "The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." Paul reminded the churches of Galatia. "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise, but as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now."
Paul’s second epistle to Timothy leaves no doubt that faithful members of the body of Christ will have troubles. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Any member of the body of Christ not experiencing some type of persecution, be it spiritual, mental, or physical, needs to take inventory. Simply put, if you are not experiencing some type of persecution, you are not living godly in Christ Jesus.
Scripture shows that shortly after his Damascus road experience, Paul’s life of ease became one of constant sorrows and persecutions. However, in his epistle to the Romans he states, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
Paul admonished the church at Colosse to place their affections on things above and not on things on the earth. In my opinion, for any believer to place emphasis upon the false notion that America is a Christian nation is a prime example of placing one’s affections on things on the earth.
William P. Clark
Flowery Branch